have done the mischief, if the Bo-able to pay in gold. Not only roughmongers had not authorized that Bank must be prepared for a run; but all the country-banks must also be prepared for a run. And, is it pretended, that all those banks were thus prepared in 1816? Nobody will have the impudence to pretend to believe any such a thing. To be able to pay, really to pay, in specie, there must be full as much gold afloat and in the Bank as there is of paper afloat. Indeed there ought to be more gold than paper. And, it is pretended, that this was the case in 1816? As to the people refusing gold and preferring paper, the people had no choice. The thing was a mere The tax-gatherers were ordered to refuse gold without. weighing it; the Bankers played off the same trick. But the trick did not last. Gold was soon preferred to paper; and the gold soon wholly disappeared. trick. It was said, on all sides, that the Borough-Bank might have resumed specie-payments in 1816; for that then the paper was at par with gold. Yes, it was at par with gold, but, it was only because specie - payments had not taken place. The Borough-Bank could not have ventured to pay in specie without providing itself with more gold than it then had. To have made this provision, it must have issued a new batch of notes, and this would, in an instant, have raised the gold above the paper; and would, of course, have made the Borough-Bank unable to pay in specie. The paper may be brought to a par with gold, and yet the Borough-Bank may be un-durance at the close of 1816. A Besides, when it is said, that the Bank could have paid in specie, it appears to be forgotten, that the attempt to prepare to pay had plunged the country into the deepest of misery. The misery was at nearly the last stage of en very little harder have blown up the whole sys-be, at once, at a premium; seeing pressing would circulation, seeing that they must tem. Farms were deserted. The paupers prouled from parish to parish. Society was nearly dis B that the golden pound must, at once, he worth more than the paper pound. What wonder was it, there solved. What, then, would have been the case, if the Borough-fore, that the sovereigns marchBank and all the Banks had en-ed off to the mint of the Bour *་ abled themselves to pay in reali- bons? ? The B he Bank might, in ty? That the Banks could have paid we know well; for they can 'do it at any time; and your lordship can jump from the top of a chimney of Coleshill House; but, as to the consequences, that is a different matter. The Borough-Bank has been blamed for issuing sovereigns without contracting its issues of to be paper at the same time. How was the Bank to get the sovereigns? It had bought them; and with what? Why, with notes, to sure. So that it was impossible to lessen the quantity of paper by this operation. When, indeed, the Bank paid out sovereigns, it would, of course, receive back the paper which it had given for them; deed, have contracted its issues KU sove reigns in the country; but, then, this contraction, together with that of the country-banks, would have produced all the miseries before-mentioned. It would have 31118 been the same thing as paying in specie. It would, if the people would have endured it, caused millions to die, being actually starved. The breaking of little banks, in this country, and at this season of the year, is, at this moment, producing, all of a sudden, most shocking misery. Men are prouting about out of employ And this, though the national Bank pays in specie. lessening of the quantity of the circulating medium, no matter out paper to get the sovereigns, what that medium is, must of nemsinca bad s the Bank had made the paper be cessity produce such effects. producitaci below 9750 gros sleg sem of es ca botcsmges par. When, therefore, the And, does your lordship really i darom viitegaon 10 Jedeng & equidade vines sovereigns got out, it was impos- Believe, that it can be lessened in sible that they could remain in England? Do you believe, that dow n'edsud berbaus s n but not all of it; for by putting 3. 111 e behand But, the taxes. specie-payments can take place to part with, in order to pay my without a lessening? How then can you believe, that the BoroughBank and all the Banks could have paid in specie in 1816 ? Lord Grenville said, that the paper-system added to the taxes. But how? Not in the way that he appeared to suppose. It has caused taxes to be laid, because it has enabled the Boroughmongers to borrow money for the purpose of paying soldiers, supporting French emigrants, larding the fat elergy of England, and granting sinecures and pensions to themselves and families and dependants. But, the money once borrowed, the taxes once laid, the more paper-money there is, the less is the real amount of those taxes. The price of all things rises; and, of course, fewer things of the same real value are wanted to discharge any given amount of tax. For instance, if I am a far mer, and my taxes amount to a bundred a year, I have two hun dred bushels of wheat to part with in order to pay my taxes, if the wheat be ten shillings a bushel. 