ABSTRACT
… I am much pleas’d with your Performance 2 and the Perusal of it has taken me from a State of great Anxiety. It was a Work of so much 217Expectation, by yourself, by your Friends, and by the Public, that I trembled for its Appearance; but am now much relieved. Not but that the Reading of it necessarily requires so muchAttention, and the Public is disposed to give so little, that I shall still doubt for some time of its being at first very popular. But it has Depth and Solidity and Acuteness, and is so much illustrated by curious Facts, that it must at last take the public Attention. It is probably much improved by your last Abode in London. If you were here at my Fireside, I shoud dispute some of your Principles. I cannot think, that the Rent of Farms makes any part of the Price of the Produce, 1 but that the Price is determined altogether by the Quantity and the Demand. It appears to me impossible, that the King of France can take a Seigniorage of 8 per cent upon the Coinage. No body would bring Bullion to the mint: It woud be all sent to Holland or England, where it might be coined and sent back to France for less than two per cent. Accordingly Neckre 2 says, that the French King takes only two per cent of Seigniorage. But these and a hundred other Points are fit only to be discussed in Conversation; which, till you tell me the contrary, I shall still flatter myself with soon. I hope it will be soon: For I am in a very bad state of Health and cannot afford a long Delay….
