lly, it might be raised one fourth, or 25 per cent. in
its value, in one year, by withholding the annual supply; but if in
consequence of its being used as money, the quantity employed were
100,000 ounces, it would not be raised one fourth in value in less than
ten years. As money made of paper may be readily reduced in quantity,
its value, though its standard were gold, would be increased as rapidly
as that of the metal itself would be increased if it had no connexion
whatever with money.

If gold were the produce of one country only, and it were used
universally for money, a very considerable tax might be imposed on it,
which would not fall on any country, except in proportion as they used
it in manufactures, and for utensils; upon that portion which was used
for money, though a large tax might be received, nobody would pay it.
This is a quality peculiar to money. All other commodities of which
there exists a limited quantity, and which cannot be increased by
competition, are dependant for their value, on the tastes, the caprice,
and the power of purchasers; but money is a commodity which no country
has any wish or necessity to increase: no more advantage results from
using twenty millions, than from using ten millions of currency. A
country might have a monopoly of silk, or of wine, and yet the prices of
silks and wine might fall, because from caprice or fashion, or taste,
cloth and brandy might be preferred, and substituted; the same effect
might in a degree take place with gold, as far as its use is confined to
manufactures: but while money is the general medium of exchange, the
demand for it is never a matter of choice, but always of necessity; you
must take it in exchange for your goods, and therefore there are no
limits to the quantity which may be forced on you by foreign trade, if
it fall in value; and no reduction to which you must not submit, if it
rise. You may indeed substitute paper money, but by this you do not, and
cannot lessen the quantity of money; it is only by the rise of the price
of commodities, that you can prevent them from being exported from a
country where they are purchased with little money, to a country where
they can be sold for more, and this rise can only be effected by an
importation of metallic money from abroad, or by the creation or
addition of paper money at home. If then the King of Spain, supposing
him to be in exclusive possession of the mines, and gold alone to be
used for mon