124 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



our trade with Britain being against us, the gold 

 and silver are drawn out to pay that balance, and 

 the necessity of some medium of trade has induced the 

 making of paper money, which cannot thus be carried 

 away. Gold and silver are not the produce of North 

 America, which has no mines, and that which is brought 

 thither cannot be kept there in sufficient quantity for a 

 currency. Britain, an independent great state, when 

 its inhabitants grow too fond of the expensive luxuries 

 of foreign countries that draw away its money, can, and 

 frequently does, make laws to discourage or prohibit 

 such importations, and by that means can retain its 

 cash. But the Colonies are dependent governments ; 

 9,nd their people, having naturally great respect for the 

 sovereign country, and being thence immoderately fond 

 of its modes, manufactures, and superfluities, cannot be 

 restrained from purchasing them by any province law, 

 because such law, if made, would immediately be re- 

 pealed, as prejudicial to the trade and interests of 

 Britain. It seems hard, therefore, to draw all their real 

 money from them, and then refuse them the poor privilege 

 of using paper money instead of it! So far Franklin, 

 as approvingly quoted by Miller. That a country which 

 has no real money can make money out of paper, is an 

 idea so palpably erroneous that one has difficulty in 

 comprehending how it could have imposed upon Ben- 

 jamin Franklin. 



It was not, however, necessary to penetrate far into 

 the mysterious problems of the currency in order to find 

 sound reasons for leaving the circulating system of Scot- 

 land alone. That system had worked well. Sir Walter 

 Scott and Hugh Miller knew the fruits of the tree, that 

 they were good, and they justly concluded that it was 

 a good tree. There was no cause for anxiety on the 



