HKB
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Often appears with: money, coin, and credit · value, price, and exchange · trade, markets, and merchants · contracts, oaths, and obligation · trade balance not equal to exchange · relative prices · premium on bills · paris · money export and accumulation · hamburg and dantzic · exchange at par · dover
Usually: argument (2) · detachment (2) · list or catalogue (1) · narrative (1) · praise (1) · skepticism (1)
Ricardo explains payments via bills of exchange can settle without money physically moving, but when trade becomes unprofitable the “premium” on bills forces money export until prices realign to stop imports/exports.
but they are known to him at the time; and the causes which may influence the market price of bills, or the rate of exchange, is no consideration of his. If the markets be favourable for the exportation of wine from Portugal to England, the exporter of the wine will be a seller of a bill, which will be purchased either by the importer of the cloth, or by the person who sold him his bill; and thus without the necessi…
Smith explains that exchange at par only indicates debts between places are offset, but real trade balances can differ due to third-party dealings (e.g., England paying Hamburg via bills on Holland).
the ordinary state of debt and credit between two places, must likewise be an indication of the ordinary course of their exports and imports, as these necessarily regulate that state. But though the ordinary course of exchange shall be allowed to be a sufficient indication of the ordinary state of debt and credit between any two places, it would not from thence follow, that the balance of trade was …
Further index entries cover “Banks,” “Bankers,” and “Balance,” summarizing Smith’s views on banking practices, bill-drawing, and the (in)reliability of the balance of trade.
B *Balance* of annual produce and consumption explained, 203. May be in favour of a nation, when the balance of trade is against it, ib. *Balance* of trade, no certain criterion to determine on which side it turns between two countries, 192. The current doctrine of, on which most regulations of trade are founded, absurd, 199. If even, by the exchange of their native commodities, both sides may be …
Robinson says he travelled through France to Paris and then to Calais, landing safely at Dover on 14 January, pays bills of exchange, and credits his widow's integrity.
easy as to the security of my effects; and, indeed, I was very happy from the beginning, and now to the end, in the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman. And now, having resolved to dispose of my plantation in the Brazils, I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who, having offered it to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brazils, they accepted the offer, and remitted thirty-three …