( 14 )
rich captures made at sea, and by the treasures found at the Havannah and other places; but whatever wealth we gained by these means, has, it is to be presumed, long circulated through the state: and it is well known, that when any additional sum of money is once thoroughly digested and concocted through the whole mass of the people, it can have no influence in raising the price of Provisions so as to distress them. For money, as you very justly observe, and as Montesquieu, Hume, and many other political writers, have observed before you, is merely a commodity, the value of which decreases in proportion to the increase of its quantity; so that the greater or less quantity of it in a kingdom is of no consequence, taking a state within itself: it only affects foreign commerce, and it has this peculiar property annexed to it, that the greater quantity of it a kingdom possesses, the greater risk does that kingdom run of losing its foreign commerce; because poorer nations
