preparations, and to import it into Europe, must be attended with some certain expense. I will suppose this to be as 1 to 64. When the specie was once doubled, and consequently became by one-half less precious, the expense was as 2 to 64. Thus the galoons which brought to Spain the same quantity of gold, brought a thing which really was of less value by one-half, though the expenses attending it had been twice as high.

If we proceed doubling and doubling, we shall find in this progression the cause of the impotency of the wealth of Spain.

It is about two hundred years since they have worked their Indian mines. I suppose the quantity of specie at present in the trading world is to that before the discovery of the Indies as 32 is to I; that is, it has been doubled five times: in two hundred years more the same quantity will be to that before the discovery as 64 is to I; that is, it will be doubled once more. Now, at present, fifty quintals of ore yield four, five, and six ounces of gold; y and when it yields only two, the miner receives no more from it than his expenses. In two hundred years, when the miner will extract only four, this too will only defray his charges. There will then be but little profit to be drawn from the gold mines. The same reasoning will hold good of silver, except that the working of the silver mines is a little more advantageous than those of gold.

But, if mines should be discovered so fruitful as to give a much greater profit, the more fruitful they may be, the sooner the profit will cease.

The Portuguese in Brazil have found mines of gold so rich, that they must necessarily very soon make a considerable diminution in the profits of those of Spain, as well as in their

own.

I have frequently heard people deplore the blindness of the Court of France, who repulsed Christopher Columbus, when he made the proposal of discovering the Indies. Indeed they did, though perhaps without design, an act of the greatest wisdom. Spain has behaved like the foolish king who desired that

y See Frezier's "Voyages."

According to Lord Anson, Europe receives every year from Brazil two millions sterling in gold, which is found in sand at the foot of the mountains, or in the beds of rivers. When I wrote the little treatise mentioned in the first note of this chapter the returns from Brazil

were far from being so considerable an item as they are at present.

a Voltaire deplores the insufficiency of Montesquieu's knowledge upon finance and commerce, saying that these principles were not then discovered, or, at least, had not been developed in his time.-Ed.

everything he touched might be converted into gold, and who was obliged to beg of the gods to put an end to his misery.

The companies and banks established in many nations have put a finishing stroke to the lowering of gold and silver as a sign of representation of riches; for by new fictions they have multiplied in such a manner the signs of wealth, that gold and silver having this office only in part have become less precious. Thus public credit serves instead of mines, and diminishes the profit which the Spaniards drew from theirs.

True it is that the Dutch trade to the East Indies has increased, in some measure, the value of the Spanish merchandise for as they carry bullion, and give it in exchange for the merchandise of the East, they ease the Spaniards of part of a commodity which in Europe abounds too much.

And this trade, in which Spain seems to be only indirectly concerned, is as advantageous to that nation as to those who are directly employed in carrying it on.

From what has been said we may form a judgment of the last order of the Council of Spain, which prohibits the making use of gold and silver in gildings, and other superfluities; a decree as ridiculous as it would be for the states of Holland to prohibit the consumption of spices.

My reasoning does not hold good against all mines; those of Germany and Hungary, which produce little more than the expense of working them, are extremely useful. They are found in the principal state; they employ many thousand men, who there consume their superfluous commodities, and they are properly a manufacture of the country.

The mines of Germany and Hungary promote the culture of land; the working of those of Mexico and Peru destroys it.

The Indies and Spain are two powers under the same master; but the Indies are the principal, while Spain is only an accessory. It is in vain for politics to attempt to bring back the principal to the accessory; the Indies will always draw Spain to themselves.

Of the merchandise, to the value of about fifty millions of livres, annually sent to the Indies, Spain furnishes only two millions and a half: the Indies trade for fifty millions, the Spaniards for two and a half.

b Voltaire holds that the Spaniards had no manufactures of their own, and

that they were obliged to draw such supplies from abroad.-Ed.

That must be a bad kind of riches which depends on accident, and not on the industry of a nation, on the number of its inhabitants, and on the cultivation of its lands. The King of Spain, who receives great sums from his custom-house at Cadiz, is in this respect only a rich individual in a state extremely poor. Everything passes between strangers and himself, while his subjects have scarcely any share in it; this commerce is independent both of the good and bad fortune of his kingdom.

