classed with the abandoned and profligate, and loaded with a degree of infamy, which is due to those only whose conduct is in its tendency the most opposite to their own.

"This suffering," it may be said, "having already been taken account

of, is not to be brought to account a "second time: they are aware, as you

yourself observe, of this inconve"nience, and have taken care to get "such amends for it, as they themselves "look upon as sufficient." True: but is it sure that the compensation, such as it is, will always, in the event, have proved a sufficient one? Is there no room here for miscalculation? May there not be unexpected, unlooked-for incidents, sufficient to turn into bitterness the utmost satisfaction which the difference of pecuniary emolument could afford? For who

can see to the end of that inexhaustible train of consequences that are liable to ensue from the loss of reputation? Who can fathom the abyss of infamy? At any rate, this article of mischief, if not an addition in its quantity to the others above-noticed, is at least distinct from them in its nature, and as such ought not to be overlooked.

Nor is the event of the execution of the law by any means an unexampled one: several such, at different times, have fallen within my notice. Then comes absolute perdition: loss of character, and forfeiture, not of three times the extra-interest, which formed the profit of the offence, but of three times the principal, which gave occasion to it*.

* See Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 4to. 1789. Ch. 14. On the pro❤ portion between punishments and offences.

The last article I have to mention in the account of mischief, is, the corruptive influence, exercised by these laws, on the morals of the people; by the pains they take, and cannot but take, to give birth to treachery and ingratitude. To purchase a possibility of being enforced, the law neither has found, nor, what is very material, must it ever hope to find, in this case, any other expedient, than that of hiring a man to break his engagement, and to crush the hand that has been reached out to help him. In the case of informers in general, there has been no troth plighted, nor benefit received. In the case of real criminals invited by rewards to inform against accomplices, it is by such breach of faith that society is held together, as in other cases by the observance of it. In the case of real

crimes;

d

crimes, in proportion as their mischievousness is apparent, what can not but be manifest even to the criminal, is, that it is by the adherence to his engagement that he would do an injury to society, and, that by the breach of such engagement, instead of doing mischief he is doing good: in the case of usury this is what no man can know, and what one can scarcely think it possible for any man, who, in the character of the borrower, has been concerned in such a transaction, to imagine. He knew that, even in his own judgment, the engagement was a beneficial one to himself, or he would not have entered into it: and nobody else but the lender is affected by it.

LETTER VII.

Efficacy of anti-usurious Laws.

BEFORE I quit altogether the consideration of the case in which a law, made for the purpose of limiting the rate of interest, may be inefficacious with regard to that end, I cannot forbear taking some further notice of a passage already alluded to of Dr. Smith's because, to my apprehension, that passage seems to throw upon the subject a degree of obscurity, which I could wish to see cleared up, in a future edition of that valuable work.

"No law," says he*, " can reduce "the common rate of interest below "the

* B. ii. c. 10. vol. ii. p. 45. edit. 8vo. 1784.