guarantees for their own paper; they created the substance with the symbol, realising the allegory of Aladdin’s lamp. As bullion, the precious metals are mere commodities, and therefore possess no more intrinsic value than any other commodity, under the laws of supply and demand; as coin, they are still bits of bullion, and it is the act of ourselves, or of the legislature who represents us, that gives them the character and the power of a legal tender. And yet we have the folly to kneel down to this graven image, and measure individual happiness and national greatness by its presence or its departure. Foreign trade, however valuable, must ever be subsidiary to the home trade. This doctrine none will contest; being admitted, then it follows that the chief care of the government should be to provide a currency suited to the home trade, and leave to merchants the care of adjusting the foreign exchanges, which never, for any long period, can be adverse or favourable; for what the ebb tide takes away the flood returns. It is an axiom in political economy that a favourable state of the exchanges acts as a _bounty on imports_ and as a _duty on exports_, while the reverse takes place when the exchanges are unfavourable. The true _par_ forms the centre of these oscillations, and though peculiar circumstances will rarely allow that _par_ to be _exactly_ hit, yet the tendency to approach it is constant, and the divergence from it is always evanescent. But the home trade is governed by very different influences; for, while we pay taxes on all we consume, the foreigner pays none on what he purchases from us, since he deals with us according to the measure of value, while we deal with each other according to price. Gold represents the _natural_ price of commodities, not the taxed price. Therefore, we ought to have two sorts of currency; let bullion serve for foreign trade, but let us have government paper, convertible into gold at the _market price_--not the _Mint price_--as the medium of internal exchanges. When gold is scarce, let it rise in value measured in the Bank or National note, and we need not fear a drain of bullion.