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judgment as to the system to be permanently followed. But if this scheme is to be accompanied with measures of force and compulsion; if having never since the Bank Restriction Act had a circulation nearly so great in proportion to our taxes and income as before the war; and if having already produced great distress by the Restriction already impoliticly made, we persevere against fact and common sense, to reduce our currency still more, not that mint price may return by the natural course of affairs, but that it may be affected by further violence, by further distress, and a continuation of arbitrary measures; then, and in this case, we exclude ourselves from ever knowing the real state of things, and the real operation of events; and our judgements must be formed upon a forced and fictitious state of affairs, not created by the natural course of events, or the ordinary vicissitudes of the market, but by mere legislative violence, in defiance of their legitimate influence.
When I state, that from the effect of our taxes, reduction of the amount of currency will not lower prices, I mean to argue upon the general result naturally flowing from such a state of circumstances;—of course I mean to exclude from my argument that rapid depreciation in the price of goods already in the market, already contracted for, already in the warehouse, the magazine, and the barn, on which a sudden reduction of currency most disasterously operates. Because the investments of capital, by which those goods were produced or manufactured, were made when circulation was not reduced, and when the continuance of its amount and the accommodation resulting from that amount, was fairly and justly presumed.
I had suggested in an annexed paper, which I privately circulated, that the Bank should pay their Notes
