It is not to be doubted but the great plenty of bullion in France is, in a great measure, owing to the want of paper-credit. The French have no banks; merchants’ bills do not there circulate as with us; usury or lending on interest is not directly permitted, so that many have large sums in their coffers; great quantities of plate are used in private houses, and all the churches are full of it. By this means provision and labour still remain much cheaper among them than in nations that are not half so rich in gold and silver. The advantages of this situation in point of trade, as well as in great public emergencies, are too evident to be disputed. The same fashion a few years ago prevailed in Genoa which still has place in England and Holland, of using services of china ware instead of plate; but the Senate, wisely foreseeing the consequence, prohibited the use of that brittle commodity beyond a certain extent, while the use of silver plate was left unlimited. And I suppose, in their late distresses, they felt the good effect of this ordinance. Our tax on plate is, perhaps, in this view, somewhat impolitic. Before the introduction of paper-money into our colonies, they had gold and silver sufficient for their circulation. Since the introduction of that commodity, the least inconveniency that has followed is the total banishment of the precious metals. And after the abolition of paper, can it be doubted but money will return, while these colonies possess manufactures and commodities, the only thing valuable in commerce, and for whose sake alone all men desire money? What pity Lycurgus did not think of paper-credit when he wanted to banish gold and silver from Sparta! It would have served his purpose better than the lumps of iron he made use of as money, and would also have prevented more effectually all commerce with strangers, as being of so much less real and intrinsic value.