characteristics of the French, is now comparatively disregarded.  The people who receive what they earn in a currency they hold in contempt, are more anxious to spend than to save; and those who formerly hoarded six liards or twelve sols pieces with great care, would think it folly to hoard an assignat, whatever its nominal value.  Hence the lower class of females dissipate their wages on useless finery; men frequent public-houses, and game for larger sums than before; little shopkeepers, instead of amassing their profits, become more luxurious in their table:  public places are always full; and those who used, in a dress becoming their station, to occupy the “parquet” or “parterre,” now, decorated with paste, pins, gauze, and galloon, fill the boxes:—­and all this destructive prodigality is excused to others and themselves "par ce que ce n’est que du papier." [Because it is only paper.]—­It is vain to persuade them to oeconomize what they think a few weeks may render valueless; and such is the evil of a circulation so totally discredited, that profusion assumes the merit of precaution, extravagance the plea of necessity, and those who were not lavish by habit become so through their eagerness to part with their paper.  The buried gold and silver will again be brought forth, and the merchant and the politician forget the mischief of the assignats.  But what can compensate for the injury done to the people?  What is to restore their ancient frugality, or banish their acquired wants?  It is not to be expected that the return of specie will diminish the inclination for luxury, or that the human mind can be regulated by the national finance; on the contrary, it is rather to be feared, that habits of expence which owe their introduction to the paper will remain when the paper is annihilated; that, though money may become more scarce, the propensities of which it supplies the indulgence will not be less forcible, and that those who have no other resources for their accustomed gratifications will but too often find one in the sacrifice of their integrity.—­Thus, the corruption of manners will be succeeded by the corruption of morals, and the dishonesty of one sex, with the licentiousness of the other, produce consequences much worse than any imagined by the abstracted calculations of the politician, or the selfish ones of the merchant.  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