This digression opens the way to a comparison between foreign and domestic loans. If the loan be domestic, money must be diverted from those channels in which it would otherwise have flowed; and, therefore, either the public must give better terms than individuals, or there must be money enough to supply the wants of both. In the latter case, if the public did not borrow, the quantity of money would exceed the demand, and the interest would be lowered; borrowing by the public, therefore, would keep up the rate of interest; which brings the latter case within the reason of the former. If the public out bid individuals, those individuals are deprived of the means of extending their industry; so that no case of a domestic loan can well be supposed where some public loss will not arise to counterbalance the public gain, except where the creditor spares from his consumption to lend to the government, which operates a national economy. It is, however, an advantage peculiar to domestic loans, that they give stability to government, by combining together the interests of the monied men for its support; and, consequently, in this country a domestic debt would greatly contribute to that union, which seems not to have been sufficiently attended to or provided for in forming the national compact. Domestic loans are also useful, from the farther consideration, that as taxes fall heavy on the lower orders of the community, the relief obtained for them by such loans more than counterbalances the loss sustained by those who would have borrowed money to extend their commerce or tillage. Neither is it a refinement to observe, that since a plenty of money and consequent ease of obtaining it, induce men to engage in speculations, which are often unprofitable, the check which these receive is not injurious, while the relief obtained by the poor is highly beneficial. By making foreign loans, the community, as such, receive the same extensive benefits, which one individual does in borrowing of another. This country was always in the practice of making such loans. The merchants in Europe trusted those in America. The American merchants trusted the country store-keepers, and they the people at large. This advance of credit may be stated at not less than twenty millions of dollars. And the want of that credit now is one principal reason of those usurious contracts mentioned above. These have been checked by the institution of the bank, but the funds of that corporation not permitting those extensive advances, which the views of different people require, the price given for particular accommodations of money continues to be enormous; and that again shows, that to make domestic loans would be difficult, if not impracticable. The merchants not having now that extensive credit in Europe, which they formerly had, the obtaining such credit by government becomes in some sort necessary.