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 DEFENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 USURY, &c.
 
 DEFENCE OF USURY; 
 
 SHEWING THE IMPOLICY OF THE 
 
 PRESENT LEGAL RESTRAINTS 
 
 ON THE TERMS OF 
 
 PECUNIARY BARGAINS; 
 
 IN 
 
 letters to a JFrieriU, 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 ADAM SMITH, ESQ. LL.D. 
 
 ON THE DISCOURAGEMENTS OPPOSED BY THE ABOVE 
 RESTRAINTS TO THE PROGRESS OF 
 
 INVENTIVE INDUSTRY. 
 
 THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 AND TO WHICH IS ALSO ADDID, 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 A PROTEST AGAINST LAW TAXES. 
 
 BY JEREMY BENTHAM, ESQ. 
 OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR PAYNE AND FOSS, PALL-MALL. 
 
 1816.
 
 J. M'Creery, PriiterT 
 Black-Horse Court, London.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 5" 
 3ZG 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION .... Page i 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Prevention of 
 Usury 6 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Prevention of 
 Prodigality . . 16 
 
 202SS80
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Protection of 
 Indigence Page 32 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Protection of 
 Simplicity 39 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Mischiefs of the anti-usurious Laws, 45 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Efficacy of anti-usurious Laws ... 62
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Virtual Usury allowed .... Page 73 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Blackstone considered ....... #4 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Grounds of the Prejudices against 
 Usury . ............ 94 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 Compound Interest 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 Maintenance and Champerty ... 117
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 To Dr. Smith, on Projects in Arts, 
 Xc Page 129
 
 DEFENCE OF USURY. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Crichof, in White Russia, January, 1787. 
 
 AfylONG the various species or 
 modifications of liberty, of which 
 on different occasions we have heard 
 so much in England, I do not re- 
 collect ever seeing any thing yet of- 
 fered in behalf of the liberty of mak- 
 ing one's own terms in money -bargains. 
 From so general and universal a ne- 
 glect, it is an old notion of mine, 
 as you well know, that this meek and 
 unassuming species of liberty has been 
 suffering much injustice. 
 
 B A fancy
 
 2 LETT. I. Introduction. 
 
 A fancy has taken me, just now, to 
 trouble you with my reasons : which, 
 if you think them capable of answer- 
 ing any good purpose, you may for- 
 ward to the press : or in the other 
 case, what will give you less trouble, 
 to the fire. 
 
 In a word, the proposition I have 
 been accustomed to lay down to my- 
 self on this subject is the following 
 one, viz. that no man of ripe years and 
 of sound mind, acting freely, and with 
 his eyes open, ought to be hindered, with 
 a view to his advantage, from making 
 such bargain, in the way of obtaining 
 money, as he thinks fit : nor, (what is a 
 necessary consequence) any body hin- 
 dered from supplying him, upon any 
 terms he thinks proper to accede to. 
 
 This proposition, were it to be re- 
 ceived, would level, you see, at one 
 stroke, all the barriers which law, 
 
 either
 
 LETT. I. Introduction. S 
 
 either statute or common, have in 
 their united wisdom set up, either 
 against the crying sin of Usury, or 
 against the hard-named and little- 
 heard-of practice of Champerty; to 
 which we must also add a portion of 
 the multifarious, and as little-heard- 
 of offence, of Maintenance. 
 
 On this occasion, were it any indi- 
 vidual antagonist I had to deal with, 
 my part would be a smooth and easy 
 one. *' You, who fetter contracts j 
 " you, who lay restraints on the liber- 
 " ty of man, it is for you" (I should 
 say) " to assign a reason for your do- 
 " ing so." That contracts in general 
 ought to be observed, is a rule, the 
 propriety of which, no man was ever 
 yet found wrong-headed enough to 
 deny : if this case is one of the excep- 
 tions (for some doubtless there are) 
 which the safety and welfare of every 
 B fc society
 
 -4 LETT. I. Introduction. 
 
 society require should be taken out 
 of that general rule, in this case, as in 
 all those others, it lies upon him, who 
 alledges the necessity of the excep- 
 tion, to produce a reason for it. 
 
 This, I say, would be a short and 
 very easy method with an individual : 
 but, as the world has no mouth of its 
 own to plead by, no certain attorney 
 by which it can " come and defend 
 ff this force and injury," I must even 
 find arguments for it at a venture, and 
 ransack my own imagination for such 
 phantoms as I can find to fight with. 
 
 In favour of the restraints opposed 
 to the species of liberty I contend for, 
 I can imagine but five arguments. 
 
 1. Prevention of usury. 
 
 2. Prevention of prodigality. 
 
 3. Protection of indigence against 
 extortion. 
 
 4. Re-
 
 LETT. I. Introduction. 5 
 
 4. Repression of the temerity of 
 projectors. 
 
 5. Protection of simplicity against 
 imposition. 
 
 Of all these in their order.
 
 LETT. II. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Prevention of 
 Usury. 
 
 I Will begin with the prevention of 
 usury: because in the sound of the 
 word usury lies, I take it, the main 
 strength of the argument : or, to speak 
 strictly, of what is of more import- 
 ance than all argument, of the hold 
 which the opinion I am combating 
 has obtained on the imaginations and 
 passions of mankind. 
 
 Usury is a bad thing, and as such 
 ought to be prevented: usurers are a 
 bad sort of men, a very bad sort of 
 men, and as such ought to be punish- 
 ed and suppressed. These are among 
 
 the
 
 Prevention of Usury. 7 
 
 the string of propositions which every 
 man finds handed down to him from 
 his progenitors: which most men are 
 disposed to accede to without exami- 
 nation, and indeed not unnaturally 
 nor even unreasonably disposed, for 
 it is impossible the bulk of mankind 
 should find leisure, had they the abi- 
 lity, to examine into the grounds of 
 an hundredth part of the rules and 
 maxims, which they find themselves 
 obliged to act upon. Very good apo- 
 logy this for John Trot: but a little 
 more inquisitiveness may be required 
 of legislators. 
 
 You, my friend, by whom the true 
 force of words is so well understood, 
 have, I am sure, gone before me in 
 perceiving, that to say usury is a 
 thing to be prevented, is neither 
 more nor less than begging the mat- 
 ter in question. I know of but two 
 
 definitions
 
 8 LETT. II. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 definitions that can possibly be given 
 of usury : one is, the taking of a 
 greater interest than the law allows 
 of: this may be styled the political 
 or legal definition. The other is the 
 taking of a greater interest than it is 
 usual for men to give" and take: this 
 may be styled the moral one: and 
 this, where the law has not interfered, 
 is plainly enough the only one. It is 
 plain, that in order for usury to be 
 prohibited by law, a positive descrip- 
 tion must have been found for it by 
 law, fixing, or rather superseding, 
 the moral one. To say then that 
 usury is a thing that ought to be 
 prevented, is saying neither more nor 
 less, than that the utmost rate of in- 
 terest which shall be taken ought to 
 be fixed; and that fixation enforced 
 by penalties, or such other means, 
 if any, as may answer the purpose of 
 
 preventing
 
 Prevention of Usury. 9 
 
 preventing the breach of it. A law 
 punishing usury supposes, therefore, 
 a law fixing the allowed legal rate of 
 interest : and the propriety of the pe- 
 nal law must depend upon the pro- 
 priety of the simply-prohibitive, or, 
 if you please, declaratory one. 
 
 One thing then is plain ; that, an- 
 tecedently to custom growing from 
 convention, there can be no such 
 thing as usury : for what rate of in- 
 terest is there that can naturally be 
 more proper than another ? what na- 
 tural fixed price can there be for the 
 use of money more than for the use of 
 any other thing? Were it not then 
 for custom, usury, considered in a 
 moral view, would not then so much 
 as admit of a definition : so far from 
 having existence, it would not so 
 much as be conceivable: nor there- 
 fore could the law, in the definition 
 B 3 it
 
 10 LETT. II. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 it took upon itself to give of such 
 offence, have so much as a guide to 
 steer by. Custom therefore is the 
 sole basis, which, either the moralist 
 in his rules and precepts, or the le- 
 gislator in his injunctions, can have 
 to build upon. But what basis can 
 be more weak or unwarrantable, as a 
 ground for coercive measures, than 
 custom resulting from free choice ? 
 My neighbours, being at liberty, have 
 happened to concur among them- 
 selves in dealing at a certain rate of 
 interest. I, who have money to lend, 
 and Titius, who wants to borrow it 
 of me, would be glad, the one of us 
 to accept, the other to give, an in- 
 terest somewhat higher than theirs: 
 why is the liberty they exercise to be 
 made a pretence for depriving me and 
 Tilius of ours r 
 
 Nor
 
 Prevention of Usury. \ 1 
 
 Nor has blind custom, thus made 
 the sole and arbitrary guide, any 
 thing of steadiness or uniformity in 
 its decisions : it has varied, from age 
 to age, in the same country : it va- 
 ries, from country to country, in the 
 same age : and the legal rate has va- 
 ried along with it : and indeed, with 
 regard to times past, it is from the 
 legal rate, more readily than from 
 any other source, that we collect the 
 customary. Among the Romans, till 
 the time of Justinian, we find it as 
 high as 12 per cent.: in England, so 
 late as the time of Henry VIII., we 
 find ; <jt at 10 per cent.: succeeding 
 statutes reduced it to 8, then to 6, 
 and lastly to 5, where it stands at 
 present. Even at present in Ireland 
 it is at 6 per cent. 5 and in the West- 
 Indies at 8 per cent. ; and in Hin- 
 dostan, where there is no rate limited 
 
 by
 
 1-2 LETT. II. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 by law, the lowest customary rate is 
 10 or 12. At Constantinople, in cer- 
 tain cases, as I have been well in- 
 formed, thirty per cent, is a com- 
 mon rate. Now, of all these widely 
 different rates, what one is there, that 
 is intrinsically more proper than ano- 
 ther ? What is it that evidences this 
 propriety in each instance ? what but 
 the mutual convenience of the par- 
 ties, as manifested by their consent ? 
 It is convenience then that has pro- 
 duced whatever there has been of cus- 
 tom in the matter: What can there 
 then be in custom, to make it a bet- 
 ter guide than the convenience which 
 gave it birth ? and what is there in 
 convenience, that should make it a 
 worse guide in one case than in ano- 
 ther ? It would be convenient to me 
 to give 6 per cent, for money : I 
 wish to do so. " No," (says the law) 
 
 " you
 
 Prevention of Usury. 13 
 
 " you shan't." Why so ? " Because 
 "it is not convenient to your neigh- 
 " hour to give above 5 for it." Can 
 any thing be more absurd than such 
 a reason ? 
 
 Much has not been done, I think, 
 by legislators as yet in the way of fix- 
 ing the price of other commodities: 
 and, in what little has been done, 
 the probity of the intention has, I 
 believe, in general, been rather more 
 unquestionable than the rectitude of 
 the principle, or the felicity of the 
 result. Putting money out at interest, 
 is exchanging present money for fu- 
 ture : but why a policy, which, as 
 applied to exchanges in general, 
 would be generally deemed absurd 
 and mischievous, should be deemed 
 necessary in the instance of this par- 
 ticular kind of exchange, mankind 
 are as yet to learn. For him who 
 
 takes
 
 14 LETT. II. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 takes as much as he can get for the 
 use of any other sort of thing, an 
 house for instance, there is no parti- 
 cular appellation, nor any mark of 
 disrepute : nobody is ashamed of do- 
 ing so, nor is it usual so much as to 
 profess to do otherwise. Why a man 
 who takes as much as he can get, be 
 it six, or seven, or eight, or ten per 
 cent, for the use of a sum of money, 
 should be called -usurer, should be 
 loaded with an opprobrious name, any 
 more than if he had bought an house 
 with it, and made a proportionable 
 profit by the house, is more than I can 
 see. 
 
 Another thing I would also wish 
 to learn, is, why the legislator should 
 be more anxious to limit the rate of 
 interest one way, than the other ? 
 why he should set his face against the 
 owners of that species of property 
 
 more
 
 Prevention of Usury. 15 
 
 more than of any other ? why he 
 should make it his business to prevent 
 their getting more than a certain price 
 for the use of it, rather than to prevent 
 their getting less? why, in short, he 
 should not take means for making it 
 penal to offer less, for example, than 
 5 per cent, as well as to accept more ? 
 Let any one that can, find an answer 
 to these questions; it is more than I 
 can do : I except always the distant 
 and imperceptible advantage, of sink- 
 ing the price of goods of all kinds; 
 and, in that remote way, multiplying 
 the future enjoyments of individuals. 
 But this was a consideration by far too 
 distant and refined, to have been the 
 original ground for confining the limi- 
 tation to this side.
 
 16 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Prevention of 
 Prodigality. 
 
 HAVING done with sounds, I come 
 gladly to propositions ; which, as far 
 as they are true in point of fact, may 
 deserve the name of reasons. And 
 first, as to the efficacy of such restric- 
 tive laws with regard to the prevention 
 of Prodigality. 
 
 That prodigality is a bad thing, 
 and that the prevention of it is a pro- 
 per object for the legislator to propose 
 to himself, so long as he confines him- 
 self to, what I look upon as, proper 
 measures, I have no objection to allow, 
 at least for the purpose of the argu- 
 ment ;
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 1? 
 
 ment ; though, were this the principal 
 question, I should look upon it as in- 
 cumbent on me to place in a fair light 
 the reasons there may be for doubting, 
 how far, with regard to a person arriv- 
 ed at the age of discretion, third per- 
 sons may be competent judges ; which 
 of two pains may be of greater force 
 and value to him, the present pain of 
 restraining his present desires, or the 
 future contingent pain he may be ex- 
 posed to suffer from the want to which 
 the expense of gratifying these desires 
 may hereafter have reduced him. To 
 prevent our doing mischief to one 
 another, it is but too necessary to put 
 bridles into all our mouths : it is ne- 
 cessary to the tranquillity and very be- 
 ing of society : but that the tacking 
 of leading-strings upon the backs of 
 grown persons, in order to prevent 
 their doing themselves a mischief, is 
 
 not
 
 18 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 not necessary either to the being or 
 tranquillity of society, however con- 
 ducive to its well-being, I think can- 
 not be disputed. Such paternal, or, if 
 you please, maternal, care, may be a 
 good work, but it certainly is but a 
 work of supererogation. 
 
 For my own part, I must confess, 
 that so long as such methods only are 
 employed, as to me appear proper ones, 
 and such there are, I should not feel 
 myself disinclined to see some measures 
 taken for the restraining of prodigality : 
 but this I cannot look upon as being 
 of the number. My reasons I will 
 now endeavour to lay before you. 
 
 In the first place, I take it, that it 
 is neither natural nor usual for prodi- 
 gals, as such, to betake themselves to 
 this method, I mean, that of giving 
 a rate of interest above the ordinary 
 one, to supply their wants. 
 
 In
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 19 
 
 In the first place, no man, I hope 
 you will allow, prodigal or not prodi- 
 gal, ever thinks of borrowing money 
 to spend, so long as he has ready money 
 of his own, or effects which he can 
 turn into ready money without loss. 
 And this deduction strikes off what, 
 I suppose, you will look upon as the 
 greatest proportion of the persons 
 subject, at any given time, to the im- 
 putation of prodigality. 
 
 In the next place, no man, in such 
 a country as Great Britain at least, 
 has occasion, nor is at all likely, to 
 take up money at an extraordinary 
 rate of interest, who has security to 
 give, equal to that upon which money 
 is commonly to be had at the highest 
 ordinary rate. While so many ad- 
 vertise, as are to be seen every day 
 advertising, money to be lent at five 
 per cent, what should possess a man, 
 
 who
 
 20 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 who has any thing to offer that can 
 be called a security, to give, for ex- 
 ample, six per cent, is more than I 
 can conceive. 
 
 You may say, perhaps, that a man 
 who wishes to lend his money out up- 
 on security, wishes to have his inter- 
 est punctually, and that without the 
 expense, and hazard, and trouble, 
 and odium of going to law ; and 
 that, on this account, it is better to 
 have a sober man to deal with than a 
 prodigal. So far I allow you ; but 
 were you to add, that on this ac- 
 count it would be necessary for a pro- 
 digal to offer more than another man, 
 there I should disagree with you. In 
 the first place, it is not so easy a thing, 
 nor, I take it, a common thing, for 
 the lender upon security to be able to 
 judge, or even to form any attempt 
 to judge, whether the conduct of 
 
 one
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 21 
 
 one who offers to borrow his money 
 is or is not of such a cast, as to bring 
 him under this description. The 
 question, prodigal or not prodigal, 
 depends upon two pieces of informa- 
 tion; neither of which, in general, 
 is very easy to come at : on the one 
 hand, the amount of his means and 
 reasonable expectations ; on the other 
 hand, the amount of his expenditure. 
 The goodness or badness of the se- 
 curity is a question of a very differ- 
 ent nature : upon this head, every 
 man has a known and ready means of 
 obtaining that sort of information, 
 which is the most satisfactory the na- 
 ture of things affords, by going to 
 his lawyer. It is accordingly, I take 
 it, on their lawyer's opinion, that 
 lenders in general found their deter- 
 mination in these cases, and not upon 
 any calculations they may have form- 
 ed,
 
 22 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 ed, concerning the receipt and expen- 
 diture of the borrower. But even 
 supposing a man's disposition to pro- 
 digality to be ever so well known, 
 there are always enough to be found, 
 to whom such a disposition would be 
 rather an inducement than an objec- 
 tion, so long as they were satisfied 
 with the security. Every body knows 
 the advantage to be made in case of 
 mortgage, by foreclosing or forcing a 
 sale: and that this advantage is not 
 uncommonly looked out for, will, I 
 believe, hardly be doubted by any 
 one, who has had any occasion to ob- 
 serve the course of business in the 
 court of Chancery. 
 
 In short, so long as a prodigal has 
 any thing to pledge, or to dispose of, 
 whether in possession, or even in re- 
 version, whether of a certain or even 
 of a contingent nature, I see not, 
 
 hovr
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 23 
 
 how he can receive the smallest bene- 
 fit, from any Jaws that are, or can be 
 made to fix the rate of interest. For, 
 suppose the law to be efficacious as 
 far as it goes, and that the prodigal 
 can find none of those monsters called 
 usurers to deal with him, does he lie 
 quiet ? No such thing : he goes on 
 and gets the money he wants, by sel- 
 ling his interest instead of borrow- 
 ing. He goes on, I say : for if he has 
 prudence enough to stop him any 
 where, he is not that sort of man, 
 whom it can be worth while for the law 
 to attempt stopping by such means. 
 It is plain enough then, that to a 
 prodigal thus circumstanced, the law 
 cannot be of any service ; on the con- 
 trary, it may, and in many cases must, 
 be of disservice to him, by denying 
 him the option of a resource, which, 
 how disadvantageous soever, could 
 
 not
 
 24 LETT. HI. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 not well have proved more so, but 
 would naturally have proved less so, 
 than those which it leaves still open 
 to him. But of this hereafter. 
 
 I now come to the only remaining 
 class of prodigals, viz. those who have 
 nothing that can be called a security to 
 offer. These, I should think, are not 
 more likely to get money upon an ex- 
 traordinary rate of interest, than an or- 
 dinary one. Persons who either feel, 
 or find reasons for pretending to feel, 
 a friendship for the borrower, can not 
 take of him more than the ordinary 
 rate of interest : persons who have no 
 such motive for lending him, will not 
 lend him at all. If they know him 
 for what he is, that will prevent them 
 of course: and even though they 
 should know nothing of him by any 
 other circumstance, the very circum- 
 stance of his not being able to find a 
 
 friend
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 2,5 
 
 friend to trust him at the highest or- 
 dinary rate, will be sufficient reason to 
 a stranger for looking upon him as a 
 man, who, in the judgment of his 
 friends, is not likely to pay. 
 
 The way that prodigals run into 
 debt, after they have spent their sub- 
 stance, is, I take it, by borrowing of 
 their friends and acquaintance, at or- 
 dinary interest, or more commonly at 
 no interest, small sums, such as each 
 man may be content to lose, or be 
 ashamed to ask real security for; and 
 as prodigals have generally an exten- 
 sive acquaintance (extensive acquaint- 
 ance being at once the cause and effect 
 of prodigality), the sum total of the 
 money a man may thus find means to 
 squander, may be considerable, tho* 
 each sum borrowed may, relatively to 
 the circumstances of the lender, have 
 been inconsiderable. This I take to 
 c be
 
 26 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 be the race which prodigals, who have 
 spent their all,, run at present, under 
 the present system of restraining laws: 
 and this, and no other, I take it, would 
 be the race they would run, were those 
 Jaws out of the way. 
 
 Another consideration there is, I 
 think, which will compleat your con- 
 viction, if it was not compleat be- 
 fore, of the inefficacy of these laws, 
 as to the putting any sort of restraint 
 upon prodigality. This is, that there 
 is another set of people from whom 
 prodigals get what they want, and al- 
 ways will get it, so long as credit lasts, 
 in spite of all laws against high in- 
 terestj and, should they find it neces- 
 sary, at an expense more than equal 
 to an excess of interest they might 
 otherwise have to give. I mean the 
 tradesmen who deal in the goods they 
 want. Every body knows it is much 
 
 easier
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 27 
 
 easier to get goods than money. Peo- 
 ple trust goods upon much slenderer se- 
 curity than they do money : it is very 
 natural they should do so: ordinary 
 profit of trade upon the whole capi- 
 tal employed in a man's trade, even 
 after the expense of warehouse-rent, 
 journeymen's wages, and other such 
 general charges, are taken into the 
 account, and set against it, is at least 
 equal to double interest; say 10 per 
 cent. Ordinary profit upon any pai> 
 ticular parcel of goods must there- 
 fore be a great deal more, say at least 
 triple interest, 15 per cent.: in the 
 way of trading, then, a man can af- 
 ford to be at least three times as ad- 
 venturous, as he can in the way of 
 lending, aud with equal prudence. 
 So long, then, as a man is looked 
 upon as one who will pay, he can 
 much easier get the goods he wants, 
 C 2 than
 
 28 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 than he could the money to buy them 
 with, though he were content to give 
 for it twice, or even thrice the ordinary 
 rate of interest. 
 
 Supposing any body, for the sake 
 of extraordinary gain, to be willing 
 to run the risk of supplying him, al- 
 though they did not look upon his 
 personal security to be equal to that 
 of another man, and for the sake of 
 the extraordinary profit to run the ex- 
 traordinary risk; in the trader, in 
 short in every sort of trader whom he 
 was accustomed to deal with in his 
 solvent days, he sees a person who 
 may accept of any rate of profit, 
 without the smallest danger from any 
 laws that are, or can be made against 
 usury. How idle, then, to think of 
 stopping a man from making six, or 
 seven, or eight per cent, interest, 
 when, if he chuses to run a risk pro- 
 portionable,
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 29 
 
 portionable, he may in this way make 
 thirty or forty per cent, or any rate 
 you please. And as to the prodigal, 
 if he cannot get what he wants upon 
 these terms, what chance is there of 
 his getting it upon any terms, sup- 
 posing the laws against usury to be 
 away ? This then is another way, in 
 which, instead of serving, it injures 
 him, by narrowing his option, and 
 driving him from a market which 
 might have proved less disadvantage- 
 ous, to a more disadvantageous one. 
 
 As far as prodigality, then, is con- 
 cerned, I must confess, I cannot see 
 the use of stopping the current of ex- 
 penditure in this way at the fosset, 
 when there are so many unpreventa- 
 ble ways of letting it run out at the 
 bung-hole. 
 
 Whether any harm is done to so- 
 ciety, upon the whole, by letting so 
 
 much
 
 30 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 much money drop at once out of the 
 pockets of the prodigal, who would 
 have gone on wasting it, into the till 
 of the frugal tradesman, who will lay 
 it up, is not worth the inquiry for 
 the present purpose : what is plain is, 
 that, so far as the saving the pro- 
 digal from paying at an extraordinary 
 rate for what he gets to spend, is the 
 object of the law, that object is not 
 at all promoted, by fixing the rate of 
 interest upon money borrowed. On 
 the contrary, if the law has any ef- 
 fect, it runs counter to that object: 
 since, were he to borrow, it would 
 only be, in as far as he could borrow 
 at a rate inferior to that at which 
 otherwise he would be obliged to buy. 
 Preventing his borrowing at an extra- 
 rate, may have the effect of increasing 
 his distress, but cannot have the effect 
 of lessening it: allowing his borrowing 
 
 at
 
 Prevention of Prodigality. 31 
 
 at such a rate, might have the effect 
 of lessening his distress, but could not 
 have the effect of increasing it. 
 
 To put a stop to prodigality, if in- 
 deed it be worth while, I know but 
 of one effectual course that can be 
 taken, in addition to the incompleat 
 and insufficient courses at present 
 practicable, and that is, to put the 
 convicted prodigal under an interdict, 
 as was practised formerly among the 
 Romans, and is still practised among 
 the French, and other nations who 
 have taken the Roman law for the 
 ground-work of their own. But to 
 discuss the expediency, or sketch out 
 the details of such an institution, be- 
 longs not to the present purpose.
 
 LETT. IV. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint Protection of 
 
 Indigence. 
 
 BESIDES prodigals, there are 
 three other classes of persons, and 
 but three, for whose security I can 
 conceive these restrictive laws to have 
 been designed. I mean the indigent, 
 the rashly enterprizing, and the sim- 
 ple : those whose pecuniary necessities 
 may dispose them to give an interest 
 above the ordinary rate, rather than 
 not have it, and those who, from rash- 
 ness, may be disposed to venture upon 
 giving such a rate, or from careless- 
 ness combined with ignorance, may 
 be disposed to acquiesce in it. 
 
 In
 
 Protection of Indigence. S3 
 
 In speaking of these three different 
 classes of persons, I must beg leave to 
 consider one of them at a time : and 
 accordingly, in speaking of the indi- 
 gent, I must consider indigence in the 
 first place as untinctured with simpli- 
 city. On this occasion, I may sup- 
 pose, and ought to suppose, no parti- 
 cular defect in a man's judgment, or 
 his temper, that should mislead him, 
 more than the ordinary run of men. 
 He knows what is his interest as 
 well as they do, and is as well dis- 
 posed and able to pursue it as they are. 
 
 I have already intimated, what I 
 think is undeniable, that there are 
 no one or two or other limited num- 
 ber of rates of interest, that can be 
 equally suited to the unlimited num- 
 ber of situations, in respect of the de- 
 gree of exigency ', in which a man is li- 
 able to find himself: insomuch that 
 c3 to
 
 34 LETT. IV. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 to the situation of a man, who by the 
 use of money can make for example 
 11 per cent., six per cent, is as well 
 adapted, as 5 per cent, is to the situ- 
 ation of him who can make but 10 ; 
 to that of him who can make 12 per 
 cent, seven, and so on. So, in the case 
 of his wanting it to save himself from 
 a loss, (which is that which is most 
 likely to be in view under the name 
 of exigency) if that loss would amount 
 to 1 1 per cent. 6 per cent, is as well 
 adapted to his situation, as 5 per 
 cent, would be to the situation of 
 him, who had but a loss amounting 
 to ten per cent, to save himself from 
 by the like means. And in any case, 
 though, in proportion to the amount 
 of the loss, the rate of interest were 
 even so great, as that the clear saving 
 should not amount to more than one 
 per cent, or any fraction per cent, yet 
 
 so
 
 Protection of Indigence. 55 
 
 so long as it amounted to any thing* 
 he would be just so much the better 
 for borrowing, even on such compa- 
 ratively disadvantageous terms. If* 
 instead of gain, we put any other 
 kind of benefit or advantage if, in- 
 stead of loss, we put any other kind 
 of mischief or inconvenience, of equal 
 value, the result will be the same. 
 
