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A prince, anxious to maintain his dominions at all times in the

state in which he can most easily defend them, ought upon this

account to guard not only against that excessive multiplication

of paper money which ruins the very banks which issue it, but

even against that multiplication of it which enables them to fill

the greater part of the circulation of the country with it.

The circulation of every country may be considered as divided

into two different branches; the circulation of the dealers with

one another, and the circulation between the dealers and the

consumers. Though the same pieces of money, whether paper or

metal, may be employed sometimes in the one circulation and

sometimes in the other; yet as both are constantly going on at

the same time, each requires a certain stock of money, of one

kind or another, to carry it on. The value of the goods

circulated between the different dealers never can exceed the

value of those circulated between the dealers and the consumers;

whatever is bought by the dealers being ultimately destined to be

sold to the consumers. The circulation between the dealers, as it

is carried on by wholesale, requires generally a pretty large sum

for every particular transaction.