and depreciated currency. Surely, such a system would soon terminate in bankruptcy and repudiation, repeating the history of French assignats and Continental money. Nor is it the Government only that suffers from such a disaster, but the ruin extends to the people. There is no law more clearly established than this: that the currency of a country bears a certain fixed proportion to its wealth and business. If we expand the currency beyond this proportion, we violate this law, and will surely suffer the terrible penalties of this disobedience. This law is so certain and invariable, that, if the expansion beyond this proportion should be even in specie, the result would still be disastrous. This was illustrated during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, when Spain, having opened the virgin mines of America, brought the precious metals in countless millions within her limits, and restricted their exportation by the most stringent penalties. And what was the consequence? Mr. Prescott, of Boston, tells us in his great history, that 'the streams of wealth, which flowed in from the silver quarries of Zacatecas and Potosi were jealously locked up within the limits of the Peninsula.' 'The golden tide, which, permitted a free vent, would have fertilized the region through which it poured, now buried the land under a deluge, which blighted every green and living thing. _Agriculture_, _commerce_, MANUFACTURES, every branch of national industry and improvement, languished and fell to decay; and the nation, like the Phrygian monarch who turned all that he touched into gold, cursed by the very consummation of its wishes, was poor in the midst of its treasures.' Such was the effect of violating the law which regulates the ratio of money to wealth; such the consequence of a superabundant currency, even in specie. The result was that Spain, which had been the most prosperous nation of Europe, and whose products and manufactures had supplied the markets of the world, lost nearly all her exports, and was forced to resort to the prohibitory system. The cost of living, of working farms, of manufacturing goods, of making and sailing ships, became so high in Spain, from her superabundant currency, that she was unable to compete with any other nation, was reduced to poverty, and never began to recover until 'Spain changed her system, encouraged the exportation of the precious metals, and thus brought down her superabundant currency and inflated prices, and thus enabled Spanish industry to supply the markets of the Peninsula and of the world.' _Then_, the distinguished historian tells us, 'the precious metals, instead of flowing in so abundantly as to palsy the arm of industry, only served to stimulate it, the foreign intercourse of the country was every day more widely extended;' 'the flourishing condition of the nation was seen in the wealth and population of its cities,' etc. It is a redundant currency, even if gold or convertible into gold, that