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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