JB/002/567/001

Annuity Notes
Ch
VI. Depretiation

29 This Paper will be as good payment for bullion as for any thing else
with. In the eyes of a British subject resident within the limits of the
British Empire it can never be capable of losing whatever superiority it
may have obtained in comparison of hard cash. If then within that those
limits empire and for the purpose of being thus expended within that Empire those limits
a demand for hard cash can should be able to take place in contradistinction
and preference to this supposed-established paper in would be inasmuch as
hard cash is without exchange convertible into bullion, and paper not. But
in the eyes of the man who has bullion to sell the superiority of this Paper
to hard Cash will not be less decided than in those of any other man.

30 The demand for bullion for exportation is not likely ever to be so great as to produce a demand for Cash to melt —
There remains therefore but one conceivable case in which this Paper
would be capable of losing its value in comparison of cash and that is
this — A demand for bullion with in some Foreign Country and that so
vast an one as to have exhausted the whole Stock of Bullion exportable from
this Country (not to speak of other Countries) and to have this come to attach
itself upon cash — That an extraordinary demand for the precious metals
in comparison of goods of all sorts should ever exist to any such amount
does not appear in any degree probable: the supposition does not to any
such extent appear to have ever yet been realized. 31 the last demand for cash was produced by a variety of causes which conjunctly are not likely to happen again in equal force Since the commencement
of the present war the demand for the precious metals for foreign use
has by a variety of concurring causes been raised to a pitch to which
it has never been known to rise before nor seems very likely ever to rise
again: and yet in the opinion of the most competent Judges and possessing
the best means of information* whatever scarcity in this way has been experienced
is to be ascribed not to the copiousness of the foreign demands but to
vices inherent in the constitution
constitution

Note

*See MrSecretary Roses Pamphlet of 1799 and the evidence given in
to the Committees of Lords and Commons in the Reports relative to the affairs of
the Bank in February and March 1797 —