網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

It may not be amiss to inform you, that the proprietary party give out, that they have assurances from the Proprietors, that they never will consent to a sur

order all their remittances in bills of exchange, though less advantageous, which must increase the demand for bills and enhance the price of them.

"4. A great demand in Europe for any of the commodities of the colonies, and large orders for those commodities from the British merchants to their traders here, with directions to draw for the value, may occasion exchange to fall for a time, even though the imports should be greater than the exports.

"5. Hence it appears, that a sudden great demand for bills in the colonies may, at any time, advance the exchange; and a sudden great demand abroad for their commodities may cause the exchange to fall.

6. Gold and silver will always rise and fall very nearly in proportion as exchange rises and falls, being only wanted, in those colonies that have a paper currency, for the same use as bills of exchange, that is, for remittances to England.

"7. When few people can draw on England, or furnish those who want remittances with gold or silver, paper currency may fall with respect to sterling money and gold and silver, by which the British merchants always judge of it; and yet keep up to its original value in respect to all other things.

❝8. From all these considerations I think it appears, that the rising or falling of the exchange can be no sure rule for discovering on which side the balance of trade lies, because the exchange may be affected by various accidents independent thereof; but, in order to determine this point with more certainty, it should be considered;

"9. That whatever is imported must, first or last, be paid for in the produce or manufactures of the country. If the commodities exported in one year be not sufficient to pay for what is imported, the deficiency must be made up by exporting more in succeeding years; otherwise the colony becomes debtor for so much as the deficiency is, which at last must be discharged, if it is ever discharged, by their lands.

"10. If this has been the case with any colony, or if the debt of the colony to Great Britain has been increasing for several years successively, it is a demonstration that the balance of trade is against it; but, on the contrary, if the debt to Great Britain is lessening yearly, or not increasing, it is as evident that the balance of trade is not against it, notwithstanding the currency of that colony may be falling gradually all the while.

"These principles being established, the following scheme may be adopted for fixing the value of a paper currency, viz.

"1. Let it be supposed, that, in some one of the colonies, the sum of £110,000 in bills of credit was proposed to be struck, and all other currencies to be called in and destroyed; and that £ 133 6s. 8d. in these bills should be equivalent to £100 sterling; which likewise would

render of the government, without giving their friends twelve months' notice, that they may provide for themselves; I suppose, by obtaining all their commissions

make the said bills equal to foreign coins at the rates settled by the act of Parliament made in the 6th year of Queen Anne.

"2. Let £100,000 be emitted on loan upon good securities, either in land or plate, according to the method used in Pennsylvania; the borrowers to pay five per cent per annum interest, together with one twentieth part of the principal, which would give the government an opportunity of sinking it by degrees, if any alteration in the circumstances of the province should make it necessary; but, if no such necessity appeared, so much of the principal, as should be paid in, might be reemitted on the same terms as before.

"3. The other £10,000 to be laid out in such commodities as should be most likely to yield a profit at foreign markets, to be shipped off on account of the colony, in order to raise a fund or bank in England; which sum, so laid out, would in two years' time, be returned into the office again by the interest money.

"4. The trustees or managers of this bank to be empowered and directed to supply all persons, that should apply to them, with bills of exchange, to be drawn on the colony's banker in London, at the aforesaid rate of £133 6s. 8d. of the said bills of credit for £100 sterling. The moneys thus brought in to be laid out again as before, and replaced in England in the said bank with all convenient speed. And as these provincial bills would have at least as good a credit as those of any private person, every man, who had occasion to draw, would of course be obliged to dispose of his bills at the same rate.

"5. The trustees might further be empowered and directed to take in foreign coins, at the rates prescribed by the act of Parliament, from those who wanted to change them for paper currency, and to rechange for those who wanted gold and silver. This, it is imagined, might reduce those coins again to a currency, which now are only bought and sold as a commodity. Or, if it should be judged more advantageous to the credit of the paper currency, a part of the proceeds of what should be sent abroad might be returned into the province in gold and silver for creating a fund there.

"6. I hope it will appear, upon examining into the circumstances of the paper money colonies, by the rule proposed above, that the balance of trade has not been so much against them as is commonly imagined, but that the fall of their currency, with respect to sterling and to gold and silver, has been chiefly occasioned either by some such accidents as are above showed to influence it, which by this scheme will be all prevented, or by their being issued without any good foundation for supporting their credit, such as a land security, &c. However that be, I think there can be no room, upon our plan, to fear that the credit of the paper currency can be injured, even though the balance of trade were against the colony, while their bank in London can be duly supported."

during good behaviour, which I conclude will not be agreeable to the crown. I am, as ever, my dear friend, yours affectionately,

JOSEPH GALLOWAY.

TO MRS. DEBORAH FRANKLIN.

Descendants from his Grandfather in England.
Latin Letter from Frederic Hartmann.

