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Vol. I.
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the king, he turned this material into money,he would scarcely have made as much as hehad given for it. Mr. Mariner was then going-on to shew the convenience of money as a me-dium of exchange, when Filimoeatoo interruptedhim, saying to Finow, I understand how it is;money is less cumbersome than goods, and it isvery convenient for a man to exchange awayhis goods for money; which, at any other time,he can exchange again for the same or any othergoods that he may want; whereas the goodsthemselves may perhaps spoil by keeping (par-ticularly if provisions) but the money he sup-posed would not spoil; and although it was ofno true value itself, yet being scarce and diffi-cult to be got without giving something usefuland really valuable for it, it -was imagined to beof value; and if every body considered it so,and would readily give their goods for it, hedid not see but what it was of a sort of realvalue to all who possessed it, as long as theirneighbours chose to take it in the same way.Mr. Mariner found he could not give a betterexplanation, he therefore told Filimdeatoo thathis notion of the nature of money was a justone. After a pause of some length, Finow re-plied that the explanation did not satisfy him :he still thought it a foolish thing that peopleshould place a value on money, when they