 A man is in one of these situations, 
 suppose, in which it would be for his 
 advantage to borrow. But his cir- 
 cumstances are such, that it would 
 not be worth any body's while to lend 
 him, at the highest rate which it is 
 proposed the law should allow ; in, 
 short, he cannot get it at that rate. If 
 he thought he could get it at that rate, 
 most surely he would not give a 
 higher: he may be trusted for that: 
 for by the supposition he has nothing 
 defective in his understanding. But 
 
 the
 
 36 LETT. IV. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 the fact is, he cannot get it at that 
 lower rate. At a higher rate, how- 
 ever, he could get it : and at that 
 rate, though higher, it would be 
 worth his while to get it : so he 
 judges, who has nothing to hinder 
 him from judging right ; who has 
 every motive and every means for 
 forming a right judgment -, who has 
 every motive and every means for 
 informing himself of the circum- 
 stances, upon which rectitude of judg- 
 ment, in the case in question, de- 
 pends. The legislator, who knows 
 nothing, nor can know any thing, of 
 any one of all these circumstances, 
 who knows nothing at all about the 
 matter, comes and says to him " It 
 " signifies nothing j you shall not 
 " have the money : for it would be 
 " doing you a mischief to let you 
 " borrow it upon such terms." 
 
 And
 
 Protection of Indigence. 57 
 
 And this out of prudence and lov- 
 ing-kindness ! There may be worse 
 cruelty : but can there be greater 
 folly ? 
 
 The folly of those who persist, as 
 is supposed, without reason, in not 
 taking advice, has been much expa- 
 tiated upon. But the folly of those 
 who persist, without reason, in forcing 
 their advice upon others, has been 
 but little dwelt upon, though it is, 
 perhaps, the more frequent, and the 
 more flagrant of the two. It is not 
 often that one man is a better judge 
 for another, than that other is for 
 himself, even in cases were the ad- 
 viser will take the trouble to make 
 himself master of as many of the ma- 
 terials for judging, as are within the 
 reach of the person to be advised. 
 But the legislator is not, can not be, 
 in the possession of any one of these 
 
 materials
 
 38 LETT. IV. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 materials. What private, can be 
 equal to such public folly ? 
 
 I should now speak of the enter" 
 prizing class of borrowers : those, 
 who, when characterized by a single 
 term, are distinguished by the unfa- 
 vourable appellation of projectors : 
 but in what I shall have to say of 
 them, Dr. Smith, I begin to foresee, 
 will bear so material a part, that 
 when I come to enter upon that sub- 
 ject, I think to take my leave of yoUj 
 and address myself to him.
 
 Protection of Simplicity. 39 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Reasons for Restraint. Protection of 
 Simplicity. 
 
 I Come, lastly, to the case of the 
 simple. Here, in the first place, I 
 think I am by this time entitled to 
 observe, that no simplicity, short of 
 absolute idiotism, can cause the in- 
 dividual to make a more groundless 
 judgment than the legislator, who 
 in the circumstances above stated, 
 should pretend to confine him to any 
 given rate of interest, would have 
 made for him. 
 
 Another consideration, equally con- 
 clusive, is, that were the legislator's 
 judgment ever so much superior to 
 the individual's, how weak soever 
 
 that
 
 40 LETT. V. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 that may be, the exertion of it on this 
 occasion can never be any otherwise 
 than useless, so long as there are so ma- 
 ny similar occasions, as there ever must 
 be, where the simplicity of the indi- 
 vidual is equally likely to make him 
 a sufferer, and on which the legisla- 
 tor cannot interpose with effect, nor 
 has ever so much as thought of 
 interposing. 
 
 Buying goods with money, or upon 
 credit, is the business of every day : 
 borrowing money is the business, on- 
 ly, of some particular exigency, which, 
 in comparison, can occur but seldom. 
 Regulating the prices of goods in ge- 
 neral would be an endless task, and no 
 legislator has ever been weak enough 
 to think of attempting it. And sup- 
 posing he were to regulate the prices, 
 what would that signify for the pro- 
 tection of simplicity, unless he were 
 
 to
 
 Protection of Simplicity. 41 
 
 to regulate also the quantum of what 
 each man should buy? Such quan- 
 tum is indeed regulated, or rather 
 means are taken to prevent buying 
 altogether ; but in what cases ? In 
 those only where the weakness is ad- 
 judged to have arrived at such a pitch, 
 as to render a man utterly unqualified 
 for the management of his affairs : in 
 short, when it has arrived at the length 
 of idiocy. 
 
 But in what degree soever a man's 
 weakness may expose him to imposi- 
 tion, he stands much more exposed 
 to it, in the way of buying goods, 
 than in the way of borrowing money. 
 To be informed, beforehand, of the 
 ordinary prices of all the sorts of 
 things, a man may have occasion to 
 buy, may be a task of considerable 
 variety and extent. To be informed 
 of the ordinary rate of interest, is to 
 
 be
 
 42 LETT. V. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 be informed of one single fact, too in- 
 teresting not to have attracted atten- 
 tion, and too simple to have escaped 
 the memory. A few per cent, en- 
 hancement upon the price of goods, 
 is a matter that may easily enough 
 pass unheeded j but a single per cent, 
 beyond the ordinary interest of money, 
 is a stride more conspicuous and start- 
 ling, than many per cent, upon the 
 price of any kind of goods. 
 
 Even in regard to subjects, which, 
 by their importance would, if any, 
 justify a regulation of their price, 
 such as for instance land, I question 
 whether there ever was an instance 
 where, without some such ground as, 
 on the one side fraud, or suppression 
 of facts necessary to form a judgment 
 of the value, or at least ignorance of 
 such facts, on the other, a bargain was 
 rescinded, merely because a man had 
 
 sold
 
 Protection of Simplicity. 43 
 
 sold too cheap, or bought too dear. 
 Were I to take a fancy to give a 
 hundred years purchase instead of 
 thirty, for a piece of land, rather 
 than not have it, I don't think there 
 is any court in England, or indeed 
 any where else, that would interpose 
 to hinder me, much less to punish 
 the seller with the loss of three times 
 the purchase money, as in the case of 
 usury. Yet when I had got my piece 
 of land, and paid my money, repent- 
 ance, were the law ever so well dis- 
 posed to assist me, might be unavail- 
 ing : for the seller might have spent 
 the money, or gone off with it. But, 
 in the case of borrowing money, it is 
 the borrower always, who, according 
 to the indefinite, or short term for 
 which money is lent, is on the safe 
 side : any imprudence he may have 
 committed with regard to the rate 
 
 of
 
 44 LETT. V. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 of interest, may be corrected at any- 
 time : if I find I have given too high 
 an interest to one man, I have no 
 more to do than to borrow of another 
 at a lower rate, and pay off the first : 
 if I cannot find any body to lend me 
 at a lower, there cannot be a more 
 certain proof that the first was not in 
 reality too high. But of this hereafter*.
 
 Mischiefs of anti-usurious Laws. 45 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Mischiefs of the anti-usurious Laws. 
 
 IN the preceding Letters, I have ex- 
 amined all the modes I can think of, 
 in which the restraints, imposed by 
 the laws against usury, can have been 
 fancied to be of service. 
 
 I hope it appears by this time, that 
 there are no ways in which those laws 
 can do any good. But there are se- 
 veral, in which they can not but do 
 mischief. 
 
 The first I shall mention, is that of 
 precluding so many people, altoge- 
 ther, from the getting the money they 
 stand in need of, to answer their re- 
 spective exigencies. Think what a 
 
 distress
 
 46 LETT. VI. Mischiefs of the 
 
 distress it would produce, were the 
 liberty of borrowing denied to every 
 body : denied to those who have such 
 security to offer, as renders the rate 
 of interest, they have to offer, a suffi- 
 cient inducement, for a man who has 
 money, to trust them with it. Just 
 that same sort of distress is produced, 
 by denying that liberty to so many 
 people, whose security, though, if 
 they were permitted to add some- 
 thing to that rate, it would be suffi- 
 cient, is rendered insufficient by their 
 being denied that liberty. Why the 
 misfortune, of not being possessed of 
 that arbitrarily exacted degree of se- 
 curity, should be made a ground for 
 subjecting a man to a hardship, which 
 is not imposed on those who are free 
 from that misfortune, is more than I 
 can see. To discriminate the former 
 class from the latter, I can see but 
 
 this
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 47 
 
 this one circumstance, viz. that their 
 necessity is greater. This it is by the 
 very supposition : for were it not, they 
 could not be, what they are supposed 
 to be, willing to give more to be re- 
 lieved from it. In this point of view 
 then, the sole tendency of the law is, 
 to heap distress upon distress. 
 
 A second mischief is, that of ren- 
 dering the terms so much the worse, 
 to a multitude of those, whose circum- 
 stances exempt them from being pre- 
 cluded altogether from getting the 
 money they have occasion for. In 
 this case, the mischief, though neces- 
 sarily less intense than in the other, is 
 much more palpable and conspicuous. 
 Those who cannot borrow may get 
 what they want, so long as they have, 
 any thing to sell. But while, out of 
 loving-kindness, or whatsoever other 
 motive, the law precludes a man from, 
 
 borrowing,
 
 48 LETT. VI. Mischiefs of the 
 
 borrowing, upon terms which it deems 
 too disadvantageous, it does not pre- 
 clude him from selling, upon any 
 terms, howsoever disadvantageous. 
 Every body knows that forced sales 
 are attended with a loss : and, to this 
 loss, what would be deemed a most 
 extravagant interest bears in general 
 no proportion. When a man's move- 
 ables are taken in execution, they 
 are, I believe, pretty well sold, if, 
 after all expenses paid, the produce 
 amounts to two-thirds of what it 
 would cost to replace them. In this 
 way the providence and loving-kind- 
 ness of the law costs him 33 per cent, 
 and no more, supposing, what is sel- 
 dom the case, that no more of the ef- 
 fects are taken than what is barely 
 necessary to make up the money due. 
 If, in her negligence and weakness, 
 she were to suffer him to offer 11 per 
 
 cent.
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 49 
 
 cent, per annum for forbearance, it 
 would be three years before he paid 
 what he is charged with, in the first 
 instance, by her wisdom. 
 
 Such being the kindness done by 
 the law to the owner of moveables, let 
 us see how it fares with him who has 
 an interest in immovables. Before 
 the late war, 30 years purchase for 
 land might be reckoned, I think it is 
 pretty well agreed, a medium price. 
 During the distress produced by the 
 war, lands, which it was necessary 
 should be sold, were sold at 20, 18, 
 nay, I believe, in some instances, 
 even so low as 15 years purchase. If 
 I do not misrecollect, I remember in- 
 stances of lands put up to public auc- 
 tion, for which nobody bid so high as 
 fifteen. In many instances, villas, 
 which had been bought before the 
 war, or at the beginning of it, and, in 
 D the
 
 50 LETT. VI. Mischiefs of the 
 
 the interval, had been improved rather 
 than impaired, sold for less than half, 
 or even the quarter, of what they had 
 been bought for. I dare not here for 
 my part pretend to be exact: but on 
 this passage, were it worth their no- 
 tice, Mr. Skinner, or Mr. Christie, 
 could furnish very instructive notes. 
 Twenty years purchase, instead of 
 thirty, I may be allowed to take, at 
 least for illustration. An estate then 
 of 1001. a year, clear of taxes, was 
 devised to a man, charged, suppose, 
 with 15001. with interest till the money 
 should be paid. Five per cent, inte- 
 rest, the utmost which could be ac- 
 cepted from the owner, did not answer 
 the incumbrancer's purpose: he chose 
 to have the money. But 6 per cent, per- 
 haps, would have answered^his purpose, 
 if not, most certainly it would have an- 
 swered the purpose of somebody else: 
 
 for
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 6-1 
 
 for multitudes there all along were, 
 whose purposes were answered by five 
 per cent The war lasted, I think, 
 seven years: the depreciation of the 
 value of land did not take place im- 
 mediately: but as, on the other hand, 
 neither did it immediately recover its 
 former price upon the peace, if indeed 
 it lias even yet recovered it, we may 
 put seven years for the time, during 
 which it would be more advantageous 
 to pay this extraordinary rate of in- 
 terest than sell the land, and during 
 which, accordingly, this extraordinary 
 rate of interest would have had to run* 
 One per cent, for seven years, is not 
 quite of equal worth to seven per cent, 
 the first year; say, however, that it is. 
 The estate, which before the war was 
 worth thirty years purchase, that is 
 30001. and which the devisor had 
 given to the devisee for that value, 
 D 2 being
 
 52 LETT. VI. Mischief s vf the 
 
 being put up to sale, fetched but 20 
 years purchase, 20001. At the end 
 of that period it would have fetched 
 its original value, 30001. Compare, 
 then, the situation of the devisee at 
 the 7 years end, under the law, with 
 what it would have been, without the 
 law. In the former case, the land sel- 
 ling for 20 years purchase, i. e. 
 20001. what he would have, after 
 paying the 15001. is 5001.; which, 
 with the interest of that sum, at 5 per 
 cent, for seven years, viz. 175L 
 makes, at the end of that seven years, 
 6751. In the other case, paying 6 
 per cent, on the 15001. that is 90L 
 a year, and receiving all that time the 
 rent of the land, viz. 1001. he would 
 have had, at the seven years end, the 
 amount of the remaining ten pound 
 during that period, that is 701. in ad- 
 dition to his 10001. 675. substract-
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 53 
 
 ed from 10701. leaves 3951. This 
 3951. then, is what he loses out of 
 10701. almost 37 per cent, of his ca- 
 pital, by the loving-kindness of the 
 law. Make the calculations, and you 
 will find, that, by preventing him from 
 borrowing the money at 6 per cent, in- 
 terest, it makes him nearly as much a 
 sufferer as if he had borrowed it at ten. 
 What I have said hitherto is con- 
 fined to the case of those who have pre- 
 sent value to give, for the money they 
 stand in need of. If they have no such 
 value, then, if they succeed in pur- 
 chasing assistance upon any terms, it 
 must be in breach of the law; their 
 lenders exposing themselves to its ven- 
 geance; for I speak not hereof the ac- 
 cidental case, of its being sq construct- 
 ed as to be liable to evasion. But, even 
 in this case, the mischievous influence 
 of the law still pursues them; aggra- 
 vating
 
 54 LETT. VI. Mischiefs of the 
 
 vating the very mischief it pretends 
 to remedy. Though it be ineffica- 
 cious in the way in which the legisla- 
 tor wishes to see it efficacious, it is ef- 
 ficacious in the way opposite to that in 
 which he would wish to see it so. The 
 effect of it is, to raise the rate of in- 
 terest, higher than it would be other- 
 wise, and that in two ways. In the 
 first place, a man must, in common 
 prudence, as Dr. Smith observes, 
 make a point of being indemnified, not 
 only for whatsoever extraordinary risk 
 it is that he runs, independently of the 
 law, but for the very risk occasioned 
 by the law: he must be insured, as it 
 were, against the law. This cause 
 would operate, were there even as many 
 persons ready to lend upon the illegal 
 rate, as upon the legal. But this is not 
 the case : a great number of persons 
 are, of course, driven out of this com- 
 petition,
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 5 
 
 petition, by the danger of the busi- 
 ness, and another great number, by 
 the disrepute which, under cover of 
 these prohibitory laws or otherwise, has 
 fastened itself upon the name of usurer. 
 So many persons, therefore, being 
 driven out of the trade, it happens in 
 this branch, as it must necessarily in 
 every other, that those who remain 
 have the less to with-hold them from 
 advancing their terms; and without 
 confederating (for it must be allowed 
 that confederacy in such a case is 
 plainly impossible) each one will find 
 it easier to push his advantage up to 
 any given degree of exorbitancy, than 
 he would, if there were a greater num- 
 ber of persons of the same stamp to 
 resort to. 
 
 As to the case, where the }aw is so 
 worded as to be liable to be evaded, 
 iu this case it is partly inefficacious 
 
 and
 
 46 LETT. VI. Mischief s of the 
 
 and nugatory, and partly mischievous, 
 It is nugatory, as to all such, whose 
 confidence of its being so is perfect : 
 it is mischievous, as before, in regard 
 to all such who fail of possessing that 
 perfect confidence. If the borrower 
 can find nobody at all who has confi- 
 dence enough to take advantage of 
 the flaw, he stands precluded from all 
 assistance, as before : and, though he 
 should, yet the lender's terms must 
 necessarily run the higher, in propor- 
 tion to what his confidence wants of 
 being perfect. It is not likely that it 
 should be perfect : it is still less likely 
 that he should acknowledge it so to 
 be: it is not likely, at least as mat- 
 ters stand in England, that the worst- 
 penned law made for this purpose 
 should be altogether destitute of ef- 
 fect : and while it has any, that effect, 
 we see, must be in one way or other 
 mischievous.
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 57 
 
 I have already hinted at the disre- 
 pute, the ignominy, the reproach, 
 which prejudice, the cause and the 
 effect of these restrictive laws, has 
 heaped upon that perfectly innocent 
 and even meritorious class of men, 
 who, not more for their own advan- 
 tage than to the relief of the distresses 
 of their neighbour, may have ven- 
 tured to break through these restraints. 
 It is certainly not a matter of indif- 
 ference, that a class of persons, who,' 
 in every point of view in which their' 
 conduct can be placed, whether in re- 
 lation to their own interest, or in re- 
 lation to that of the persons whom 
 they have to deal with, as well on the 
 score of prudence, as on that of be- 
 neficence, (and of what use is even 
 benevolence, but in as far as it is 
 productive of beneficence ?) deserve 
 praise rather than censure, should be 
 D 3 classed
 
 58 LETT* VI. Mischiefs of the 
 
 classed with the abandoned and pro- 
 fligate, 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 
 * c 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, un- 
 looked-for incidents, sufficient to turn 
 into bitterness the utmost satisfaction 
 which the difference of pecuniary 
 emolument could afford ? For who 
 
 can
 
 imti-usurioiis Laws. 59 
 
 can see to the end of that inexhausti- 
 ble train of consequences that are 
 liable to ensue from the loss of repu- 
 tation ? 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 unex- 
 ampled 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. Cb. 14. On the pro- 
 portion between punishments and offences.
 
 60 LETT. VI. Mischiefs of the 
 
 The last article I have to mention 
 in the account of mischief, is, the cor- 
 ruptive 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 pos- 
 sibility of being enforced, the law nei- 
 ther has found, nor, what is very ma- 
 terial, must it ever hope to find, in 
 this case, any other expedient, than 
 that of hiring a man to break his en- 
 gagement, 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 crimi- 
 nals 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,
 
 anti-usurious Laws. HI 
 
 crimes, in proportion as their mis- 
 chievousness 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 in- 
 jury 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.
 
 f $ LETT. VII. Efficacy of 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Efficacy of anti-usurious Laws. 
 
 BEFORE I quit altogether the con- 
 sideration 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 for- 
 bear taking some further notice of a 
 passage already alluded to of Dr. 
 Smith's : because, to my apprehen- 
 sion, 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. YoL ii. p. 45. edit. 8vo. 1784.
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 63 
 
 <r the lowest ordinary market rate, at 
 " the time when that law was made. 
 " Notwithstanding the edict of 1?66, 
 *' by which the French king at- 
 " tempted to reduce the rate of inte- 
 " rest from five to four per cent., mo- 
 " ney continued to be lent in France 
 " at five per cent, the law being evaded 
 " in several different ways." 
 
 As to the general position, if so it 
 be, so much, according to me, the 
 better: but I must confess I do not 
 see why this should be the case. It 
 is for the purpose of proving the truth 
 of this general position, that the fact 
 of the inefficacy of this attempt seems 
 to be adduced : for no other proof 
 is adduced but this. But, taking the 
 fact for granted, I do not see how it 
 can be sufficient to support the in- 
 ference. The law, we are told at the 
 same time, was evaded : but we are 
 
 not 

 
 64 LETT. VII. Efficacy of 
 
 not told how it came to be open to 
 evasion. It might be owing to a 
 particular defect in the penning of 
 that particular law : or, what comes 
 to the same thing, in the provisions 
 made for carrying it into execution. 
 In either case, it affords no support to 
 the general position : nor can that 
 position be a just one, unless it were 
 so in the case where every provision 
 had been made, that could be made, 
 for giving efficacy to the law. For 
 the position to be true, the case must 
 be, that the law would still be broken, 
 even after every means of what can 
 properly be called evasion had been 
 removed. True or untrue, the po- 
 sition is certainly not self-evident 
 enough to be received without proof : 
 yet nothing is adduced in proof of it, 
 but the fact above-noticed, which we 
 see amounts to no such thing. What
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 65 
 
 is more, I should not expect to find 
 it capable of proof. I do not see, 
 what it is, that should render the law 
 incapable of " reducing the common 
 " rate of interest below the lowest 
 C ordinary market rate," but such a 
 state of things, such a combination of 
 circumstances, as should afford obsta- 
 cles equally powerful, or nearly so, 
 to the efficacy of the law against all 
 higher rates. For destroying the law's 
 efficacy altogether, I know of nothing 
 that could serve, but a resolution on 
 the part of all persons any way privy 
 not to inform : but by such a reso- 
 lution any higher rate is just as ef- 
 fectually protected as any lower one. 
 Suppose the resolution, strictly speak- 
 ing, universal, and the law must in all 
 instances be equally inefficacious ; all 
 rates of interest equally free ; and 
 the state of men's dealings in this way 
 
 just
 
 06 LETT. VII. Efficacy of 
 
 just what it would be, were there no 
 law at all upon the subject. But in 
 this case, the position, in as far as it 
 limits the inefficacy of the law to those 
 rates which are below the " lowest or- 
 " dinary market rate," is not true. 
 For my part, I cannot conceive how 
 any such universal resolution could 
 have been maintained, or could ever 
 be maintained, without an open con- 
 cert, and as open a rebellion against 
 government ; nothing of which sort 
 appears to have taken place : and, 
 as to any particular confederacies, 
 they are as capable of protecting any 
 higher rates against the prohibition, 
 as any lower ones. 
 
 Thus much indeed must be admit- 
 ted, that the low rate in question, viz. 
 that which was the lowest ordinary 
 market rate immediately before the 
 making of the law, is likely to come
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 6? 
 
 in for the protection of the public 
 against the law, more frequently than 
 any other rate. That must be the 
 case on two accounts : first, because 
 by being of the number of the ordi- 
 nary rates, it was, by the supposition, 
 more frequent than any extraordinary 
 ones : secondly, because the disrepute 
 annexed to the idea of usury, a force 
 which might have more or less effi- 
 cacy in excluding, from the protec- 
 tion above spoken of, such extraor- 
 dinary rates, cannot well be supposed 
 to apply itself, or at least not in equal 
 degree, to this low and ordinary rate. 
 A lender has certainly less to stop him 
 from taking a rate, which may be 
 taken without disrepute, than from, 
 taking one, which a man could not 
 take without subjecting himself to 
 that inconvenience : nor is it likely, 
 that men's imaginations and senti- 
 ments
 
 68 LETT. VI I. Efficacy of 
 
 ments should testify so sudden an ob- 
 sequiousness to the law, as to stamp 
 disrepute to-day, upon a rate of inte- 
 rest to which no such accompaniment 
 had stood annexed the day before. 
 
 Were I to be asked how I imagined 
 the case stood in the particular in- 
 stance referred to by Dr. Smith : 
 judging from his account of it, as- 
 sisted by general probabilities, I 
 should answer thus : The law, I 
 should suppose, was not so penned as 
 to be altogether proof against eva- 
 sion. In many instances, of which it 
 is impossible any account should have 
 been taken, it was indeed conformed 
 to : in some of those instances, people 
 who would have lent otherwise, ab- 
 stained from lending altogether ; in 
 others of those instances, people lent 
 their money at the reduced legal rate. 
 In other instances again, the law was 
 
 broken :
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 69 
 
 broken : the lenders trusting, partly 
 to expedients recurred to for evading 
 it, partly to the good faith and ho- 
 nour of those whom they had to deal 
 with : in this class of instances it was 
 natural, for the two reasons above 
 suggested, that those where the old 
 kgal rate was adhered to, should have 
 been the most numerous. From the 
 circumstance, not only of their num- 
 ber, but of their more direct repug- 
 nancy to the particular recent law in 
 question, they would naturally be the 
 most taken notice of. And this, I 
 should suppose, was the foundation in 
 point of fact for the Doctor's general 
 position above-mentioned, that " no 
 " law can reduce the common rate of 
 " interest below the lowest ordinary 
 " market rate, at the time when that 
 " law was made." 
 
 la England, as far as I can trust 
 
 my
 
 76 LETT.VII. Efficacy of 
 
 my judgment and imperfect general 
 recollection of the purport of the 
 laws relative to this matter, I should 
 not suppose that the above position 
 would prove true. That there is no 
 such thing as any palpable and uni- 
 versally-notorious, as well as univer- 
 sally-practicable receipt for that pur- 
 pose, is manifest from the examples 
 which, as I have already mentioned, 
 every now and then occur, of convic- 
 tions upon these statutes. Two such 
 receipts, indeed, I shall have occasion 
 to touch upon presently : but they 
 are either not obvious enough in their 
 nature, or too troublesome or not ex- 
 tensive enough in their application, 
 to have despoiled the law altogether 
 of its terrors or of its preventive effi- 
 cacy. 
 
 In the country in which I am writ- 
 ing, the whole system of laws on this 
 
 subject
 
 anti-usurious Laws. 7i 
 
 subject is perfectly, and very happily, 
 inefficacious. The rate fixed by law 
 is 5 per cent. : many people lend mo- 
 ney; and nobody at that rate: the 
 lowest ordinary rate, upon the very 
 best real security, is 8 per cent.; 9> 
 and even 10, upon such security, are 
 common. Six> or seven may have 
 place, now and then, between rela- 
 tions or other particular friends : be- 
 cause, now and then, a man may 
 choose to make a present of one or 
 two per cent, to a person whom he 
 means to favour. The contract is re- 
 newed from year to year : for a thou- 
 sand roubles, the borrower, in his 
 written contract, obliges himself to 
 pay at the end of the year one thou- 
 sand and fifty. Before witnesses, he 
 receives his thousand roubles; and, 
 without witnesses, he immediately 
 pays back his 30 roubles, or his 40 
 
 roubles,
 
 72 LETT. VII. Efficacy, &c. 
 
 roubles, or whatever the sum may be, 
 that is necessary to bring the real 
 rate of interest to the rate verbally 
 agreed on. 
 
 This contrivance, I take it, would 
 not do in England : but why it would 
 not, is a question which it would be 
 in vain for me to pretend, at this dis- 
 tance from all authorities, to discuss. 

 
 LETT. VIII. Virtual Usury allowed. 73 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Virtual Usury allowed. 
 
 HAVING proved, as I hope, by this 
 time, the utter impropriety of the law's 
 limiting the rate of interest, in every 
 case that can be conceived, it may be 
 rather matter of curiosity, than any 
 thing else, to inquire, how far the 
 law, on this head, is consistent with 
 itself, and with any principles upon 
 which it can have built. 
 
 1. Drawing and re-drawing is a 
 practice, which it will be sufficient 
 here to hint at. It is perfectly well 
 known to all merchants, and may be 
 so to all who are not merchants, by 
 consulting Dr. Smith. In this way, 
 E he
 
 ft LETT. VIII. Virtual 
 
 he has shewn how money may be, and 
 has been, taken up, at so high a rate, 
 as 13 or 14 per cent. 5 a rate nearly three 
 times as high as the utmost which the 
 law professes to allow. The extra in- 
 terest is in this case masked under the 
 names of commission, and price of ex- 
 change. The commission is but small 
 upon each loan, not more, I think, 
 than one half per cent. : custom having 
 stretched so far but no farther, it might 
 be thought dangerous, perhaps, to 
 venture upon any higher allowance 
 under that name. The charge, being 
 repeated a number of times in the 
 course of the year, makes up in fre- 
 quency what it wants in weight. The 
 transaction is by this shift rendered 
 more troublesome, indeed, but not 
 less practicable, to such parties as are 
 agreed about it. But if usury is good 
 for merchants, I don't very well see 
 
 what
 
 Usury allowed. 75 
 
 what should make it bad for every- 
 body else. 
 
