Note 70 — Chapter XIX

This extraordinary assumption must evidently have been founded on another, if possible still more wonderful; namely that the American Government was composed of individuals so short-sighted that they would fail to take the precautions which men of ordinary common sense would be sure to adopt with the view of preventing, as far as possible, a sudden fall in the value of silver. But the American Government, as we know, naturally diminished its purchases of silver, and as no one supposes (except perhaps the Indian Government) that it can be so silly as at once to lose money and create a gratuitous disturbance by suddenly flooding the market with the silver accumulated, we see that, since the repeal of the Sherman Act, the price of silver, so far from having gone down, as anticipated by the Viceroy, has even slightly gone up.