It is a matter of official
record. The reasonings of this able financier concerning the quantity of
gold and silver which remained for circulation, when he wrote in 1785,
that is, about four years before the deposition and imprisonment of the
French king, are not of equal certainty; but they are laid on grounds so
apparently solid, that it is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of
assent to his calculation. He calculates the _numeraire_, or what we
call _specie_, then actually existing in France, at about eighty-eight
millions of the same English money. A great accumulation of wealth for
one country, large as that country is! M. Necker was so far from
considering this influx of wealth as likely to cease, when he wrote in
1785, that he presumes upon a future annual increase of two per cent
upon the money brought into France during the periods from which he
computed.
Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined
at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have
kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of treasure
as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any
reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must
still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus powerful to acquire and to
retain cannot be found in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
positively destructive government.
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