 2. At this distance from all the 
 fountains of legal knowledge, I will 
 not pretend to say, whether the prac- 
 tice of selling accepted bills at an under 
 value, would hold good against all at- 
 tacks. It strikes my recollection as a 
 pretty common one, and I think it 
 could not be brought under any of 
 the penal statutes against usury. The 
 adequateness of the consideration 
 might, for ought I know, be attacked 
 with success, in a court of equity; 
 or, perhaps, if there were sufficient 
 evidence (which the agreement of the 
 parties might easily prevent) by an 
 action at common law, for money had 
 and received. If the practice be really 
 proof against all attacks, it seems to 
 afford an effectual, and pretty com- 
 modious method of evading the re- 
 E 2 strictive
 
 76 LETT. VIII. Virtual 
 
 strictive laws. The only restraint is, 
 that it requires the assistance of a 
 third person, a friend of the borrower's, 
 as for instance : J5, the real borrower, 
 wants 1001. and finds U, a usurer, 
 who is willing to lend it to him, at 10 
 per cent. B. has F, a friend, who has 
 not the money himself to lend him, 
 but is willing to stand security for 
 him to that amount. B. therefore 
 draws upon F, and F. accepts, a bill 
 of 1001. at 5 per cent, interest, pay- 
 able at the end of a twelvemonth 
 from the date. F. draws a like bill 
 upon B. : each sells his bill to U. for 
 fifty pound ; and it is endorsed to U. 
 accordingly. The 501. that F. re- 
 ceives, he delivers over without any 
 consideration to B. This transaction, 
 if it be a valid one, and if a man can 
 find such a friend, is evidently much 
 less troublesome than the practice of 
 
 drawing
 
 Usury allowed. 77 
 
 drawing and re-drawing. And this, 
 if it be practicable at all, may be 
 practised by persons of any descrip- 
 tion concerned or not in trade. 
 Should the effect of this page be to 
 suggest an expedient, and that a safe 
 and commodious one, for evading 
 the laws against usury, to some, to 
 whom such an expedient might not 
 otherwise have occurred, it will not 
 lie very heavy upon my conscience. 
 The prayers of usurers, whatever effi- 
 cacy they may have in lightening the 
 burthen, I hope I may lay some claim 
 to. And I think you will not now 
 wonder at my saying, that in the effi- 
 cacy of such prayers I have not a whit 
 less confidence, than in that of the 
 prayers of any other class of men. 
 
 One apology I shall have to plead 
 at any rate, that in pointing out these 
 flaws, to the individual who may be 
 
 disposed
 
 t8 LETT. VIII. Virtual 
 
 disposed to creep out at them, I point 
 them out at the same time to the legis- 
 lator, in whose power it is to stop 
 them up, if in his opinion they re- 
 quire it. If, notwithstanding such 
 opinion, he should omit to do so, the 
 blame will lie, not on my industry, 
 but on his negligence. 
 
 These, it may be said, should they 
 even be secure and effectual evasions, 
 are still but evasions, and, if charge- 
 able upon the law at all, are charge- 
 able not as inconsistencies but as over- 
 sights. Be it so. Setting these aside, 
 then, as expedients practised or practi- 
 cable, only behind its back, I will 
 beg leave to remind you of two 
 others, practised from the day of its 
 birth, under its protection and before 
 its face. 
 
 The first I shall mention is pawn- 
 Iroking. In this case there is the less 
 
 pretence
 
 Usury allowed. 79 
 
 pretence for more than ordinary in- 
 terest, inasmuch as the security is, in 
 this case, not only equal to, but bet- 
 ter than, what it can be in any other : 
 to wit, the present possession of a 
 moveable thing, of easy sale, on which 
 the creditor has the power, and cer- 
 tainly does not want the inclination, 
 to set such price as is most for his 
 advantage. If there be a case in 
 which the allowing of such extraor- 
 dinary interest is attended with more 
 danger than another, it must be this: 
 which is so particularly adapted to 
 the situation of the lowest poor, that 
 is, of those who, on the score of in- 
 digence or simplicity, or both, are 
 most open to imposition. This trade 
 however the law, by regulating, avow- 
 edly protects. What the rate of in- 
 terest is, which it allows to be taken 
 in this way, I can not take upon me 
 
 to
 
 80 LETT. VIII. Virtual 
 
 to remember: but I am much de- 
 ceived, if it amounts to less than 12 
 per cent, in the year, and I believe it 
 amounts to a good deal more. "Whe- 
 ther if were 12 per cent, or 1200, I 
 believe would make in practice but 
 little difference. What commission is in 
 the business of drawing and re-draw- 
 ing, warehouse-room is, in that of 
 pawnbroking. Whatever limits then 
 are set to the profits of this trade, are 
 set, I take it, not by the vigilancy of 
 the law, but, as in the case of other 
 trades, by the competition amongst the 
 traders. Of the other regulations con- 
 tained in the acts relative to this subject, 
 I recollect no reason to doubt the use. 
 The other instance is that of bot- 
 tomry and respondentia : for the two 
 transactions, being so nearly related, 
 may be spoken of together. Bottomry 
 is the usury of pawnbroking : respon- 
 dentia
 
 Usury alloivfd. 81 
 
 dentia is usury at large, but com- 
 bined in a manner with insurance, 
 and employed in the assistance of a 
 trade carried on by sea. If any spe- 
 cies of usury is to be condemned, I 
 see not on what grounds this particu- 
 lar species can be screened from the 
 condemnation. " Oil but" (says sir 
 William Blackstone, or any body else 
 who takes upon himself the task of 
 finding a reason for the law) " this is 
 " a maritime country, and the trade, 
 " which it carries on by sea, is the 
 " great bulwark of its defence." It is 
 not necessary I should here inquire, 
 whether that branch, which, as Dr. 
 Smith has shewn, is, in every view but 
 the mere one of defence, less beneficial 
 to a nation, than two others out of the 
 four branches which comprehend all 
 trade, has any claim to be preferred 
 to them in this or any other way. I 
 3 admit,
 
 82 LETT. VIII. Virtual 
 
 admit, that the liberty which this 
 branch of trade enjoys, is no more 
 than what it is perfectly right it 
 should enjoy. What I want to know 
 is, what there is in the class of men, 
 embarked in this trade, that should 
 render beneficial to them, a liberty, 
 which would be ruinous to every body 
 else. Is it that sea adventures have 
 less hazard on them than land adven- 
 tures ? or that the sea teaches those, 
 who have to deal with it, a degree of 
 forecast and reflection which has been 
 denied to land men ? 
 
 It were easy enough to give farther 
 and farther extension to this charge of 
 inconsistency, by bringing under it 
 the liberty given to insurance in all 
 its branches, to the purchase and sale 
 of annuities, and of post-obits, in a 
 word to all cases where a man is per- 
 mitted to take upon himself an unli- 
 mited
 
 Usury allowed. S3 
 
 mited degree of risk, receiving for so- 
 doing an unlimited compensation. 
 Indeed I know not where the want 
 f instances would stop me: for in 
 what part of the magazine of events, 
 about which human transactions are 
 conversant, is certainty to be found? 
 But to this head of argument, this 
 argument ad hominem, as it may be 
 called, the use of which is but subsi- 
 diary, and winch has more of confuta- 
 tion in it than of persuasion or instruc- 
 tion, 1 willingly put an end.
 
 84 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Blackstone considered. . 
 
 I Hope you are, by this time, at 
 least, pretty much of my opinion, 
 that there is just the same sort of harm, 
 and no other, in making the best terms 
 one can for one's self in a money loan, 
 as there is in any other sort of bargain. 
 If you are not, Blackstone however te, 
 whose opinion I hope you will allow to 
 be worth something. In speaking of 
 the rate of interest*, he starts a pa- 
 rallel between a bargain for the loan 
 of money, and a bargain about a horse, 
 and pronounces, without hesitation, 
 that the harm of making too good a 
 
 * B. ii. ch. 30. 
 
 bargain,
 
 LETT. IX. Blackstone cons idercd. 85 
 
 bargain, is just as great in the one case, 
 as in the other. As money-lending, 
 and not horse-dealing, was, what you 
 lawyers call, the principal case, he 
 drops the horse-business, as soon as 
 it has answered the purpose of illus- 
 tration, which it was brought to serve. 
 But as, in my conception, as well the 
 reasoning by which he supports the 
 decision, as that by which any body 
 else could have supported it, is just as 
 applicable to the one sort of bargain 
 as to the other, I will carry on the 
 parallel a little farther, and give the 
 same extent to the reasoning, as to the 
 position which it is made use of to 
 support. This extension will not be 
 without its use; for if the position, 
 when thus extended, should be found 
 just, a practical inference will arise; 
 which is, that the benefits of these re- 
 straints ought to be extended from 
 
 the
 
 86 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 
 
 the money-trade to the horse-trade. 
 That my own opinion is not favour- 
 able to such restraints in either case, 
 has been sufficiently declared j but if 
 more respectable opinions than mine 
 are still to prevail, they will not be the 
 less respectable for being consistent. 
 
 The sort of bargain which the 
 learned commentator has happened to 
 pitch upon for the illustration, is in- 
 deed, in the case illustrating, as in the 
 case illustrated, a loan: but as, to my 
 apprehension, loan or sale makes, in 
 point of reasoning, no sort of differ- 
 ence, and as the utility of the conclu- 
 sion will, in the latter case, be more 
 extensive, I shall adapt the reasoning 
 to the more important business of sell- 
 ing horses, instead of the less import- 
 ant one of lending them. 
 
 A circumstance^ that would render 
 the extension of these restraints to the 
 
 horse-
 
 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 87 
 
 horse-trade more smooth and easy, is, 
 that in the one track, as well as in the 
 other, the public has already got the 
 length of calling names. Jockey- ship, 
 a term of reproach not less frequently 
 applied to the arts of those who sell 
 horses than to the arts of those who 
 ride them, sounds, I take it, to the 
 ear of many a worthy gentleman, 
 nearly as bad as usury: and it is well 
 known to all those who put their trust 
 in proverbs, and not less to those who 
 put their trust in party, that when we 
 have got a dog to hang, who is trou- 
 blesome and keeps us at bay, whoever 
 can contrive to fasten a bad name to 
 his tail, has gained more than half 
 the battle. I now proceed with my 
 application. The words in italics are 
 my own : all the rest are Sir William 
 Blackstone's : and I restore, at bot- 
 tom,
 
 88 LETT. IX. Btackstone considered. 
 
 torn, the words I was obliged to dis- 
 card, in order to make room for mine. 
 
 " To demand an exorbitant price 
 " is equally contrary to conscience, 
 " for the loan of a horse, or for the 
 " loan of a sum of money : but a rea- 
 " sonable equivalent for the tempo- 
 " rary inconvenience, which the own- 
 " er may feel by the want of it, and 
 " for the hazard of his losing it en- 
 " tirely, is not more immoral in one 
 " case than in the other. * * * * 
 
 " As to selling horses, a capital dis- 
 " tinction must be made, between a 
 " moderate and an exorbitant profit : 
 " to the former of which we give the 
 " name of horse-dealing*, to the latter 
 "the truly odious appellation of joe- 
 " key-ship^ : the former is necessary 
 " in every civil state, if it were but to 
 
 * interest. f usury. 
 
 " exclude
 
 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 89 
 
 " exclude the latter. For, as the whole 
 " of this matter is well summed up 
 " by Grotius, if the compensation 
 " allowed by law does not exceed 
 " the proportion of the inconvenience 
 " which it is to the seller of the horse to 
 " part ivith it*, or the want which the 
 " buyer has of z7f, its allowance is 
 " neither repugnant to the revealed 
 " law, nor to the natural law : but 
 " if it exceeds these bounds, it is 
 " then an oppressive jockey-ship\ : and 
 " though the municipal laws may give 
 " it impunity, they never can make it 
 " just. 
 
 " We see, that the exorbitance or 
 " moderation of the price given for a 
 ft horse depends upon two circum- 
 " stances : upon the inconvenience of 
 
 * hazard run. t felt by the loan. J usury, 
 $ interest for the money lent. 
 
 " parting
 
 90 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 
 
 " parting with the horse one has*, and 
 " the hazard of not being able to meet 
 " with such another^. The inconveni- 
 " ence to individual sellers of horses^, 
 " can never be estimated by laws ; the 
 " general price for horses^ must depend 
 " therefore upon the usual or general 
 " inconvenience. This results entirely 
 " from the quantity of horses\[ in the 
 " kingdom : for the more horses^ there 
 tf are running about** in any nation, 
 " the greater superfluity there will be 
 " beyond what is necessary to carry on 
 " the business of the mail coaches-\-\ and 
 " the common concerns of life. In 
 " every nation or public community 
 " there is a certain quantity of horses^ 
 " then necessary, which a person well 
 " skilled in political arithmetic might 
 
 * it for the present. -f losing it entirely. 
 
 $ lenders. rate of general interest. || money. 
 5f specie. ** circulating. ft exchange, 
 j! money. 
 
 " perhaps
 
 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 91 
 
 " perhaps calculate as exactly as a pri- 
 " vate horse-dealer* can the demand 
 " for running horses in his own stables -\ : 
 " all above this necessary quantity 
 " may be spared, or lent, or sold, with* 
 " out much inconvenience to the re- 
 " spective lenders or sellers : and the 
 " greater the national superfluity is, 
 " the more numerous will be the sell' 
 " ers^y and the lower ought the na- 
 " tional price of horse-flesh to be : 
 " but where there are not enough, or 
 " barely enough spare horses || to an- 
 " swer the ordinary uses of the pub- 
 ' lie, horse-flesh f will be proportion- 
 " ably high: for sellers** will be 
 " but few, as few can submit to the in- 
 " convenience of setting^." So far 
 the learned commentator. 
 
 * banker, f cash in his own shop. J lenders. 
 
 the rate of the national interest. 
 
 |i circulating cash. ^ interest. ** lenders. 
 
 ft lending. 
 
 I hope
 
 92 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 
 
 I hope by this time you are worked 
 up to a proper pitch of indignation, 
 at the neglect and inconsistency be- 
 trayed by the law, in not suppressing 
 this species of jockey-ship, which it 
 would be so easy to do, only by fixing 
 the price of horses. Nobody is less 
 disposed than I am, to be unchari- 
 table :. but when one thinks of the 
 15001. taken for Eclipse, and 20001. 
 for Rockingham, and so on, who can 
 avoid being shocked, to think how 
 little regard those who took such 
 enormous prices must have had for 
 " the law of revelation and the law 
 " of nature ?" Whoever it is that is 
 to move for the municipal law, not 
 long ago talked of, for reducing the 
 rate of interest, whenever that motion 
 is made, then would be the time for 
 one of the Yorkshire members to get 
 up, and move, by way of addition, 
 
 for
 
 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 93 
 
 for a clause for fixing and reducing 
 the price of horses. I need not expa- 
 tiate on the usefulness of that valuable 
 species of cattle, which might have 
 been as cheap as asses before now, if 
 our lawgivers had been as mindful of 
 their duty in the suppression of joe 'key- 
 ship, as they have been in the sup- 
 pression of usury. 
 
 It may be said, against fixing the 
 price of horse-flesh, that different 
 horses may be of different values. I 
 answer and I think I shall shew you 
 as much, when I come to touch upon 
 the subject of champerty not more 
 different than the values which the 
 use of the same sum of money may be 
 of to different persons, on different 
 occasions.
 
 94 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Grounds of the Prejudices against Usury. 
 
 IT is one thing, to find reasons why 
 it is Jit a law should have been made : 
 it is another to find the reasons why it 
 was made: in other words, it is one 
 thing to justify a law : it is another 
 thing to account for its existence. In 
 the present instance, the former task, 
 if the observations I have been trou- 
 bling you with are just, is an impos- 
 sible one. The other, though not 
 necessary for conviction, may contri- 
 bute something perhaps in the way of 
 satisfaction. To trace an error to its 
 fountain head, says lord Coke, is to 
 
 refute
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 95 
 
 refute it; and many men there are who, 
 till they have received this satisfaction, 
 be the error what it may, cannot pre- 
 vail upon themselves to part with it. 
 " If our ancestors have been all along 
 " under a mistake, how came they to 
 t( have fallen into it ?" is a question 
 that naturally presents itself upon all 
 such occasions. The case is, that in 
 matters of law more especially, such is 
 the dominion of authority over our 
 minds, and such the prejudice it creates 
 in favour of whatever institution it has 
 taken under its wing, that, after all 
 manner of reasons that can be thought 
 of, in favour of the institution, hare 
 been shewn to be insufficient, we still 
 cannot forbear looking to some unas- 
 signable and latent reason for its effi- 
 cient cause. But if, instead of any such 
 reason, we can find a cause for it in 
 some notion, of the erroneousness of 
 
 which
 
 96 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 which we are already satisfied, then at 
 last we are content to give it up with- 
 out further struggle ; and then, and 
 not till then, our satisfaction is com- 
 plete. 
 
 In the conceptions of the more con- 
 siderable part of those through whom 
 our religion has been handed down to 
 us, virtue, or rather godliness, which 
 was an improved substitute for virtue, 
 consisted in self-denial : not in self-de- 
 nial for the sake of society, but of self- 
 denial for its own sake. One pretty 
 general rule served for most occasions : 
 not to do what you had a mind to do ; 
 or* in other words, not to do what 
 would be for your advantage. By 
 this of course was meant temporal ad- 
 vantage : to which spiritual advantage 
 was understood to be in constant and 
 diametrical opposition. For, the proof 
 of a resolution, on the part of a being 
 
 of
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 97 
 
 of perfect power and benevolence, to 
 make his few favourites happy in a 
 state in which they were to be, was his 
 determined pleasure, that they should 
 keep themselves as much strangers to 
 happiness as possible, in the state in 
 which they were. Now to get money 
 is what most men have a mind to do : 
 because he who has money gets, as far 
 as it goes, most other things that he 
 has a mind for. Of course nobody 
 was to get money : indeed why should 
 he, when he was not so much as to 
 keep -what he had got already ? To 
 lend money at interest, is to get mo- 
 ney, or at least to try to get it : of 
 course it was a bad thing to lend mo- 
 ney upon such terms. The better the 
 terms, the worse it was to lend upon 
 them : but it was bad to lend upon 
 any terms, by which any thing could 
 F be
 
 98 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 be got. What made it much the worse 
 was, that it was acting like a Jew : for 
 though all Christians at first were 
 Jews, and continued to do as Jews 
 did, after they had become Christians, 
 yet, in process of time, it came to be 
 discovered, that the distance between 
 the mother and the daughter church 
 could not be too wide. 
 
 By degrees, as old conceits gave 
 place to new, nature so far prevailed, 
 that the objections to getting money 
 in general, were pretty well over-ruled : 
 but still this Jewish way of getting it, 
 was too odious to be endured. Chris- 
 tians were too intent upon plaguing 
 Jews, to listen to the suggestion of 
 doing as Jews did, even though mo- 
 ney were to be got by it. Indeed the 
 easier method, and a method pretty 
 much in vogue, was, to let the Jews 
 
 get
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 99 
 
 get the money any how they could, 
 and then squeeze it out of them as it 
 was wanted. 
 
 In process of time, as questions of 
 all sorts came under discussion, and 
 this, not the least interesting, among 
 the rest, the anti-Jewish side of it found 
 no unopportune support in a passage 
 of Aristotle : that celebrated heathen, 
 who, in all matters wherein heathenism 
 did not destroy his competence, had 
 established a despotic empire over the 
 Christian world. As fate would have 
 it, that great philosopher, with all his 
 industry, and all his penetration, not- 
 withstanding the great number of 
 pieces of money that had passed 
 through his hands (more perhaps 
 than ever passed through the hands 
 of philosopher before or since), and 
 notwithstanding the uncommon pains 
 he had bestowed on the subject of ge- 
 F2 neration,
 
 100 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 Deration, had never been able to dis- 
 cover, in any one piece of money, any 
 organs for generating any other such 
 piece. Emboldened by so strong a body 
 of negative proof, he ventured at last 
 to usher into the world the result of his 
 observations, in the form of an univer- 
 sal proposition, that all money is in its 
 nature barren. You, my friend, to 
 whose cast of mind sound reason is 
 much more congenial than ancient phi- 
 losophy, you have, I dare to say, gone 
 before me in remarking, that the prac- 
 tical inference from this shrewd obser- 
 vation, if it afforded any, should have 
 been, that it would be to no purpose 
 for a man to try to get five per cent, 
 out of money not, that if he could 
 contrive to get so much, there would 
 be any harm in it. But the sages of 
 those days did not view the matter in 
 that light. 
 
 A con-
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 101 
 
 A consideration that did not happen 
 to present itself to that great philoso- 
 pher, but which had it happened to 
 present itself, might not have been 
 altogether unworthy of his notice, is, 
 that though a daric would not beget 
 another daric, any more than it would 
 a ram, or an ewe, yet for a daric which 
 a man borrowed, he might get a ram 
 and a couple of ewes, and that the 
 ewes, were the ram left with them a 
 certain time, would probably not be 
 barren. That then, at the end of the 
 year, he would find himself master of 
 his three sheep, together with two, if 
 not three, lambs; and that, if he sold 
 his sheep again to pay back his daric, 
 and gave one of his lambs for the use 
 of it in the mean time, he would be 
 two lambs, or at least one lamb, 
 richer than if he had made no such 
 bargain. 
 
 These
 
 102 LETT. X. Grounds of th& 
 
 These theological and philosophical 
 conceits, the offspring of the day, were 
 not ill seconded by principles of a 
 more permanent complexion. 
 
 The business of a money-lender, 
 though only among Christians, and in 
 Christian times, a proscribed profes- 
 sion, has no where, nor at any time, 
 been a popular one. Those who have 
 the resolution to sacrifice the present 
 to future, are natural objects of envy 
 to those who have sacrificed the future 
 to the present. The children who have 
 eat their cake are the natural enemies 
 of the children who have theirs. 
 While the money is hoped for, and 
 for a short time after it has been re- 
 ceived, he who lends it is a friend and 
 benefactor: by the time the money is 
 spent, and the evil hour of reckoning 
 is come, the benefactor is found to 
 Imve changed his nature, and to have 
 
 put
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 103 
 
 put on the tyrant and the oppressor. It 
 is an oppression for a man to reclaim his 
 own money : it is none to keep it from 
 him. Among the inconsiderate, that 
 is among the great mass of mankind, 
 selfish affections conspire with the so- 
 cial in treasuring up all favour for the 
 man of dissipation, and in refusing jus- 
 tice to the man of thrift who has sup- 
 plied him. In some shape or other that 
 favour attends the chosen object of it, 
 through every stage of his career. 
 But, in no stage of his career, can the 
 man of thrift come in for any share of 
 it. It is the general interest of those 
 with whom a man lives, that his ex- 
 pense should be at least as great as his 
 circumstances will bear: because there 
 are few expenses which a man can 
 launch into, but what the benefit of 
 it is shared, in some proportion or 
 other, by those with whom he lives. 
 
 In
 
 104 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 In that circle originates a standing 
 law, forbidding every man, on pain of 
 infamy, to confine his expenses within 
 what is adjudged to be the measure of 
 his means, saving always the power of 
 exceeding that limit, as much as he 
 thinks proper: and the means assigned 
 him by that law may be ever so much 
 beyond his real means, but are sure 
 never to fall short of them. So close 
 is the combination thus formed be- 
 tween the idea of merit and the idea 
 of expenditure, that a disposition to 
 spend finds favour in the eyes even of 
 those who know that a man's circum- 
 stances do not entitle him to the means : 
 and an upstart, whose chief recom- 
 mendation is this disposition, shall find 
 himself to have purchased a permanent 
 fund of respect, to the prejudice of the 
 very persons at whose expense he has 
 been gratifying his appetites and his 
 
 pride.
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 105 
 
 pride. The lustre, which the display 
 of borrowed wealth has diffused over 
 his character, awes men, during the 
 season of his prosperity, into a sub- 
 mission to his insolence : and when the 
 hand of adversity has overtaken him at 
 last, the recollection of the height, from 
 which he has fallen, throws the veil of 
 compassion over his injustice. 
 
 The condition of the man of thrift 
 is the reverse. His lasting opulence 
 procures him a share, at least, of the 
 same envy, that attends the prodigal's 
 transient display : but the use he makes 
 of it procures him no part of the fa- 
 vour which attends the prodigal. In 
 the satisfactions he derives from that 
 use, the pleasure of possession, and the 
 idea of enjoying, at some distant pe- 
 riod, which may never arrive, nobody 
 comes in for any share. In the midst 
 of his opulence he is regarded as a 
 F 3 kind
 
 106 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 kind of insolvent, who refuses to ho- 
 nour the bills, which their rapacity 
 would draw upon him, and who is by 
 so much the more criminal than other 
 insolvents, as not having the plea of 
 inability for an excuse. 
 
 Could there be any doubt of the dis- 
 favour which attends the cause of the 
 money-lender, in his competition with 
 the borrower, and of the disposition 
 of the public judgment to sacrifice the 
 interest of the former to that of the 
 latter, the stage would afford a com- 
 pendious, but a pretty c6nclusive proof 
 of it. It is the business of the drama- 
 tist to study, and to conform to, the 
 humours and passions of those, on the 
 pleasing of whom he depends for his 
 success : it is the course which reflec- 
 tion must suggest to every man, and 
 which a man would naturally fall into, 
 though he were not to think about it. 
 
 He
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 107 
 
 He may, and very frequently does, 
 make magni6cent pretences, of giv- 
 ing the law to them : but woe be to 
 him that attempts to give them any 
 other law than what they are disposed 
 already to receive. If he would at- 
 tempt to lead them one inch, it must 
 be with great caution, and not with- 
 out suffering himself to be led by them 
 at least a dozen. Now, I question, 
 whether, among all the instances in 
 which a borrower and a lender of mo- 
 ney have been brought together upon, 
 the stage, from the days of Thespis to 
 the present, there ever was one, in 
 which the former was not recom- 
 mended to favour in some shape or 
 other, either to admiration, or to love, 
 or to pity, or to all three j and the 
 other, the man of thrift, consigned to 
 infamy. 
 
 Hence
 
 108 LETT. X. Grounds of the 
 
 Hence it is that, in reviewing and 
 adjusting the interests of these appa- 
 rently rival parties, the advantage 
 made by the borrower is so apt to slip 
 out of sight, and that made by the 
 lender to appear in so exaggerated a 
 point of view. Hence it is, that though 
 prejudice is so far softened as to ac- 
 quiesce in the lender's making some 
 advantage, lest the borrower should 
 lose altogether the benefit of his assist- 
 ance, yet still the borrower is to have 
 all the favour, and the lender's advan- 
 tage is for ever to be clipped, and 
 pared down, as low as it will bear. 
 First it was to be confined to ten per 
 cent, then to eight, then to six, then 
 to five, and now lately there was a re- 
 port of its being to be brought down 
 to four ; with constant liberty to sink 
 as much lower as it would. The bur- 
 then
 
 Prejudices against Usury. 109 
 
 then of these restraints, of course, has 
 been intended exclusively for the 
 lender : in reality, as I think you 
 have seen, it presses much more hea- 
 vily upon the borrower : I mean him 
 who either becomes, or in vain wishes 
 to become so. But the presents di- 
 rected by prejudice, Dr. Smith will 
 tell us, are not always delivered ac- 
 cording to their address. It was thus 
 that the mill-stone designed for the 
 necks of those vermin, as they have 
 been called, the dealers in corn, was 
 found to fall upon the heads of the 
 consumers. It is thus but further 
 examples would lead me further from 
 the purpose.
 
 110 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 Compound Interest. 
 
