When it therefore happens, that the reciprocal debts of London and Paris (to use the same example) are not equal, there arises a balance on one side. Suppose London to owe Paris a balance, value 100_l._ How can this be paid? I answer, that it may either be done with or without the intervention of a bill. With a bill, if an exchanger, finding a demand for a bill upon Paris, for the value of 100_l._ when Paris owes no more to London, sends 100_l._ to his correspondent at Paris in coin, at the expence, I suppose, of 1_l._ and then, having become creditor on Paris, he can give a bill for the value of 100_l._ upon his being repaid his expence, and paid for his risk and trouble. Or it may be paid without a bill, if the London debtor sends the coin himself to his Paris creditor, without employing an exchanger. This last example shews of what little use bills are in the payment of balances. As far as the debts are equal, nothing can be more useful than bills of exchange; but the more they are useful in this easy way of business, the less profit there is to any person to make a trade of exchange, when he is not himself concerned, either as debtor or creditor. When merchants have occasion to draw and remit bills for the liquidation of their own debts, active and passive, in distant parts, they meet upon change; where, to pursue the former example, the creditors upon Paris, when they want money for bills, look out for those who are debtors to it. The debtors to Paris again, when they want bills for money, seek for those who are creditors upon it. This is a representation of what we have frequently called the money market, in which the _demand_ is for _money_, or for _bills_. This market is constantly attended by brokers, who relieve the merchant of the trouble of searching for those he wants. To the broker every one communicates his wants, so far as he finds it prudent; and by going about among all the merchants, the broker discovers the side upon which the greater demand lies, for money, or for bills. We have often observed, that he who is the demander in any bargain, has constantly the disadvantage in dealing with him of whom he demands. This is no where so much the case as in exchange, and renders secrecy very essential to individuals among the merchants. If the London merchants want to pay their debts to Paris, when there is a balance against London, it is their interest to conceal their debts, and especially the necessity they may be under to pay them; from the fear that those who are creditors upon Paris would demand too high a price for the exchange over and above par.