The arret of 21 May 1720, (of which we shall give an account hereafter) destroyed in one day the whole fabric of credit, which had been erected in France during the course of three years; and which in so short a time had mounted to a height hardly credible. I say, that in one day this inadvertent step (for no real injury was intended) destroyed the credit of 2,697,048,000 livres of bank notes, (above 120 millions sterling) and of 624,000 actions of the East India company, which (reckoned at 5000 livres apiece, the price at which the company had last sold them) amount to 3,120,000,000 livres, or above 140 millions sterling. Thus at one blow, and in one day, 260 millions sterling of paper currency, payable to bearers, was struck out of the circulation of France; by an useless and inadvertent act of power, which ruined the nation, and withered the hand which struck it: an event too little understood, and too little remembered in that kingdom. This plainly appears from their late conduct; for in the end of 1759, at a time when the credit of France was in so flourishing a situation as to have enabled her to borrow, that very year, near 200 millions of livres; and when there was a prospect of being able to borrow, in the year following, a far greater sum, the shutting up what they called their _caisse d’amortissement_, for the sake of withholding 32 millions of livres interest due to the creditors, struck all credit _with foreigners_ dead in one instant. These examples shew what fatal consequences follow a misjudged exercise of power in matters of credit. On the other hand, the rapid progress of credit in France before the Missisippi, and the stability of it from 1726 to the year 1759, abundantly proves, that nothing is more compatible than monarchy and confidence. All that is wanting is the establishment of _one maxim in government_; to wit, that the King’s power is never to extend so far, as to alter the smallest article of such stipulations as have been made with those who have lent money for the service of the state. _Maxims in government bind the monarch and the legislature, as laws bind subjects and subordinate magistrates_: the one and the other ought to be held inviolable, so far as they regard credit; or confidence will be precarious. What has supported the credit of Great Britain, but the maxim constantly adhered to, that the public faith pledged to her creditors is to be inviolable?