it is practicable for the country to return to a metallic medium, and that it would be wise to do so. The following considerations may be urged in opposition to these views.

These are a saving of time, trouble, and expense. After there has, by the progressive advancement of society, been a great accumulation of wealth in a community, men naturally resort to expedients to abridge the labour of transporting large amounts of the precious metals required for their numerous exchanges. We may form some idea of this when we recollect that a payment of ten thousand dollars in silver, would weigh 660 pounds. And although gold, by its greater value for its weight, is not subject to the same inconvenience, it has another, which is still greater. It requires to be weighed and assayed-the unassisted senses not being able to secure its receiver from fraud, either in the quantity or quality of the metal in the form of coin. Commercial nations have, therefore, soon endeavoured to rid themselves of these inconveniencies by the expedients of bonds, bills of exchange, and bank notes, by which values could be transmitted from one place or person to another with more safety, rapidity, and ease, than it could be in gold or silver. They had indeed the same sort of advantage over these metals, which they once had over simple barter; and it is worthy of remark, that in a still more advanced state of wealth, men have devised a mode of saving even the time, and trouble, and risk of transmitting and circulating bank notes, by means of bank cheques, and a general meeting of the bankers whose cheques are received are set off against those they have paid away, and the difference only is paid in notes.

It is true that these substitutes for coin, being founded on credit, and not having intrinsic value, partake of the vicissitudes to which that is exposed, and may become worthless. But as men continue to use them, the benefits must be supposed to outweigh this inconvenience. The useful functions of money may be assimilated to that of a carriage, in giving facility to the transmission of values from person to person, as the other does from place to place; and though these vehicles may occasionally overset or be run away with, men still continue to use them, and resort VOL. II.-43

to various plans of avoiding or lessening the danger. After their convenience has been experienced, the scheme of attempting to do without one, is about as practicable as to do without the other. All then that can be done so as to regulate them is to increase the good and to lessen the mischief; for which purpose some have preferred banks of deposit, others, banks of circulation. Some have left the banking trade free, and others have confined it to those who obtained charters. Some have moulded the charter one way, and some another.

Mr. Jefferson seems also to underrate the benefit of the substitutions. At the time he wrote, it was probably between forty and fifty millions. It is true that the amount bears but a small proportion to the national capital, and not a large one to the national income, but its useful functions are exerted, whenever a payment is made with it, and according to the several payments made with a bank note in a year, is its utility multiplied. The amount of the paper money then very inadequately measures the value of its annual saving of time and labour, in addition to the clear addition which it makes to the active capital, by releasing so much of gold and silver from performing the office of money to be employed in any other way.

Nor can the depreciation caused by bank paper, be supposed to have been as great as he estimated it. It is true that the banks had then suspended cash payments, and the only efficient check on their issues being thus removed, they became excessive, and then paper consequently was necessarily depreciated, varying from 10 to 25 per cent. But while banks pay specie, there are narrow limits beyond which that depreciation cannot pass, for the moment they tend to pass it, the paper is converted into specie. As this process will soon have the effect of emptying the vaults of the bank, when its paper loses its credit, those institutions have a direct interest in keeping their issues within moderate limits, and of preventing depreciation. It is true they may somewhat depreciate gold and siver, but this evil also begets its own correction, by causing exportation of the redundant currency, and which being diminished in the banks compels a proportional reduction of the paper in circulation,

which restores its value, and consequently the profits and solidity of the banks.

It is also true, the great gain arising from the substitution of paper money for gold and silver, the state may appropriate to itself. Yet as this expedient is opposed to the danger of giving a corrupting influence to whatever functionaries of the government the purse was confided to, of abuses and malpractices in the agents of the government, of want of skill and prudence in making loans if the money was lent, and of still greater dangers if it were to await the disbursements of the government. The public therefore had better forego this advantage, and leave the business to the management of private capitalists, who would be prompted by self-interest to give to the public a safe currency, to lend only to those who would use the money most productively, who, looking to the institution as a source of profit, would be neither able nor willing to spend their money in political schemes, and who, moreover, may be subjected to the supervision of the legislature.

These letters were probably not without effect. The treasury notes which were soon after issued, may have been suggested by them, and the scheme entertained some time since of a treasury bank at Washington, seems to have been borrowed from the same source.

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CHAPTER XV.

Correspondence with Mr. Adams. On party divisions. On the true principles of Christianity. On Aristocracy. His frank disclosure of his opinions. His opinion of Napoleon. Letter to Dr. W. Jones. Character of General Washington. To Mr. Cabell on the qualifications of Members of Congress. On the importance of Education, and the division of the country into Wards. The latter policy examined. Napoleon. Plato. Letter to Mr. Monroe. Capture of Washington. Public Finances. To La Fayette. Political condition of France. His feeling towards the English government and nation. Resigns the office of President of the American Philosophical Society.

1813-1815.

He again wrote, on June 27th, 1813, to Mr. Adams on the unpleasant subject of his letters to Dr. Priestley. He says that the same parties which now divide the United States, have existed from all time. "Whether the power of the people, or that of the air should prevail, were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot; and in fact, the term Whig and Tory belong to natural as well as civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals." He refers to the first Congress, when the "Jays and the Dickinsons," and other anti-independents were arrayed against Mr. Adams and himself. Then to the schisms between the "feds and

antis." Here he says they came together again, for although he at first wished that some of the states should hold off from the constitution until some amendments were made, he afterwards acceded to the wiser proposition of Massachusetts, that all the states should at once confirm the constitution, and then instruct their delegates to urge those amendments. As soon as the constitution went into operation, they again broke into two parties, and here he and Mr. Adams again separated. One party placed Mr. Adams's name at its head, the other selected his, but neither of them took any part personally in the discussions which ensued. These discussions were conducted with a bitterness which was never exceeded. Among the various modes of discussion may be named the private correspondence of individuals, in which, not being intended for the public eye, the writers were more unguarded. In this way they had both indulged themselves. They had probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but always as they believed, adhering to truth. He says that one of his letters had, by the death of the friend to whom it was addressed, and by the malice and treachery of a third person, found its way before the public. That he had already explained how he came to mention Mr. Adams's name. He disclaims all intention of renewing these discussions as equally unavailing, and unsuited to their age; and he declares that his mind had been long fixed to bow to the judgment of the world, who would judge of him by his acts, and not take counsel of him, and that nothing could induce him to deviate from that course. That "those among us whose names may happen to be remembered, would be judged by posterity favourably or otherwise, according to the complexion of individual minds, and the side they shall themselves have taken."

The reconciliation between these venerable patriots seemed to have been complete after this letter, as a brisk correspondence was immediately afterwards carried on between them, on various subjects of morals and religion, particularly as to the opinions of Dr. Priestley, with which Mr. Jefferson's seemed