sent as thrown on the bleak and barren shore of a desolate 

 wilderness, three thousand miles from all civilized intercourse." 



Such is the recorded opinion of one who richly deserved 

 the name of a " statesman." 



And how was this miracle effected ? The celebrated DAVID 

 HUME shall answer that question. Here is an extract from 

 his correspondence with the Abbe Morellet : 



" In our colony of Pennsylvania, the land itself, which is 

 the chief commodity, is coined, and passes into circulation. A 

 planter, immediately he purchases any land, can go to a 

 public office and receive notes to the amount of half the value 

 of his land, which notes he employs in all payments, and they 

 circulate through the colony by convention. To prevent the 

 public being overwhelmed by this representative money, there 

 are two means employed ; first, the notes issued to any one 

 planter must not exceed a certain sum, whatever may be the 

 value of the land ; secondly, every planter is obliged to pay 

 back into the public office every year, one tenth of his notes. 

 The whole is of course annihilated in ten years, after which 

 it is again allowed him to take out new notes, to half the 

 value of his land." 



Now observe here how completely the Currency Question 

 is a Farmers' Question. Paper Currency, or " representative 

 money," as David Hume here calls it, would enable the English 

 Farmer to drain his land, to improve its cultivation, arid to 

 employ more labour, just as it enabled the American Planter 

 to convert a barren wilderness into fruitful fields. The means 

 adopted for issuing the Paper Currency, viz. through a public 

 office of government, were suitable to a colony in its infant 

 state. In such a state there would be no body of men of 

 sufficient wealth and responsibility to act as Bankers. In an 

 old country, like our own, where capital has been accumula- 

 ted, Bankers discharge the function, which the government 

 of the American colonies assumed, of issuing commercial 

 money. A more useful body of men does not exist. No govern- 

 ment machinery could provide agents so well adapted for fur- 

 nishing the money of commerce as the wants of the people 

 require it, as are the Bankers of this country. As men of 

 education and probity, resident in every district, acquainted 

 with the character, resources, and peculiar circumstances of 



