and as many goods on hand as will
to-day sell for 20 L.; but not content with the present market price,
he raises them to 40 L. and by so doing obliges others, in their own
defence, to raise cent. per cent. likewise; in this case it is evident
that his hundred pounds laid by, is reduced fifty pounds in value;
whereas, had the market lowered cent. per cent., his goods would have
sold but for ten, but his hundred pounds would have risen in value to
two hundred; because it would then purchase as many goods again, or
support his family as long again as before. And, strange as it may seem,
he is one hundred and fifty pounds the poorer for raising his goods, to
what he would have been had he lowered them; because the forty pounds
which his goods sold for, is, by the general raise of the market cent.
per cent., rendered of no more value than the ten pounds would be had
the market fallen in the same proportion; and, consequently, the whole
difference of gain or loss is on the difference in value of the hundred
pounds laid by, viz. from fifty to two hundred. This rage for raising
goods is for several reasons much more the fault of the Tories than the
Whigs; and yet the Tories (to their shame and confusion ought they to
be told of it) are by far the most noisy and discontented. The greatest
part of the Whigs, by being now either in the army or employed in some
public service, are buyers only and not sellers, and as this evil has
its origin in trade, it cannot be charged on those who are out of it.

But the grievance has now become too general to be remedied by partial
methods, and the only effectual cure is to reduce the quantity of money:
with half the quantity we should be richer than we are now, because
the value of it would be doubled, and consequently our attachment to it
increased; for it is not the number of dollars that a man has, but how
far they will go, that makes him either rich or poor. These two points
being admitted, viz. that the quantity of money is too great, and that
the prices of goods can only be effectually reduced by, reducing the
quantity of the money, the next point to be considered is, the method
how to reduce it.

The circumstances of the times, as before observed, require that the
public characters of all men should now be fully understood, and the
only general method of ascertaining it is by an oath or affirmation,
renouncing all allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and to support
the independen