 A Word or two I must trouble you 
 with, concerning compound interest; 
 for compound interest is discounten- 
 anced by the law; I suppose, as a 
 sort of usury. That, without an ex- 
 press stipulation, the law never gives 
 it, I well remember : whether, in case 
 of an express stipulation, the law al- 
 lows it to be taken, I am not absolute- 
 ly certain. I should suppose it might: 
 remembering covenants in mortgages 
 that interest should become principal. 
 At any rate, I think the law can- 
 not well punish it under the name of 
 
 usury. 
 
 If
 
 LETT. XI. Com/mind Interest. 1 11 
 
 If the discountenance shewn to this 
 arrangement be grounded on the hor- 
 ror of the sin of usury, the impro- 
 priety of such discountenance follows 
 of course, from the arguments which 
 shew the un-" sinfulness 0/*that sin" 
 
 Other argument against it, I be- 
 lieve, was never attempted, unless it 
 were the giving to such an arrange- 
 ment the epithet of a hard one : in 
 doing which, something more like a 
 reason is given, than one gets in ordi- 
 nary from the common law. 
 
 If that consistency were to be found 
 in the common law, which has never 
 yet been found in man's conduct, and 
 which perhaps is hardly in man's na- 
 ture, compound interest never could 
 have been denied. 
 
 The views which suggested this 
 denial, were, I dare to suy, very good : 
 
 the
 
 1 12 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 
 
 the effects of it are, I am certain, very 
 pernicious. 
 
 If the borrower pays the interest at 
 the day, if he performs his engage- 
 ment, that very engagement to which 
 the law pretends to oblige him to con- 
 form, the lender, who receives that in- 
 terest, makes compound interest of 
 course, by lending it out again, unless 
 he chooses rather to expend it : he ex- 
 pects to receive it at the day, or what 
 meant the engagement? if he fails of 
 receiving it*, he is by so much a loser. 
 The borrower, by paying it at the 
 day, is no loser : if he does not pay it 
 at the day, he is by so much a gainer: 
 a pain of disappointment takes place 
 in the case of the one, while no such 
 pain takes place in the case of the 
 other. The cause of him whose con- 
 tention is to catch a gain, is thus pre- 
 ferred
 
 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 113 
 
 ferred to that of him whose conten- 
 tion is to avoid a loss : contrary to the 
 reasonable and useful maxim of that 
 branch of the common law which has 
 acquired the name of equity. The 
 gain, which the law in its tenderness 
 thus bestows on the defaulter, is an 
 encouragement, a reward, which it 
 holds out for breach of faith, for 
 iniquity, for indolence, for negli- 
 gence. 
 
 The loss, which it thus throws up- 
 on the forbearing lender, is a punish- 
 ment which it inflicts on him for his 
 forbearance : the power which it gives 
 him of avoiding that loss, by prose- 
 cuting the borrower upon the instant 
 of failure, is thus converted into a re- 
 ward which it holds out to him for his 
 hard-heartedness and rigour. Man is 
 not quite so good as it were to be 
 wished he were; but he would be bad 
 
 indeed,
 
 114 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 
 
 indeed, were he bad on all the occa- 
 sions where the law, as far as depends 
 on her, has made it his interest so to 
 be. 
 
 It may be impossible, say you, it 
 often is impossible, for the borrower 
 to pay the interest at the day : and 
 you say truly. What is the inference ? 
 That the creditor should not have it in 
 his power to ruin the debtor for not 
 paying at the day, and that he should 
 receive a compensation for the loss oc- 
 casioned by such failure. He has it 
 in his power to ruin him, and he has 
 it not in his power to obtain such 
 compensation. The judge, were it 
 possible for an arrested debtor to find 
 his way into a judge's chamber instead 
 of a spunging-house, might award n 
 proper respite, suited to the circum- 
 stances of the parties. It is not possi- 
 ble : but a respite is purchased, proper 
 
 or
 
 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 115 
 
 or not proper, perhaps at ten times, 
 perhaps at a hundred times the ex- 
 pense of compound interest, by put- 
 ting in bail, and fighting thecreditor 
 through all the windings of mischiev- 
 ous and unnecessary delay. Of the 
 satisfaction due either for the original 
 failure, or for the subsequent vexation 
 by which it has been aggravated, no 
 part is ever received by the injured 
 creditor: but the instruments of the 
 law receive, perhaps at his expense, 
 perhaps at the debtor's, perhaps ten 
 times, perhaps a hundred times the 
 amount of that satisfaction. Such is 
 the result of this tenderness of the 
 law. 
 
 It is in consequence of such tender- 
 ness that on so many occasions a man, 
 though ever so able, would find him- 
 self a loser by paying his just debts : 
 those very debts of which the law has 
 
 recognized
 
 116 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 
 
 recognized the justice. The man who 
 obeys the dictates of common honesty, 
 the man who does what the law pre- 
 tends to bid him, is wanting to him- 
 self. Hence your regular and securely 
 profitable writs of error in the house 
 of lords : hence your random and vin- 
 dictive costs of one hundred pounds, 
 and two hundred pounds, now and 
 then given in that house. It is natu- 
 ral,. and it is something, to find, in a 
 company of lords, a zeal for justice : 
 it is not natural, to find, in such a 
 company, a disposition to bend down 
 to the toil of calculation.
 
 LETT. XII. Maintenance, &Vr. 11? 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 Maintenance and Champerty. 
 
 HAVING in the preceding letters 
 had occasion to lay down, and, 
 as I flatter myself, to make good, 
 the general principle, that no man of 
 ripe years , and of sound mind, ought, out 
 of loving kindness to him, to be hindered 
 from making such bargain, in the way of 
 obtaining money, as, acting with his eyes 
 open, he deems conducive to his interest, I 
 will take your leave for pushing it a 
 little farther, and extending the appli- 
 cation of it to another class of regula- 
 tions still less defensible. I mean the 
 
 antique
 
 118 LETT. XII. Maintenance 
 
 antique laws against what are called 
 Maintenance and Champerty. 
 
 To the head of Maintenance, I think 
 you refer, besides other offences which 
 are not to the present purpose, that 
 of purchasing, upon any terms, any 
 claim, which it requires a suit at law, 
 or in equity, to enforce. 
 
 Champerty, which is but a particu- 
 lar modification of this sin of Mainte- 
 nance, is, I think, the furnishing a 
 man who has such a claim, with regard 
 to a real estate, such money as he may 
 have occasion for, to carry on such 
 claim, upon the terms of receiving a 
 part of the estate in case of success. 
 
 What the penalties are for these 
 offences I do not recollect, nor do I 
 think it worth while hunting for them, 
 though I have Blackstone at my elbow. 
 They are at any rate, sufficiently se- 
 vere
 
 and Champerty. 119 
 
 vere to answer the purpose, the rather 
 as the bargain is made void. 
 
 To illustrate the mischievousness of 
 the laws by which they have been 
 created, give me leave to tell you a 
 story, which is but too true an one, 
 and which happened to fall within my 
 own observation. 
 
 A gentleman of my acquaintance 
 had succeeded, during his minority, to 
 an estate of about 30001. a year : I 
 won't say where. His guardian, con- 
 cealing from him the value of the 
 estate, which circumstances rendered 
 it easy for him to do, got a convey- 
 ance of it from him, during his non- 
 age, for a trifle. Immediately upon the 
 ward's coining of age, the guardian, 
 keeping him still in darkness, found 
 means to get the conveyance confirm- 
 ed. Some years afterwards, the ward 
 discovered the value of the inheritance 
 
 he
 
 120 LETT. XII. Maintenance 
 
 he had been throwing away. Private 
 representations proving, as it may be 
 imagined, ineffectual, he applied to a 
 court of equity. The suit was in some 
 forwardness : the opinion of the ablest 
 counsel highly encouraging: but mo- 
 ney there remained none. We all know 
 but too well, that, in spite of the un- 
 impeachable integrity of the bench, 
 that branch of justice, which is parti- 
 cularly dignified with the name of 
 equity, is only for those who can af- 
 ford to throw away one fortune for the 
 chance of recovering another. Two 
 persons, however, were found, who, 
 between them, were content to defray 
 the expense of the ticket for this lot- 
 tery, on condition of receiving half the 
 prize. The prospect now became en- 
 couraging : when unfortunately one 
 of the adventurers, in exploring the 
 recesses of the bottomless pit, happen-
 
 and Champerty. 121 
 
 ed to dig up one of the old statutes 
 against Champerty. This blew up the 
 whole project: however the defend- 
 ant, understanding that, some how or 
 other, his antagonist had found sup- 
 port, had thought fit in the mean time 
 to propose terms, which the plaintiff, 
 after his support had thus dropped from 
 under him, was very glad to close with. 
 He received, I think it was, 30001.; 
 and for that he gave up the estate, 
 which was worth about as much year- 
 ly, together with the arrears, which 
 were worth about as much as the 
 estate. 
 
 Whether, in the barbarous age 
 which gave birth to these barbarous 
 precautions, whether, even under the 
 zenith of feudal anarchy, such fetter- 
 ing regulations could have had reason 
 on their side, is a question of curiosity 
 rather than use. My notion is, that 
 G there
 
 1&2 LETT. XII. Maintenance 
 
 there never was a time, that there ne- 
 ver could have been, or can be a time, 
 when the pushing of suitors away from 
 court with one hand, while they are 
 beckoned into it with another, would 
 not be a policy equally faithless, in- 
 consistent, and absurd. But, what 
 every body must acknowledge, is, 
 that, to the times which called forth 
 these laws, and in which alone they 
 could have started up, the present are 
 as opposite as light to darkness. A 
 mischief, in those times, it seems, but 
 too common, though a mischief not to 
 be cured by such laws, was, that a 
 man would buy a weak claim, in 
 hopes that power might convert it 
 into a strong one, and that the sword 
 of a baron, stalking into court with a 
 rabble of retainers at his heels, might 
 strike terror into the eyes of a judge 
 upon the bench. At present, what 
 
 cares
 
 and Champerty. 123 
 
 cares an English judge for the swords 
 of an hundred barons ? Neither fear- 
 ing nor hoping, hating nor loving, 
 the judge of our days is ready with, 
 equal phlegm to administer, upon all 
 occasions, that system, whatever it be, 
 of justice, or injustice, which the law 
 has put into his hands. A disposition 
 so consonant to duty could not have 
 then been hoped for : one more con- 
 sonant is hardly to be wished. Wealth 
 has indeed the monopoly of justice 
 against poverty : and such monopoly 
 it is the direct tendency and necessary 
 effect of regulations like these to 
 strengthen and confirm. But with 
 this monopoly no judge that lives 
 now is at all chargeable. The law 
 created this monopoly : the law, when 
 ever it pleases, may dissolve it. 
 
 I will not however so far wander 
 
 from my subject as to inquire what 
 
 G 2 measure
 
 124 LETT. XII. Maintenance 
 
 measure might have been necessary to 
 afford a full relief to the case of that 
 unfortunate gentleman, any more than 
 to the cases of so many other gentle- 
 men who might be found, as unfortu- 
 nate as he. I will not insist upon so 
 strange and so inconceivable an ar- 
 rangement, as that of the judge's see- 
 ing both parties face to face in the first 
 instance, observing what the facts are 
 in dispute, and declaring, that as the 
 facts should turn out this way or that 
 way, such or such would be his decree. 
 At present, I confine myself to the 
 removal of such part of the mischief, 
 as may arise from the general conceit 
 of keeping men out of difficulties, by 
 cutting them off from such means of 
 relief as each man's situation may af- 
 ford. A spunge in this, as in so ma- 
 ny other cases, is the only needful, and 
 only availing remedy : one stroke of 
 
 it
 
 and Champerty. 125 
 
 it for the musty laws against mainte- 
 nance and champerty : another for the 
 more recent ones against usury. Con- 
 sider, for example, what would have 
 respectively been the effect of two such 
 strokes, in the case of the unfortunate 
 gentlemen I have been speaking of. 
 By the first, if what is called equity 
 has any claim to confidence, he would 
 have got, even after paying off his 
 champerty-usurers, 15001. a year in 
 land, and about as much in money : 
 instead of getting, and that only by an 
 accident, 30001. once told. By the 
 other, there is no saying to what a de- 
 gree he might have been benefited. 
 May I be allowed to stretch so far in 
 favour of the law as to suppose, that 
 so small a sum as 5001. would have 
 carried him through his suit, in the 
 course of about three years ? I am sen- 
 sible, that may be thought but a short 
 
 sum,
 
 126 LETT. XII. Maintenance 
 
 sum, and this but a short term, for a 
 suit in equity : but, for the purpose 
 of illustration, it may serve as well as 
 a longer. Suppose he had sought this 
 necessary sum in the way of borrow- 
 ing 5 and had been so fortunate, or, as 
 the laws against the sin of usury would 
 style it, so unfortunate, as to get it at 
 200 per cent. He would then have 
 purchased his 60001. a year at the price 
 of half as much once paid, viz. 30001.; 
 instead of selling it at that price. Whe- 
 ther, if no such laws against usury had 
 been in being, he could have got the 
 money, even at that rate, I will not pre- 
 tend to say : perhaps he might not 
 have got it under ten times that rate, 
 perhaps he might have got it at the 
 tenth part of that rate. Thus far, I 
 think, we may say, that he might, and 
 probably would, have been the better 
 for the repeal of those laws : but thus 
 
 far
 
 and Champerty. 127 
 
 far we must say, that it is impossible 
 he should have been the worse. The 
 terms, upon which he met with adven- 
 turers willing to relieve him, though 
 they come not within that scanty field, 
 which the law, in the narrowness of its 
 views, calls usury, do, in the present 
 case, at twenty years purchase of the 
 30001. a year he was content to have 
 sacrificed for such assistance, amount, 
 in effect, to 4000 per cent. Whether 
 it was likely that any man, who was 
 disposed to venture his money, at 
 all, upon such a chance, would have 
 thought of insisting upon such a rate 
 of interest, I will leave you to ima- 
 gine : but thus much may be said with 
 confidence, because the fact demon- 
 strates it, that, at a rate not exceeding 
 this, the sum would actually have been 
 supplied. Whatever becomes then of 
 the laws against maintenance and 
 champerty,
 
 128 LETT. XII. Maintenance, Kc. 
 
 champerty, the example in question, 
 when applied to the laws against usu- 
 ry, ought, I think, to be sufficient to 
 convince us, that so long as the ex- 
 pense of seeking relief at law stands 
 on its present footing, the purpose of 
 seeking that relief will, of itself, inde- 
 pendently of every other, afford a suf- 
 ficient ground for allowing any man, 
 or every man, to borrow money on any 
 terms on which he can obtain it. 
 
 Crichoff, 
 
 in White Russia, 
 
 March, 1787.
 
 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith. 1*9 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 To Dr. Smithy on Projects in Arts, Xc. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I Forget what son of controversy it 
 was, among the Greeks, who hav- 
 ing put himself to school to a professor 
 of eminence, to learn what, in those 
 days, went by the name of wisdom, 
 chose an attack upon his master for 
 the first public specimen of his profi- 
 ciency. This specimen, whatever en- 
 tertainment it might have afforded to 
 the audience, afforded, it may be sup- 
 posed, no great satisfaction to the mas- 
 ter : for the thesis was, that the pupil 
 G 3 owed
 
 ISO LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 owed him nothing for his pains. For 
 my part, being about to shew myself 
 in one respect as ungrateful as the 
 Greek, it may be a matter of prudence 
 for me to look out for something like 
 candour, by way of covering to my in- 
 gratitude: instead therefore of pre- 
 tending to owe you nothing, I shall 
 begin with acknowledging, that, as far 
 as your track coincides with mine, I 
 should come much nearer the truth, 
 were I to say I owed you every thing. 
 Should it be my fortune to gain any 
 advantage over you, it must be with 
 weapons which you have taught me to 
 wield, and with which you yourself 
 have furnished me : for, as all the great 
 standards of truth, which can be ap- 
 pealed to in this line, owe, as far as I 
 can understand, their establishment to 
 you, I can see scarce any other way of 
 convicting you of any error or over- 
 sight,
 
 on Projects in Arts, Kc. 131 
 
 sight, than by judging you out of your 
 own mouth. 
 
 In the series of letters to which this 
 will form a sequel, I had travelled 
 nearly thus far in my researches into 
 the policy of the laws fixing the rate 
 of interest, combating such arguments 
 as fancy rather than observation had 
 suggested to my view, when, on a 
 sudden, recollection presented me with 
 your formidable image, bestriding the 
 ground over which I was travelling 
 pretty much at my ease, and opposing 
 the shield of your authority to any ar- 
 guments I could produce. 
 
 It was a reHection mentioned by Ci- 
 cero as affording him some comfort, 
 that the employment his talents till 
 that time had met with, had been 
 chiefly on the defending side. How 
 little soever blest, on any occasion, 
 with any portion of his eloquence, I 
 
 may,
 
 132 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 may, on the present occasion, however, 
 indulge myself with a portion of what 
 constituted his comfort : for, if I pre- 
 sume to contend with you, it is only 
 in defence of what I look upon as, not 
 only an innocent, but a most merito- 
 rious race of men, who are so unfortu- 
 nate as to have fallen under the rod of 
 your displeasure. I mean projectors: 
 under which invidious name I under- 
 stand you to comprehend, in particu- 
 lar, all such persons as, in the pursuit 
 of wealth, strike out into any new 
 channel, and more especially into any 
 channel of invention. 
 
 It is with the professed view of 
 checking, or rather of crushing, these 
 adventurous spirits, whom you rank 
 with " prodigals," that you approve 
 of the laws which limit the rate of in- 
 terest, grounding yourself on the ten- 
 dency, they appear to you to have, to 
 
 keep
 
 mi Projects in Arts, Kc. 133 
 
 keep the capital of the country oat of 
 two such different sets of hands. 
 
 The passage, I am speaking of, is 
 in the fourth chapter of your second 
 book, volume the second of the 8vo. 
 edition of 1784. <c The legal rate" 
 (you say) " it is to be observed, though 
 " it ought to be somewhat above, 
 " ought not to be much above, the 
 <c lowest market rate. If the legal rate 
 " of interest in Great Britain, for ex- 
 " ample, was fixed so high as eight or 
 <c ten per cent, the greater part of the 
 " money which was to be lent, would 
 " be lent to prodigals and projectors, 
 " who alone would be willing to give 
 " this high interest. Sober people, 
 " who will give for the use of money 
 " no more than a part of what they 
 " are likely to make by the use of it, 
 " would not venture into the compe- 
 " tition. A great part of the capital 
 
 "of
 
 134 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 " of the country would thus be kept 
 <c out of the hands which were most 
 " likely to make a profitable and ad- 
 " vantageous use of it, and thrown 
 " into those which were most likely to 
 " waste and destroy it. Where the 
 " legal interest on the contrary, is 
 tf fixed but a very little above the 
 " lowest market rate, sober people are 
 " universally preferred as borrowers, 
 " to prodigals and projectors. The 
 " person who lends money, gets near- 
 '* ly as much interest from the former, 
 " as he dares to take from the latter, 
 " and his money is much safer in the 
 " hands of the one set of people than 
 " in those of the other. A great part 
 "of the capital of the country is thus 
 " thrown into the hands in which it 
 " is most likely to be employed with 
 " advantage." 
 
 It happens fortunately for the side 
 
 you
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 135 
 
 you appear to have taken, and as un- 
 fortunately for mine, that the appella- 
 tive, which the custom of the language 
 has authorised you, and which the po- 
 verty and perversity of the language 
 has in a manner forced you, to make 
 use of, is one, which, along with the 
 idea of the sort of persons in question, 
 conveys the idea of reprobation, as in- 
 discriminately and deservedly applied 
 to them. With what justice or con- 
 sistency, or by the influence of what 
 causes, this stamp of indiscriminate re- 
 probation has been thus affixed, it is 
 not immediately necessary to inquire. 
 But, that it does stand thus affixed, 
 you and every body else, I imagine, 
 will be ready enough to allow. This 
 being the case, the question stands al- 
 ready decided, in the first instance at 
 least, if not irrevocably, in the judg- 
 ments of all those, who, unable or un- 
 willing
 
 136 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 willing to be at the pains of analys- 
 ing their ideas, suffer their minds to 
 be led captive by the tyranny of sounds : 
 that is, I doubt, of by far the greater 
 proportion of those whom we are likely 
 to have to judge us. In the concep- 
 tions of all such persons, to ask whether 
 it be fit to restrain projects and pro- 
 jectors, will be as much as to ask, 
 whether it be fit to restrain rashness, 
 and folly, and absurdity, and knavery, 
 and waste. 
 
 Of prodigals I shall say no more at 
 present. I have already stated my rea- 
 sons for thinking, that it is not among 
 them that we are to look for the na- 
 tural customers for money at high 
 rates of interest. As far as those rea- 
 sons are conclusive, it will follow, that, 
 of the two sorts of men you mention 
 as proper objects of the burthen of 
 these restraints, prodigals and project- 
 ors,
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 137 
 
 ors, that burthen falls exclusively on 
 the latter. As to these, what your de- 
 finition is of projectors, and what de- 
 scriptions of persons you meant to in- 
 clude under the censure conveyed by 
 that name, might be material for the 
 purpose of judging of the propriety of 
 that censure, but makes no differ- 
 ence in judging of the propriety of 
 the law, which that censure is employ- 
 ed to justify. Whether you yourself, 
 were the several classes of persons made 
 to pass before you in review, would 
 be disposed to pick out this or that 
 class, or this and that individual, in 
 order to exempt them from such cen- 
 sure, is what for that purpose we have 
 no need to inquire. The law, it is 
 certain, makes no such distinctions : 
 it falls with equal weight, and with 
 all its weight, upon all those persons, 
 without distinction, to whom the term 
 projectors, in the most unpartial and 
 
 extensive
 
 138 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 extensive signification of which it is 
 capable, can be applied. It falls at 
 any rate (to repeat some of the words 
 of my former definition), upon all 
 such persons, as, in the pursuit of 
 wealth, or even of any other ob- 
 ject, endeavour, by the assistance of 
 wealth, to strike into any channel of 
 invention. It falls upon all such per- 
 sons, as, in the cultivation of any of 
 those arts which have been by way of 
 eminence termed useful, direct their en- 
 deavours to any of those departments 
 in which their utility shines most con- 
 spicuous and indubitable ; upon all 
 such persons as, in the line of any of 
 their pursuits, aim at any thing that 
 can be called improvement j whether it 
 consist in the production of any new 
 article adapted to man's use, or in the 
 meliorating the quality, or diminishing 
 the expense, of any of those which are 
 already known to us. It falls, in 
 
 short^
 
 on Projects in Arts, Kc. 139 
 
 short, upon every application of the hu- 
 man powers, in which ingenuity stands 
 in need of wealth for its assistant. 
 
 High and extraordinary rates of in- 
 terest, how little soever adapted to the 
 situation of the prodigal, are certainly, 
 as you very justly observe, particularly 
 adapted to the situation of the pro- 
 jector : not however to that of the im- 
 prudent projector only, nor even to 
 his case more than another's, but to 
 that of the prudent and well-grounded 
 projector, if the existence of such a 
 being were to be supposed. Whatever 
 be the prudence or other qualities of 
 the project, in whatever circumstance 
 the novelty of it may lie, it has this 
 circumstance against it, viz. that it is 
 new. But the rates of interest, the 
 highest rates allowed, are, as you ex- 
 pressly say they are, and as you would 
 have them to be, adjusted to the situa- 
 tion
 
 140 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 tion which the sort of trader is in, 
 whose trade runs in the old channels, 
 and to the best security which such 
 channels can afford. But in the na- 
 ture of things, no new trade, no trade 
 carried on in any new channel, can af- 
 ford a security equal to that which 
 may be afforded by a trade carried on 
 in any of the old ones : in whatever light 
 the matter might appear to perfect in- 
 telligence, in the eye of every prudent 
 person, exerting the best powers of judg- 
 ing which the fallible condition of the 
 human faculties affords, the novelty of 
 any commercial adventure will oppose 
 a chance of ill success, superadded to 
 every one which could attend the same, 
 or any other, adventure, already tried, 
 and proved to be profitable by experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The limitation of the profit that is 
 to be made, by lending money to per- 
 sons
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 141 
 
 sons embarked in trade, will render the 
 monied man more anxious, you may 
 say, about the goodness of his security, 
 and accordingly more anxious to satis- 
 fy himself respecting the prudence of a 
 project in the carrying on of which the 
 money is to be employed, than he 
 would be otherwise : and in this way 
 it may be thought that these laws have 
 a tendency to pick out the good pro- 
 jects from the bad, and favour the for- 
 mer at the expense of the latter. The 
 first of these positions I admit : but I 
 can never admit the consequence to 
 follow. A prudent man, (I mean no- 
 thing more than a man of ordinary pru- 
 dence) a prudent man acting under the 
 sole governance of prudential motives, 
 I still say, will not, in these circum- 
 stances, pick out the good projects from 
 the bad, for he will not meddle with 
 projects at all. He will pick out old- 
 established
 
 142 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 established trades from all sorts of pro- 
 jects, good and bad ; for with a new 
 project, be it ever so promising, he 
 never will have any thing to do. By 
 every man that has money, five per 
 cent, or whatever be the highest legal 
 rate, is at all times, and always will be, 
 to be had upon the very best security, 
 that the best and most prosperous old- 
 established trade can afford. Traders 
 in general, I believe, it is commonly 
 understood, are well enough inclined to 
 enlarge their capital, as far as all the 
 money they can borrow at the highest 
 legal rate, while that rate is so low as 5 
 per cent, will enlarge it. How it is pos- 
 sible therefore for a project, be it ever 
 so promising, to afford, to a lender at 
 any such rate of interest, terms equal- 
 ly advantageous, upon the whole, with 
 those he might be sure of obtaining 
 from an old-established business, is 
 
 more
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 143 
 
 more than I can conceive. Loans of 
 money may certainly chance, now and 
 then, to find their way into the poc- 
 kets of projectors as well as of other 
 men : but when this happens, it must 
 be through incautiousness, or friend- 
 ship, or the expectation of some colla- 
 teral benefit, and not through any 
 idea of the advantageousness of the 
 transaction, in the light of a pecuniary 
 bargain. 
 
 I should not expect to see it alleg- 
 ed, that there is any thing, that should 
 render the number of well-grounded 
 projects, in comparison of the ill- 
 grounded, less in time future, than it 
 has been in time past. I am sure at 
 least that I know of no reasons why it 
 should be so, though I know of some 
 reasons, which I shall beg leave to sub- 
 mit to you by and by, which appear to 
 
 me
 
 144 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 me pretty good ones, why the advan- 
 tage should be on the side of futurity. 
 But, unless the stock of well-grounded 
 projects is already spent, and the whole 
 stock of ill-grounded projects that 
 ever were possible, are to be looked 
 for exclusively in the time to come, 
 the censure you have passed on projec- 
 tors, measuring still the extent of it by 
 that of the operation of the laws in the 
 defence of which it is employed, looks 
 as far backward as forward : it con- 
 demns as rash and ill-grounded, all 
 those projects, by which our species 
 have been successively advanced from 
 that state in which acorns were their 
 food, and raw hides their cloathing, 
 to the state in which it stands at pre- 
 sent : for think, Sir, let me beg of you, 
 whether whatever is now the routine 
 of trade was not, at its commence- 
 ment,
 
 on Projects in Arts, fife. 145 
 
 ment, project? whether whatever is 
 now establishment, was not, at one time, 
 innovation? 
 
