to ruin, is too paradoxical to be explained; for it is on
the credit which individuals _give to the bank_, by receiving and
circulating its notes, and not upon its _own_ credit or its _own_
property, for it has none, that the bank sports. If, however, it be the
duty of the bank to expose the public to this hazard, it is at least
equally the duty of the individuals of that public to get their money
and take care of themselves; and leave it to placemen, pensioners,
government contractors, Reeves' association, and the members of both
houses of Parliament, who have voted away the money at the nod of
the minister, to continue the credit if they can, and for which their
estates individually and collectively ought to answer, as far as they
will go.

There has always existed, and still exists, a mysterious, suspicious
connection, between the minister and the directors of the bank, and
which explains itself no otherways than by a continual increase in bank
notes. Without, therefore, entering into any further details of the
various contrivances by which bank notes are issued, and thrown upon the
public, I proceed, as I before mentioned, to offer an estimate on the
total quantity of bank notes in circulation.

However disposed governments may be to wring money by taxes from the
people, there is a limit to the practice established by the nature of
things. That limit is the proportion between the quantity of money in a
nation, be that quantity what it may, and the greatest quantity of taxes
that can be raised upon it. People have other uses for money besides
paying taxes; and it is only a proportional part of the money they can
spare for taxes, as it is only a proportional part they can spare
for house-rent, for clothing, or for any other particular use. These
proportions find out and establish themselves; and that with such
exactness, that if any one part exceeds its proportion, all the other
parts feel it.

Before the invention of paper money (bank notes,) there was no other
money in the nation than gold and silver, and the greatest quantity of
money that was ever raised in taxes during that period never exceeded a
fourth part of the quantity of money in the nation. It was high taxing
when it came to this point. The taxes in the time of William III. never
reached to four millions before the invention of paper, and the quantity
of money in the nation at that time was estimated to be about sixteen
millions. The same proportions e