each individual, Bankers under just and liberal enactments 

 for securing the stability of their houses occupy an honour- 

 able and important position, and exercise a most beneficial in- 

 fluence, morally and politically, on the community. Their inter- 

 ests, rightly understood, and the interests of the agricultural 

 and commercial bodies, are identical. In promoting the gen- 

 eral prosperity of the country, they secure their own.* 



But we proceed to adduce another authority as to the ad- 

 vantages resulting from a Paper Currency, viz. DR. BEN- 

 JAMIN FRANKLIN. In 1764, before the Stamp Act was pro- 

 posed in Parliament, (which was passed the next year, and 

 repealed the year following) Dr. Franklin, writing in England 

 in defence of the Paper Money of the Colonies, says : 



" On the whole, no method has hitherto been framed to 

 establish a medium of trade in lieu of money, equal in all its 

 advantages to bills of credit, founded on sufficient taxes for 

 discharging them, or land securities of double the value for 

 repaying them at the end of the term, and in the mean time 

 made a GENERAL LBGAL TENDER. The experience of now 

 near half a century in the middle colonies, ( New Yoik, New 

 Jersey, and Pennsylvania ) has convinced them of it among 

 themselves, by the great increase oj their settlements, numbers, 

 buildings, improvements, agriculture, shipping, and commerce. 

 And the same experience has satisfied the British merchants 

 who trade thither, that it has been greatly useful to them, and 

 not in a single instance prejudicial." 



ADAM SMITH'S version of this system is worthy of obser- 

 vation : " It is convenient," he says, "for the Americans, 

 who could always employ with profit, in the improvement of 

 their lands, a greater stock than they can easily get, to save, 

 as much as possible, the expense of so costly an instrument of 

 commerce, as gold or silver ; and rather to employ that part 

 of their surplus produce which would be necessary for pur- 

 chasing those metals, in purchasing the instruments of trade, 

 the materials of clothing, several parts of househould furni- 



* Those Bankers who seem to think that their individual interests 

 require that the advantages of Paper Money should be doled out under 

 the most restrictive system that the country can bear, resemble the 

 Dutchmen in Sumatra, who used to destroy half their crop of spices, in 

 order to enhance the value of the remainder. 