 How it is that the tribe of well- 
 grounded projects, and of prudent pro- 
 jectors (if by this time I may have 
 your leave for applying this epithet to 
 some at least among the projectors of 
 time past), have managed to struggle 
 through the obstacles which the laws 
 in question have been holding in their 
 way, it is neither easy to know, nor 
 necessary to inquire. Manifest enough, 
 I think, it must be by this time, that 
 difficulties, and those not inconsider- 
 able ones, those laws must have been 
 holding up, in the way of projects of 
 all sorts, of improvement (if I may say 
 so) in every line, so long as they have 
 had existence : reasonable therefore it 
 must be to conclude, that, had it not 
 been for these discouragements, pro-" 
 H jects
 
 146 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 jects of all sorts, well-grounded and 
 successful ones, as well as others, would 
 have been more numerous than they 
 have been : and that accordingly, on 
 the other hand, as soon, if ever, as these 
 discouragements shall be removed, 
 projects of all sorts, and among the 
 rest, well-grounded and successful 
 ones, will be more numerous than 
 they would otherwise have been: in 
 short, that, as, without these discou- 
 ragements, the progress of mankind 
 in the career of prosperity, would have 
 been greater than it has been under 
 them in time past; so, were they to be 
 removed, it would be at least propor- 
 tionably greater in time future. 
 
 That I had done you no injustice, 
 in assigning to your idea of projectors 
 so great a latitude, and that the unfa- 
 vourable opinion you have professed 
 to entertain of them is not confined to 
 
 the
 
 on Projects in Arts, fife. 147 
 
 the above passage, might be made, I 
 think, pretty apparent, if it be mate- 
 rial, by another passage in the tenth 
 chapter of your first book*. " The 
 " establishment of any new manufac- 
 " ture, of any new branch of com- 
 " merce, or of any new practice in 
 " agriculture," all these you compre- 
 hend by name under the list of " pro- 
 "jects:" of everyone of them you ob- 
 serve, that " it is a speculation from 
 " which the projector promises himself 
 " extraordinary profits. These pro- 
 " fits (you add) are sometimes very 
 " great, and sometimes, more frequently 
 " perhaps, they are quite otherwise: but 
 " in general they bear no regular pro- 
 " portion to those of other old trades 
 " in the neighbourhood. If the pro- 
 " ject succeeds, they are commonly 
 
 * Edit. 1784, 8vo .p. 177. 
 
 H 2 "at
 
 148 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 " at first very high. When the trade 
 " or practice becomes thoroughly es* 
 " tablished and well known, the com- 
 " petition reduces them to the level of 
 " other trades." But on this head I 
 forbear to insist: nor should I have 
 taken this liberty of giving you back 
 your own words, but in the hope of 
 seeing some alteration made in them in 
 your next edition, should I be fortunate 
 enough to find my sentiments confirm- 
 ed by your's. In other respects, what 
 is essential to the public, is, what the 
 error is in the sentiments entertained, 
 not who it is that entertains them. 
 
 I know not whether the observations 
 \vhich I have been troubling you with, 
 will be thought to need, or whether 
 they will be thought to receive, 
 any additional support from those 
 comfortable positions, of which you 
 have made such good and such fre- 
 quent
 
 en Projects in Arts, Xc. 149 
 
 quent use, concerning the constant 
 tendency of mankind to get forward 
 in the career of prosperity, the preva- 
 lence of prudence over imprudence, 
 in the sum of private conduct at least, 
 and the superior fitness of individuals 
 for managing their own pecuniary con- 
 cerns, of which they know the parti- 
 culars and the circumstances, in com- 
 parison of the legislator, who can have 
 no such knowledge. I will make the 
 experiment : for, so long as I havo the 
 mortification to see you on the oppo- 
 site side, I can never think the ground 
 I have taken strong enough, while any 
 thing remains that appears capable of 
 rendering it still stronger. 
 
 " With regard to misconduct, the 
 " number of prudent and successful 
 " undertakings" (you observe*) " is 
 
 B. II. cb. iii. edit. 8vo. 1784. vol. ii. p. 20. 
 
 " every
 
 150 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 " every where much greater than that 
 " of injudicious and unsuccessful ones. 
 " After all our complaints of the fre- 
 " quency of bankruptcies, the unhap- 
 *' py men who fall into this misfor- 
 " tune make but a very small part of 
 " the whole number engaged in trade, 
 " and all other sorts of business j not 
 " much more perhaps than one in a 
 "thousand." 
 
 'Tis in support of this position that 
 you appeal to history for the constant 
 and uninterrupted progress of man- 
 kind, in our island at least, in the ca- 
 reer of prosperity : calling upon any 
 one who should entertain a doubt of 
 the fact, to divide the history into any 
 number of periods, from the time of 
 Caesar's visit down to the present : pro- 
 posing for instance the respective aeras 
 of the Restoration, the Accession of 
 Elizabeth, that of Henry VII. the 
 
 Norman
 
 on Projects in Arts, 8fc. 1.51 
 
 Norman Conquest, and the Heptar- 
 chy ; and putting it to the sceptic to 
 find out, if he can, among all these 
 periods, any one at which the condi- 
 tion of the country was not more pros- 
 perous than at the period immediately 
 preceding it : spite of so many wars, 
 and fires, and plagues, and all other 
 public calamities, with which it has 
 been at different times afflicted, whe- 
 ther by the hand of God, or by the 
 misconduct of the sovereign. No very 
 easy task, I believe: the fact is too 
 manifest for the most jaundiced eye to 
 escape seeing it : But what and whom 
 are we to thank for it, but projects, 
 and projectors ? 
 
 " No," I think 1 hear you saying, 
 " I will not thank projectors for it, I 
 " will rather thank the laws, which 
 " by fixing the rates of interest, have 
 " been exercising their vigilance in 
 " repressing
 
 152 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 " repressing the temerity of projectors, 
 " and preventing their imprudence 
 " from making those defalcations from 
 " the sum of national prosperity, which 
 " it would not have failed to make, 
 " had it been left free. If, during all 
 * e these periods, that adventurous race 
 " of men had been left at liberty by 
 " the laws to give full scope to their 
 " rash enterprizes, the increase of 
 " national prosperity during these 
 (e periods might have afforded some 
 " ground for regarding them in a 
 " more favourable point of view. But 
 " the fact is, that their activity has 
 " had these laws to check it; without 
 t( which checks you must give me 
 " leave to suppose, that the current 
 " of prosperity, if not totally stopt, or 
 " turned the other way, would at any 
 " rate have been more or less retard- 
 * c ed. Here then" (you conclude) 
 
 " lies
 
 on Projects in Arts, 5fc. 153 
 
 " lies the difference between us. What 
 " you look upon as the cause of the 
 " increase about which we are both 
 " agreed, I look upon as an obstacle 
 " to it: and what you look upon as the 
 <f obstacle, I look upon as the cause." 
 
 Instead of starting this as a sort of 
 plea that might be urged by you, I 
 ought, perhaps, rather to have men- 
 tioned it as what might be urged by 
 some people in your place : for as I do 
 not imagine your penetration would 
 suffer you to rest satisfied with it, still 
 less can I suppose that, if you were 
 not, your candour would allow you 
 to make use of it as if you were. 
 
 To prevent your resting satisfied 
 with it, the following considerations 
 would, I think, be sufficient. 
 
 In the first place, of the seven pe- 
 riods which you have pitched upon, 
 as so many stages for the eye to rest 
 H3 at
 
 154 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 at in viewing the progress of prospe- 
 rity, it is only during the three last, 
 that the country has had the benefit, 
 if such we are to call it, of these laws : 
 for it is to the reign of Henry VIII. 
 that we owe the first of them. 
 
 Here a multitude of questions might 
 be started: Whether the curbing of 
 projectors formed any part of the de- 
 sign of that first statute, or whether 
 the views of it were not wholly con- 
 fined to the reducing the gains of that 
 obnoxious and envied class of men, 
 the money-lenders? Whether projec- 
 tors have been most abundant before 
 that statute, or since that statute ? And 
 whether the nation has suffered, as you 
 might say benefited, as I should say, 
 most by them, upon the whole, dur- 
 ing the former period or the latter? 
 All these discussions, and many more 
 that might be started, I decline engag- 
 ing
 
 on Projects in Arts, Kc. 155 
 
 ing in, as more likely to retard, than 
 to forward, our coming to any agree- 
 ment concerning the main question. 
 
 In the next place, I must here take 
 the liberty of referring you to the 
 proof, which I think I have already 
 given, of the proposition, that the re- 
 straints in question could never have 
 had the effect, in any degree, of lessen- 
 ing the proportion of bad projects to 
 good ones, but only of diminishing, 
 as far as their influence may have ex- 
 tended, the total number of projects, 
 good and bad together. Whatever 
 therefore was the general tendency of 
 the projecting spirit previously to the 
 first of these laws, such it must have 
 remained ever since, for any effect 
 which they could have had in purify- 
 ing and correcting it. 
 
 But what may appear more satisfac- 
 tory perhaps than both the above con- 
 siderations,
 
 156 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 siderations, and may afford us the 
 best help towards extricating ourselves 
 from the perplexity, which the plea I 
 have been combating (and which I 
 thought it necessary to bring to view, 
 as the best that could be urged) seems 
 much better calculated to plunge us 
 into, than bring us out of, is, the con- 
 sideration of the small effect which the 
 greatest waste that can be conceived to 
 have been made within any compass of 
 time, by injudicious projects, can have 
 had on the sum of prosperity, even in 
 the estimation of those whose opinion 
 is most unfavourable to projectors, in 
 comparison of the effect which within 
 the same compass of time must have 
 been produced by prodigality. 
 
 Of the two causes, and only two 
 causes, which you mention, as contri- 
 buting to retard the accumulation of 
 national wealth, as far as the conduct 
 
 of
 
 on Projects in Arts, &c. 157 
 
 of individuals is concerned, project- 
 ing, as I observed before, is the one, 
 and prodigality is the other: but the 
 detriment, which society can receive 
 even from the concurrent efficacy of 
 both these causes, you represent on se- 
 veral occasions, as inconsiderable; 
 and, if I do not misapprehend you, 
 too inconsiderable, either to need, or 
 to warrant, the interposition of govern- 
 ment to oppose it. Be this as it may 
 with regard to projecting and pro- 
 digality taken together, with regard 
 to prodigality at least, I am certain 1 
 do not misapprehend you. On this 
 subject you ride triumphant, and 
 chastise the " impertinence and pre 
 " sumption of kings and ministers," 
 with a tone of authority, which it re 
 quired a courage like your's to ven 
 ture upon, and a genius like your's 
 
 to
 
 158 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 to warrant a man to assume*. After 
 drawing the parallel between private 
 thrift and public profusion, " It is " 
 (you conclude) " the highest imper- 
 " tinence and presumption therefore 
 " in kings and ministers to pretend to 
 " watch over the economy of private 
 " people, and to restrain their expense, 
 f( either by sumptuary laws, or by 
 (f prohibiting the importation of fo- 
 " reign luxuries. They are themselves 
 " always, and without exception, the 
 " greatest spendthrifts in the society. 
 " Let them look well after their own 
 " expense, and they may safely trust 
 " private people with theirs. If their 
 " own extravagance does not ruin the 
 " state, that of their subjects never 
 will." 
 
 B. II. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 27. edit. 8vo. 1784. 
 
 That
 
 on Projects in Arts, fife. 159 
 
 That the employing the expedients 
 you mention for restraining prodiga- 
 lity, is indeed generally, perhaps even 
 without exception, improper, and in 
 many cases even ridiculous. I agree 
 with you : nor will I here step aside 
 from my subject to defend from that 
 imputation another mode suggested in 
 a former part of these papers. But 
 however presumptuous and imperti- 
 nent it may be for the sovereign to at- 
 tempt in any way to check by legal 
 restraints the prodigality of individuals, 
 to attempt to check their bad manage- 
 ment by such restraints, seems abun- 
 dantly more so. To err in the way of 
 prodigality is the lot, though, as you 
 well observe, not of many men, in 
 comparison of the whole mass of man- 
 kind, yet at least of any man : the stuff 
 fit to make a prodigal of is to be found 
 in every alehouse, and under every 
 
 hedge.
 
 160 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 hedge. But even to err in the way of 
 projecting is the lot only of the privi- 
 leged few. Prodigality, though not 
 so common as to make any very ma- 
 terial drain from the general mass of 
 wealth, is however too common to be 
 regarded as a mark of distinction or 
 as a singularity. But the stepping 
 aside from any of the beaten paths of 
 traffic, is regarded as a singularity, as 
 serving to distinguish a man from other 
 men. Even where it requires no ge- 
 nius, no peculiarity of talent, as where 
 it consists in nothing more than the 
 finding out a new market to buy or 
 sell in, it requires however at least a 
 degree of courage, which is not to be 
 found in the common herd of men. 
 "What shall we say of it, where, in 
 addition to the vulgar quality of cou- 
 rage, it requires the rare endowment 
 of genius, as in the instance of all those 
 
 successive
 
 ton Projects in Arts, Kc. 161 
 
 successive enterprises by which arts 
 and manufactures have been brought 
 from their original nothing to their 
 present splendour ? Think how small 
 a part of the community these must 
 make, in comparison of the race of 
 prodigals; of that very race, which, 
 were it only on account of the small- 
 ness of its number, would appear too 
 inconsiderable to you to deserve at- 
 tention. Yet prodigality is essentially 
 and necessarily hurtful, as far as it goes, 
 to the opulence of the state : project- 
 ing, only by accident. Every prodi- 
 gal, without exception, impairs, by the 
 very supposition impairs, if he does 
 not annihilate, his fortune. But it 
 certainly is not every projector that 
 impairs his: it is not every projector 
 that would have done so, had there 
 been none of those wise laws to hin- 
 der him : for the fabric of national 
 
 opulence,
 
 162 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 opulence, that fabric of which you 
 proclaim, with so generous an exulta- 
 tion, the continual increase, that fa- 
 bric, in every apartment of which, 
 innumerable as they are, it required 
 the reprobated hand of a projector to 
 lay the first stone, has required some 
 hands at least to be employed, and 
 successfully employed. When in com- 
 parison of the number of prodigals, 
 which is too inconsiderable to deserve 
 notice, the number of projectors of 
 all kinds is so much more inconsi- 
 derable and when from this incon- 
 siderable number, must be deducted, 
 the not inconsiderable proportion of 
 successful projectors and from this 
 remainder again, all those who can 
 carry on their projects without need of 
 borrowing think whether it be possi- 
 ble, that this last remainder could af- 
 ford a multitude, the reducing of which 
 
 would
 
 on Projects in Arts, fife. 163 
 
 would be an object, deserving the in- 
 terposition of government by its mag- 
 nitude, even taking for granted that 
 it were an object proper in its na- 
 ture ? 
 
 If it be still a question, whether it 
 be worth while for government, by its 
 reason, to attempt to controul the con- 
 duct of men visibly and undeniably 
 under the dominion of passion, and 
 acting under that dominion, contrary 
 to the dictates of their own reason ; in 
 short, to effect what is acknowledged 
 to be their better judgment, against 
 what every body, even themselves, 
 would acknowledge to be their worse : 
 is it endurable that the legislator 
 should by violence substitute his own 
 pretended reason, the result of a mo- 
 mentary and scornful glance, the off- 
 spring of wantonness and arrogance, 
 much rather than of social anxiety and 
 
 study,
 
 164 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 study, in the place of the humble rea- 
 son of individuals, binding itself down 
 with all its force to that very object 
 \vhich he pretends to have in view ? 
 Nor let it be forgotten, that, on the side 
 of the individual in this strange com- 
 petition, there is the most perfect and 
 minute knowledge and information, 
 which interest, the whole interest of a 
 man's reputation and fortune, can en- 
 sure : on the side of the legislator, the 
 most perfect ignorance. All that he 
 knows, all that he can know, is, that 
 the enterprize is aproject, which, mere- 
 ly because it is susceptible of that ob- 
 noxious name, he looks upon as a sort 
 of cock, for him, in childish wanton- 
 ness, to shie at. Shall the blind lead 
 the blind ? is a question that has been 
 put of old to indicate the height of 
 folly : but what then shall we say of 
 him who, being necessarily blind, in- 
 
 'sists
 
 on Projects in Arts, fife. 165 
 
 sists on leading, in paths he never trod 
 in, those who can see ? 
 
 It must be by some distinction too 
 fine for my conception, if you clear 
 yourself from the having taken, on 
 another occasion, but on the very 
 point in question, the side, on which 
 it would be my ambition to see you 
 fix. 
 
 " What is the species of domestic 
 " industry which his capital can em- 
 " ploy, and of which the produce is 
 " likely to be of the greatest value, 
 " every individual" (you say*), " it 
 " is evident, can, in his local situation, 
 " judge much better than any states- 
 " man or lawgiver can do for him. 
 " The statesman, who should attempt 
 " to direct private people in what 
 x< manner they ought to employ their 
 
 * B. IV. ch. ii. vol. ii. p. 182, edit. 8vo. 
 
 " capitals,
 
 166 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 (t capitals, would not only load him- 
 " self with a most unnecessary atten- 
 " tion, but assume an authority which 
 * could safely be trusted, not only to 
 " no single person, but to no council 
 " or senate whatsoever, and which 
 " would no where be so dangerous as 
 " in the hands of a man who had folly 
 " and presumption enough to fancy 
 " himself fit to exercise it. 
 
 " To give the monopoly of the 
 " home market to the produce of do- 
 " mestic industry, in any particular 
 " art or manufacture, is in some mea- 
 " sure to direct private people in what 
 " manner they ought to employ their 
 " capitals, and must in almost all cases 
 " be either a useless or a hurtful regu- 
 " lation." Thus far you : and I add, 
 to limit the legal interest to a rate at 
 which the carriers on of the oldest and 
 best-established and least hazardous 
 
 trades
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 167 
 
 trades are always glad to borrow, is to 
 give the monopoly of the money-mar- 
 ket to those traders, as against the pro- 
 jectors of new-imagined trades, not 
 one of which but, were it only from 
 the circumstance of its novelty, must, 
 as I have already observed, appear 
 more hazardous than the old. 
 
 These, in comparison are but in- 
 conclusive topics. I touched upon 
 them merely as affording, what ap- 
 peared to me the only shadow of a 
 plea, that could be brought, in defence 
 of the policy I am contending against. 
 I come back therefore to my first 
 ground, and beg you once more to 
 consider, whether, of all that host of 
 manufactures, which we both exult in 
 as the causes and ingredients of na- 
 tional prosperity, there be a single one, 
 that could have existed at first but in 
 the shape of a project. But, if a re- 
 gulation,
 
 168 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 gulation, the tendency and effect of 
 which is merely to check projects, 
 in as far as they are projects, without 
 any sort of tendency, as I have shewn, 
 to weed out the bad ones, is defensible 
 in its present state of imperfect effica- 
 cy, it should not only have been de- 
 fensible, but much more worthy of 
 our approbation, could the efficacy of 
 it have been so far strengthened and 
 compleated as to have opposed, from 
 the beginning, an unsurmountable bar 
 to all sorts of projects whatsoever : 
 that is to say, if, stretching forth its 
 hand over the first rudiments of soci- 
 ety, it had confined us, from the be- 
 ginning, to mud for our habitations, 
 to skins for our cloathing, and to 
 acorns for our food. 
 
 I hope you may by this time be 
 disposed to allow me, that we have 
 not been ill served by the projects of 
 
 time
 
 vn Projects in Arts, Kc. 169 
 
 time past. I have already intimated, 
 that I could not see any reason why 
 we should apprehend our being worse 
 served by the projects of time future. 
 I will now venture to add, that I 
 think I do see reason, why we should 
 expect to be still better and better 
 served by these projects, than by those. 
 I mean better upon the whole, in vir- 
 tue of the reduction which experience, 
 if experience be worth any thing, 
 should make in the proportion of the 
 number of the ill-grounded and unsuc- 
 cessful, to that of the well-grounded 
 and successful ones. 
 
 The career of art, the great road 
 which receives the footsteps of pro- 
 jectors, may be considered as a vast, 
 and perhaps unbounded, plain, be- 
 strewed with gulphs, such as Curtius 
 was swallowed up in. Each requires 
 I an
 
 170 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 an human victim to fall into it ere it 
 can close ; but when it once closes, it 
 closes to open no more, and so much 
 of the path is safe to those who fol- 
 low. If the want of perfect informa- 
 tion of former miscarriages renders the 
 reality of human life less happy than 
 this picture, still the similitude must 
 be acknowledged : and we see at once 
 the only plain and effectual method 
 for bringing that similitude still nearer 
 and nearer to perfection ; I mean, the 
 framing the history of the projects of 
 time past, and (what may be executed 
 in much greater perfection, were but a 
 finger held up by the hand of govern- 
 ment) the making provision for re- 
 cording, and collecting, and publishing 
 as they are brought forth, the race of 
 those with which the womb of futuri- 
 ty is still pregnant. But to pursue 
 
 this
 
 vn Projects in Arts, tfc. 171 
 
 this idea, the execution of which is 
 not within my competence, would 
 lead me too far from the purpose. 
 
 Comfortable it is to reflect, that this 
 state of continually-improving secu- 
 rity, is the natural state not only of 
 the road to opulence, but of every 
 other track of human life. In the war 
 which industry and ingenuity main- 
 tain with fortune, past ages of igno- 
 rance and barbarism form the forlorn 
 hope, which has been detached in ad- 
 vance, and made a sacrifice of for the 
 sake of future. The golden age, it is>, 
 but too true, is not the lot of the ge- 
 neration in which we live: but, if it 
 is to be found in any part of the track ', 
 marked out for human existence, it 
 will be found, I trust, not in any part 
 which is past, but in some part which j 
 is to come. 
 
 But to return to the laws against 
 I 2 usury,
 
 172 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 usury, and their restraining influence 
 on projectors. I have made it, I hope, 
 pretty apparent, that these restraints 
 have no power or tendency to pick 
 out bad projects from the good. Is it 
 worth while to add, which I think I 
 may do with some truth, that the ten- 
 dency of them is rather to pick the 
 good out from the bad ? Thus much 
 at least may be said, and it comes 
 to the same thing, that there is one 
 case in which, be the project what it 
 may, they may have the effect of 
 checking it, and another in which they 
 can have no such effect ; and that the 
 first has for its accompaniment, and 
 that a necessary one, a circumstance 
 which has a strong tendency to sepa- 
 rate and discard every project of the 
 injudicious stamp, but which is want- 
 ing in the other case. I mean, in a 
 word, the benefit of discussion. 
 
 It
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 
 
 It is evident enough, that upon all 
 such projects, whatever be their na- 
 ture, as find funds sufficient to carry 
 them on, in the hands of him whose 
 invention gave them birth, these laws 
 are perfectly, and if by this time you 
 will allow me to say so, very happily, 
 without power. But for these there 
 has not necessarily been any other 
 judge, prior to experience, than the 
 inventor's own partial affection. It is 
 not only not necessary that they should 
 have had, but it is natural enough 
 that they should not have had, any 
 such judge: since in most cases the 
 advantage to be expected from the 
 project depends upon the exclusive 
 property in it, and consequently 
 upon the concealment of the princi- 
 ple. Think, on the other hand, how 
 different is the lot of that enterprize 
 which depends upon the good opinion 
 
 of
 
 174 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 of another man ; that other, a man pos- 
 sessed of the wealth which the projec- 
 tor wants, and before whom necessity 
 forces him to appear in the character 
 of a suppliant at least : happy if, in 
 the imagination of his judge, he adds 
 not to that degrading character, that 
 of a visionary enthusiast or an impostor! 
 At any rate, there are, in this case, two 
 wits, set to sift into the merits of the 
 project, for one, which was employed 
 upon that same task in the other case : 
 and of these two there is one, whose 
 prejudices are certainly not most like- 
 ly to be on the favourable side. True 
 it is, that in the jumble of occurrences, 
 an over-sanguine projector may stum- 
 ble upon a patron as over-sanguine as 
 himself; and the wishes may bribe the 
 judgment of the one, as they did of 
 the other. The opposite case, how- 
 ever, you will allow, I think, to be by 
 
 much
 
 on Projects in Arts, 8fc. 175 
 
 much the more natural. Whatever a 
 man's wishes may be for the success of 
 an enterprize not yet his own, his fears 
 are likely to be still stronger. That 
 same pretty generally implanted prin- 
 ciple of vanity and self-conceit, which 
 disposes most of us to over-value each 
 of us his own conceptions, disposes us, 
 in a proportionable degree, to under- 
 value those of other men. 
 
 Is it worth adding, though it be 
 undeniably true, that could it even be 
 proved, by ever so uncontrovertible 
 evidence, that, from the beginning of 
 time to the present day, there never 
 was a project that did not terminate in 
 the ruin of its author ; not even from 
 such a fact as this, could the legislator 
 derive any sufficient warrant, so much 
 as for wishing to see the spirit of pro- 
 jects in any degree repressed ? The 
 discouraging motto, Sic vos non vobis y 
 
 may
 
 176 LETT. XIII. To Dr: Smith, 
 
 may be matter of serious consideration 
 to the individual, but what is it to the 
 legislator ? What general, let him at- 
 tack with ever so superior an army, 
 but knows that hundreds, or perhaps 
 thousands, must perish at the first on- 
 set ? Shall he, for that consideration 
 alone, lie inactive in his lines ? Every 
 " man for himself but God," adds 
 the proverb (and it might have added 
 the general, and the legislator, and all 
 other public servants), " for us all." 
 Those sacrifices of individual to gene- 
 ral welfare, which, on so many occa- 
 sions, are made by third persons against 
 men's wills, shall the parties them- 
 selves be restrained from making, when 
 they do it of their own choice ? To tie 
 men neck and heels, and throw them 
 into the gulphs I have been speaking 
 of, is altogether out of the question : 
 but if at every gulph a Curtius stands 
 
 mounted
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 177 
 
 mounted and caparisoned, ready to 
 take the leap, is it for the legislator, in 
 a fit of old-womanish tenderness, to pull 
 him away ? Laying even public interest 
 out of the question, and considering 
 nothing but the feelings of the indivi- 
 duals immediately concerned, a legis- 
 lator would scarcely do so, who knew 
 the value of hope, " the most precious 
 " gift of heaven.'* 
 
 Consider, Sir, that it is not with the 
 invention-lottery (that great branch of 
 the project lottery, for the sake of 
 which I am defending the whole, and 
 must continue so to do until you or 
 somebody else can shew me how to 
 defend it on better terms), it is not I 
 say with the invention-lottery, as with 
 the mine-lottery, the privateering- 
 lottery, and so many other lotteries, 
 which you speak of, and in no instance, 
 I think, very much to their advantage. 
 13 In.
 
 178 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 In these lines, success does not, as in 
 this, arise out of the embers of ill suc- 
 cess, and thence propagate itself, by a 
 happy contagion, perhaps to all eter- 
 nity. Let Titius have found a mine, 
 it is not the more easy, but by so much 
 the less easy, for Sempronius to find 
 one too : let Titius have made a cap- 
 ture, it is not the more easy, but by so 
 much the less easy, for Sempronius to 
 do the like. But let Titius have found 
 out a new dye, more brilliant or more 
 durable than those in use, let him have 
 invented a new and more convenient 
 machine, or a new and more profitable 
 mode of husbandry; a thousand dyers, 
 ten thousand mechanics, a hundred 
 thousand husbandmen, may repeat and 
 multiply his success : and then, what 
 is it to the public, though the for- 
 tune of Titius, or of his usurer, 
 
 should
 
 on Projects in Arts, fife. 179 
 
 should have sunk under the expe- 
 riment? 
 
 Birmingham and Sheffield are pitch- 
 ed upon by you as examples, the one 
 of a projecting town, the other of an 
 unprojecting one*. Can you forgive 
 my saying, I rather wonder that this 
 comparison of your own choosing, did 
 not suggest some suspicions of the jus- 
 tice of the conceptions you had taken 
 up, to the disadvantage of projectors. 
 Sheffield is an old oak : Birmingham, 
 but a mushroom. What if we should 
 find the mushroom still vaster and 
 more vigorous than the oak ? Not but 
 the one as well as the other, at what 
 time soever planted, must equally 
 have been planted by projectors : for 
 though Tubal Cain himself were to 
 
 B. I. ch. x. vol. i. p. 176. edit. 8vo. 1784. 
 
 be
 
 180' LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 be brought post from Armenia to 
 plant Sheffield, Tubal Cain himself 
 was as arrant a projector in his day, 
 as ever Sir Thomas Lombe was, or 
 bishop Blaise : but Birmingham, it 
 seems, claims in common parlance 
 the title of a projecting town, to the 
 exclusion of the other, because, being 
 but of yesterday, the spirit of project 
 smells fresher and stronger there than 
 elsewhere. 
 
