f
funding. It operates to multiply paper, and to substitute it in the room
of money, in various shapes; and the more paper is multiplied, the
more opportunities are offered to export the specie; and it admits of
a possibility (by extending it to small notes) of increasing paper till
there is no money left.

I know this is not a pleasant subject to English readers; but the
matters I am going to mention, are so important in themselves, as to
require the attention of men interested in money transactions of a
public nature. There is a circumstance stated by M. Neckar, in his
treatise on the administration of the finances, which has never been
attended to in England, but which forms the only basis whereon to
estimate the quantity of money (gold and silver) which ought to be in
every nation in Europe, to preserve a relative proportion with other
nations.

Lisbon and Cadiz are the two ports into which (money) gold and silver
from South America are imported, and which afterwards divide and spread
themselves over Europe by means of commerce, and increase the quantity
of money in all parts of Europe. If, therefore, the amount of the annual
importation into Europe can be known, and the relative proportion of the
foreign commerce of the several nations by which it can be distributed
can be ascertained, they give a rule sufficiently true, to ascertain the
quantity of money which ought to be found in any nation, at any given
time.

M. Neckar shows from the registers of Lisbon and Cadiz, that the
importation of gold and silver into Europe, is five millions sterling
annually. He has not taken it on a single year, but on an average of
fifteen succeeding years, from 1763 to 1777, both inclusive; in which
time, the amount was one thousand eight hundred million livres, which is
seventy-five millions sterling.*[14]

From the commencement of the Hanover succession in 1714 to the time Mr.
Chalmers published, is seventy-two years; and the quantity imported
into Europe, in that time, would be three hundred and sixty millions
sterling.

If the foreign commerce of Great Britain be stated at a sixth part of
what the whole foreign commerce of Europe amounts to (which is probably
an inferior estimation to what the gentlemen at the Exchange would
allow) the proportion which Britain should draw by commerce of this sum,
to keep herself on a proportion with the rest of Europe, would be also
a sixth part which is sixty millions sterling; and if th