THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

887

a very severe execution, was obliged, without any furthergratuity, to vote for the candidate whom the creditor recom-mended. In spite of all the laws against bribery and cor-ruption, the bounty of the candidates, together with the occa-sional distributions of corn which were ordered by the senate,were the principal funds from which, during the latter timesof the Roman republic, the poorer citizens derived their sub-sistence. To deliver themselves from this subjection to theircreditors, the poorer citizens were continually calling outeither for an entire abolition of debts, or lor what they calledNew Tables; that is, for a law which should entitle them toa complete acquittance, upon paying only a certain propor-tion of their accumulated debts. The law which reducedthe coin of all denominations to a sixth part of its formervalue, as it enabled them to pay their debts with a sixth partof what they really owed, was equivalent to the most advan-tageous new tables. In order to satisfy the people, the richand the great were, upon several different occasions, obligedto consent to laws both for abolishing debts, and for intro-ducing new tables; and they probably were induced to con-sent to this law, partly for the same reason, and partly thatby liberating the public revenue, they might restore vigourto that government of which they themselves had the prin-cipal direction. An operation of this kind would at oncereduce a debt of a hundred and twenty-eight millions totwenty-one millions three hundred and thirty-three thousandthree hundred and thirty-three pounds six shillings andeight-pence. In the course of the second Punic war the Aswas still further reduced, first from two ounces of copper toone ounce; and afterward from one ounce to half an ounce;that is, to the twenty-fourth part of its original value. Bycombining the three Roman operations into one, a debt ofa hundred and twenty-eight millions of our present money,might in this same manner be reduced all at once to a debtof five millions three hundred and thirty-three thousand threehundred and thirty-three pounds six shillings and eight-pence. Even the enormous debt of Great Britain might inthis manner soon be paid.

By means of such expedients the coin of, I believe, all na-tions has been gradually reduced more and more below theoriginal value, and the same nominal sum has been gradu-ally brought to contain a smaller and a smaller quantity ofsilver.