1 Hence it was, that the taxes were paid, and cheerfully paid, until 1815; because, though their nominal amount was great, the great quantity of money enabled the people to pay. But now, when endeavours are making to pay in specie; when, of course, contractions of the paper are taking place; and when prices are, by these means, kept down, the taxes are greatly augmented, noi by an increase, but by a diminu tion, of the quantity of the paper. And, my lord, do you believe, that specie-payments could, then, have taken place in 1816, and that the then nominal amount of the taxes could have been paid? Is it possible that your lordship can believe this? Yet, this is JENKINSON'S notion now! And, indeed, it appears to be the notion of almost all the members of both Houses. What a monstrous notion ! Upon the nature of the papersystem generally, Lord Grenville observed, that it was, in all cases, a bad system; for that, though it gave the appearance But, if the quantity of money be augmented, so as to make wheat twenty shillings a bushel, I have of prosperity, though it enaonly a hundred bushels of wheat bled governments to carry on toff-gvsifid not war, and to do divers other things, for a while, it was sure to produce great calamities in the end. His Lordship made a long a-do in saying this. I have shown the thing a thousand times over. But, PAINE did it long before, when, in one short sentence, he told his readers, that, "Paper money was strength in the beginning, and feebleness in the end:" words which the Boroughmongers will soon have cause most feelingly to understand. The strength of the Borough Paper has been enjoyed; and now its feebleness has to be endured. It is now producing evils of every kind that can be imagined. It is ruining respectable families; it is pushing down the middling class might, by wise measures, be restored to happiness, now resembles a city infected with the plague. Now, as to the PLAN, the grand plan, which is to rescue the Borough-system from its perilous state; it is, as I understand it, as follows: 1. That the follows: Borough-Bank shall not pay in. coin until the end of four years: 2. That it shall begin to pay its notes in bullion in February next, provided that those who demand such payment shall not demand less than sixty ounces at a time; and, even, then, the Bank is, for four pounds and one shilling in its notes, to give one ounce of gold; or, in other words, is to receive its own notes at a discount of about five per centum: 3. That, from October 1820 to May 1821, the Bank is to pay in bullion of thirty ounces, and is to receive its notes at a discount of about two and a half per centum: 4. That struction. A scourge far greater in 1823, the Bank, the brave Bothan the sword and the pestilence. rough-Bank, the Old Lady, is, To save themselves from the ef-without any reduction of Debt, to fects of this system, the people pay in coin!!!-If she do, I will are, in all directions, fleeing to give my poor body up to be broiled foreign lands; and England, on one of Castlereagh's widestwhich, in a few short months, ribbed gridirons. ་ of people; it is starving the labouring classes; it is filling the transportation ships, and making the gallows groan; it is breaking hearts by hundreds of thousands, and is arming the hand of self-de Now this is the grand plan. This is the remedy unanimously adopted. This is what both bodies of wise-acres have agreed to. This is 91 worthy of attention, except the matters of fact, stated in the re-' ply of the Directors of the Borough-Bank. In short, the stuff, the rock of Boroughmonger salva-called evidence, is a parcel of 1 Such is the evidence, on which tion; and that this rock is all a gabble from the lips of a set of sham I am now going to prove.— stock-jobbers and loan jobbers, Indeed, this has been, a hundred who know very well how to suck times, proved before-hand; for blood out of the nation, but who all the notions, on which the plan know nothing of the means of is founded, have, over and over putting blood into it. again, been, by me, proved to be false. The effects of the paper-this plan is founded; and, it must system were, by repeating my be confessed, the witnesses, the opinions and words, pretty well evidence, the committees and the described, during the debate; but, as to the remedy, every no-associated together. tion, on which it is founded, is false. plan, are all well worthy of being, The Plan, as a means of deceiving the people, might, if It is pretended, that the plan is there were no one to expose it, founded on evidence. The evi- answer its purpose for a short dence, which I have read till I time. For, it puts off the day of am sick almost unto death, is a real payment to a comfortable mass of heterogenous trash, such, distance. The guilty always seek I believe, as never was before a distant day of trial. But, to compiled into a book. The wit- have appointed the four years, nesses contradict each other as to without any intermediate steps, matters of fact as well as to mat-would have shook off a great maters of opinion; and every wit-ny of the fools, who will, now ny of the ness, either directly or by impli- hang on to the system a little cation, contradicts himself over longer, and over again. And, of the whole mass of the stuff, called evidence, there is not one sentence 1 It is difficult, in all cases, to deal with an absurdity, and especially if the absurdity be compli |