such a sum unemployed. Let us suppose that he generally disposes of his
whole stock upon hand, or of goods to the value of his whole stock upon
hand, once in the year. By being obliged to keep so great a sum unemployed,
he must sell in a year five hundred pounds worth less goods than he might
otherwise have done. His annual profits must be less by all that he could
have made by the sale of five hundred pounds worth more goods ; and the
number of people employed in preparing his goods for the market must be less
by all those that five hundred pounds more stock could have employed. The
merchant in Edinburgh, on the other hand, keeps no money unemployed for
answering such occasional demands. When they actually come upon him, he
satisfies them from his cash account with the bank, and gradually replaces
the sum borrowed with the money or paper which comes in from the occasional
sales of his goods. With the same stock, therefore, he can, without
imprudence, have at all times in his warehouse a larger quantity of goods
than the London merchant ; and can thereby both make a greater profit
himself, and give constant employment to a greater number of industrious
people who prepare those goods for the market. Hence the great benefit which
the country has derived from this trade.

The facility of discounting bills of exchange, it may be thought, indeed,
gives the English merchants a conveniency equivalent to the cash accounts of
the Scotch merchants. But the Scotch merchants, it must be remembered, can
discount their bills of exchange as easily as the English merchants; and
have, besides, the additional conveniency of their cash accounts.

The whole paper money of every kind which can easily circulate in any
country, never can exceed the value of the gold and silver, of which it
supplies the place, or which (the commerce being supposed the same) would
circulate there, if there was no paper money. If twenty shilling notes, for
example, are the lowest paper money current in Scotland, the whole of that