Age will be
often without solace, sickness without alleviation, and infancy without
support; because some would not amass for themselves, nor others for
their children, the profits of their labour in a representative sign of
uncertain value.
I do not pretend to assert that these are the natural effects of a paper
circulation--doubtless, when supported by high credit, and an extensive
commerce, it must have many advantages; but this was not the case in
France--the measure was adopted in a moment of revolution, and when the
credit of the country, never very considerable, was precarious and
degraded--It did not flow from the exuberance of commerce, but the
artifices of party--it never presumed, for a moment, on the confidence of
the people--its reception was forced, and its emission too profuse not to
be alarming.--I know it may be answered, that the assignats do not depend
upon an imaginary appreciation, but really represent a large mass of
national wealth, particularly in the domains of the clergy: yet, perhaps,
it is this very circumstance which has tended most to discredit them.
Had their credit rested only on the solvency of the nation, though they
had not been greatly coveted, still they would have been less
distributed; people would not have apprehended their abolition on a
change of government, nor that the systems adopted by one party might be
reversed by another.
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