in others, may justly be expected by the community to be the inftrument by which all exceffes and abufes of paper credit are to be ftopped. Let him reflect on the distresses which may pervade a country through the failure of the credit even of a single house; the miseries that may overwhelm the ruined families; and the cruel anxiety which thoufands may experience in their efforts to fave themselves from the disgrace of failing in that general downfal of credit which his levity, his inconfideration, his extravagant use of his own credit, may contribute to bring on. Let him alfo dread the political evils which a general bankruptcy in a great mercantile and manufacturing country might produce. Let him remember, too, that paper credit is the great medium of our commerce, the coin in which the immenfe debts between trader and trader are paid; that the general currency of this coin depends on the general folvency of the perfons pledged to pay it; that an unsafe bill is a fort of base coin, which he should neither iffue himself, nor put off to others; and that though the law may not punish the fabrication of this counterfeit paper, as of counterfeit money,

U 2

money, yet the

moral evil is in each cafe

nearly the fame.

And let it be his practice to bear in mind that he is in continual danger of trefpaffing on the fide of too adventurous a system, for which the defire of present profit, or the prospect of some promising speculation, is ever pleading; that although it has been admitted that he is not bound to be provided for every poffible cafe which may occur, yet he must not, under cover of this conceffion, neglect to provide for such cases as are in any degree probable; that he has no right to found his expectations of being able to continue his course of payments on the fuppofed uniform continuance of all his present resources; that he ought to count on disappointments in his receipts, and on fulfilling to the utmost all his payments; that contingencies to a certain degree extraordinary are to be guarded against, as well as common fluctuations; and that experience has fhewn the neceffity of being prepared even for the event of fome general depreffion of credit in the mercantile world.

But the whole of a banker's duty in this respect does not confift in attending to the

nature

nature and state of his own engagements, with a view to his own individual fafety. Let him reflect how extremely important paper credit is to the country, and how neceffary to its maintenance it is that it fhould reft on proper and folid foundations. Let him therefore make the right ufe of the many opportunities which he poffeffes, of watching the bill tranfactions of others. Let him communicate with other bankers on this fubject; and fhew a marked diftruft of thofe perfons, whether his cuftomers or not, who are found to be aiming to extend their credit at the fame time in different quarters. Let him refuse to fign certificates for bankrupts, who, having had little capital, have nevertheless entered into enormous bill engagements, and have applied the money thus raised to the establishment of vaft monopolies, to wild and adventurous fpeculations, to fchemes of ambition, and to the support of expenfive and unfuitable domestic establishments; nor, if the mifconduct be clearly afcertained, let him be moved by the injudicious, perhaps interested, applications of his cuftomers or acquaintances on their behalf. In his common transactions let

him carefully obferve the nature of the bills brought before him to be discounted. Let him habitually request from thofe who bring them an explanation of every circumstance which feems dubious or fufpicious; and endeavour to imprefs his customers with a sense of the general importance of opennefs and honefty in explaining the nature of their bills. Let him particularly diftruft those bills which are not drawn in the customary way of trade for goods fold and delivered, but seem merely to be interchanged as matters of accommodation (s) between the two parties to the bill

each

(s) It is not meant that a bill of accommodation may. not occafionally be drawn with perfect propriety, and that a banker may not with equal propriety discount it: The chief objection to fuch bills, in point of morality, , is, that in common they apparently at least profess to be what they are not. They are stated on the face of them to be for value received; nay perhaps exprefsly for goods fold and delivered; the particular kind of goods being fometimes even named, and the bill drawn for a broken fum, ftill more to favour the deception: and thus they gain the credit which belongs to bills drawn in the ordinary course of business. All methods adopted for the purpose of disguifing the nature of the bill are palpably unjustifiable. With respect however to the practice of inferting the terms "value received" in the bill, though

no

each party perhaps raifing money at the fame time on the credit of a fimilar bill, and each trusting to maintain his ground by the repetition

no value has been given for it, it may be observed, that the law requires thefe words to be inferted in every bill in order to render it valid, and the debt which it acknowledges recoverable; as it requires a confideration of five fhillings, or a pepper-corn, though confeffedly never paid, to be inferted as paid in the deed conveying landed property. This circumstance is univerfally known, and the words in question may be regarded as a legal fiction. And the tranfaction will be free from moral guilt provided that the nature of the bill be avowed. The bill in that cafe is to be confidered merely as the inftrument by which one man gives his guarantee for the payment of a debt contracted by another; a thing which it is evidently fair that one man fhould do, when prudence permits, for another, if he knows his own guarantee to be fufficient, and does not attempt to make the tranfaction appear different from what it really is.

On the other hand, it is never to be forgotten how easily such bills may be fabricated for the purpose of deceit, and alfo multiplied without limit. It may be prudent, therefore, in ordinary cafes, to abstain from them altogether. If bills are given between traders only for goods fold and delivered, the amount of fuch bills in circulation cannot exceed the amount of debts in the way of actual trade; and this amount the acceptors are likely to be able to pay. The principle, therefore, of distinguishing bills of accommodation from bills in trade, seems