piece of land, rather than not have it, I don't think there is any court in England, or indeed any where elfe, that would interpofe to hinder me, much less to punish the feller with the lofs of three times the purchase money, as in the cafe of ufury. Yet when I had got my piece of land, and paid my money, repentance, were the law ever fo well difpofed to affift me, might be unavailing for the feller might have fpent the money, or gone off with it. But, in the cafe of borrowing money, it is the borrower always, who, according to the indefinite, or fhort term for which money is lent, is on the fafe fide: any imprudence he may have committed with regard to the rate of intereft, may be corrected at any time: if I find I have given too high an intereft to one man, I have no more to do than to borrow of another

at

at a lower rate,

and pay off the firft: if I cannot find any body to lend me at a lower, there cannot be a more certain proof that the firft was not in reality too high. But of this hereafter.

LET

LETTER VI.

Mifchiefs of the anti-ufurious Laws.

IN the preceding letters, I have exa

mined all the modes I can think of, in which the restraints, imposed by the laws againft ufury, can have been fancied to be of fervice.

I hope it appears by this time, that there are no ways in which thofe laws can do any good. But there are feveral, in which they can not but do mischief.

The firft, I fhall mention, is that of precluding fo many people, altogether, from the getting the money they stand in need of, to answer their refpective exigencies.

+

exigencies. Think what a diftrefs it would produce, were the liberty of borrowing denied to every body: denied to those who have fuch fecurity to offer, as renders the rate of intereft, they have to offer, a fufficient inducement, for a man who has money, to trust them with it. Juft that fame fort of diftrefs is produced, by denying that liberty to fo many people, whofe fecurity, though, if they were permitted to add fomething to that rate, it would be fufficient, is rendered infufficient by their being denied that liberty. Why the misfortune, of not being poffeffed of that arbitrarily exacted degree of fecurity, fhould be made a ground for fubjecting a man to a hardship, which is not impofed on those who are free from that misfortune, is more than I can fee. To difcriminate the former class from the latter, I can

8

I can fee but this one circumftance, viz. that their neceffity is greater. This it is by the very fuppofition: for were it not, they could not be, what they are fuppofed to be, willing to give more to be relieved from it. In this point of view then, the fole tendency of the law is, to heap diftrefs upon distress.

A fecond mifchief is, that of rendefing the terms fo much the worfe, to a multitude of thofe, whofe circumftances exempt them from being precluded altogether from getting the money they have occafion for. In this cafe, the mischief, though neceffarily lefs intense than in the other, is much more palpable and confpicuous. Those who cannot borrow may get what they want, fo long as they have any thing to fell. But while, out of loving-kindness, or whatfoever other motive,