The mint price regulates the price of bullion; and there it will nearly stand, while the balance of trade is either at par, or favourable to a country. Exchange therefore, or a wrong balance, can only make it rise; and it returns to where it was, by the force of another principle. In the next place, were I to allow that the balance of trade regulates the price of bullion, it would not follow that what is called the _real par_ of exchange is a rule to judge of the _balance of trade_ of a nation. Is it not plain, that if France, for example, being at present obliged to send great sums into Germany, upon account of the war (_anno_ 1760,) has reduced the price of her coin to a par with bullion, that all nations will profit of it as much in their trade with France, as if the balance was become favourable to them; since the course of exchange will then answer according to the conversion of bullion for bullion in all remittances to France. But were France at present to remit money to any other country, which has the balance favourable, and where coinage is paid, suppose to Spain, while the balance between France and Spain is supposed to be exactly even; would not the real par between the money of Spain and of France mark an exchange against France, for the value of the coinage imposed by Spain? This is the reason why, in time of war, exchange between France and England appears more favourable to England than in time of peace. But does this anywise prove that the balance of trade is then more in favour of England? by no means: for let me suppose the balance of their trade to remain the same after the peace as at present; is it not evident, that in proportion as the coin of France shall rise above the bullion, that the _balance of trade_ will become, in appearance, against England? [Sidenote: Balance of trade, what?] By the _balance of trade_, I here constantly understand a certain quantity of bullion sent by one nation to another, to pay what they have not been able to compensate by an exchange of their commodities, remittances, &c. and not that which they compute in their bills as the difference between the respective values of coin and bullion in both countries. How, then, is the real par of exchange to be regulated, so as to determine which nation pays a balance upon the exchange of their commodities? [Sidenote: The real par of exchange to be fixed by the fluctuating value of the coin, not by the permanent quantity of the bullion it contains.]