sbon and Cadiz, that the
importation of gold and silver into Europe, is five millions sterling
annually. He has not taken it on a single year, but on an average of
fifteen succeeding years, from 1763 to 1777, both inclusive; in which
time, the amount was one thousand eight hundred million livres, which is
seventy-five millions sterling.*[14]

From the commencement of the Hanover succession in 1714 to the time Mr.
Chalmers published, is seventy-two years; and the quantity imported
into Europe, in that time, would be three hundred and sixty millions
sterling.

If the foreign commerce of Great Britain be stated at a sixth part of
what the whole foreign commerce of Europe amounts to (which is probably
an inferior estimation to what the gentlemen at the Exchange would
allow) the proportion which Britain should draw by commerce of this sum,
to keep herself on a proportion with the rest of Europe, would be also
a sixth part which is sixty millions sterling; and if the same allowance
for waste and accident be made for England which M. Neckar makes for
France, the quantity remaining after these deductions would be fifty-two
millions; and this sum ought to have been in the nation (at the time Mr.
Chalmers published), in addition to the sum which was in the nation
at the commencement of the Hanover succession, and to have made in the
whole at least sixty-six millions sterling; instead of which there were
but twenty millions, which is forty-six millions below its proportionate
quantity.

As the quantity of gold and silver imported into Lisbon and Cadiz
is more exactly ascertained than that of any commodity imported into
England, and as the quantity of money coined at the Tower of London
is still more positively known, the leading facts do not admit of
controversy. Either, therefore, the commerce of England is unproductive
of profit, or the gold and silver which it brings in leak continually
away by unseen means at the average rate of about three-quarters of a
million a year, which, in the course of seventy-two years, accounts for
the deficiency; and its absence is supplied by paper.*[15]

The Revolution of France is attended with many novel circumstances, not
only in the political sphere, but in the circle of money transactions.
Among others, it shows that a government may be in a state of insolvency
and a nation rich. So far as the fact is confined to the late Government
of France, it was insolvent; because the nation would no