They seem then to have made
their option, and to have given some sort of credit to their paper
by taking it themselves; at the same time in their speeches they
made a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think,
above legislative competence; that is, that there is no difference
in value between metallic money and their assignats. This was a
good, stout, proof article of faith, pronounced under an anathema by
the venerable fathers of this philosophic synod. Credat who will-
certainly not Judaeus Apella.
A noble indignation rises in the minds of your popular leaders
on hearing the magic lantern in their show of finance compared to
the fraudulent exhibitions of Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear the
sands of his Mississippi compared with the rock of the church on which
they build their system. Pray let them suppress this glorious spirit
until they show to the world what piece of solid ground there is for
their assignats which they have not preoccupied by other charges. They
do injustice to that great mother fraud to compare it with their
degenerate imitation. It is not true that Law built solely on a
speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the East India trade;
he added the African trade; he added the farms of all the farmed
revenue of France. All these together unquestionably could not support
the structure which the public enthusiasm, not he, chose to build upon
these bases.
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