The transportation and insurance of this balance is an expence to those who owe it, and the profit, if any there be on that operation, naturally falls to exchangers of the same nation, who conduct it. So whether exchange be paid upon bills drawn, or expence be incurred in the transportation of balances, no profit can accrue upon that to the nation-creditor, to the detriment of the debtor: it must, therefore, do hurt to both, relatively to nations where, upon the average of trade, exchange is lower. I come now to the method of transporting balances in the metals. We have seen how the creditors of the nation-debtor pay exchange upon the sale of their bills on Paris, which owes the balance. If by the operations of exchangers, this exchange should rise, to their detriment, higher than the expence, trouble, and insurance, of bringing the balance from Paris, then they will appoint some factor at Paris, to whose order they will draw bills upon their debtors in that city; and as what the Paris-debtors owe to London is stated in pounds sterling, the London-creditors will value the pound sterling, according to the rate of exchange, in their favour; and in their bills upon their Paris-debtor, they will convert the sum into livres, including the exchange. By this operation, we see how the transportation of the balance may become the business of the creditors to the nation-debtor: which is a combination we have not as yet attended to: a few words will explain it. When the creditors of the nation-debtor sell their bills, they must pay the exchange, as has been said. When they draw bills to the order of a friend in the place where the balance is owing, they superadd the exchange. This their debtors pay: but then they themselves must be at the trouble and expence of bringing home the money. It is from this alternative which both parties have of either sending what they owe to their creditors in bullion, or of allowing them to draw for it at the additional expence of paying the exchange, that a check upon the extravagant profit of exchangers arises: and from this combination arises all the delicate operations of drawing and remitting. Into these we shall not inquire: the principle on which they depend appears sufficiently plain, and this is the principal object of our attention. I proceed now to consider how far those reciprocal profits and losses, between merchants in the same country, affect the trade of it in general. When the balance is favourable, we have said that the exporters lose the exchange, and the importers gain it; and both being citizens, the country would not be concerned in their relative interests, were it not that these interests are connected with that of the country, which reaps great benefit from the trade of those who deal in exportations, and loss from the other.