That part of your prospectus, in which you endeavour to prove that there enters nothing of human convention in the establishment of money, is certainly very curious, and very elaborately composed; and yet I cannot forbear thinking that the common opinion has some foundation. It is true, money must always be made of some materials, which have intrinsic value, otherwise it would be multiplied without end, and would sink to nothing. But, when I take a shilling, I consider it not as a useful metal, but as something which another will take from me; and the person who shall convert it into metal is, probably, several millions of removes distant. You know that all states have made it criminal to melt their coin; and, though this is a law which cannot well be executed, it is not to be supposed that, if it could, it would entirely destroy the value of the money, according to your hypothesis. You have a base coin, called billon, in France, composed of silver and copper, which has a ready currency, though the separation of the two metals, and the reduction of them to their primitive state, would, I am told, be both expensive and troublesome. Our shillings and sixpences, which are almost our only silver coin, are so much worn by use, that they are twenty, thirty, or forty per cent. below
their original value; yet they pass currently; which can arise only from a tacit convention. Our colonies in America, for want of specie, used to coin a paper currency; which were not bank notes, because there was no place appointed to give money in exchange: yet this paper currency passed in all payments, by convention; and might have gone on, had it not been abused by the several assemblies, who issued paper without end, and thereby discredited the currency.
You mention several kinds of money, sheep, oxen, fish, employed as measures of exchange, or as money, in different parts of the world. You have overlooked that, in our colony of Pennsylvania, the land itself, which is the chief commodity, is coined, and passes in circulation. The manner of conducting this affair is as follows:—A planter, immediately after he purchases any land, can go to a public office and receive notes to the amount of half the value of his land; which notes he employs in all payments, and they circulate through the whole colony, by convention. To prevent the public from being overwhelmed by this fictitious money, there are two means employed—first, the notes issued to any one planter, must not exceed a certain sum, whatever may be the value of his land: secondly, every planter is obliged to pay back into the public office every year one-tenth part of his notes; the whole, of course, is annihilated in ten years; after which, it is again allowed him to take out new notes to half the value of his land. An account of this curious operation would enrich your dictionary; and you may have a more particular detail of it, if you please, from Dr. Franklin, who will be in Paris about this time, and will be glad to see you. I conveyed to him your prospectus, and he expressed to me a great esteem of it.
I see that, in your prospectus, you take care not to disoblige your economists, by any declaration of your sentiments; in which I commend your prudence. But I hope that in your work you will thunder them, and crush them, and pound them, and reduce them to dust and ashes! They are, indeed, the set of men the most chimerical and most arrogant that now exist, since the annihilation of the Sorbonne. I ask your pardon for saying so, as I know you belong to that venerable body. I wonder what could engage our friend, M.
Turgot, to herd among them; I mean, among the economists; though I believe he was also a Sorbonnist.
I sent your prospectus to Dr. Tucker, but have not heard from him since. I shall myself deliver copies to Dr. Robertson and Mr. Smith, as I go to Scotland this autumn.
And now, my dear Abbé, what remains to me but to wish you success in your judicious labours? to embrace you, and through you, to embrace all our common friends, D'Alembert, Helvétius, Buffon, Baron d'Holbach, Suard, Mlle. L'Espinasse? Poor Abbé Le Bon is dead, I hear. The Abbé Galliani goes to Naples: he does well to leave Paris before I come thither; for I should certainly put him to death for all the ill he has spoken of England. But it has happened, as was foretold by his friend, Caraccioli; who said that the Abbé would remain two months in this country, would speak all himself, would not allow an Englishman to utter a syllable; and after returning would give the character of the nation during the rest of his life, as if he were perfectly well acquainted with them.
Pray make my compliments to M. Maletête. Tell him, that Prince Masserane says, that he has saved much effusion of blood to this country. It is certain that M. Maletête had a great curiosity to see a riot here, and yet was resolved to keep his person in safety. For this purpose, he hired a window; and proposed to be present at one of the mad elections of Wilkes, and to divert himself with the fray. Somebody got a hint of it, and put it into the newspapers; asking the freeholders if they were so degenerate as to make themselves a laughing stock, even to the French, their enemies, whom they despised. Prince Masserane alleges that this incident made that election so remarkably peaceable!
Are you acquainted with Crébillon? I am ashamed to mention his name. He sent me over his last work, with a very obliging letter: but as I must write to him in French, I have never answered him. If all the English were as impertinent as I am, the Abbé Galliani would have reason to abuse us.—I am, dear Abbé, after asking your blessing, yours sincerely.[428:1]
"I returned to Edinburgh in 1769," says Hume in his "own Life," "very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of £1000 a-year) healthy, and though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation." He had thus finally triumphed over the temptations which assailed him abroad, and resolved to spend the remainder of his days among the friends of his youth. He had received very strong solicitations from Madame de Boufflers and others, to take up his abode at Paris. In one letter she informs him that there is a house prepared for him in the Temple, and another with a large garden near the Bois de Boulogne.[429:1] To these pressing offers he seems not to have trusted himself with rendering a direct answer, leaving his projects undefined, until, by returning to Edinburgh, he rendered the acceptance of such invitations impracticable. Fairly re-established in his old house in James's Court, and enjoying its magnificent prospect, we find him thus writing to Smith:—