In Child’s time, they were familiarly buying up sugars in London, above the price paid by English sugar-bakers; and, notwithstanding the additional freight and charges, they grew rich by their trade, while the others were hardly making any profit. This he accounts for, from the low rate of their interest. He supposes both Dutch and English to have carried on this trade with borrowed money; for which the first paid 3 _per cent._ and the other 6 _per cent._ But at present, were it possible to get 6 _per cent._ for money in London, what Dutchman would lend his father a shilling at 3 _per cent._? The English stocks are as currently bought and sold, nay, all the stockjobbing tricks are practised with the same subtlety at Amsterdam as in Change-Alley: from which I conclude, that a great part of the advantage of low interest is now lost to that nation; and I conclude farther, that it is the common interest of all trading nations to bring it as low as possible every where. Another cause of high interest proceeds from certain clogs laid upon circulation, which proceed merely from custom and prejudice. Of this nature is the obligation of debtors to pay in the metals, nothing but coin being a legal tender. The only foundation for such a regulation was the precariousness of credit in former times. Were all the circulating paper in a nation secured by law, either upon the lands or revenue of the country appropriated for that purpose, there could be no injustice or inconvenience in making paper (so secured) a legal tender in all payments. Again, how extraordinary must it appear to any reasonable man, that the same paper which passes on one side of a river, should not pass on its opposite bank, though running through the same country? The reason indeed is very plain: the subaltern jurisdictions are different; and the debtors in the paper are different: but if the paper of both stood upon a security equally good, what is to hinder both to be received as a legal tender in all payments over the kingdom? Should not little private objects of profit among bankers (who are the servants of the state, and who are so well paid for their service) be over-ruled, when the consequences of their disputes are found to be so hurtful? But of this more, when we come to speak of banks. The only occasion where coin is necessary in the liquidation of paper, is for payment of the balance of trade with foreign nations. Of this also we shall treat more at large, when we come to the doctrine of exchange. But surely nothing is so ill judged, as to create an imaginary balance within the same state; or rather, to permit money-jobbers to create it; at the expence of raising interest, and hurting trade, in the very places where it stands in the greatest need of encouragement.