our millions) can be in London, when it is
considered that every city, town, village, and farm-house in the nation
must have a part of it, and that all the great manufactories, which most
require cash, are out of London. Of this four millions in London, every
banker, merchant, tradesman, in short every individual, must have some.
He must be a poor shopkeeper indeed, who has not a few guineas in his
till. The quantity of cash therefore in the bank can never, on the
evidence of circumstances, be so much as two millions; most probably
not more than one million; and on this slender twig, always liable to be
broken, hangs the whole funding system of four hundred millions, besides
many millions in bank notes. The sum in the bank is not sufficient to
pay one-fourth of only one year's interest of the national debt, were
the creditors to demand payment in cash, or demand cash for the bank
notes in which the interest is paid, a circumstance always liable to
happen.

One of the amusements that has kept up the farce of the funding system
is, that the interest is regularly paid. But as the interest is always
paid in bank notes, and as bank notes can always be coined for the
purpose, this mode of payment proves nothing. The point of proof is, can
the bank give cash for the bank notes with which the interest is paid?
If it cannot, and it is evident it cannot, some millions of bank notes
must go without payment, and those holders of bank notes who apply last
will be worst off. When the present quantity of cash in the bank is paid
away, it is next to impossible to see how any new quantity is to arrive.
None will arrive from taxes, for the taxes will all be paid in bank
notes; and should the government refuse bank notes in payment of taxes,
the credit of bank notes will be gone at once. No cash will arise from
the business of discounting merchants' bills; for every merchant will
pay off those bills in bank notes, and not in cash. There is therefore
no means left for the bank to obtain a new supply of cash, after the
present quantity is paid away. But besides the impossibility of paying
the interest of the funded debt in cash, there are many thousand
persons, in London and in the country, who are holders of bank notes
that came into their hands in the fair way of trade, and who are not
stockholders in the funds; and as such persons have had no hand in
increasing the demand upon the bank, as those have had who for their own
private interes