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chapter system was effected. Yet this illustration, remarkable
^^^^' as it was, imparted no instruction. So wholly was he
absorbed in the errors of the old school, that no elucida¬
tion could wean him from the doctrine, or impress him
with a just perception of the real cause of the reflux of
the coin. But whatever difficulty the prepossessions of
his mind might have opposed to a theoretical solution of
the mystery, it is singular, that in so complete a discom¬
fiture of his views, he should have forborn to have drawn
the practical conclusion, that the compression of paper
necessarily occasioned the introduction of specie. Not
only, however, did he fail to form a correct inference,
but he was unfortunate enough to bring upon his own
country by the same policy of an excessive utterance of
paper the same scarcity of specie, which had led him to
predict the speedy subversion of the power of France.

The government of Austria was equally misguided, on
the subject of a paper currency, with the government of
this country. During the progress of the revolutionary
w^ar, and after the total failure of the credit of France,
the court of Vienna was induced to make an extra¬
ordinary publication of paper, under an impression, that
it would prevent the necessity of further exactions from
the people. The expedient was attended v/ith its usual
concomitant, the departure of the coin ; and by the same
misconception of the theory of money, as in all other
countries, the scarcity was attributed to every thing, but
the over-utterance of paper. An unfavourable balance,
of trade was, however, conceived to be the principal
cause ;   for  as the war  had been  for  the most part