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A defect in the law may sometimes raise the rate of interest

considerably above what the condition of the country, as to

wealth or poverty, would require. When the law does not enforce

the performance of contracts, it puts all borrowers nearly upon

the same footing with bankrupts, or people of doubtful credit, in

better regulated countries. The uncertainty of recovering his

money makes the lender exact the same usurious interest which is

usually required from bankrupts. Among the barbarous nations who

overran the western provinces of the Roman empire, the

performance of contracts was left for many ages to the faith of

the contracting parties. The courts of justice of their kings

seldom intermeddled in it. The high rate of interest which took

place in those ancient times, may, perhaps, be partly accounted

for from this cause.