ESSAY
Towards Setling a
NATIONAL CREDIT.
First Published in the Year, MDCXCVI.
To the Right Honourable the LORDS Spiritual and Temporal, and to the Honourable the Commons of ENGLAND in Parliament Assembled.
HAVING lately presented your Honours with An Essay on Coin and Credit, the chief Design whereof was to shew the Necessity of Setling a well-grounded Credit in this Nation, for Support of the Government, and carrying on its Trade; I do now with all Humility lay before you Proposals to answer that end, which I have not clogg’d with Compulsion to the Subject, supposing nothing of this Nature can be good, where a Common Consent, grounded upon Interest, doth not make it valuable.
Banks, as I humbly conceive, ought chiefly to be Calculated for the Use of Trade, and modeled so as may best content the Traders. What gives them Satisfaction, will answer all other Occasions of the Kingdom. Money passes through the Hands of the Nobility and Gentry, only as Water doth through Conduit-Pipes into the Cistern, but Centers in the Hands of Traders, where it Circulates, and may be said to be used; and among these, Ease, Profit, and Security, are Arguments strong enough to keep a Bank always full; Besides, when the Streights of the Government are taken off, greater Sums will come into Trade, which are now drawn out, in order to make Advantages, above what the Profits of Trade will bring in.
The Heads whereon I propose to build this National Credit, are these which follow:
That a Bank be Erected on the Credit of the Parliament, the Profit or Loss thereof to redound to the Nation, whose chief Chamber shall be setled in London, but lesser Chambers in other Places of this Kingdom, at such Distances, as may best Answer the Occasions of the Country; which Chambers to account with that of London, and that to Commissioners appointed by Parliament.
That this Bank shall take in what running Cash shall be offered, and shall give their Notes for it; and shall also allow Interest after the Rate of ### per Cent. per Annum, after the first ### days, till those Notes be paid, and shall also pay it again to the Proprietors, or any part thereof, when demanded.