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A paper currency which falls below the value of gold and silver

coin, does not thereby sink the value of those metals, or

occasion equal quantities of them to exchange for a smaller

quantity of goods of any other kind. The proportion between the

value of gold and silver and that of goods of any other kind,

depends in all cases, not upon the nature and quantity of any

particular paper money, which may be current in any particular

country, but upon the richness or poverty of the mines, which

happen at any particular time to supply the great market of the

commercial world with those metals. It depends upon the

proportion between the quantity of labour which is necessary in

order to bring a certain quantity of gold and silver to market,

and that which is necessary in order to bring thither a certain

quantity of any other sort of goods.