6358. PAPER MONEY, English assignats.—[further continued].
The English are trying
to stop the torrent of bankruptcies by an
emission of five millions of exchequer bills,
loaned on the pawn-broking plan, consequently
much inferior to the assignats in
value. But the paper will sink to an immediate
level with their other public paper, and
consequently can only complete the ruin of
those who take it from the government at
par, and on a pledge of pins, buckles, &c.,
of double value, which will not sell so as to
pay storage in a country where there is no
specie, and we may say no paper of confidence.
Every letter which comes expresses
a firm belief that the whole paper system will
now vanish into that nothing on which
it is bottomed. For even the public faith
is nothing, as the mass of paper bottomed on
it is known to be beyond its possible redemption.
I hope this will be a wholesome lesson
to our future Legislature.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iv, 8.
Ford ed., vi, 326.
(June. 1793)
