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THE NATUHE AND CAUSES OE

an unusual quantity of goods, which they send to some dis-tant market, in hopes that the returns will come in before thedemand for payment. The demand comes before the returns,and they have nothing at hand, with which they can eitherpurchase money, or give solid security for borrowing. It isnot any scarcity of gold and silver, but the difficulty whichsuch people find in borrowing, and which their creditors findin getting payment, that occasions the general complaint ofthe scarcity of money.

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove,that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver;but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for pur-chasing. Money, no doubt, makes always a part of the na-tional capital; but it has already been shewn that it generallymakes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable partof it.

It is not because wealth consists more essentially in moneythan in goods, that the merchant finds it generally more easyto buy goods with money, than to buy money with goods;but becauscvmoney is the known and established instrumentof commerce, for which every thing is readily given in ex-change, but which is not always with equal readiness to begot in exchange for every thing. The greater part of goodsbesides are more perishable than money, and he may fre-quently sustain a much greater loss by keeping them. Whenhis goods are upon hand too, he is more liable to such de-mands for money as he may not be able to answer, than whenhe has got their price in his coffers. Over and above all this,his profit arises more directly from selling than from buying,and he is upon all these accounts generally much more anxi-ous to exchange his goods for money, than his money forgoods. But though a particular merchant, with abundanceof goods in his warehouse, may sometimes be ruined by notbeing able to sell them in time, a nation or country is notliable to the same accident. The whole capital of a merchantfrequently consists in perishable goods destined lor purchas-ing money. But it is but a very small part.of the annualproduce of the land and labour ot a country which can everbe destined for purchasing gold and silver from their neigh-bours. The far greater part is circulated and consumedamong themselves; and even of the surplus which is sentabroad, the greater part is generally destined for the purchaseof other loreign goods. Though gold and silver, therefore,