at the insolvency is concealed and carried on till the individual
is not able to pay one shilling in the pound. A government can ward off
bankruptcy longer than an individual: but insolvency will inevitably
produce bankruptcy, whether in an individual or in a government. If then
the quantity of bank notes payable on demand, which the bank has issued,
are greater than the bank can pay off, the bank is insolvent: and when
that insolvency is declared, it is bankruptcy.(*)

* Among the delusions that have been imposed upon the
nation by ministers to give a false colouring to its
affairs, and by none more than by Mr. Pitt, is a motley,
amphibious-charactered thing called the _balance of trade_.
This balance of trade, as it is called, is taken from the
custom-house books, in which entries are made of all cargoes
exported, and also of all cargoes imported, in each year;
and when the value of the exports, according to the price
set upon them by the exporter or by the custom-house, is
greater than the value of the imports, estimated in the same
manner, they say the balance of trade is much in their
favour.

The custom-house books prove regularly enough that so many
cargoes have been exported, and so many imported; but this
is all that they prove, or were intended to prove. They have
nothing to do with the balance of profit or loss; and it is
ignorance to appeal to them upon that account: for the case
is, that the greater the loss is in any one year, the higher
will this thing called the balance of trade appear to be
according to the custom-house books. For example, nearly the
whole of the Mediterranean convoy has been taken by the
French this year; consequently those cargoes will not
appear as imports on the custom-house books, and therefore
the balance of trade, by which they mean the profits of it,
will appear to be so much the greater as the loss amounts to;
and, on the other hand, had the loss not happened, the
profits would have appeared to have been so much the less.
All the losses happening at sea to returning cargoes, by
accidents, by the elements, or by capture, make the balance
appear the higher on the side of the exports; and were they
all lost at sea, it would appear to be all profit on the
custom-house books. Also every cargo of exports that is lost