Were some provinces of Castile able to give him a sum equal to that of the custom-house of Cadiz, his power would be much greater; his riches would be the effect of the wealth of the country; these provinces would animate all the others, and they would be altogether more capable of supporting their respective charges; instead of a great treasury he would have a great people.

23.-A Problem

It is not for me to decide the question whether if Spain be not herself able to carry on the trade of the Indies, it would not be better to leave it open to strangers. I will only say that it is for their advantage to load this commerce with as few obstacles as politics will permit. When the merchandise which several nations send to the Indies is very dear, the inhabitants of that country give a great deal of their commodities, which are gold and silver, for very little of those of foreigners; the contrary to this happens when they are at a low price. It would perhaps be of use that these nations should undersell each other, to the end that the merchandise carried to the Indies might be always cheap. These are principles which deserve to be examined, without separating them, however, from other considerations: the safety of the Indies, the advantages of only one custom-house, the danger of making great alterations, and the foreseen inconveniences, which are often less dangerous than those which cannot be foreseen.

BOOK XXII

OF LAWS IN RELATION TO THE USE OF MONEY

PEO

1.-The Reason of the Use of Money

EOPLE who have little merchandise, as savages, and among civilized nations those who have only two or three species, trade by exchange. Thus the caravans of Moors that go to Timbuctoo, in the heart of Africa, have no need of money, for they exchange their salt for gold. The Moor puts his salt in a heap, and the Negro his dust in another; if there is not gold enough, the Moor takes away some of his salt, or the Negro adds more gold, till both parties are agreed.

But when a nation traffics with a great variety of merchandise, money becomes necessary; because a metal easily carried from place to place saves the great expenses which people would be obliged to be at if they always proceeded by exchange.

As all nations have reciprocal wants, it frequently happens that one is desirous of a large quantity of the other's merchandise, when the latter will have very little of theirs, though with respect to another nation the case is directly opposite. But when nations have money, and proceed by buying and selling, those who take most merchandise pay the balance in specie. And there is this difference, that in the case of buying, the trade carried on is in proportion to the wants of the nation that has the greatest demands; whilst in bartering, the trade is only according to the wants of the nation whose demands are the fewest; without which the latter would be under an impossibility of balancing its accounts.

2. Of the Nature of Money

Money is a sign which represents the value of all merchandise. Metal is taken for this sign, as being durable,a because

a The salt made use of for this purpose in Abyssinia has this defect, that it is continually wasting away.

it consumes but little by use; and because, without being destroyed, it is capable of many divisions. A precious metal has been chosen as a sign, as being most portable. A metal is most proper for a common measure, because it can be easily reduced to the same standard. Every state fixes upon it a particular impression, to the end that the form may correspond with the standard and the weight, and that both may be known by inspection only.

The Athenians, not having the use of metals, made use of oxen,b and the Romans of sheep; but one ox is not the same as another ox in the manner that one piece of metal may be the same as another.

As specie is the sign of the value of merchandise, paper is the sign of the value of specie; and when it is of the right sort, it represents this value in such a manner that as to the effects produced by it there is not the least difference.

In the same manner, as money is the sign and representative of a thing, everything is a sign and representative of money; and the state is in a prosperous condition when on the one hand money perfectly represents all things, and on the other all things perfectly represent money, and are reciprocally the sign of each other; that is, when they have such a relative value that we may have the one as soon as we have the other. This never happens in any other than a moderate government, nor does it always happen there; for example, if the laws favor the dishonest debtor, his effects are no longer a representative or sign of money. With regard to a despotic government, it would be a prodigy did things there represent their sign. Tyranny and distrust make everyone bury their specie; c things therefore are not there the representative of money.

Legislators have sometimes had the art not only to make things in their own nature the representative of specie, but to convert them even into specie, like the current coin. Cæsar, when he was dictator, permitted debtors to give their lands in payment to their creditors, at the price they were worth before the civil war.d Tiberius ordered that those who desired specie

b Herodotus, in " 'Clio," tells us that the Lydians found out the art of coining money; the Greeks learned it from them; the Athenian coin had the impression of their ancient ox. I have seen one of those pieces in the Earl of Pembroke's cabinet.

c It is an ancient custom in Algiers for the father of a family to have a treasure concealed in the earth.-" History of the Kingdom of Algiers," by Laugier de Tassis.

d Cæsar on the "Civil War," book III.