sent system of carrying
on war. The existence of a nation having no credit is always
precarious. The credit of England is the best. Their paper sells at par
on the exchange of Amsterdam the moment any of it is offered, and they
can command there any sum they please. The reason is, that they never
borrow, without establishing taxes for the payment of the interest, and
they never yet failed one day in that payment. The Emperor and Empress
have good credit enough. They use it little and have been ever
punctual. This country cannot borrow at all there; for though they
always pay their interest within the year, yet it is often some months
behind. It is difficult to assign to our credit its exact station in
this scale. They consider us as the most certain nation on earth for
the principal; but they see that we borrow of themselves to pay the
interest, so that this is only a conversion of their interest into
principal. Our paper, for this reason, sells for from four to eight per
cent. below par, on the exchange, and our loans are negotiated with the
Patriots only. But the whole body of money dealers, Patriot and
Stadtholderian, look forward to our new government with a great degree
of partiality and interest. They are disposed to have much confidence
in it, and it was the prospect of its establishment, which enabled us
to set the loan of last year into motion again. They will attend
steadfastly to its first money operations. If these are injudiciously
begun, correction, whenever they shall be corrected, will come too
late. Our borrowings will always be difficult and disadvantageous. If
they begin well, our credit will immediately take the first station.
Equal provision for the interest, adding to it a certain prospect for
the principal, will give us a preference to all nations, the English
not excepted. The first act of the new government should be some
operation, whereby they may assume to themselves this station. Their
European debts form a proper subject for this. Digest the whole, public
and private, Dutch, French and Spanish, into a table, showing the sum
of interest due every year, and the portions of principal payable the
same year. Take the most certain branch of revenue, and one which shall
suffice to pay the interest, and leave such a surplus as may accomplish
all the payments of the capital, at terms somewhat short of those at
which they will become due. Let the surplusses of those years, in which
no reimbursement of