^Statistics'^ 
313 
which to a moderate degree is good. But under this notion, banks 
are created, and paper money issued indefinitely : and it is encreas- 
ing to such an extent, that its gradual depreciation is unavoidable, 
as the reader may well judge from the table, that I shall give in my 
next. Nobody supposes for a moment now, that a bank note of any 
kind, is the representative of cash. Nor is our paper equally sta<» 
ble with the British in respect of the following circumstances. 
1st. The real actual wealth, upon which the personal credit of 
that country is founded, is more marketable, than ours : owing to 
the greater facility of sales from the greater riches of that country. 
2ly. Accommodation notes are greatly discountenanced there. 
3ly. Every bank, but the bank of England, is founded, not on the 
limited security of the amount of joint stock, but upon the known 
character and solvency of the individual partners who compose 
the firm. Our unlimited issues of paper currency, must ulti- 
mately tend to drive away all coin, to raise the paper price of 
every commodity, to encrease the number of forgeries and the 
difficulty of detection, and ultimately to sink the value of the paper 
itself. Banks are now founded, not on the necessities of the coun- 
try, but of the speculators who set them up. In the end, the evil 
-will cure itself ; but it will be severely felt. 
The advocates of banks, say, wherever a bank is established, 
land encreases in value, all kinds of property 'advance. It is not 
$ 0 ; no value is added to land, but the value of paper money is 
lessened, as is the case with every commodity wherewith the 
market is overstocked. So far as banks give a temporary facili- 
ty to public enterprizes, they are of use ; they are of great use 
also in checking the monopolies of monied men, and equalizing, 
in some degree, purchasers in the commercial markets : but 
these benefits are greatly overbalanced by the evils arising from 
their unlimited extension. They banish the precious metals; 
they tend to check exportation by raising the nominal price of 
commodities ; they encourage irregular trade on fictitious capital ; 
they promote wiki speculation ; and they strongly tempt to un- 
warrantable expence and extravagance in the manner of living. 
In this country, the many kinds of bank paper, will soon make it 
hazardous to take any ; for by and by we shall have no means of 
detecting the spurious notes. The British government transmit- 
ted to France immense quantities of forced assignats. The for- 
