11s} ANNUAL REGISTERS 
179%. 
<C BAP. eT 
: Wature of Money. abiesons ‘y of theBank of England.-~Stoppage of Bank, 
Payments in Specie.—Message thereon, from his Majesty, to ‘Parliament. 
-s.Delates on this Subject, in both Houses. Measures jor the Support of 
Public Credit, and the Relief of various pecuniary kianlarrassments,— 
Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the State of the 
“ Bank. 
‘OLD and silyer, and other pre- 
cious metals, have a two-fold 
value:’a value intrinsic, and a va- 
lue conventional. 'They are valuable 
on account of their own’ quali- 
ties ; and they are valuable as the 
signs and pledges of wealth. This 
distinction men learnt to make in 
the progress of commerce. And 
there was never an abstraction more 
curious in itself, or in common 
affairs more important in its conse- 
quences. ‘The conventional, or ar- 
bitrary, value of gold and silver, the 
signs and pledges of wealth, has 
been taken off, has been abstracted 
from the solid metals, and trans- 
ferred to paper: a very flimsy and 
unsubstantial body, and which 
may be considered as holding a 
middle place between matter and 
spirit. It isnot, however, the pa- 
per, that is, in fact, the substitute 
ra money, but something still more 
exile; the promise, the ; act of the 
mind stamped upon it; so that mo- 
ney has come to be, not so much 
a substantial, or material, as a me- 
taphysical thing; and so easily 
multiplied, that the number of pa- 
per- -dollars in America, assiguats in 
france, and bank-notes in Great 
Britain, have almost exceeded cal- 
culation. 
4 
The bank of England, which has 
the greatest circulation of any bank 
in England, was originally projected 
bya merchant of the name of Pat- 
terson, and established in the year 
1694. The company was incorpo- 
rated by parliament, in the 5th and 
6th of William and Mary, in consi- 
deration of the loan of 1,200,000/. 
granted to the government, for 
which the subscribers received near- 
ly Sper cent. By an act of the 8th 
and 9th of William III. they were 
empowered to enlarge their capital 
stock to 2,201,171/. By another 
act of 7thof Anne, they were far- 
ther empowered to augment their 
capital to 4,402,3432. on which they 
advanced 400,000/. more to go- 
vernment; in 1714, another loan ° 
of 1,500,000/. ; and other loans in 
subsequent periods. Nor was the 
bank of England found to be a 
greater conveniency to government 
than this, with others called coun- 
try-banks, was to individual ad- 
venturers in manufactures and‘com- 
merce, and every species of ime _ 
provement, 
But, in this country, as in others, 
different causes concurred to re 
mind the world that there was a 
wide difference between money that 
possessed an intrinsic yalue, and mo- 
4 ney 