 When the odious sound of the 
 word projector no longer tingles in 
 your ears, the race of men thus stig- 
 matized do not always find you their 
 enemy. Projects, even under the name 
 of " dangerous and expensive experi- 
 (f ments," are represented as not unfit 
 to be encouraged, even though mon- 
 opoly be the means : and the monopoly 
 is defended in that instance, by its si- 
 milarity
 
 on Projects in Arts, Xc. 181 
 
 milarity to other instances in which 
 the like means are employed to the 
 like purpose. 
 
 " When a company of merchants 
 " undertake at their own risk and ex- 
 " pense to establish a new trade with 
 " some remote and barbarous nation, 
 " it may not be unreasonable" (you 
 observe) " to incorporate them into 
 " a joint-stock company, and to grant 
 " them, in case of their success, a 
 " monopoly of the trade for a certain 
 " number of years. It is the easiest 
 " and most natural way, in which the 
 " state can recompense them, for ha- 
 " zarding a dangerous and expensive 
 " experiment, of which the public is 
 " afterwards to reap the benefit. A 
 " temporary monopoly of this kind 
 ' may be vindicated, upon the same 
 " principles, upon which a like mon- 
 " opoly of a new machine is granted to 
 
 " its
 
 182 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 " its inventor, and that of a new book 
 " to its author." 
 
 Private respect must not stop me 
 from embracing this occasion of giv- 
 ing a warning, which is so much need- 
 ed by mankind. If so original and 
 independent a spirit has not been al- 
 ways able to save itself from being 
 drawn aside by the fascination of 
 sounds, into the paths of vulgar pre- 
 judice, how strict a watch ought not 
 men of common mould to set over 
 their judgments, to save themselves 
 from being led astray by similar de- 
 lusions? 
 
 I have sometimes been tempted to 
 think, that were it in the power of Jaws 
 to put words under proscription, as it 
 is to put men, the cause of inventive in- 
 dustry might perhaps derive scarcely 
 less assistance from a bill of attainder 
 against the words project and projectors, 
 
 than
 
 on Projects in Arts, Xc. 183 
 
 than it has derived from the act au- 
 thorizing the grant of patents. I 
 should add, however, for a time: for 
 even then the envy, and vanity, and 
 wounded pride, of the uningenious 
 herd, would sooner or later infuse 
 their venom into some other word, 
 and set it up as a new tyrant, to hover, 
 like its predecessor, over the birth of 
 infant genius, and crush it in its cra- 
 dle. 
 
 Will not you accuse me of pushing 
 malice beyond all bounds, if I bring 
 down against you so numerous and re- 
 spectable a body of men, as the mem- 
 bers of the Society for the Encourage- 
 ment of Arts ? I do not, must not, 
 care : for you command too much re- 
 spect to have any claim to mercy. At 
 least you will not accuse me of spirit- 
 ing up against you barbarian enemies, 
 
 and
 
 184 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 and devoting you to the vengeance of 
 Cherokees and Chicasaws. 
 
 Of that popular institution, the very 
 professed and capital object is the 
 encouragement of projects, and the 
 propagating of that obnoxious breed, 
 the crushing of which you commend 
 as a fit exercise for the arm of power. 
 But if it be right to crush the acting 
 malefactors, it would be downright 
 inconsistency not to crush, at the same 
 time, or rather not to begin with 
 crushing, these their hirers and abet- 
 tors. Thank then their inadvertence, 
 or their generosity, or their prudence, 
 if their beadle has not yet received 
 orders to burn in ceremony, as a libel 
 on the society, a book that does ho- 
 nour to the age. 
 
 After having had the boldness to 
 accuse so great a master of having 
 
 fallen
 
 on Projects in Arts, Sfc. 185 
 
 fallen unawares into an error, may I 
 take the still farther liberty, of setting 
 conjecture to work to account for it? 
 Scarce any man, perhaps no man, can 
 push the work of creation, in any line, 
 to such a pitch of compleatness, as to 
 have gone through the task of examin- 
 ing with his own eyes into the grounds 
 of every position, without exception, 
 which he has had occasion to employ. 
 You heard the public voice, strength- 
 ened by that of law, proclaiming all 
 round you, that usury was a sad thing, 
 and usurers a wicked and pernicious 
 set of men: you heard from one at 
 least of those quarters, that projectors 
 were either a foolish and contemptible 
 race, or a knavish and destructive one: 
 Hurried away by the throng, and tak- 
 ing, very naturally, for granted, that 
 what every body said must have some 
 ground for it, you have joined the cry, 
 
 and
 
 186 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 and added your suffrage to the rest. 
 Possibly too, among the crowd of pro- 
 jectors which the lottery of occurrences 
 happened to present to your observa- 
 tion, the prejudicial sort may have 
 borne such a proportion to the bene- 
 ficial, or shewn themselves in so much 
 stronger colours, as to have given the 
 popular notion a firmer hold in your 
 judgment, than it would have had, had 
 the contrary proportion happened to 
 present itself to your notice. To al- 
 low no more weight to examples that 
 fall close under our eyes, than to those 
 which have fallen at ever so great a 
 distance to suffer the judgment on no 
 occasion to indulge itself in the licence 
 of a too hasty and extensive generali- 
 zation not to give any proposition 
 footing there, till after all such defal- 
 cations have been made, as are neces- 
 sary to reduce it within the limits of 
 
 rigid
 
 on Projects in Arts t tfc. 187 
 
 rigid truth these are laws, the cotn- 
 pleat observance whereof forms the ul- 
 timate, and hitherto, perhaps for ever, 
 ideal term of human wisdom. 
 
 You have defended against unmerit- 
 ed obloquy two classes of men, the one 
 innocent at least, the other highly use- 
 ful j the spreaders of English arts in 
 foreign climes*, and those whose in- 
 dustry exerts itself in distributing that 
 necessary commodity which is called 
 by the way of eminence the staff of 
 life. May I flatter myself with having 
 succeeded at last in my endeavours, 
 to recommend to the same powerful 
 protection, two other highly useful 
 and equally persecuted sets of men, 
 usurers and projectors. Yes I will, 
 for the moment at least, indulge so 
 
 B. IV. ch. viii. vol. ii. p. 514. ct alibi, edit. 
 8vo. 1784. 
 
 flattering
 
 188 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 flattering an idea : and, in pursuance 
 of it, leaving usurers, for whom I have 
 said enough already, I will consider 
 myself as joined now with you in the 
 same commission, and thinking with 
 you of the best means of relieving the 
 projector from the load of discourage- 
 ment laid on him by these laws, in so 
 far as the pressure of them falls parti- 
 cularly upon him. In my own view 
 of the matter, indeed, no tempera- 
 ment, no middle course, is either ne- 
 cessary or proper : the only perfectly 
 effectual, is the only perfectly proper 
 remedy, a spunge. But, as nothing 
 is more common with mankind, than 
 to give opposite receptions, to con- 
 clusions flowing with equal necessity 
 from the same principle, let us ac- 
 commodate our views to that con- 
 tingency. 
 
 According to this idea, the object, 
 
 as
 
 on Projects in Arts, ffc. 189 
 
 as far as confined to the present case, 
 should be, to provide, in favour of 
 projectors only, a dispensation from 
 the rigour of the anti-usurious laws: 
 such, for instance, as is enjoyed by 
 persons engaged in the carrying trade, 
 in virtue of the indulgence given to 
 loans made on the footing of respon- 
 dentia or bottomry. As to abuse, I 
 see not why the danger of it should be 
 greater in this case than in those. Whe- 
 ther a sum of money be embarked, or 
 not embarked, in such or such a new 
 manufacture on land, should not, in its 
 own nature, be a fact much more dif- 
 ficult to ascertain, than whether it be 
 embarked, or not embarked, in such 
 or such a trading adventure by sea: 
 and, in the one case as in the other, 
 the payment of the interest, as well as 
 the repayment of the principal, might 
 be made to depend upon the success 
 
 of
 
 190 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, 
 
 of the adventure. To confine the 
 indulgence to new undertakings, the 
 having obtained a patent for some in- 
 vention, and the continuance of the 
 term of the patent, might be made 
 conditions of the allowance given to 
 the bargain: to this might be added 
 affidavits, expressive of the intended 
 application, and bonds, with sureties, 
 conditioned for the performance of 
 the intention so declared; to be regis- 
 tered in one of the patent-offices, or 
 elsewhere. After this, affidavits once 
 a year, or oftener, during the subsist- 
 ence of the contract, declaring what 
 has been done in execution of it. 
 
 If the leading-string is not yet 
 thought tight enough, boards of con- 
 troul might be instituted to draw it 
 tighter. Then opens a scene of vexa- 
 tion and intrigue : waste of time v con- 
 sumed in courting the favour of the 
 
 members
 
 on Projects in Arts, Kc. 191 
 
 members of the board: waste of 
 time, in opening their understandings* 
 clenched perhaps by ignorance, at any 
 rate by disdain and self-sumciency, 
 and vanity, and pride : the favour (for 
 pride will make it a favour) granted 
 to skill in the arts of self-recommen- 
 dation and cabal, devoid of inventive 
 merit, and refused to naked merit un- 
 adorned by practice in those arts : 
 waste of time on the part of the per- 
 sons themselves engaged in this imper- 
 tinent inquiry : waste of somebody's 
 money in paying them for this waste 
 of time. All these may be necessary 
 evils, where the money to be bestowed 
 is public money : how idle where it is 
 the party's own ! I will not plague you, 
 nor myself, with enquiring of whom 
 shall be composed this board of nurses 
 to grown gentlemen : were it only to 
 cut the matter short, one might name 
 
 at
 
 192 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith. 
 
 at once the committees of the Society 
 of Arts. There you have a body of 
 men ready trained in the conduct of 
 inquiries^ which resemble that in ques- 
 tion, in every circumstance, but that 
 which renders it ridiculous : the mem- 
 bers or representatives of this demo- 
 cratic body would be as likely, I take 
 it, to discharge such a trust with fide- 
 lity and skill, as any aristocracy that 
 could be substituted in their room. 
 
 Crichoff, 
 
 in White Russia, 
 
 March, 1787.
 
 [ 193 ] 
 LETTERS 
 
 Iff 
 
 DEFENCE OF USURY, &c. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETT. I. Introduction. 
 
 THE liberty of bargaining in money-matters, 
 a species of liberty which has never yet found 
 an advocate, p. 1 
 
 Fixing the rate of interest, being a coercive 
 measure, and an exception to the general 
 rule in favour of the enforcement of contracts, 
 it lies upon the advocates of the measure to 
 produce reasons for it p. 3 
 
 List of the reasons which may be supposed to have 
 operated in favour of it, p. 4 
 
 LETT. II. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 1. Prevention of Usury. 
 Argument* in favour of the restraint l.Pre-
 
 194 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 vention of Usury. This begs the ques- 
 tion, p. 7 
 
 No one rate of interest is naturally more proper 
 than another, p. 9 
 
 No idea of propriety could have been formed on 
 this head, but for custom, ibid. 
 
 But the rate indicated by custom, varies from 
 age to age, and from place to place, . . p. 11 
 
 Custom, being generated by convenience, evi- 
 denced by consent, should submit to it 
 throughout, p. 12 
 
 No more reason for fixing the price of the use of 
 money than the price of goods, . . . p. 13 
 
 nor for fixing the rate on one side more than 
 on the other excepting a weak and distant 
 one, p. 15 
 
 LETT. III. Reasons for Restraint. 
 2. Prevention of Prodigality. 
 
 Interposing at all, to prevent prodigality, is not 
 necessary to the existence of society, . p. 17 
 
 though it may be of use, choosing proper 
 methods, p. 18 
 
 This not of the number : 
 
 1. Because borrowing at extraordinary rates
 
 CONTENTS. 195 
 
 is not a natural course for prodigals to 
 take, p. 18 
 
 It is out of the question with regard to, 
 
 a. Those who have money of their own, . p. 19 
 
 6. Those who have real or good security to 
 offer, ... * ibid. 
 
 c. Or any thing to sell, though it be but a 
 contingency, p. 22 
 
 ^. Those who have no sufficient security to offer, 
 are not more likely to get money at an extra- 
 ordinary, than at the ordinary rate, . . p. 24 
 
 What they do get, they get at the ordinary 
 rate, of their friends, p. 25 
 
 3. Preventing their getting what they want at 
 a high rate, in the way of borrowing, prevents 
 not their getting it in the way of taking up 
 goods on credit, p. 26 
 
 Conclusion, that the effect of these laws with 
 regard to prodigality, as far as it has any, i> 
 to increase it, p. 30 
 
 The only effectual check to prodigality, an in- 
 
 frrdict, as under the Roman law, . . p. 31 
 
 K 2 LETT.
 
 1 96 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 LETT. IV. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 3. Protection of Indigence. 
 
 The advantage it may be of to a man to borrow 
 money, and the need he may have of it, ad- 
 mitting of an undetermined number of de- 
 grees, so may the consideration he pays for 
 it, p. 33 
 
 No legislator can judge, so well as each indivi- 
 dual for himself, whether money is worth to 
 him any thing, and how much, beyond the 
 ordinary interest, p. 37 
 
 Repression of projectors. This subject referred 
 to the letter to Dr. Smith, p. 38 
 
 LETT. V. Reasons for Restraint. 
 
 4. Protection of Simplicity. 
 
 No simplicity short of idiotism can render an 
 individual so bad a judge in this case as the 
 legislator, . p. 39 
 
 It would be to no purpose to prevent a man from 
 being imposed upon in this way, unless he was 
 prevented from being imposed upon in pur- 
 chases and sales, ibid. 
 
 A man
 
 CONTENTS. 197 
 
 A man is not so liable to imposition in this way 
 as in those, p. 41 
 
 And in this way imprudence admits of a re- 
 medy, which it does not in those others; viz. 
 borrowing at a lower rate to pay off the first 
 loan, p. 44 
 
 LETT. VI. Mischiefs of the anti-usu- 
 rious Laws. 
 
 Various ways in which the laws against usury 
 may do mischief: 
 
 1. By precluding many from assistance altoge- 
 ther, p. 45 
 
 2. Forcing men upon more disadvantageous 
 
 ways of obtaining it, p. 47 
 
 Detriment suffered in this way by many 
 
 during the war, p. 49 
 
 3. Or upon more disadvantageous terms in the 
 
 very way forbidden, p. 53 
 
 In as far as the law appears open to evasion, 
 
 it is either nugatory, or else mischievous, 
 in any one of those three ways, accord- 
 ing to circumstances, p. 56 
 
 4. Exposing an useful class of men to unmerited 
 suffering and disgrace, '. . . ' '.' p. 57 
 
 5. Encou-
 
 1 98 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 5. Encouraging and protecting treachery and 
 ingratitude, p. 60 
 
 Difference in this respect between the rewards 
 held out to informers in this case, and those 
 held out to informers at large, . . . ibid. 
 
 or even to real criminals informing against 
 accomplices, ibid. 
 
 Caution against extending to those cases the cen- 
 sure passed on this occasion, .... p. 61 
 
 LETT. VII. Efficacy of the anti-usu- 
 rious Laws. 
 
 Position of Dr. Smith's, that a law attempting 
 to reduce interest below a certain rate must 
 be inefficacious, p. 62 
 
 The position not warranted by the fact alleged 
 in support of it, p. 63 
 
 Nothing can destroy the efficacy of such restraint 
 in regard to one rate of interest, that does not 
 in regard to others, p. 65 
 
 Why such destruction would be more apparent 
 with regard to one rate than another, . p. 66 
 
 Conjecture concerning the real state of the fact, 
 in the instance alluded to by Dr. Smith, . p. 68 
 
 The
 
 CONTENTS. 199 
 
 The English laws on this head how far open to 
 evasion, p. 70 
 
 Russian laws, their perfect ineffieacy on this 
 head, : .... p. 71 
 
 LETT. VIII. Virtual Usury allowed. 
 
 Cases where interest above the ordinary rate has 
 been taken by evasion of the law : 
 
 1. Drawing and re-drawing, .... p. 73 
 
 2. Selling bills of exchange at under price, p. 75 
 Cases where it is taken by allowance of the 
 
 law: 
 
 1. Pawnbroking, p. 78 
 
 2. Bottomry and respondentia, .... p. 80 
 Other cases more indirectly related to usury, such 
 
 as insurance, buying annuities, &c. . p. 82 
 
 LETT. IX. Blackstone considered. 
 
 In Blackstone's opinion, the harm of making 
 too hard a bargain stands on the same 
 footing in the hire of a hone as of 
 
 money, p. 84 
 
 If
 
 200 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 If so, consistency requires the subjecting both 
 businesses to the same restraints, . . p. 85 
 
 Popular prejudice has got the length of giving 
 bad names in both cases, p. 87 
 
 Blackstone's reasoning concerning the money- 
 trade applied to the horse-trade, . . p. 88 
 
 Proposal for fixing by law the same price for all 
 horses, p. 93 
 
 The values of horses differ not more than the 
 value of money on different occasions, . ibid. 
 
 LETT. X. Grounds of the Prejudices 
 against Usury. 
 
 Causes of the discountenance shewn to the lender 
 of money at interest : 
 
 1. The prevalence of the ascetic principle among 
 Christians, p. 96 
 
 2. The horror of every thing Jewish . . p. 98 
 
 3. Aristotle's aphorism about the natural bar- 
 renness of money, . < 4 . . . . p. 99 
 
 4. The motives, selfish as well as social, which 
 concur in rendering the profuse character 
 more amiable than the saving, . . . p. 103 
 
 A proof
 
 CONTENTS. 201 
 
 A proof of this, the unfavourable light in which 
 money-lenders, and other men of thrift, are 
 always represented on the stage, . . p. 106 
 
 Hence, even from legislators, the lender's inte- 
 rest has met with less attention and favour 
 than the borrower's, p. 107 
 
 Yet by this partiality the parties meant to 
 be favoured, have been the greatest suf- 
 ferers, p. 109 
 
 LETT. XI. Compound Interest. 
 
 Compound interest, how far discountenanced by 
 the law, p. 1 10 
 
 No argument against it, but the notion of usury, 
 or that of hardship, p. Ill 
 
 Inconsistency and mischief of such discounte- 
 nance, ibid. 
 
 The casual inability of the borrower is a reason, 
 not for such discountenance, but for a respite, 
 which the law never gives, . . . . p. 1 14 
 
 Effects of such false tenderness in breeding maid 
 , , /, ;....>> , . f p. 115 
 LETT.
 
 202 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 LETT. XII. Maintenance and Cham- 
 perty. 
 
 Inexpediency of restraining men in their bar- 
 gains for money, in the instance where 
 the money is wanted for purchasing the as- 
 sistance of the laws, ; p. 117 
 
 Such bargains forbidden, by the laws against 
 maintenance and champerty, . . . p. 118 
 
 Case of a gentleman who lost 30001. a year by 
 those laws, p. 119 
 
 Absurdity of continuing laws made to ob- 
 viate a mischief of which no traces re- 
 main, p. 121 
 
 The above case may serve also to evince and il- 
 lustrate the mischief of the laws restraining 
 the rate of interest, ...... p. 124 
 
 LETT. XIII. To Dr. Smith, on Pro- 
 jects in Arts, 8fc. 
 
 Occasion of this address, ..... p. 131 
 
 The object of it, the defence of projectors, 
 
 p. 132 
 Passage,
 
 CONTENTS. 203 
 
 Passage, in which Dr. Smith approve* of the law 
 fixing the rate of interest, on account of its 
 tendency to repress them, . . . . p. 133 
 
 Prejudice under which they labour, . . p. 134 
 
 Tin law, and therefore the censure past on them 
 by the approbation given to that law, admits 
 of no discrimination in favour of the innocent 
 and meritorious, p. 136 
 
 The projector cannot hope for money at the 
 highest rate of interest at present legal, be- 
 cause that may always be had with more safety 
 from old-established trades, . . . . p. 140 
 
 The censure on projectors necessarily involves the 
 authors of all the arts to which the world owes 
 its prosperity, p. 144 
 
 And the laws, the approbation of which is con- 
 nected with that censure, must, as far as their 
 influence has extended, have operated as ob- 
 stacles to that prosperity, p. 145 
 
 Another passage, in which the censure passed 
 on projectors is plainly extended to all im- 
 provers p. 147 
 
 The censure passed on projectors is inconsist- 
 ent with some fundamental ideas of Dr. 
 
 Smith, p. 148 
 
 Concerning
 
 204 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 Concerning the natural prevalence of prudence 
 over imprudence even that which manifests 
 itself in prodigality and the progress of 
 improvement which has been the conse- 
 quence, i, * . * . . p. 149 
 
 Grounds for not attributing that prosperity 
 to the operation of the laws in restraining 
 projectors, p. 153 
 
 Great advances in prosperity had been made 
 prior to the earliest of those laws, . . p. 154 
 
 That their tendency can only have been to 
 lessen the total number of projectors, with- 
 out lessening the proportion of bad to 
 good, p. 155 
 
 The greatest mischief that could have been done 
 by projecting, if totally unrestrained, could 
 not, according to Dr. Smith, warrant the in- 
 terposition of the law, because, according to 
 him, that done by prodigals does not warrant 
 that interposition, p. 156 
 
 But prodigality is at any rate much more cer- 
 tainly ruinous, and much more common, than 
 
 projecting, p. 159 
 
 In controling prodigality, the law controls pas- 
 sion by reason : in controling projects, it 
 controls knowledge by ignorance, . . p. 163 
 
 Dr.
 
 CONTENTS. 205 
 
 Dr. Smith condemns this latter interference also* 
 in the censure he passes on the faws which 
 attempt to direct individuals in their private 
 concerns, p. 165 
 
 The argument repeated that the censure on pro- 
 jects involves all past improvements, . p. 167 
 
 But future projects, as such, must be less danger- 
 ous than the past ones were, . . . . p. 168 
 
 The only case, in which the rettrainte applied by 
 these laws to projects, attaches upon them, is 
 that in which they are best guarded against 
 hazard, viz. by the necessity of their being 
 discussed before a judge whose prepossession is 
 rather on the other side, p. 1 7 1 
 
 The ruin of every projector, without exception, 
 would not be sufficient to disprove the utility 
 
 of projects, p. 175 
 
 Of two towns instanced by Dr. Smith, that 
 which is most of a projecting town is most 
 
 prosperous, . . p. 179 
 
 Approbation bestowed by Dr. Smith himself 
 on projects, under another name, as also 
 on other laws that favour them, a warn- 
 ing to guard against the delusion of 
 
 sounds, P- 190 
 
 Censure
 
 206 Letters in Defence of Usury. 
 
 Censure passed on projectors hostile to the object 
 
 of the Society of Arts, p. 183 
 
 Probable grounds of this censure : 
 
 1. Popular opinion, as expressed by the bad 
 sense contracted by the word " Projector/' 
 
 p. 185 
 
 2. Too hasty generalization, p. 186 
 
 Hopes of his turning against the current of popu- 
 lar prejudice, in this instance, grounded on the 
 others in which he has done so, . . . p. 187 
 
 Expedients proposed for taking away the re- 
 straint of the anti-usurious laws from projectors 
 only: 
 
 1. Bonds and affidavits to secure the applying 
 the money obtained at extra-interest to this 
 use, '-i' VV p. 190 
 
 2. Boards to grant licences for that purpose; 
 ex. gr. the Committees of the Society of 
 Arts, ibid. 
 
 This a bad and unnecessary expedient, . ibid. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 A PROTEST 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 LAW TAXES, 
 
 SHEWING THE 
 
 PECULIAR MISCHIEVOUSNESS 
 
 OP 
 
 ALL SUCH IMPOSITIONS 
 
 AS ADD TO 
 
 THE EXPENSE 
 
 OP 
 
 APPEAL TO JUSTICE. 
 
 By JEREMY BENTH4M, 
 
 OF LINCOLN'S INN, ESQ.
 
 A PROTEST 
 
 LAW-TAXES. 
 
 1 AXES on law-proceedings consti- 
 tute in man)', and perhaps in all na- 
 tions, a part of the resources of the 
 state. They do so in Great Britain : 
 they do so in Ireland. In Great Bri- 
 tain, an extension of them is to be 
 found among the latest productions 
 of the budget: in Ireland, a further 
 extension of them is among the mea- 
 sures of the day. It is this impending 
 extension that calls forth the publica- 
 tion of the present sheets, the substance 
 
 of
 
 4 To Contributors, 
 
 of which has lain upon the shelf these 
 many years. 
 
 It is a well-known parliamentary 
 saying, that he who reprobates a tax 
 ought to have a better in his hand.* 
 A juster condition never was imposed. 
 I fulfil it at the first word. My bet- 
 ter tax is any other that can be 
 
 named. 
 
 The people, when considered with a 
 view to the manner in which they are 
 affected by a tax of this description, 
 may be distinguished into two classes : 
 those who in each instance of requi- 
 sition have wherewithal to pay, and 
 those who have not : to the former, 
 we shall find it more grievous than 
 
 * It confines itself of course to public men, 
 or what comes to the same thing, private men 
 speaking in the character of public. As for in- 
 dividuals aggrieved, they have performed their 
 part when they have stated their own grievance. 
 
 any
 
 A Tax upon Distress. 5 
 
 any other kind of tax, to the latter a 
 still more cruel grievance. 
 
 Taxes on consumption cannot fall 
 but where there is some fund to pay 
 them : of poll taxes, and taxes on 
 unproductive property, the great im- 
 perfection is, that they may chance to 
 bear where such ability may be want- 
 ing. Taxes upon law-proceedings fall 
 upon a man just at the time when 
 the likelihood of his wanting that abi- 
 lity is at the utmost. When a man sees 
 more or less of his property unjustly 
 withholden from him, then is the 
 time taken to call upon him for an ex- 
 traordinary contribution. When the 
 back of the innocent has been worn 
 raw by the yoke of the oppressor, then 
 is the time which the appointed guar- 
 dians of innocence have thus pitched 
 upon for loading him with an extra- 
 ordinary
 
 6 To Contributors, 
 
 ordinary burthen.* Most taxes are, 
 as all taxes ought to be, taxes upon 
 affluence : it is the characteristic pro- 
 perty of this to be a tax upon distress. 
 
 A tax on bread, though a tax on 
 consumption, would hardly be reckon- 
 ed a good tax; bread being reckon- 
 ed in most countries where it is used, 
 among the necessaries of life. A tax 
 on bread, however, would not be near 
 so bad a tax as one on law-proceedings : 
 A man who pays to a tax on bread, 
 may, indeed, by reason of such pay- 
 ment, be unable to get so much 
 bread as he wants, but he will always 
 get some bread, and in proportion as 
 he pays more and more to the tax, he 
 
 Even in the instance of a defendant, or 
 when the wrong is not pecuniary, the hardship 
 of a double yoke does not cease : for the natural 
 expense of litigation is a burthen which this 
 artificial one finds pressing on him in any case. 
 
 will
 
 A Tax upon Distress. 7 
 
 will get more and more bread. Of a 
 tax upon justice, the effect may be, 
 that after he has paid the tax, he may, 
 without getting justice by the pay- 
 ment, lose bread by it : bread, the 
 whole quantity on which he depended 
 for the subsistence of himself and his 
 family for the season, may, as well as 
 any thing else, be the very thing for 
 which he is obliged to apply to jus- 
 tice. Were a three-penny stamp to be 
 put upon every three-penny loaf, a 
 man who had but three-pence to spend 
 in bread, could no longer indeed get 
 a three-penny loaf, but an obliging 
 baker could cut him out the half of 
 one. A tax on justice admits of no 
 such retrenchment. The most oblig- 
 ing stationer could not cut a man out 
 half a latitat nor half a declaration. 
 Half justice, where it is to be had, is 
 better than no justice : but without 
 
 buying
 
 $ To Contributors, 
 
 buying the whole weight of paper, 
 there is no getting a grain of justice. 
 
