ABSTRACT
… That part of your prospectus, 2 in which you endeavour to prove that there enters nothing of human convention in the establishment of money, is certainly very curious, and very elaborately composed; and yet I cannot forbear thinking that the common opinion has some foundation. It is true, money must always be made of some materials, which have intrinsic value, otherwise it would be multiplied without end, and would sink to nothing. But, when I take a shilling, I consider it not as a useful metal, but as something which another will take from me; and the person who shall convert it into metal is, probably, several millions of removes distant. You know that all states have made it criminal to melt their coin; and, tho this is a law which cannot well be executed, it is not to be supposed that, if it could, it would entirely destroy the value of the money, according to your hypothesis. You have a base coin, called billon, in France, composed of silver and copper, which has a ready currency, tho the separation of the two metals, and the reduction of them to their primitive state, would, I am told, be both expensive and troublesome. Our shillings and sixpences, which are almost our only silver coin, are so much worn by use, that they are twenty, thirty, or forty per cent below their original value; yet they pass currency which can arise only from a tacit convention. Our 215colonies in America, for want of specie, used to coin a paper currency; which were not bank notes, because there was no place appointed to give money in exchange; yet this paper currency passed in all payments, by convention; and might have gone on, had it not been abused by the several assemblies, who issued paper without end, and thereby discredited the currency.
