Now let us recall our principles concerning circulation, alienation, and banking upon mortgage, and combine these with what we have so frequently repeated, and I think demonstrated, viz. that in proportion to the extent of alienation, and the demands for money, a circulating equivalent should be provided, so as to be ready at the hand of every person who has property to pledge for it; and then decide whether it was any wonder that credit in England should have been at so low an ebb at the peace of Ryswick; that taxes should have diminished in their produce; that interest should have risen to such an extravagant height; that the people should have groaned under a load from which they could not relieve themselves. Under such circumstances, England appears to me in the light of a dumb man put to the torture in order to extort a confession. Were eight or nine millions sterling in coin, and a few wooden sticks, the tallies, constantly sold at a great discount, a circulating value sufficient to supply the exigencies of a state which was spending annually at the rate of five or six millions? The consequence of this total drain of money, was, that people could neither consume exciseable commodities, or pay the taxes laid upon their persons and solid property. The excises failed, because the body of the people, who paid them, were interrupted in their industry, for want of money to carry on alienation. Those who were liable to the arbitrary impositions, such as the landlords, could not pay; because what they had, their land, could not be given in payment. From what I have here laid together, we may determine, that as alienations among individuals cannot exceed the proportion of the circulating equivalent of a country, so a statesman when he intends _suddenly_ to augment the taxes of his people, without interrupting their industry, which then becomes still more necessary than ever, should augment the circulating equivalent in proportion to the additional demand for it. This, according to my notions, cannot be so well compassed as, 1. by establishing banks of circulation upon mortgage: 2. by relieving those companies of the load of paying foreign balances by giving bills at par, or at a small exchange: and 3. by providing funds abroad for the payment of them, according to the principles above deduced. Such expedients will work their effect, in a nation where the public faith stands upon the solid security of an honest parliament, and upon that responsibility which is fixed upon those who are trusted with the exertions of the royal authority. I think I may illustrate this operation by a simile. A gentleman chooses to form a cascade of the water which serves to turn his corn-mill; consequently, the mill stops: but in its stead, he immediately erects another which turns with the wind. Coin is the water, bank paper is the wind, and both are equally well calculated for the use they are put to.