 A tax on necessaries is a tax on this 
 or that article, of the commodities 
 which happen to be numbered among 
 necessaries: a tax on justice is a tax 
 on all necessaries put together. A 
 tax on a necessary of life can only 
 lessen a man's share of that particular 
 sort of article : a tax on justice may 
 deprive a man, and that in any pro- 
 portion, of all sorts of necessaries. 
 
 This is not yet the worst. It is not 
 only a burthen that comes in the train 
 of distress, but a burthen against which 
 no provision can be made. 
 
 All other taxes may be either fore- 
 seen as to the time, or at any rate pro- 
 vided for, where general ability is not 
 wanting : in the instance of this tax, 
 it is impossible to foresee the moment 
 of exaction, it is equally impossible to 
 
 provide
 
 A Tax upon Distress. 9 
 
 provide a fund for it. A tax to be 
 paid upon the loss of a husband, or of 
 a father on whose industry the faiiiily 
 depended, a tax upon those who have 
 suffered by fire or inundation would 
 seem hard, and I know not that in fact 
 any such modes of taxation have ever 
 been made choice of: but a tax on 
 law-proceedings is harder than any of 
 these. Against all those misfortunes, 
 provision may be madej it is actually 
 made in different ways by insurance : 
 and, were a tax added to them, pay so 
 much more, and you might ensure 
 yourself against the tax. Against the 
 misfortune of being called upon to in- 
 stitute or defend one's self against a 
 suit at law, there neither is, nor can be, 
 any office of insurance.* 
 
 * I say there never can be: in those other in- 
 stances the event insured against is always some 
 very simple event, such as the death of a person, 
 
 which
 
 10 To Non- Contributors, 
 
 Such is the cruelty of this species 
 of tax, to those who have wherewithal 
 to pay, and do pay to it accordingly. 
 To those who do not, it is much more 
 cruel : it is neither more or less than a 
 denial of justice. 
 
 Justice is the security which the law 
 
 which in the ordinary course of things is not 
 open to dispute. Here the incident which calls 
 for contribution, is not only disputable, but by 
 the supposition is actually in dispute. Nothing 
 less than litigation can ascertain legally, whether 
 litigation has been necessary. Have you engaged 
 with a man for his paying you a sum of money 
 whenever it shall become necessary for you to in- 
 stitute or defend yourself against a law-suit ? 
 wait till the suit is at an end, and you will know 
 whether he ought to pay you. A society indeed, 
 and a very laudable one, has been established for 
 purposes which come under this head : but the 
 relief it affords is confined not only to criminal 
 cases, but to a certain description of criminal 
 cases; nor could it be rendered any thing like 
 co-extensive with the grievance. 
 
 provides
 
 A Denial of Justice. \\ 
 
 provides us with, or professes to provide 
 us with, for every thing we value, or 
 ought to value : for property, for li- 
 berty, for honour, and for life. It is 
 that possession which is worth all others 
 put together : for it includes all others. 
 A denial of justice is the very quin- 
 tessence of injury, the sum and sub- 
 stance of all sorts of injuries. It is 
 not robbery only, enslavement only, 
 insult only, homicide only : it is rob- 
 bery, enslavement, insult, homicide, 
 all in one. 
 
 The statesman who contributes to 
 put justice out of reach, the financier 
 who comes into the house with a law- 
 tax in his hand, is an accessary after 
 the fact to every crime: every villain 
 may hail him brother, every malefac- 
 tor may boast of him as an accom- 
 plice. To apply this to intentions 
 would be calumny and extravagance. 
 L But
 
 1* To Non-Contributors* 
 
 But as far as consequences only are 
 concerned, clear of criminal consci- 
 ousness and bad motives, it is incon- 
 trovertible and naked truth. 
 
 Outlawry is the engine applied by 
 the law, as an instrument of compul- 
 sion to those who fly from civil justice. 
 Outlawry is the engine employed as 
 an instrument of punishment, against 
 the most atrocious of malefactors. 
 This self- same load of mischief, the 
 financier with perfect heedlessness, 
 but with unerring certainty, heaps on 
 the head of unsuspected innocence. 
 Besides outlawry, which in the cases 
 where the offender could not other- 
 wise be affected, comes in as subsi- 
 diary in lieu of other punishment, 
 there are certain offences for which a 
 man is subjected, expressly and in the 
 first instance, to a similar punishment, 
 under the name of forfeiture of the pro- 
 tection
 
 A Denial of Justice. 1$ 
 
 tection of (he law. The same fate at- 
 tends a man thus at different periods, 
 according to his merits. If guilty, it 
 lays hold of him after conviction, for 
 a particular cause, and without ex- 
 cluding the hope of pardon : if inno- 
 cent, and poor, and injured before 
 conviction, and without conviction, 
 and for no < ,cuse at all, and as long as 
 he continues poor, that is, as long as 
 he lives. 
 
 What a contrast ! What inconsist- 
 ency ! The judge and the legislator, 
 deliberating with all gravity, each in 
 his separate sphere, whether to inflict 
 or not this heavy punishment, on this 
 or that guilty individual, or narrow 
 description of guilty individuals. The 
 legislator on the other hand, merely 
 to get a little money which he 
 could better get from any, other 
 source whatever, heaping the same 
 L 2 doom
 
 14 To Non- Contributors, 
 
 doom upon thousands, not to say mil- 
 lions, of innocent and injured subjects, 
 without consideration or remorse. 
 
 Mark well, that of all sorts of men, 
 it is the poor, and they the more cer- 
 tainly in proportion to their poverty, 
 that are despoiled in this way of the 
 protection of the law : the protection 
 of the law, that inestimable jewel, 
 which in the language of that very 
 law is defined the citizen's universal 
 and best birth-right : the poor and 
 him that has none to help him, these 
 are they to whom the help of the law 
 is thus unfeelingly refused. The rich, 
 were it from them that this great safe- 
 guard were withholden, have shields 
 of their own to ward off the attacks of 
 injury : the natural influence of wealth, 
 the influence of situation, the power 
 of connexion, the advantages of edu- 
 cation and intelligence, which go 
 
 hand
 
 A Denial of Justice-. 15 
 
 hand in hand with wealth. The poor 
 has but one strong hold, the protec- 
 tion of the law : and out of this the 
 financier drives him without vouch- 
 safing him a thought, in company 
 with the herd of malefactors. 
 
 The poor, on account of the igno- 
 rance and intellectual incapacity inse- 
 parably attached to poverty, are de*- 
 barred generally, as perhaps it is ne- 
 cessary, were it only for their own 
 sake, they should be universally, from 
 the sweets of political power : but are 
 not so many unavoidable inequalities 
 enough, without being added to by 
 unnecessary injustice? 
 
 Such is the description of those 
 from whom this sum total of all rights 
 is torn away with one hand, while ten- 
 dered with the other: what are their 
 numbers in proportion to the sum to- 
 tal of subjects ? I fear to say perhaps 
 
 two.
 
 16 To Non-Contributors, 
 
 two thirds, perhaps four fifths, per- 
 haps nine tenths : but at the lowest 
 computation a vast majority.* 
 
 A third 
 
 * In England, the expense of carrying through 
 a common action, cannot be less than about 241. 
 at the lowest rate, on the plaintiff's side alone. 
 [See Schieffer on Costs, 1792.] The average 
 expense of civil suits of all sorts, taking equity 
 causes into the account, can surely not be rated 
 at less than double that amount, on that one 
 side. The average expenditure of an English 
 subject, infants and adults, rich as well as poor, 
 taken together, has been computed by Davenant 
 (as quoted on this occasion somewhere by Adam 
 Smith) at 81. a year. Six years income then is 
 what a man must have in advance, before he can 
 be admitted to take his chance for justice. Of 
 many estimates which Dr. Anderson had met 
 with, 201. was the highest, and he takes but ten 
 pounds. [Interest of Great Britain with regard 
 to her colonies, London, 1792.] No man then 
 we may say at any rate, can have the benefit of 
 justice, in the ordinary way, either in making 
 good a just claim, or saving himself from an un- 
 just
 
 A Denial of Justice. 17 
 
 A third description of persons may 
 yet be distinguished, whose condition 
 under the system of law taxes is still 
 more deplorable than that of either of 
 the other two. I mean those, who 
 having wherewithal to pay the impo- 
 sition at the commencemeut of the 
 suit, and during more or less of its 
 progress, see their substance swallowed 
 up by the taxes before the tcrmi nation 
 of it. The two preceding modifica- 
 tions of abuse, either of them bad 
 enough, are thus put together, and 
 compounded into a third. 
 
 Considered with a view to the treat- 
 ment given to persons of this descrip- 
 
 just one, who cannot find, for this purpose alone, 
 a sum equal to several yean of a man's income. 
 From this statement it needs nut much study to 
 perceive, that for the bulk of the community, as 
 far as ordinary casei of the civil kind are con- 
 cerned, jcuftce is but an empty name. 
 
 tion,
 
 18 They even deny Justice, 
 
 tion, a court of justice is converted in- 
 to exactly the same sort of place, as 
 the shop of a baker would be, who 
 having ranged his loaves along his 
 window in goodly shew to invite cus- 
 tomers, should, instead of selling them 
 the bread they asked for, first rob 
 them of their money, and then turn 
 them out of doors. To an unpreju- 
 diced imagination, the alliance be- 
 tween justice and finance, presents on 
 this occasion a picture almost too near 
 the truth to be termed an apologue. 
 At the door of a house more preda- 
 tory than any of those that are called 
 houses of ill fame, the Judge in his 
 robes presenting to unsuspecting pas- 
 sengers a belt to prick in ; the Lord 
 High Treasurer in the back ground 
 with his staff, lying in wait, ready as 
 soon as the victims are fairly housed, 
 and the money on the table, to knock
 
 where they have taxed Distress. 19 
 
 them down and run away with it. The 
 difference is, that any man may choose 
 whether he will prick in the belt of 
 the unlicensed sharper, nor are any 
 but the rawest louts to be so deluded : 
 whereas the wisest men may be invei- 
 gled in, as well as the stoutest drag- 
 ged in, by the exalted and commis- 
 sioned plunderers so much surer 
 
 is their game. For were the list of 
 law taxes ever so familiar, and ever so 
 easy to be understood, it is impossible 
 for a man to know before hand, whe- 
 ther he has wherewithal to pay the 
 bill, because it is impossible for him 
 to know what incidents may intervene 
 to lengthen it. Were a man even to 
 sit down, and form a resolution to sub- 
 mit to every injury which he could 
 not afford to prosecute for, and to 
 plead guilty to every accusation which 
 he could not afford to defend himself 
 L 3 againsti,
 
 20 They even deny Justice, 
 
 against, even at this price he could 
 not save himself from the hardship of 
 paying for justice, aggravated by the 
 still greater hardship of not getting it. 
 If in all cases the practice is wicked, 
 in some it is more particularly prepos- 
 terous. In civil causes, and other 
 causes where the injury to individuals 
 affords a natural interest to prosecute, 
 artificial expenses are cruelty and 
 breach of faith : in a large class of pe- 
 nal causes, in which for want of such 
 natural interest, prosecutors must be 
 engaged by factitious inducements, or 
 the law be a dead letter, the cruelty 
 and treachery are crowned by blunder 
 and inconsistency. Beckoned into 
 court with one hand, men are driven 
 away with the other. But, costly as the 
 attractive power frequently is, the re- 
 pulsive force is apt to be much stronger. 
 Reward is subsequent, distant, uncer- 
 tain, and dependent upon success. 
 
 Trouble
 
 where they have taxed Distress. 31 
 
 Trouble, expense, and odium, are cer- 
 tain and precedent.* 
 
 In favour of this species of imposi- 
 
 * This species of tax would stand absolutely 
 alone in point of depravity, were il not for the 
 tax on drugs, as far as it extends to those used in 
 medicine. This, as being also a tax upon dis- 
 tress, is so far in specie the same, but is nothing 
 to it in degree. To recover a shilling in the 
 way of justice, it will cost you at least 041. of 
 which a good part in taxes: but to be admitted 
 to buy a shilling's worth of medicine for a shil- 
 ling, it dues not cost you threepence. Hospi- 
 tals for the sick are not uncommon : there are 
 none for harassed and impoverished suitors. 
 There are Lady Bountiful* that relieve the sick 
 from the tax on medicines, and the price of them 
 into the bargain : but a Lady Bountiful must be 
 bountiful indeed, to take the place of attorney 
 and counsel, as well as of physician and apothe- 
 cary, and supply a poor man with as many 
 pounds worth of latitats and pleat, as he must 
 have to recover a shilling. A man cannot, a* 
 we have seen, insure himself against law suits : 
 but a man may insure himself, and many thou- 
 sands actually do insure themselves, against sick- 
 ness. But these reliefs are neither certain nor 
 
 general:
 
 22 They throw the Burthen, 
 
 tion, I have seen two arguments pro- 
 duced. 
 
 One is, that in this case as in others, 
 the burthen of an establishment ought 
 to lie on those by whom the benefit is 
 reaped. The principle is incontrover- 
 tible : the matter of fact supposed by 
 the application of it is not true. 
 
 The argument, were it just, would 
 not extend beyond so much of the 
 produce of the tax as is requisite for 
 defraying the charge of this part of the 
 national establishment. Whether it be 
 confined or no within these bounds, 
 was perhaps never thought worth en- 
 general : and after all, a lax on him who has 
 had a leg or an arm broken, a tax on him who 
 has had a fit of the ague, gout, rheumatism, or 
 stone, will be the worst possible species of tax, 
 next to a tax on justice. 
 
 N. B. The tax on quack medicines, that is, 
 on unknown and unapproved medicines, leav- 
 ing all known and approved ones untouched, 
 falls in a less degree, if at all, under this censure. 
 
 quiring
 
 where there is least Benefit. 23 
 
 quiring into, in any country where this 
 tax was imposed. It certainly ex- 
 tends much beyond them in England; 
 and it seems to be resorted to from 
 time to time, with as little scruple, as 
 an extension of the customs or excise. 
 But let this pass. 
 
 As to the notion of a connexity in 
 this case betwixt the benefit and the 
 burthen, it has been countenanced by 
 an authority too respectable, not to 
 deserve the most serious notice :* but 
 come it from whom it will, it is a 
 mere illusion. The persons on whom 
 the whole of the burthen is cast, are 
 precisely those, who have the least en- 
 joyment of the benefit : the security 
 which other people enjoy for nothing, 
 without interruption, and every mo- 
 ment of their lives, they who are so 
 unfortunate as to be obliged to go to 
 
 * Dr. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations. 
 
 law
 
 214 They throw the Burthen, 
 
 law for it, are forced to purchase at an 
 expense of time and trouble, in addi- 
 tion to what pecuniary expense may 
 be naturally unavoidable. Mean time, 
 which is of most value? which most 
 worth paying for ? a possession thus 
 cruelly disturbed, or the same posses- 
 sion free from all disturbance ? So 
 far then from being made thus wan- 
 tonly to pay an extra price, a man 
 who stands in this unfortunate pre- 
 dicament, ought rather to receive an 
 indemnification at the public expense, 
 for his time and trouble : and the dan- 
 ger of insidious or collusive contests, 
 in the view of obtaining such an in- 
 demnity, is the only objection I can 
 see, though perhaps a conclusive one, 
 against the granting it. 
 
 Litigation may in this point of 
 view be compared to war in sober sad-' 
 ness, as war has been to litigation in 
 
 the
 
 where there is least Benefit. 25 
 
 the way of pleasantry. The suitor is 
 the forlorn hope in this forensic war- 
 fare. To throw upon the suitor the 
 expense of administering justice, in 
 addition to the trouble and the risk 
 of suing for it, is as if, in case of an 
 invasion, you were to take the inhabi- 
 tants of the frontier, and force them, 
 not only to serve for nothing, but to 
 defray of themselves the whole expen- 
 diture of the war. 
 
 What in our times is become inve- 
 terate practice, is stigmatized as a 
 species of iniquity without a prece- 
 dent, by Saint Paul. " Who is there," 
 demands the Apostle, " who is there 
 that ever goes to war at his own 
 charge /"' " Alas /" cries the poor 
 suitor, " / do" 
 
 The other argument in favour of a 
 set of taxes of this kind, is, that they 
 are a check to litigation. 
 
 Litigation is a term not altogether 
 
 free
 
 6 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 free from ambiguity. It is used some* 
 times in a neutral sense, to denote 
 the prosecuting or defending a suit, 
 though perhaps more frequently in a 
 bad one. In its neutral sense, it ex- 
 presses the irreproachable exercise of 
 an essential right : in a bad sense a 
 species of misconduct practised under 
 the notion of exercising such a right. 
 
 In the first sense, taxes can never 
 have been recommended by any man 
 as a check to litigation : in this sense, 
 an avowed desire of checking litiga- 
 tion, would be neither more nor less 
 than an avowed desire of denying jus- 
 tice. 
 
 In a bad sense again, the word 
 is used on two different occasions : 
 where the suit, whatever be the import- 
 ance of the matter in dispute, is on 
 the part of the person spoken of as 
 maintaining it, a groundless one : and 
 
 where
 
 but an Encouragement. 27 
 
 where the suit, however well grounded 
 on his part in point of title, is on ac- 
 count of the supposed unimportance 
 of the matter in dispute, deemed & fri- 
 volous, a trifling, a trivial one : and in 
 either case, it is of course applicable 
 to the situation of either plaintiff or 
 defendant ; though it is apt to fix in 
 the first instance and most readily up- 
 on the situation of the plaintiff, as be- 
 ing the party, who by taking the first 
 step on the commencement of the suit, 
 exhibits himself as the author of it. 
 
 On either side, litigation, when 
 groundless, may be accompanied or 
 not, with what the lawyers call in 
 genere matitia, meaning consciousness of 
 misdoing, and in this particular case 
 mala fides, consciousness of the ground- 
 lessness of the action or defence, con- 
 sciousness of the want of merits. 
 
 Where merits are wanting, but 
 
 there
 
 28 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 there exists no consciousness of the 
 want, taxes on law-proceedings do, it 
 must be confessed, operate as a check 
 to litigation ; and that as well on the 
 side where it is groundless as on that 
 where it is well grounded, and in the 
 same degree. Indeed as both of two 
 contending parties cannot in point of 
 law be actually in the right, though 
 either or both may think themselves 
 so, the impediment cannot operate to 
 the denial of justice, but it must ope- 
 rate to the prevention of groundless li- 
 tigation at the same time. Prevent 
 him who is in the right from institut- 
 ing a suit, you prevent him who is in 
 the wrong from defending one. But 
 neither is litigation prevented, any 
 further than as justice is denied. So 
 far then as this case extends, it is still 
 but the other side of the same effect, 
 the denial of justice, 
 
 Have
 
 but an Encouragement. 29 
 
 Have they then any peculiar ten- 
 dency to operate as a check to litiga- 
 tion, when it is not only groundless, 
 but accompanied with a consciousness 
 of its being so ? to malitious, or as it 
 might with more propriety be termed, 
 anti-conscientious litigation ? On the 
 contrary, their direct tendency and 
 sure effect is to produce it. 
 
 They produce it on the part of 
 the plaintiff. Were proceedings at 
 law attended with no expense nor 
 other inconvenience, till the suit were 
 heard and at an end, a plaintiff who 
 had no merits, could do a defendant 
 man no harm by suing him : he could 
 give him no motive for submitting to 
 an unfounded claim : malice would 
 have no weapons : oppression would 
 have no instrument. When proceed- 
 ings are attended with expense, the 
 heavier that expense, the greater of 
 
 course
 
 30 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 course is the mischief which a man 
 who has no merits is enabled to do : 
 the sharper the weapon thus put into 
 the hand of malice, the more coercive 
 the instrument put into the hand of the 
 oppressor. 
 
 They produce it on the part of the 
 defendant. Were proceedings at law 
 attended with no expense, a defendant 
 who knew he had no merits, a defen- 
 dant who was conscious that the de- 
 mand upon him was a just one, would 
 be deprived of what is in some cases his 
 best chance for eluding justice, in 
 others the absolute certainty of so do- 
 ing : he would lose the strongest in- 
 centive he has to make the attempt. 
 A defendant who means not to do 
 justice unless compelled, and who 
 knows that the plaintiff cannot com- 
 pel him without having advanced a 
 Certain sum j such a defendant, if he 
 
 thinks
 
 but an Encouragement. 31 
 
 thinks his adversary cannot raise that 
 sum, will persevere in refusal till a suit 
 is commenced, and in litigation after- 
 wards. 
 
 Whether they make the litigation, 
 or whether they find it ready made, 
 they shew most favour to the side on, 
 which anti-conscientious litigation is 
 most likely to be found. By at- 
 taching on the commencement of the 
 suit, they bear hardest upon the plain- 
 tiff, or him who, if they would have suf- 
 fered him, would have become plaintiff. 
 In so doing they favour in the same 
 degree the defendant, or him who, 
 if the party conceiving himself injured, 
 could have got a hearing, would have 
 been called upon to defend himself. 
 But it is on the defendant's side that 
 anti-conscientious practice is most 
 likely to be found. Setting expense 
 out of the question, an evil of which 
 
 these
 
 32 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 these laws are thus far the sole cause, 
 setting out of the question the imper- 
 fections of the judicial system, and 
 the hope of seeing evidence perish, 
 or the guilty view of fabricating it, a 
 man will find no motive for institu- 
 ting a suit for an ordinary pecuniary 
 demand, without believing himself to 
 be in the right : for if he is in the 
 wrong, disappointment, waste of time, 
 fruitless trouble, and so much ex- 
 pense as is naturally unavoidable, 
 are by the supposition what he knows 
 must be his fate. Whereas, on the 
 other hand, a man upon whom a de- 
 mand of that kind is made, may, 
 although he knows himself to be in 
 the wrong, find inducement enough 
 to stand a suit from a thousand other 
 considerations : from the hope of a 
 deficiency in point of evidence on the 
 part of the plaintiff, not to mention, 
 
 as
 
 but an Encouragement. 33 
 
 as before, the rare and criminal enter- 
 prise of fabricating evidence on his 
 own part : from the hope of tiring the 
 plaintiff out, or taking advantage of 
 casual incidents, such as the death of 
 witnesses or parties : from the tempo- 
 rary difficulty or inconvenience of sa- 
 tisfying the demand, or (to conclude 
 with the case which the weakness of 
 human nature renders by far the most 
 frequent) from the mere unwillingness 
 to satisfy it. 
 
 In a word, they give a partial ad- 
 vantage to conscious guilt, on which- 
 ever side it is found : and that advan- 
 tage is most partial to the defendant's 
 side, on which side consciousness of 
 guilt, as we see, is most likely to be 
 found. 
 
 Better, says a law maxim subscribed 
 to by every body, better that ten cri- 
 minals should escape, than one inno- 
 cent
 
 34 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 cent person should suffer : and this in 
 case even of the deepest guilt. For ten, 
 some read a hundred^ some a thousand. 
 Whichever reading be the best, an ex- 
 pedient of procedure, the effect of 
 which were to cause ten innocent per- 
 sons to suffer for every ten guilty ones, 
 would be acknowledged to be no very 
 eligible ingredient in the system. 
 What shall we say of an institution, 
 which for one culpable person whom 
 it causes to suffer, involves in equal 
 suffering perhaps ten blameless ones. 
 
 Thus much for groundless suits : 
 there remains the plea of its tendency 
 to check what are deemed trivial suits. 
 I know what a groundless suit means 
 I know of no such thing as a frivo- 
 lous one. No wrong that I know 
 of can be a trivial one, which to 
 him to whom it is done appears a se- 
 rious one, serious to such a degree, 
 as to make it worth his while to de- 
 mand
 
 but an Encouragement. 35 
 
 mand redress at the hand of justice. 
 Conduct is the test of feeling. I know 
 of no right I have to set up any 
 feelings of my own as the standard of 
 those of my neighbour, in contradic- 
 tion to a declaration of his, the truth, 
 of which is evidenced by his own 
 conduct. What to one man again is 
 trivial, to another man may be of high, 
 importance. In the account of wrong 
 too must be included, not only the 
 individual wrong taken by itself, but 
 its effects in the way of encourage- 
 ment to repetition, and its effects in 
 the way of example. I know of no 
 wrong so slight, that by multiplica- 
 tion may not become intolerable. 
 Give me but a licence to do to any 
 person at pleasure the minutest wrong 
 conceivable I need no more, that 
 person is my slave. Allow me to rob 
 him, though it be but of a farthing, 
 M farthing
 
 36 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 farthing by farthing, I will find the 
 bottom of his purse. Allow me but 
 to let fall a drop of water upon his head 
 gutta cavat lapidem, the power of 
 striking his head off would be less sus- 
 ceptible of abuse. 
 
 In pecuniary cases, the smaller the 
 sum in dispute, the less reserve is used 
 in branding the conduct of the par- 
 ties with the charge of litigation, of 
 which in such cases the reproach is 
 apt to fall principally, if not exclu- 
 sively, to the plaintiff's share. But the 
 importance of the sum is altogether 
 governed by the circumstances of the 
 parties : the amount of it in pounds, 
 shillings, and pence, shows nothing. 
 One man's income may be a hundred, 
 a thousand, four thousand times as 
 great as that of another. In England 
 there are men whose income exceeds 
 60,0001. a year. 151. a year is as 
 
 much
 
 but an Encouragement. 37 
 
 much as falls to the lot of perhaps 
 the greater number of the whole body 
 of the people. Without a particular 
 caution, a legislator or a judge will 
 naturally enough, like any other man, 
 take the relation of the sum in dis- 
 pute to his own feelings, that is, its 
 ratio to its own circumstances, for the 
 measure of importance: but by this 
 standard he will be sure to be deceived, 
 as often as the circumstances of the par- 
 ties, or either of them, are materially 
 different from his own. Fifty pound, for 
 example, will be apt to appear in his 
 eyes an object of considerable import- 
 ance: an object of which a tenth or a 
 twentieth part, or less, might be of im- 
 portance sufficient to justify from the 
 charge of litigation, the maintenance 
 of a suit. A shilling would be almost 
 sure to appear to him an object altoge- 
 ther trifling; an object by no means 
 M2 of
 
 38 No Check to Litigiousncss. 
 
 of magnitude enough to warrant the 
 maintenance of a suit. Fifty pound 
 is however a sum of less importance 
 to a Duke of Marlborough or Bed- 
 ford, than a single shilling (viz. than a 
 four thousandth part of 501.) to many 
 a man, in truth to probably the ma- 
 jority of men in the kingdom. It is 
 therefore more unjust, more tyranni- 
 cal, to refuse to hear the demand of 
 an ordinary working man to the 
 amount of a shilling, than it would 
 be to refuse to hear the demand of a 
 Duke of Marlboreugh or Bedford, to 
 the amount of 501. The legislator, 
 who on the plea of checking litiga- 
 tion, or on any other plea, exacts of a 
 working man as a preliminary to his 
 obtaining justice, what that working 
 man is unable to pay, does refuse to 
 him a hearing, does in a word refuse 
 him justice, and that as effectually 
 
 and
 
 but an Encouragement. 39 
 
 and completely, as it is possible to re- 
 fuse it. 
 
 That all men should have equal 
 rights, not only would be politically 
 pernicious, but is naturally impossi- 
 ble: but I hope this will not be said of 
 equal justice. 
 
