George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[350] to the people,—but by a system which should

Chap. XXIII.}

bring all the money of France on deposit. It was the faith of Law, that the currency of a country is but the representative of its moving wealth; that this representative need not possess, in itself, an intrinsic value, but may be made, not of stamped metals only, but of shells or paper; that, where gold and silver are the only circulating medium, the wealth of a nation may at once be indefinitely increased by an arbitrary infusion of paper; that credit consists in the excess of circulation over immediate resources; and that the advantage of credit is in the direct ratio of that excess. Applying these maxims to all France, he gradually planned the whimsically gigantic project of collecting all the gold and silver of the kingdom into one bank At first, from his private bank, having a nominal capital of six million livres, of which a part was payable in government notes, bills were emitted with moderation;

1716

and, while the despotic government had been arbitrarily changing the value of its coin, his notes, being payable in coin at an unvarying standard of weight and fineness, bore a small premium. When Crozat resigned the commerce of Louisiana, it was transferred to the Western company, better known as the company of Mississippi, instituted under the auspices of Law. The stock of the corporation was fixed at two hundred thousand shares, of five hundred livres each, to be paid in any certificates of public debt. Thus nearly one hundred millions of the most depreciated of the public stocks were suddenly absorbed. The government thus changed the character of its obligations from an indebtedness to individuals to an indebtedness to a favored company of its own creation. Through the bank of Law, the interest on the debt was discharged