class of people I have just mentioned, and the means of doing this
could be best effected by coining five-pound notes. This conduct has the
appearance of that of an unprincipled insolvent, who, when on the verge
of bankruptcy to the amount of many thousands, will borrow as low as
five pounds of the servants in his house, and break the next day.

But whatever momentary relief or aid the minister and his bank might
expect from this low contrivance of five-pound notes, it will increase
the inability of the bank to pay the higher notes, and hasten the
destruction of all; for even the small taxes that used to be paid in
money will now be paid in those notes, and the bank will soon find
itself with scarcely any other money than what the hair-powder
guinea-tax brings in.

The bank notes make the most serious part of the business of finance:
what is called the national funded debt is but a trifle when put in
comparison with it; yet the case of the bank notes has never been
touched upon. But it certainly ought to be known upon what authority,
whether that of the minister or of the directors, and upon what
foundation, such immense quantities are issued. I have stated the amount
of them at sixty millions; I have produced data for that estimation; and
besides this, the apparent quantity of them, far beyond that of gold and
silver in the nation, corroborates the statement. But were there but a
third part of sixty millions, the bank cannot pay half a crown in the
pound; for no new supply of money, as before said, can arrive at the
bank, as all the taxes will be paid in paper.

When the funding system began, it was not doubted that the loans that
had been borrowed would be repaid. Government not only propagated that
belief, but it began paying them off. In time this profession came to be
abandoned: and it is not difficult to see that bank notes will march
the same way; for the amount of them is only another debt under another
name; and the probability is that Mr. Pitt will at last propose
funding them. In that case bank notes will not be so valuable as French
assignats. The assignats have a solid property in reserve, in the
national domains; bank notes have none; and, besides this, the English
revenue must then sink down to what the amount of it was before the
funding system began--between three and four millions; one of which
the _arch-treasurer_ would require for himself, and the arch-treasurer
_apparent_ would require three-qua