teracted by the course which he pursues; and her national capital and resources are upon the whole increased by the very system on which he has founded the vain hope of reducing her either to submission or to ruin."

In this manner does Mr. Huskisson's pamphlet prove that the French decrees have already destroyed Britain;" and we shall see that in the same way her unfavorable balance of trade and course of exchange, and her recent mercantile failures," are brought forward as demonstrations of her universal ruin. On the subject of the depressed rate of exchange, as proceeding from the depreciation of Bank of England paper owing to its excessive issues, Mr. Huskisson's remarks are peculiarly important and interesting.

2d. See the pamphlet, preface, pp. xvii. xviii. and the body of the work, pp. 1, 11, 13, 24, 29, 47, 80, 124, 126, for the following extracts: "When the great fall in foreign exchanges first took place, I imputed it to the violent political and commercial measures on the European continent, and the suspension of commercial intercourse with the United States. But the continuance of that fall convinced me that it was caused by the Bank of England too much extending its issues of paper; the exchanges growing worse and the price of gold rising in England, although her expedition to Continental Europe was ended, and her subsidies to Austria discontinued. The proofs of the position, that the low rate of foreign exchange is occasioned by the depreciation of Bank of England paper, owing to its excessive issues, shall be given at full, and in detail.

Money is sometimes called the representative of all commodities; sometimes the common measure of them: neither of these definitions is correct. Money possesses intrinsic value. The quality of representing commodities does not necessarily imply intrinsic va

lue; because that quality may be given by confidence or authority. The quality of being a common measure does not necessarily imply intrinsic value, any more than the possession of a foot-rule implies the power of acquiring what it can measure. Money, or a given quantity of gold or silver, is not only the common measure and common representative of all other commodities; but also the common and universal equivalent. Paper currency has no intrinsic value. A promissory note represents value only as it is an undertaking to pay in money the sum for which it is issued. The money, or coin of a country, is so much of its capital; paper-money is no part of its capital: it is so much of its circulating credit. Whoever buys gives, whoever sells receives such a quantity of pure gold or silver as is equivalent to the article bought or sold; or if he gives or receives paper instead of money, he gives or receives that which is valuable only as it stipulates the payment of a given quantity of gold or silver. So long as this engagement is punctually fulfilled, paper will pass current with the coin for which it is constantly exchangeable. Both money, and paper promissory of money, are common measures, and representatives of the value of all commodities. But money alone is the universal equivalent; paper currency is the representative of that money. There are two sorts of paper-currency; one resting on confidence, the other on authority. Paper resting on confidence is circulating credit, and consists in engagements for the payments on demand, of any given sums of money; which engagements, from a general trust in the issuers of such paper, they are enabled to substitute for money in the transactions of the community. Paper resting on authority is called paper-money, and consists in engagements issued and circulated under the sanction and by the immediate power of the government. Paper, such as alone used to be current in Britain before the

bank-restriction-act in 1797, was circulating credit. The paper current in Austria, Prussia, France, &c. is paper-money. Price is the value of any given article in the currency, by reference to which that article is measured; and must of course be varied by any variation in the quantity of gold or silver contained in such currency; the changes in the size, alloy, stamp, &c. of the coin, not affecting the relation which the value of the bullion contained in the coin bears to that of other commodities; all of which are measured in value by the quantity of bullion, whether in coin or not, for which they are exchangeable. There being no difference between any given coin and an uncoined piece of the same metal of equal weight and fineness; except that the quantity of bullion contained in the coin is ascertained, and proclaimed to the world by the stamp of coinage. In Britain gold is the scale to which all prices are referred; and by 39th Geo. 3d. the only legal tender, except for payments under £25. A pound weight of gold of English standard is coined into 444 guineas; any one may at the king's mint procure any quantity of gold to be so coined, free of expense; the officers of the mint being obliged to return in coin the same quantity of bullion which had been deposited with them, without making any charge for converting it into money. By law, these guineas, which when fresh from the mint weigh 5 dwts. 9 grs. each, cease to be a legal tender when reduced below 5 dwts. 8 grs. a diminution in their value of a little more than one per cent. Hence before 1797, the law secured in the payment of all legal debts, that no one could be compelled to take less than 5 dwts. 8 grs. of gold of standard fineness for every guinea; and of course, that he should not be compelled to receive, as the representative of a guinea, or a guinea's worth, any article which would not purchase that quantity of gold. In 1797, the Bank of England was

enabled by Act of Parliament to suspend the payment of its notes in specie. This act did not repeal any of the former regulations of the British money system; it did not make bank-notes a legal tender; nor alter the existing laws relating to the weight and fineness of the gold coin, nor put aside the Act of 39th Geo. 3d.

"A pound, or 12 oz. of gold, is by the law of England divided into 444 guineas, equal to £46 14s. 6d. sterling. This division is made at the public expense, without any charge for coinage, and neither increases nor lessens the value of the gold. A pound weight of gold, and £46 14s. 6d. sterling being equivalent to each other, are the same thing under different names; and any circulating credit, representing £46 14s. 6d. ought by law to be exchangeable at will for a pound weight of gold. No alteration has been made in this state of the law, except by the Act of 1797, enabling the bank of England to suspend the payment of specie for its notes. The professed operation of the Act of 1797, was not to diminish the quantity of gold for which any given amount of circulating credit should be exchangeable; but only to suspend for a time the option of the exchange. But now, in 1810, £46 14s. 6d. in Bank of England paper will procure in exchange for gold only 10 ounces of that metal; a pound of gold is exchangeable for £56 in paper-currency. Any commodity therefore equivalent to a pound weight of gold, is equivalent to £56 in Bank of England paper. Hence the difference between £56 and £46 14s. 6d. or between 12 oz. and 10 oz. of gold arises from the depreciation of the paper, and is the measure of that depreciation.

"A Bank-note is not a commodity; it is an engagement for the payment of a specified quantity of money. It cannot vary its value in exchange for any commodity, except in reference to the general in

crease or diminution of the value of such commodity in gold, and in the precise proportion of that increase or diminution. Gold, therefore, is the test by which the value of bank-notes must be tried; and if a onepound note, being an engagement to pay 5 dwts. 3 grs. of gold, is worth in the market only 4 dwts. 8 grs. which is the case now in 1810, it is worth only 4 dwts. 8 grs. in exchange for any other commodity. Any considerable or durable increase of price in the precious metal which forms the standard of a country's currency, implies the depreciation of that currency. The currency of a country may be depreciated from two different causes: 1st. By the standard coin containing a less quantity of the precious metal which forms that standard than it is certified by law to contain. 2d. By an excess in the amount of that currency. A great depreciation, arising from the first cause, took place in England during King William's reign, when the quantity of precious metal contained in the coin averaged 30 per cent. less than that coin was certified to contain; and in the beginning of the reign of Geo. 3d. the guineas averaged 5 per cent. less than the quantity of gold which they were certified to contain. The remedy for this last evil was the general recoinage of gold in 1773, since which time the first cause of depreciation has ceased to operate in Britain. The existing depreciation is occasioned by excess. Depreciation from excess, if the coin of a country be maintained at its standard, cannot be great or long, unless the currency of such country consists partly of paper, and partly of the precious metals, except in the extreme case of the currency being wholly of paper, without any reference to its value in coin. If the circulation of any country were performed exclusively by gold, and the gold from its too great abundance became depreciated in value in that country, or cheaper, all other commodities would rise in price, and other