XIV.: Any infringement of the standard of money, however small, would be proportionably injurious.

34. There are some who readily allow, that a great debasement of the standard at once, would be very injurious; “and yet insist, that if you do it gently, a little at a time, no harm will be done; they say, such a gentle touch would not be perceived, and therefore none would complain.”

Strange indeed! You say it would be injurious to debase the standard much at once, and yet that it would be no injury to do the same thing at several times. But strange as this logic may seem to be, it must be owned to be very ingenuous, and to afford perhaps as good an argument for the purpose, as any we have yet met with: It fairly owns that debasing the standard would be a fraud, and only aims at shewing how you might commit this fraud without being perceived. It would be in vain to argue with these gentlemen upon moral principles; but here we can answer them upon their own: The law must be promulged, before such a project could be executed; and by that previous notice, the whole design would be frustrated.