 Trivial causes require no such facti- 
 tious checks : to such causes were all 
 expenses struck off that can be struck 
 off, there are natural checks in abund- 
 ance, that are unavoidable. There is 
 the pain of disappointment : there is 
 expense, of which a certain measure 
 will every now and then be absolutely 
 unavoidable : there is consumption of 
 time, which to the working classes, 
 that is, to the great majority of the 
 people, is expense. 
 
 But even let the cause be trivial, 
 and that to such a degree as to ren- 
 der the act of commencing the litiga- 
 tion
 
 40 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 tion blamable, the blame is never so 
 great on the side of the party most fa- 
 voured by the tax, as on the side of 
 the party most oppressed by it. The 
 party most oppressed is the complain- 
 ant: the party who having suffered 
 the injury, such as it is, claims or 
 would claim satisfaction for it at the 
 hands of justice. But, so as there does 
 but exist the smallest particle of an 
 injury, the party who claims satisfac- 
 tion for it can never be so much in 
 the wrong for doing so, but that he 
 who refuses satisfaction must be still 
 more so. If the demand be just, why 
 did not he comply with it? If just, 
 but trifling, why does he contest it ? 
 In this case then you cannot punish 
 in this way the misconduct of one par- 
 ty, without rewarding the still greater 
 misconduct of the other. If the tax 
 applies a check where there is blame, 
 
 it
 
 but an Encouragement. 41 
 
 it affords protection and encourage- 
 ment where there is still greater 
 blame. 
 
 Another injustice. The poorer a 
 man is, the more exposed he is to the 
 oppression of which this supposed re- 
 medy against litigation is the instru- 
 ment. But the poorer a man is, the 
 less likely he is to be litigious. The 
 less time a man has to spare, and the 
 less a man can afford to expend his 
 time (not to speak of money) without 
 being paid for it, the less likely is he 
 to expose himself to such a consump- 
 tion of his time. 
 
 The rich man, the man who has 
 time and money at command, he sure- 
 ly, if any, is the man to consume it 
 litigiously and frivolously. No won- 
 der however, if to a superficial glance, 
 the poor should appear mure litigious 
 than he. There are more of the poor 
 
 than
 
 42 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 than of the rich : and to the eye of 
 unreflecting opulence, the causes of 
 the poor are all trivial ones. 
 
 "VVe think of the poor in the way 
 of charity, for to deal out charity gra- 
 tifies not only benevolence, but pride. 
 We think much of them in the way 
 of charity, but we think little of them 
 in the way of justice. Justice, how- 
 ever, ranks before charity : and they 
 would need less charity, if they had 
 more justice. 
 
 What contributes more than any 
 thing to the indignation excited by 
 suits that are deemed trivial and, on 
 account of the triviality vexatious, is 
 the excessive ratio of the expense of 
 the suit to the value of the matter in 
 dispute: especially when, the matter 
 in dispute being pecuniary, its mi- 
 nuteness is more conspicuous and de- 
 fined. But to what is this expensive- 
 ness
 
 but an Encouragement. 43 
 
 ness owing ? As far at least as these 
 taxes are in question, to the legislator 
 himself. Mark then the iniquity. 
 He is himself the author of the wrong, 
 and he, punishes for it the innocent 
 and the injured. 
 
 To exclude the poor from justice was 
 not enough : they must be excluded 
 also from mercy. Forty shillings is 
 the tax imposed on pardons, by a sta- 
 tute of King William (5. W. C. 91. 
 3.) forty shillings more by another, 
 no more than five years afterwards. 
 (9 and 10. W. c. 25. 3, 50.) To- 
 gether, 41.: half a year's income of 
 a British subject, according to Dave- 
 nant's computation above quoted. 
 What is called mercy, let it \>e remem- 
 bered, is in many cases, no more than 
 justice : in all cases where the ground 
 of pardon is the persuasion of inno- 
 cence, entertained efther notwithstand- 
 M :) ing
 
 44 No Check to Litigious?iess 1 
 
 ing the verdict, or in consequence of 
 evidence brought to light after the 
 verdict.* All punishments are accord- 
 ingly irremissible, to him who has not 
 to the amount of half a year's income 
 in store or credit : all fines to that 
 amount or under, absolutely irremis- 
 sible.f 
 
 Taxes on law-proceedings, so far 
 then from being a check to liti- 
 gation, are an encouragement to 
 it: an encouragement to it in eve- 
 ry sense in which it is mischievous 
 
 * For instance, the case of Mr. Atkinson. 
 
 f It would be curious enough to know what 
 profit the treasury may have drawn from that time 
 to the .present, from so extraordinary a fund: 
 certainly not enough to pay the salary of one of 
 the Lord's Commissioners: probably not enough 
 to pay that of his valet de chambre. 
 
 These are busy statutes. By the prohibition 
 and sale of Justice, they run counter to Magna 
 Charta: by the prohibition of Mercy, they 
 break the Coronation Oath. 
 
 and
 
 but an Encouragement. 45 
 
 and blamable. Would you really 
 check litigation, and check it on both 
 sides? the simple course would be a 
 sure one. When men are in earnest 
 about preventing misconduct in any 
 line, they annex punishment to miscon- 
 duct in that line and to that only : a 
 species of misconduct which cannot be 
 practised but as it were under the eye 
 of the court, is of all others the easiest 
 to cope with in the way of law. Deal 
 with misconduct that displays itself 
 under the eye of the court as you 
 deal by delinquency at large, and 
 you may be sure of succeeding to a 
 still superior degree. Discriminate 
 misconduct then from innocence: lay 
 the burthen on misconduct and mis- 
 conduct only, leaving innocence unop- 
 pressed. Keep back punishment, till 
 guilt is ascertained. Keep back costs, 
 as much as possible, till the last stage 
 
 of
 
 46 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 of procedure; keep off from both par- 
 ties every thing of expense that is not 
 absolutely unavoidable, where litiga- 
 tion is on both sides without blame : at 
 that last stage if there be found blame, 
 throw whatever expense of which you 
 allow the necessity to subsist beyond 
 what is absolutely unavoidable, throw 
 it on that side, and on that side only, 
 where there has been blame. If on 
 both, then if circumstances require, 
 punish it on both sides, by fine for in- 
 stance to the profit of the public. 
 
 Litigation, though eventually it 
 prove groundless, litigation, like any 
 other course of conduct of which 
 mischief is the result, is not therefore 
 blamable : and where it is blamable, 
 there is a wide difference whether it is 
 accompanied with temerity only, or 
 with consciousness of its own injustice. 
 The countenance shewn to the parties 
 
 by
 
 but an Encouragement. 4? 
 
 by the law ought to be governed, and 
 governed uniformly and proportion- 
 ally, by these important differences. 
 So much in point of utility : how 
 stands establishment ? Taxes heaped 
 on in all stages from the first to the 
 last without distinction : all costs 
 given or no costs, no medium : costs 
 scarce ever complete, and nothing be- 
 yond costs. No mitigation, or en- 
 hancement, in consideration of pecu- 
 niary circumstances. No shades of 
 punishment in this way correspondent 
 to shades of blame: in most cases no 
 difference so much as between consci- 
 ousness of injustice and simple teme- 
 rity, nor so much as betwixt either and 
 innocence. The power of adjudging 
 as between costs and no costs, seldom 
 discretionary : that of apportioning, 
 never : nor that of fining beyond the 
 amount of costs : consequently nor 
 
 that
 
 48 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 that of punishing both parties where 
 both have been to blame. Were a 
 power to be given by statute to im- 
 pose, on a litigious suitor convicted of 
 litigation, a fine to an amount not ex- 
 ceeding what the losing party pays 
 now, whether he be blamable or 
 blameless, it would be cried out against 
 perhaps as a great power, too great to 
 be given to judges without juries.* 
 
 Justice 
 
 * The distinction between temerity and con- 
 sciousness of blame, a distinction pervading hu- 
 man nature, and applicable to every species of 
 misbehaviour, is scarce so much as known to the 
 English law. There are scarce words for it in 
 the language. Temerity is taken from the Ro- 
 man law. Malice, the term by which English 
 Lawyers seem in some instances to have had in 
 view the expressing consciousness of blame, pre- 
 sents a wrong idea, since in common language it 
 implies hatred, an affection which in many in- 
 stances of conscious guilt, may be altogether 
 
 wanting :
 
 but an Encouragement. 49 
 
 Justice shall be denied to no man y jus* 
 tice shall be sold to no man, says the first 
 
 of 
 
 wanting: instance offences of mere rapacity, 
 such as theft, robbery, and homicide for lucre. 
 
 The legislator ? he talk of vexation ? He does 
 every thing to create the evil, he does nothing to 
 remove it. 
 
 I happened once to fall into conversation 
 with a man who, from an Attorney, had been 
 made Judge of one of the provinces in America. 
 Justice, I understood from him, was on a very 
 bad footing there: it might be had almost for 
 nothing: the people were very litigious: he 
 found them very troublesome. A summons 
 cost I forget whether it was three and six- 
 pence, or half a crown. Whom the half crown 
 went to I do not know: one may be pretty 
 certain not to the Judge. Seeing no prospect 
 of our agreeing, 1 did not push the conversation 
 far. The half crown seemed to him too little : 
 to me it seemed all too much. The pleasant 
 thing would have been to hare enjoyed the 
 salary in peace and quietness, without being 
 plagued with a parcel of low people. Justice 
 would then have been upon the best footing pos- 
 sible.
 
 50 No Check to Litigiousness, 
 
 of statutes, Magna Charta. How is it 
 under these later ones ? Denied, as we 
 have seen, to nine-tenths of the peo- 
 ple, sold to the other tenth at an un- 
 conscionable price. It was a conceit 
 among the old lawyers, reported if 
 not adopted by Lord Coke, that 
 a statute made contrary to Magna 
 Charta, though made in all the forms, 
 would be a void law. God forbid, 
 that by all the lawyers in the world, 
 or for the purpose of any argument, 
 I should ever suffer myself to be 
 betrayed into any such extravagance : 
 in a subject it would be sedition, 
 in a judge it would be usurpation, 
 in any body it would be nonsense. 
 But after all it must be acknowledg- 
 ed, to be in some degree unfortu- 
 
 sible. He had accordingly a project for check- 
 ing litigation by raising the fees. I don't know 
 whether it succeeded, 
 
 nate,
 
 but an Encouragement. 51 
 
 nate, as well as altogether singu- 
 lar, that, of an instrument deemed the 
 foundation of all liberty, and magni- 
 fied as such even still, to a degree of 
 fanaticism, a passage by far the most 
 important, and almost the only one 
 that has any application now a days, 
 should be thus habitually trodden un- 
 der foot, without remorse or reclama- 
 tion.* 
 
 * Let us not for the purpose of any argument, 
 give rise or countenance to injurious imputa- 
 tions. Though justice is partly denied, and 
 partly sold, the difference is certainly immense, 
 betwixt selling it for the personal benefit of the 
 king or of a judge, and selling it for the benefit 
 of the public : betwixt selling it by auction, and 
 selling it at a fixed price : betwixt denying it for 
 the sake of forcing the sale of it, or denying it 
 to a few obnoxious individuals, and denying 
 it indiscriminately to the great majority of the 
 people. In point of moral guilt, there is cer- 
 tainly no comparison : but in point of political 
 effect, it may not be altogether easy in every 
 
 part
 
 59 Why resorted to, 
 
 A tax so impolitic and so grievous, 
 a tax thus demonstrated to be the 
 worst of taxes, how comes it ever 
 to have been made choice of, and 
 when made choice of, acquiesced in ? 
 These are not questions of mere 
 curiosity: for acquiescence under a 
 tax, and that so general, forms at first 
 glance no inconsiderable presumption 
 in its favour. A presumption it does 
 form: but when demonstration has 
 shewn itself, presumptions are at an 
 end. 
 
 How comes the tax to have been 
 made choice of? One cause we have 
 seen already in another shape ; the 
 unscrutinized notion of its supposed 
 tendency to check litigation: litiga- 
 tion, which where it stands for mis- 
 chief, is the very mischief which the 
 
 part of the parallel, to say which mode of abuse 
 is most extensively pernicious. 
 
 species
 
 and acquiesced under. 53 
 
 species of tax in question contributes 
 with all its power to promote. 
 
 Another cause may possibly be, the 
 tendency which this sort of tax has to 
 be confounded in the eye of an incu- 
 rious observer, with other sorts, which 
 are either the best of all, or next to 
 the best. The best of all are taxes on 
 consumption, because not only do 
 they fall no where without finding 
 some ability to pay them ; but where 
 necessaries are out of the question, 
 they fall on nobody who has not the 
 option of not paying them if he does 
 not choose it. Taxes on property, 
 and those on transfer of property, 
 such as those on contracts relative to 
 property, are the next best : because 
 though they are not optional like the 
 former, they may be so selected as 
 never to call for money but where 
 there is ability, nay even ample abi-
 
 54 Why resorted to, 
 
 lity, to pay them. Now of these two 
 most supportable classes of taxes, the 
 second are all of them levied by means 
 of stamps : taxes on consumption too, 
 in many instances, such as those on 
 cards, dice, gloves, and perfumery, 
 show to the eye as stamp-duties. 
 But all these are very good taxes. 
 Stamp-duties therefore are good taxes: 
 and taxes on justice are all stamp-du- 
 ties. Thinking men look to conse- 
 quences ; they look to the feelings of 
 the individuals affected : acting men 
 look to the stamp : taxes on justice, 
 taxes on property, taxes on consump- 
 tion, are accordingly one and the same 
 object to the optics of finance. Stamp- 
 duties too have another most conve- 
 nient property, they execute them- 
 selves, and law taxes beyond all others: 
 in short they exclude all smuggling.* 
 
 * Law paper might be forged : but the diffi- 
 culty would be to issue it. 
 
 They
 
 and acquiesced under. 55 
 
 They heap distress indeed upon dis- 
 tress : but the distress is not worth 
 minding, as there is no escaping it. 
 
 But the great cause of all is the 
 prospect of acquiescence : a prospect 
 first presented by hope, since realized 
 over and over again by experience. 
 It is too much to expect of a man of 
 finance, that he should anticipate the 
 feelings of unknown individuals : it 
 is a great deal if he will listen to their 
 cries. Taxes on consumption fall on 
 bodies of men : the most inconsider- 
 able one when touched will make 
 the whole country ring again. The 
 oppressed and ruined objects of the 
 taxes on justice, weep in holes and 
 corners, as rats die : no one voice 
 finds any other to join with it. 
 
 A tax on shops, a tax on tobacco, 
 falls upon a man, if at all, immediately, 
 and presses on him constantly : every 
 man knows whether he keeps or 
 
 means
 
 56 Why resorted to, 
 
 means to keep a shop, whether he 
 means to sell or to use tobacco. A 
 tax on justice falls upon a man only 
 occasionally : it is like a thunder- 
 stroke, which a man never looks for 
 till he is destroyed by it. He does not 
 know when it will fall on him, or 
 whether it ever will : nor even whe- 
 ther, when it does fall, it will press up- 
 on him most, or upon his adversary. 
 He knows not what it will amount to: 
 he has no data from which to calcu- 
 late it : it comes lumped to him in 
 the general mass of law charges : a heap 
 of items among which no vulgar eye 
 can ever hope to discriminate: an ob- 
 ject on which investigation would be 
 thrown away, as comprehension is im- 
 possible. Calamities that are not to 
 be averted by thought, are little 
 thought of, and it is best not to think 
 of them. When is the time for com- 
 plaint r Before the thunder-bolt is 
 
 fallen
 
 and acquiesced under. 37 
 
 fallen, it would be too soon: when 
 fallen, it is too late. Shopkeepers, to- 
 bacconists, glovers, are compact bo- 
 dies : they can arm counsel : they 
 come in force to the House of Com- 
 mons. Suitors for justice have no 
 common cause, and scarce a common 
 name : they are every body and no- 
 body : their business being every 
 body's is nobody's. Who are suit- 
 ors ? where are they ? what does a 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer care 
 for them ? what can they do to help 
 him ? what can they do to hurt him ? 
 So far from having a common interest, 
 they have repugnant interests : to 
 crush the injured, is to befriend the in- 
 jurer. 
 
 May not ignorance with regard to 
 the quantum and the source of the 
 grievance, have contributed some- 
 thing to patience? Unable to pierce 
 the veil of darkness, that guards from 
 
 vulgar
 
 58 Why resorted to, 
 
 vulgar eyes the avenues of justice, 
 men know not how much of the diffi- 
 culty of the approach is to be ascribed 
 to art, and how much to nature. As 
 the consumers of tobacco confound 
 the tax on that commodity with the 
 price, so those who borrow or would 
 have wished to borrow the hand of 
 justice, confound the artificial with 
 the natural expense of hiring it. But 
 if the whole of the grievance be na- 
 tural, it may be all inevitable and in- 
 curable, and at any rate it may be no 
 more the fault of lawyers or law ma- 
 kers, than gout and stone are of phy- 
 sicians. Happy ignorance ! if blind- 
 ness to the cause of a malady could 
 blunt the pain of it ! 
 
 There want not apologists-general 
 and talkers in the air, to prove to us 
 that this as well as every thing else, 
 is as it should be. The expense, the 
 delay, and all the other grievances, 
 
 which
 
 and acquiesced wider. 59 
 
 which activity has heaped up, or negli- 
 gence suffered to accumulate, are the 
 prices which, according to Montes- 
 quieu, we must be content to pay for 
 liberty and justice. A penny is the 
 price men pay for a penny loaf: there- 
 fore why not two-pence ? and, if three- 
 pence, there would be no harm done, 
 since the loaf would be worth so much 
 the more. 
 
 May not a sort of instinctive fellow- 
 feeling among the wealthy have con- 
 tributed something, if not to the im- 
 position, at least to the acquiescence ? 
 It is the wealthy alone, that either by 
 fortune, situation, education, intelli- 
 gence, or influence, are qualified to 
 take the lead in legislation : and the 
 characteristic property of this tax, is 
 to be favourable to the wealthy, and 
 that in proportion to their wealth. 
 Other taxes afford a man no indemni- 
 fication for the wealth they take from 
 N him:
 
 60 Why resorted to, 
 
 him : this gives him power in exchange. 
 The power of keeping down those 
 who are to be kept down, the power 
 of doing wrong, and the more gene- 
 rous pride of abstaining from the wrong 
 which it is in our power to do ; advan- 
 tages such as these, are too precious not 
 to be grasped at with avidity by human 
 weakness : and, as in a country of politi- 
 cal liberty, and under a system of justice 
 in other respects impartial, they can 
 only be obtained by a blind and indi- 
 rect route such as this, the inconveni- 
 ence of travelling in it, finds on the 
 part of those who are well equip- 
 ped for it, the more patient an acqui- 
 escence. 
 
 Will it be said that abolishing the 
 taxes on justice would not answer the 
 purpose, for that supposing them all 
 abolished, justice would still remain 
 inaccessible to the body of the people ? 
 This would be to justify one abuse 
 
 by
 
 and acquiesced under. 61 
 
 by another. The other obstacles by 
 which the avenues to justice have been 
 blocked up, constitute a separate head 
 of abuse, from vfliich I gladly turn 
 aside, as being foreign to the present 
 purpose. Take off law taxes all toge- 
 ther, the number of those to whom jus- 
 tice will still remain inaccessible, 
 would still, it must be confessed, be 
 but too great. It would however not 
 be so great, as it is at present under 
 the pressure of those taxes. Though 
 you could not tell exactly to how ma- 
 ny you would open the doors of jus- 
 tice, you might be sure you opened 
 them to some. Though you would 
 still leave the burthen but too heavy, 
 you would at any rate make it propor- 
 tionably more supportable. 
 
 If by taking off these taxes, you re- 
 duced the expense of a common action 
 from 251. to 201., you might open 
 the door, suppose, to one iu five of 
 
 those
 
 62 Why resorted to, 
 
 those against whom it is shut at pre- 
 sent. Even this would be something: at 
 any rate whatever were the remaining 
 quantum of abuse, which you still suf- 
 fered to subsist, you would have the 
 consolation at least of not being active- 
 ly instrumental in producing it. To 
 reform in toto a system of procedure is 
 a work of time and difficulty, and 
 would require a rare union of legal 
 knowledge with genius: repealing a 
 tax may require discernment, candour, 
 philanthropy, and fortitude ; but is a 
 work of no difficulty, requires no extra- 
 ordinary measure of science, nor even 
 so much time as the imposing of one. 
 
 But by whatever plea the continu- 
 ance of the subsisting taxes of this 
 kind may be apologized for, nothing 
 can be said in favour of any new addi- 
 tion to the burthen. The subsisting 
 ones, it may be said, have been acqui- 
 esced in, and men are used to them : 
 
 in
 
 and acquiesced under. 63 
 
 in this respect at least they have the ad- 
 vantage of any oew ones which could 
 be substituted in the room of them. 
 But even this immoral plea, which puts 
 bad and good upon a level, effacing all 
 distinction but that between established 
 and not established, even this faint plea 
 is mute against any augmentation of 
 this worst of evils. 
 
 To conclude Either I am much 
 mistaken, or it has been proved 
 that a law tax is the worst of all taxes, 
 actual or possible: that for the most 
 part it is a denial of justice, that at 
 the best, it is a tax upon distress: 
 that it lays the burthen, not where 
 there is most, but where there is least, 
 benefit : that it co-operates with 
 every injury, and with every crime: 
 that the persons on whom it bears 
 hardest, are those on whom a bur- 
 then of any kind lies heaviest, and 
 that they compose the great majority 
 
 of
 
 64 Recapitulation. 
 
 of the people : that so far from being 
 a check, it is an encouragement to li- 
 tigation : and that it operates in direct 
 breach of Magna Charta, that venera- 
 ble monument, commonly regarded as 
 the foundation of English liberty. 
 
 The statesman who cares not what 
 mischief he does, so he does it without 
 disturbance, may lay on law taxes with- 
 out end : he who makes a conscience 
 to abstain from mischief will abstain 
 from adding to them : he whose ambi- 
 tion it is to extirpate mischief, will re- 
 peal them. 
 
 General error makes law, says a 
 maxim in use among lawyers. It 
 makes at any rate an apology for law : 
 but when the error is pointed out, the 
 apology is gone.
 
 NOTES 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Mem. Anno, 1796. At a dinner at Mr. M. 
 
 P.'s, in Street, Mr. R. in the presence 
 
 of Mr. William Pitt, (then Minister) took me 
 aside, and told me that they had read my Pam- 
 phlet on Law Taxes ; that the reasons against them 
 were unanswerable, and it was determined there 
 should be no more of them. 
 
 Anno, 1804, July 10, 12, 14, 18. This being 
 in the number of Mr. Addington'a Taxes, Mr. 
 Pitt, upon returning to office, took up all those 
 Taxes in the lump. On the above days, this Tax 
 was opposed in the House of Commons : and Mr. 
 Wyndham, according to the report in the Time*, 
 on one of those days, spoke of this Pamphlet as 
 containing complete information on the subject ; 
 observing at the same time, that it was out of 
 print. On behalf of administration, nothing like 
 an answer to any of the objections was attempted : 
 only the Attorney-General (Perchral) said, that 
 
 the
 
 66 
 
 the addition proposed to those Taxes, was no 
 more than equal to the depreciation of money. 
 
 Mr. Addington, before this, had recourse to the 
 Tax on Medicine here spoken of, (p. 22.) So 
 that, in the course of his short administration, if 
 the representation here given be correct, he had 
 had the misfortune to find out and impose the two 
 worst species of taxation possible. Compare this 
 with Denmark, and its courts of Natural Procedure, 
 called Reconciliation Courts. 
 
 26th February,1816. Unalleviated by any ade- 
 quate hope of use, too painful would be the task, of 
 hunting out, and holding up to view, the subsequent 
 additions, which this worst of oppressions has, in 
 this interval of twenty years, been receiving. 
 
 Money, it is said, must be had, and no other 
 taxes can be found. The justification being con- 
 clusive, the tax receives its increase : next year, 
 from the same hand, flow others in abundance. 
 
 Grievous enough is the Income Tax, called, 
 lest it should be thought to be what it is, the 
 Property Tax. Grievous that tax is, whatever be 
 its name ; yet, sum for sum, compared with this 
 tax, it is a blessing. Instead of 10 per cent, sup- 
 pose it 80 per cent. Less bad would it be to add 
 yet another 10 per cent, than a tax to an equal 
 amount upon justice. 
 
 Grievous
 
 67 
 
 Grievous have been the additions, so lately and 
 repeatedly made, to the taxes on Conreyancct and 
 Agreements. Extensive the prohibitory part of 
 the effect, though the pressure, confined as 
 usual to the poor, i. e. the great majority of the 
 community, who have none to speak for them, 
 is scarcely complained of by the rich. Yet, were 
 all law-taxes taken off*, and the amount thrown 
 upon Conveyances and Agreements, iui even tins 
 would in reality be an indulgence. 
 
 Whether the oppression be more or less griev- 
 ous, is never worth a thought Will it be sub- 
 milled to ? This is the only question. Charity 
 is kicked out of doors. Hope is fled. Faith and 
 Piety remain, and atone for every thing. 
 
 For a list of about twenty-eight other sources 
 of factitious delay, vexation, and expense, and 
 thence of denial of justice, produced by the judges 
 of former times, for the augmentation of lawyers' 
 profit, their own included, together with a list 
 and summary account of the devices by which 
 these burthens have been imposed, and by which 
 Technical stands distinguished from Natural Pro- 
 cedure, see by the same author, Scotch Reform, 
 &c. printed for Ridgway, Piccadilly.
 
 ADDITION BY A LEARNED FRIEND. 
 
 IN the court of Chancery, two cases have re- 
 cently occurred, which may serve as an illustra- 
 tion of the extent in which the taxes upon law 
 proceedings may operate as a denial of justice. 
 In one case Roe v. Gudgeon the Defendant, in 
 his answer to the Plaintiff's bill, submitted that 
 he ought not to be compelled to set out certain 
 accounts which had been required by the bill, as 
 the expense of taking what is called an office copy 
 of them, a necessary preliminary to any further 
 proceeding on the part of the Plaintiff in the 
 cause, would amount to the sum of 29,000/. : an 
 expense almost wholly arising from the Stamps on 
 the Paper, on which the office copy of the answer 
 is compulsorily made. In this case the court de- 
 termined, that it was not necessary these ac- 
 counts should be set out: but in coming to this 
 conclusion, how far the court was determined by 
 the nature of the particular case, or by the magni- 
 tude
 
 69 
 
 tude of the expense that would thus be occasion- 
 ed ; or whether if, without any such objection, the 
 Defendant had actually set out these account*, 
 the Plaintiff could have been relieved from pur- 
 suing the regular mode of procuring a copy of 
 them, and thus incurring the above expense ; or 
 whether, if the expense had been instead of 
 29,000/. only 28 or 27 thousand pounds, such 
 an objection would have hppn listened to; it is 
 extremely difficult to say. 
 
 The other case alluded to, is one in which 
 from peculiar circumstances, it is not thought 
 proper to mention the names of the parties. 
 It is optional with a man to be a Plaintiff in 
 a cause, it is not altogether so optional with 
 him to be a Defendant The preceding case 
 shews that it is not always safe for a man to 
 become a Plaintiff, without 28,0001. at least in 
 his pocket, to begin with, over and above what 
 is necessary for his maintenance. The following 
 ease shews that a man may not be always able to 
 resist a demand, however unjust it may be, with- 
 out being able to support an outlay of at least 
 SOO/. In the case in question, the writer of this 
 has been assured, and from authority, which be 
 has peculiar reason for relying upon, that the ex- 
 pense of merely putting in an answer by cue of the 
 Defendants to a bill in Equity, amounted to the 
 
 above
 
 70 
 
 above sum of 800J. : what part of this expense 
 was occasioned by the tax on law proceedings 
 cannot be accurately ascertained, but it assured- 
 ly constituted a very considerable proportion of 
 that sum. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 John M'Creery, Printer, 
 Black-Horse-Court, London.
 
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