In the meantime its binding force will be very uncertain,
and it will straiten or relax with every variation in the credit of
the paper.
One thing only is certain in this scheme, which is an effect
seemingly collateral, but direct, I have no doubt, in the minds of
those who conduct this business, that is, its effect in producing an
oligarchy in every one of the republics. A paper circulation, not
founded on any real money deposited or engaged for, amounting
already to forty-four millions of English money, and this currency
by force substituted in the place of the coin of the kingdom, becoming
thereby the substance of its revenue as well as the medium of all
its commercial and civil intercourse, must put the whole of what
power, authority, and influence is left, in any form whatsoever it may
assume, into the hands of the managers and conductors of this
circulation.
In England, we feel the influence of the Bank, though it is only
the center of a voluntary dealing. He knows little indeed of the
influence of money upon mankind who does not see the force of the
management of a monied concern which is so much more extensive and
in its nature so much more depending on the managers than any of ours.
But this is not merely a money concern. There is another member in the
system inseparably connected with this money management. It consists
in the means of drawing out at discretion portions of the
confiscated lands for sale, and carrying on a process of continual
transmutation of paper into land, and land into paper.
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