may be answered, that we can never have too many people (nor too much money.) For, when one branch of trade or business is overstocked with hands, there are the more to spare to be employed in another. So, if raising wheat proves dull, more may (if there is money to support and carry on new manufactures) proceed to the raising and manufacturing of hemp, silk, iron, and many other things the country is very capable of, for which we only want people to work, and money to pay them with.

Upon the whole it may be observed, that it is the highest interest of a trading country in general to make money plentiful; and that it can be a disadvantage to none that have honest designs. It cannot hurt even the usurers, though it should sink what they receive as interest; because they will be proportionably more secure in what they lend; or they will have an opportunity of employing their money to greater advantage, to themselves as well as to the country. Neither can it hurt those merchants, who have great sums outstanding in debts in the country, and seem on that account to have the most plausible reason to fear it; to wit, because a large addition being made to our currency will increase the demand of our exporting produce, and by that means raise the price of it, so that they will not be able to purchase so much bread or flour with one hundred pounds when they shall receive it after such an addition, as they now can, and may if there is no addition. I say it cannot hurt even such, because they will get in their debts just in exact proportion so much the easier and sooner as the money becomes plentier; and therefore, considering the interest and trouble saved, they will not be losers; because it only sinks in value as a currency, proportionally as it becomes more plenty. It cannot hurt the interest of Great Britain, as has been

shown; and it will greatly advance the interest of the proprietor. It will be an advantage to every industrious tradesman, &c., because his business will be carried on more freely, and trade be universally enlivened by it. And as more business in all manufactures will be done, by so much as the labor and time spent in exchange is saved, the country in general will grow so much the richer.

It is nothing to the purpose to object the wretched fall of the bills in New England and South Carolina, unless it might be made evident that their currency was emitted with the same prudence, and on such good security, as ours is; and it certainly was not.

As this essay is wrote and published in haste, and the subject in itself intricate, I hope I shall be censured with candor, if, for want of time carefully to revise what I have written, in some places I should appear to have expressed myself too obscurely, and in others am liable to objections I did not foresee. I sincerely desire to be acquainted with the truth, and on that account shall think myself obliged to any one, who will take the pains to show me, or the public, where I am mistaken in my conclusions. And as we all know there are among us several gentlemen of acute parts and profound learning, who are very much against any addition to our money, it were to be wished that they would favor the country with their sentiments on this head in print; which, supported with truth and good reasoning, may probably be very convincing. And this is to be desired the rather because many people, knowing the abilities of those gentlemen to manage a good cause, are apt to construe their silence in this, as an argument of a bad one. Had any thing of that kind ever yet appeared, perhaps I should not have given the public this

trouble. But, as those ingenious gentlemen have not yet (and I doubt never will) think it worth their concern to enlighten the minds of their erring countrymen in this particular, I think it would be highly commendable in every one of us, more fully to bend our minds to the study of what is the true interest of Pennsylvania; whereby we may be enabled, not only to reason pertinently with one another; but, if occasion requires, to transmit home such clear representations, as must inevitably convince our superiors of the reasonableness and integrity of our designs.*

Philadelphia, April 3, 1729.

* Soon after this pamphlet was written, the measure proposed in it was adopted by the Assembly of Pennsylvania; and subsequently another bill for a similar object was passed, the principal features of which were published by Governor Pownall. They were understood to have been communicated to him by Franklin, with other remarks on paper money. The proceedings of the Assembly on the subject are described in the extract below.

"As the paper-money act made and passed in Pennsylvania, in 1739, was the completest of the kind, containing all the improvements which experience had from time to time suggested, in the execution of preceding acts; an account of that act will best explain and recommend the measure contained in the following proposal.

"The sum of the notes, by that act directed to be printed, was eighty thousand pounds proclamation money. This money was to be emitted to the several borrowers, from a loan-office established for that purpose.

"Five persons were nominated trustees of the loan-office, under whose care and direction, the bills or notes were to be printed and emitted.

"To suit the bills for a common currency, they were of small and various denominations, from twenty shillings downwards to one shilling. "Various precautions were taken, to prevent counterfeits, by peculiarities in the paper, character, manner of printing, signing, numbering, &c. "The trustees took an oath, and gave security for the due and faithful execution of their office.

"They were to lend out the bills on real security of at least double the value, for a term of sixteen years, to be repaid in yearly quotas or instalments, with interest. Thus one sixteenth part of the principal was yearly paid back into the office, which made the payment easy to the borrower. The interest was applied to public services, the principal, during the first ten years, let out again to fresh borrowers.

"The new borrowers, from year to year, were to have the money only VOL. II.

X

ON GOVERNMENT. - No. I.*

FROM THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, APRIL I, 1736.

GOVERNMENT is aptly compared to architecture; if the superstructure is too heavy for the foundation, the building totters, though assisted by outward props of art. But leaving it to everybody to mould the similitude according to his particular fancy, I shall only observe, that the people have made the most considerable part of the legislature in every free state; which has been more or less so, in proportion to the share they have had in the administration of affairs. The English constitution is fixed on the strongest basis; we

for the remaining part of the term of sixteen years, repaying, by fewer and, of course, proportionably larger instalments, and during the last six years of the sixteen, the sums paid in were not to be remitted, but the notes burnt and destroyed; so that, at the end of the sixteen years, the whole might be called in and burnt, and the accounts completely settled.

"The trustees were taken from all the different counties of the province, their residence in different parts giving them better opportunities of being acquainted with the value and circumstances of estates offered in mortgage.

"They were to continue but four years in office; were to account annually to committees of Assembly; and, at the expiration of that term, they were to deliver up all moneys and securities in their hands, to their successors, before their bonds and securities could be discharged.

"Lest a few wealthy persons should engross the money, which was intended for more general benefit, no one person, whatever security he might offer, could borrow more than one hundred pounds.

"Thus, numbers of poor new settlers were accommodated and assisted with money to carry on their settlements, to be repaid in easy portions yearly, as the yearly produce of their lands should enable them." POWNALL'S Administration of the Colonies, 4th edit. pp. 234 - 236. - EDITOR.

*What proof there is, that the two essays on Government were written by Franklin, except that they appeared in his Gazette, I have no means of determining. The internal evidence does not appear very strong. They are included in Duane's edition. - EDITOR.

choose whomsoever we please for our representatives, and thus we have all the advantages of a democracy, without any of its inconveniences.

Popular governments have not been framed without the wisest reasons. It seemed highly fitting, that the conduct of magistrates, created by and for the good of the whole, should be made liable to the inspection and animadversion of the whole. Besides, there could not be a more potent counterpoise to the designs of ambitious men, than a multitude that hated and feared ambition. Moreover, the power they possessed, though great collectively, yet, being distributed among a vast number, the share of each individual was too inconsiderable to lay him under any temptations of turning it to a wrong use. Again, a body of people thus circumstanced cannot be supposed to judge amiss on any essential points; for, if they decide in favor of themselves, which is extremely natural, their decision is just, inasmuch, as whatever contributes to their benefit is a general benefit, and advances the real public good. Hence we have an easy solution of the sophism, so often proposed by the abettors of tyranny, who tell us, that, when differences arise between a prince and his subjects, the latter are incapable of being judges of the controversy, for that would be setting up judge and party in the same person.

Some foreigners, have had a truer idea of our constitution. We read in the Memoirs of the late archbishop of Cambray, Fenelon, the celebrated author of Telemachus, a conversation which he had with the Pretender, (son of James the Second, of England.) "If ever you come to the crown of England," says the bishop, " you will be a happy prince; with an unlimited power to do good, and only restrained from doing evil." A blunt Briton, perhaps, would have