their notes; but not having like the bank of England, the privilege of refusing the payment of their notes when asked for, they now discharge their own at sight in those of the bank of England, which cannot be refused as being the substitute of national coin.

The sum total of the notes of the bank of England amounts to about 31 millions sterling. It is supposed that the sum of the notes of all the provincial banks is about equal. The amount, then, of the paper money circulating in the British islands is about 62 millions sterling.

Including old shillings and the tokens in silver and brass issued by the bank of England and the provincial banks, the whole of the specie of the three kingdoms does certainly not amount to a value of more than two millions of franks.

Excepting these shillings and tokens the circulating medium of Great Britain has no intrinsic value, that is no value as material; but its value as money is real and could not be replaced but by an equivalent real value.

The value of this paper money compared with the value of other articles is no longer liable to very great variations, a proof that the bank of England keeps up the issue of its notes in the same proportion, according to the wants of circulation. If the bank should reduce the amount of its notes in circulation, which might easily be accomplished by calling in some of the notes due, and discounting no new ones, and if at the same time a law were passed limiting the amount of the issues of the provincial banks, it is probable that bank notes would soon be at par; that is with a note of

one pound sterling one might buy a pound sterling in gold or silver of the quantity and weight prescribed by law.

I say that bank notes would be at par owing to the indispensable necessity, in a complicated social state in which an immensity of business is transacted, of the commodity called money, be its form' and substance what they may.

The question of discredit has nothing to do with all this, because the want of money greatly outweighs the bad opinion which may be entertained of the bank notes; and, indeed, in a country where there is no specie, what can be done by the man the most cautious in his dealings, but to keep in his hands, as short a time as possible, the money in which he places no confidence? This is what all do. This is even the case with specie when a man does not choose to lose the interest. But let the British do their best, let them rid themselves as soon as possible of the notes which come into their hands, let them employ what expedients they may to economise the use of notes, still it is not less certain that in the present state of things, England cannot do with less than about 62 millions sterling of paper money at the rate of its actual value;—that if its nominal value should be diminished by one fourth, (i. e.) if instead of 62 millions in circulation, there should be only 46 or 47 millions, the venal value of these 47 millions would increase, and could purchase as many goods as are now to be bought for 62 millions.

It is then the quantity of the notes and not discredit which has an influence upon their value. The discredit, whatever it may be, has

If I were asked at what time I believe that the bank of England will pay its notes at sight, I should answer-I know nothing about it, but that my opinion, if I could give one, would be of no kind of importance. And indeed when money of any sort is used by people so cautiously that it is evident no confidence is placed in it, it matters not what it consists of; it is the same as if I were asked, when will a gold coin be substituted for a silver coin.

These phenomena of money entirely new throw great light on its general theory, and will produce in the sequel some very extraordinary data.

There is another topic which is not as intimately connected with seems to me that public opinion our purpose, but upon which it requires to be enlightened. It is the power which it is supposed England derives from her colonies, and principally from India, the quarter where a company of British merchants possesses an extent of territory more vast than the three kingdoms, and reigns over forty millions of subjects.

The English cannot draw wealth from India but as sovereigns or as merchants. They can bring thence nothing but the amount of taxes laid upon the people, or profits upon the goods sent there.

exportation in goods of 1,670,0807. | This, then, is the full amount of the so much boasted encouragements, afforded by the East Indies to British industry, which encouragements would be the same, if Hindostan now were, as it will be sooner or later, an independent state. It is a fact acknowledged by every body that independent America is much more profitable to England, than when a colony. But this presupposes a time of peace, and accordingly nothing can be more impolitic on the part of the British cabinet, than the quasi war which they carry on constantly against the United States, and which must always end in open hostilities.

The privilege of the East India company, which includes the faculty of exercising under certain conditions a political sovereignty over the countries which have been conquered at their expense, or acquired in virtue of the treaties which they have concluded, and of enjoying in certain respects, the commerce of the East Indies, this privilege, I say, has been renewed several times, and as, in proportion as nations become more enlightened, they are more sensible of the advantages which result from liberality of principles, at each renewal of the privilege, the fate of the British subjects in India has been ameliorated, and a greater freedom allowed to commerce.

For the most part, what has been said of the British colonies in India, applies to the other British colonies, with this difference, however, that government, which exercises the sovereignty in the latter, but is not engaged in commerce, is not compensated by commercial benefits for the losses which it ex

periences as a sovereign. The old colonial system will fall universally in the course of the nineteenth century. Nations will give up the ridiculous pretensions of administering countries situate at a distance of two, three, six thousand leagues, and when these countries shall have become independent, a profitable commerce may be carried on with them. There will be a saving of a mul titude of military and maritime establishments, that resemble expensive props applied to support an edifice which is crumbling into ruins.

Such is, at least in its principal points of view, the situation to which the events of our days have reduced Great Britain. Conceive a great land owner, prodigiously active and industrious, who from his lands and the manufactures he had established, could make every year 170 thousand francs, but who has had the misfortune of marrying a spendthrift wife who actually squanders 260 thousand; in such sort that this poor husband, notwithstanding all his genius and his intense labour, is compelled to borrow every year 90 thousand francs to face his expenses. This is the case of England. I have only suppressed four zeros.

But it will be said that the money lent to the British government is lent by British subjects. Is the burthen of the debt the less oppressive on that account?

In such a situation of things there are but two alternatives. The one is to continue to borrow. But the power of borrowing depends on that of paying interest; and already, notwithstanding all the resources of fiscal genius, it is not without the utmost difficulty that the British government can afford

to pay the present interest of its debt, and this interest is increasing every year. The other alternative is to quit, under some pretence, or other, paying the interest at all, to enact a bankruptcy more or less imperfectly disguised. But then there must be an end to the faculty of borrowing in order to cover the annual deficit, and the whole of the political system must give way from the moment the government has become unequal to the expense by which it is supported.

There is still a third expedient, to wit, a diminution of the expenses of government; and with a view to such diminution, Great Britain must desist from embroiling Asia, America, and Europe. But this is the course least likely to be adopted.

I believe that I have neither disguised nor exaggerated the difficulties in which Great Britain is involved, for I feel myself free from all prejudice. I wish well to the British nation, not less SO

than I do to France, and to every other country. The prosperity of one country, far from being incompatible with the prosperity of another, as men are too apt to believe, is, on the contrary, favourable.

It is my design to record some curious facts, and great experiments in political economy, because these experiments occur but seldom, and cost immensely dear. They may, perhaps, suggest some useful reflections to well informed and well disposed men. Events merely succeed each other in the opinion of the common run of men. In the opinion of a reflecting mind, events are concatenated, and dependent upon each other. At times, the thinking man may perceive some of the links which connect the present with the future. He then knows of futurity,' as much as it is given to men to know, since fortune-tellers, and judicial astrology, have gone out of fashion.

VOL. I.