16 



on the gold : like the rocking of a truncated inverted pyramid, 

 or the rolling of an unballasted ship, or the reeling of a man 

 who carries another man on his shoulders. For the non- 

 representative paper will make the absolute mass of money 

 greater than if it were simply metallic, and since it is promised 

 to be converted, as if it were representative, it will cause an 

 unnatural augmentation of prices, or it makes goods the 

 dearer things, and gold the cheaper tiling; and, therefore 

 commercial prosperity rides on a pointed wave, from which it 

 must soon descend into the hollow of adversity : since gold 

 will not cease to be taken till prices are fallen to a range that 

 is natural to it. But, if a mixed currency has this influence, 

 why not have it simply metallic, or representative? Because 

 the frame-work of society could not bear it. This having been 

 long ago fixed, a withdrawal at any time of this superadded 

 money must have involved all the evils of a fluctuation in 

 a form so extensive and aggravated as to amount to a political 

 catastrophe. It would have required a reduction of prices 

 which no human influence could have met by a corresponding 

 reduction of obligations and payments, such as would have 

 reduced the country to a state of desolation. 



"The issuing of a large portion of non-representative 

 paper, with a promise on it that it shall be converted, when it 

 is well known there is no means of converting it, brings into 

 requisition injurious modes of avoiding the fulfilment of the 

 promise. With the bank issues on this basis, her credit can 

 only stand whilst she is able to convert what is demanded of 

 her ; the return upon her of a small portion of her issues 

 exhausts her stores, and puts her in alarm and jeopardy. 

 This ensues when prices are good; and she finds that her 

 safety depends, first, on the direct retirement of the circula- 

 tion; then, in depriving business of its accommodations; 

 ultimately, in striking it with paralysis, that it may sink down 

 a wreck for the golden tide to reflow over it : she cannot 

 recover her few withdrawn millions without the nation sink- 



