*180] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1795. 
‘a single individual may contribute 
in no small degree to produce a mo- 
ral revolution in the commercial 
character.” 
The rules which our author gives 
for the regulation of paper credit 
are very judicious : 
_ The fundamental principle to 
be insisted on, with respect to con- 
tracting engagements of the nature 
in question, is that which should re- 
gulate every engagement of every 
kind: namely, that they who pro- 
mise should know themselves to be 
able to perform. It is manifestly 
hot enough that he who signs or in- 
dorses a bill (for the same general 
principles attach to both) should 
know that he is able ultimately to 
pay it; he should know that he is 
. able to pay it, that is to say, to find 
means of paying it at the time when 
it becomes due. In this latter par- 
ticular, however, some latitude of 
interpretation is allowable. He is 
not bound to be morally certain that 
he shall be able to pay it inevery 
‘possible emergence which may arise. 
The possibility of a great political 
convulsion, of a general stagnation 
in mercantile credit, or of some very 
extraordinary loss of his own; though 
any one of these events might dis- 
able an individual from paying his 
bill, should not prevent him from 
giving a bill, these not being events 
reasonably to be calculated upon. 
And the concurring demands of a 
very large number of holders of his 
notes are no more to be calculated 
upon than the cases above-mention- 
ed: indeed, they commonly imply 
the existence of one of those cases, 
namely, a general stagnation of mer- 
cantile credit. Neither a banker, 
therefore, nor any other person, is 
bound in conscience to limit his sigs 
nature and indorsement of bills to 
the sum which he knows he may 
by possibility be required to pay; 
nor to that which he may have li- 
terally bound himself to pay; but 
to the sum for which he may rea- 
sonably expect that he shall, in con- 
sequence of those engagements, be 
called upon. Care, however, is to 
be taken, and in the case of a bane 
ker especial care, that he keeps on 
the prudent side.” 
Our author’s caution to merchants 
against the practice of covering 
ships, as the term is, in time of 
war, or making them over by @ 
fictitious transfer to the subject of 
some neuiral power, that by means 
of the papers procured through the 
pretended sale they m ayappear to 
be neutral property if taken by the 
enemy, is well worthy their attention. 
“ It may be urged, perhaps, in 
behalf of this proceeding, that it 1s 
confessedly allowable to impose on 
an adversary ; that the art of war 
consists of stratagems and feints ; 
that no moralist was ever rigid 
enough to condemn the admiral or 
the merchantman for hanging out 
false colours ; and that it is absurd 
to maintain that it is lawful to 
deceive an antagonist by fictitious 
flags, yet unlawful to delude him 
by fictitious papers. This is not 
the place for examining how far 
and on what grounds it may be jus- 
tifiable for open enemies to impose 
on each other; nor is the proceed- 
ing under consideration to be tried 
or justified by those rules; for here 
isa third part introduced, the in- 
habitant of the neutral state, a state 
in profound peace with both the 
contending nations; who delibera- 
tely suffers himself to be bribed by 
‘a subject of the one to practice an 
artifice on those of the other, which 
no plea, but that of being himself 
engaged 
