COMMERCE. 



115 



most entirely disappeared. The small sum of specie which 

 circulates in England, in proportion to her very extensive 

 commerce, is accounted for, by political writers, on the prin- 

 ciple of the multiplicity of bills, notes, and other similar ef- 

 fe6ts ; while the advantages which France derives*, on that 

 score, are ascribed to the scarcity of these circulating media* 



That of copper money, the introdu6tion of which was at- 

 tempted in South America in 1542, but which was entirely 

 abandoned on account of the resistance of the natives, who, 

 in less than a year, contemptuously buried in the rivers and 

 lakes more than a million of piastres of that metallic currency, 

 cannot but be prejudicial in a country, the principal produce 

 of which consists of gold and silver, and which ought to foster 

 the idea, however illusory it may be, that the true and effi- 

 cient riches of the state reside in their abundance. To debase 

 them by a competition with another token, would be to abate 

 the ardour of those who are engaged in extra6ting them from 

 the mines ; and would revive the just grounds on which the er- 

 roneous policy of Spain was condemned, when she prohibited 

 tissues of gold and silver. 



The citizens of Genoa were interdidled, on severe penalties, 

 the use of services of china, but were free to substitute in their 

 stead those of gold and silver. In recurring to this measure, 

 the government of that republic wisely foresaw that, by lower- 

 ing the estimation of these metals, the state would by degrees 

 be exhausted of them, and reduced to a real indigence, rela- 

 tively to the other nations which did not receive in payment 

 the paper and copper tendered to them as specie. 



* This dissertation was penned in 1791. 



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