MY DEAR CHILD,

London, 11 October, 1766.

I received your kind little letter of August 26th, by the packet. Scarce any one else wrote to me by that opportunity. I suppose they imagined I should not be returned from Germany. Pray did you ever get the letters and cambric I sent you by Mr. Yates? You told me he had lost them, but hoped to find them again. You do not say in any of your subsequent letters whether he found them, or whether our generous adversaries have got them, and keep them for their own amusement, as you know they did some of my former letters. I wish you would always mention the dates of the letters you receive from me; for then, as I generally keep copies, I should know what get to hand, and what miscarry.

I grieve for the loss of dear Miss Ross. She was indeed an amiable girl. It must be a great affliction to her parents and friends. In my last I desired you to get Mr. Rhoads to send me a little sketch of the lot and wall; but I have since found one he sent me before; so it is not necessary; only tell me whether it takes in part of the late controverted lot, and how high it comes on both sides, and whereabouts the

wall is. By the

way, you never have told me what I wish I could see a copy of it.

the award was. There are but two Franklins remaining in England, descended from my grandfather; to wit, my uncle John's grandson, Thomas Franklin, who is a dyer at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, and has a daughter about thirteen years of age, named Sally. He brought her to town to see me in the spring, and Mrs. Stevenson persuaded him to leave the child under her care for a little schooling and improvement, while I went abroad. When I returned, I found her indeed much improved, and grown a fine girl. She is sensible, and of a sweet, obliging temper, but is now ill of a violent fever, and I doubt we shall lose her, which particularly afflicts Mrs. Stevenson, not only as she has contracted a great affection for the child, but as it was she that persuaded her father to leave her here. Mrs. Stevenson presents her best respects. Polly is gone home to her aunt's at Kensington. My love to our children and all inquiring friends. am your ever loving husband,

B. FRANKLIN.*

I

* He had recently made a tour in Germany, accompanied by Sir John Pringle, as intimated in a preceding letter. He visited Hanover, Göttingen, and some of the other principal cities and universities, and received many flattering attentions from distinguished persons. The following letter affords a favorable testimony of the estimation in which he was held by learned men in Germany.

"VIRO SUMME REVERENDO, FRANKLINO, S. P. D. JOANNES FRIEDERICUS HARTMANNUS.

"Sæpe mihi rediit jucundissima ejus recordatio diei, quo visere te atque colloqui ecum primum licuit. Vehementer, crede mihi, de eo doleo, quod, utut tum erant temporis locique rationes, et machinas electricas et experimenta ita tibi conspicienda offerre non poteram, ut digna tanti tamque docti viri observatione essent. Noli existimare, in me aliquid culpæ positum fuisse. Princeps Schwarzburg Rudolstadiensis, qui pro suo in litteris amore epistolarum mecum habet commercium, cum accepisset, te in itinere per Germaniam constitutum esse, nihil

TO LORD KAMES.

On the Disputes between England and America. Political Relations between the Colonies and the Mother Country. Injudicious Act of Parliament, requiring the Colonies to provide for Soldiers. — Future Prospects of America.

[ocr errors]

MY DEAR LORD,

London, 11 April, 1767.

I received your obliging favor of January the 19th. You have kindly relieved me from the pain I had long been under. You are goodness itself. I ought to have answered yours of December 25th, 1765. I never received a letter, that contained sentiments more suitable to my own. It found me under much agitation of mind on the very important subject it treated. It fortified me greatly in the judgment I was inclined to form, though contrary to the general vogue, on

magis in votis habuit, quam ut colloqui tecum copia sibi fieret; eâque de causâ virum quemdem doctum, amicum suum, Gottingam miserat, te ut suo nomine salutaret. Iste vero ipso die primum Gottingam pervenit, quo tu urbem istam reliqueras; itaque spe tui visendi dejectus est. "Inter hæc quidam in Germania Princeps a me expetiit, ut machinas ad deducenda ex ædificiis fulmina in suis terris construendas curarem; quâ de re summis abs te precibus contendo, ut eam rationem, quâ tu in Americâ hunc in finem usus es, accuratius describas. Ita fiet, ut popularibus meis valde prosis; et summum ceteros apud illos adipiscaris honorem.

"Animus mihi est, historiam Electricitatis, quantum ego valeo, plenam conficere. Jam cum hac in re nemo ferè majus te nomen habet, communices mecum velim, quæ de experimentis atque inventionibus tuis imprimis memoriâ digna videntur. Equidem non nego, valde audacter me ex te petere, sed semper timido mihi succurrit humanitas tua, et, quod in summâ felicitatis meæ parte posuerim, animus tuus in me propensus.

"Si quid ego te juvare possim, promtum me habebis atque para tissimum. Ita vale faveque.

"Dabam Hannover, MDCCLXVII. Calendis Octobris."

« 上一頁繼續 »