But I answer, that the principal use of coin, is, not to send it out of the country; but to keep accompts clear among inhabitants within the country. If there be a variation in the value of coin, according to circumstances, that variation must affect the inhabitants in their transactions. No one can gain upon this coin, without supposing a relative loss to some other, whether they perceive it or not. Must not this disturb all reckoning? Must it not disturb prices? Since at different times, I may be paying the same denominations of coin for the same commodity; and yet be paying, really, more value at one time than at another. Is not then the most invariable money the best calculated for the interest of trade, and prosperity of manufactures? Whence arise complaints against paper money, and regrets for want of coin? They issue from those who both wish to profit of the rising value of the metals contained in the coin, and who endeavour to persuade the public, that its interest, and not their own, is their object. What a trifle is a foreign balance, let it be ever so great, compared with the whole alienations of a country! Is it reasonable to disturb the harmony of all domestic dealings, in order to furnish an opportunity to a few clear-sighted people, who can, upon some occasions, profit of the fluctuating value of the substance of which the coin is composed, to the prejudice of the ignorant? If the country owes a balance to other nations, let it be paid: nothing so just; nothing so essential to the interest of the country which is the debtor. If the precious metals are the most proper vehicles, as I may say, for conveying this value, let them be procured and sent off; but never let us say, that because _some_ of our money _may_ be made of that metal, that all our money should be made of it; in order that those who transact the balance may have an opportunity of sending our metals away with greater ease, and thereby of depriving us of the means of carrying on alienations among ourselves. Let every one that has coin send it away: nothing can be more just; nothing more consistent with principles: but let him send it away as a _manufacture_; carrying in its bosom the price of making it, which he has paid, and for which his foreign creditors will make him no allowance. Exchangers run to the coin of the nation, for paying, with the least expence to themselves, the balance they are about to transact. When that resource is cut off by the imposition of coinage, the nation will preserve at least her darling specie; and then exchangers will be obliged, by the best of all compulsions, their own interest, to think of other expedients; bullion, manufactures, and natural produce. And when all these come to fail, a regular plan must be laid down, and authorised by government, for obtaining credit in other countries, by mortgaging the revenue of the solid property of the kingdom; according to the principles we shall discover when we come to treat of exchange.