two fine girls, I suppose because she knew we could now aflbrd it. We now thought to make ourselves comfortable by building a better home, for we had but a poor one before : so in the spring I set to work as soon as the frost was out of the ground. I burnt my own bricks and lime, from my own limestone and clay, and furnished timber and boards from my own farm. In the mean time, the war came on ; and as it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, the number of wagons passing this way increased every day, because the produce could not go round by sea. I sold all the produce of my land at my own door, except my wheat. If that was high, I could afford to send the flour to market ; and if not, I cut it into shorts, to feed the wagoners' horses. By the time my house was finished, it was paid for; and now I don't know what I shall build next, for my part. I am forty-three years old. I have twelve hundred acres of as fine bottom as any in Virginia, — a good grist and saw-mill, a tolerable good wife, if I could only make a fine lady of her ; but she sticks to the old chest of clothes like a moth, — a decent house over my head ; and I owe no man a shilling except Tom,

who by now and then raising a little grain, shooting a deer, and waiting on travellers, has in my hands enough to buy his freedom. But he is free already, for that matter, and knows he can go where he pleases."

" Pray," said I, " did you ever get a discount.'"' ' A discount, — what's that ." said the Dutchman. " Did you ever borrow money of a bank, and mortgage your land for it.'"' " No, no," said he, " I wasn't such a fool as that. My poor neighbour, whose house you see over the river yonder, with the windows broke, and no smoke to the chimney, played a trick of that kind ; but his farm is soon to be sold at vendue, and I think of buying it. His family were in great distress, though we helped them on a little to get to the back country, where, I hear, they are doing pretty well again."

I will not trouble you with the moral of this story, but conclude this long letter by bidding you beware of discounts. Good night.

The tongue touches where the tooth aches, as the saying goes; the English of which is, that people are apt to talk of what annoys them most at the moment. Thus, the great evil under which I have laboured of late is paper-money, which, throughout the whole of our country, has assumed so many different shapes, and sustained such an infinite variety of value in different places, that a man is obliged to go to a broker to get shaved, as the phrase is, as often as to a barber. This is the true signification of money being the root of all evil. The frequent recurrence of these vexatious visits, during my travels, has brought my mind to think seriously on this subject, and the result of my observations and reflections is, that the present paper-system is the most pernicious

to the real prosperity, morals, and independence of this country, of any ever devised by the cupidity of man. It has already worked the most dangerous inroads on ihe virtuous independence, which was not long since the lot of all; and if suffered to continue, will place the whole community in a state of abject dependence on banks.

Power, which used to follow land, has now gone over to paper-money. The landholder does not feel this as yet, so extensively as he will by and by, when he will find his stinted independence fade away, in comparison with the short-lived splendours of the bank-dependent, and he obliged to enlist in the honourable band of bank-paupers. The period of his ruin will be dated from his first discount; for wherever a false capital is created, it will in time swallow up the real one, as a vacuum aUracts and absorbs the surrounding air.

The other evening t went to sleep, with these and such like thoughts in my head ; and as people are apt to dream of what they think of when awake, I was possessed with the following curious vision.

Methought I was poring over a bank-note, which 1 think was issued from a place called " Owl-

Creek,'' and happening to say to myself, " Where the deuce did this come from ?" I was answered in a small squeaking voice as follows— at first I could not tell where it came from, but on closer examination, I discovered a motion in the bill of the figure of an owl, with which the note was decorated.

" I am the offspring of a bandana handkerchief, that was once worn about the neck of a learned East-Indian, acquainted with all the arts of Eastern magic, and a piece of Irish linen, whilom part of the night-cap of an old Irish witch. This accounts for my being gifted with speech. I was born in a paper-mill, and the first thing I recollect, was being nearly squeezed to death under a piece of copper, which bruised me black and blue all over. Then I was taken to the bank, and underwent a sort of transubstantiation, under the magic hands of the President and Cashier ; for from a rag, I became converted into solid gold, or at least something nearly as valuable.

" I had not been here long, before I was counted out to a young man who carried me to his master, a merchant, who lived in a fine house drove a splendid equipage, and fared sumptuously

every day. I felicitated myself miglitily that I had got into such comfortable quarters ; but soon discovered all was not right with my new master. As he carried me in his pocket, I had an opportunity of watching him closely, and hearing all that he said, or others said to him. I learned, that he had set out in business with a reasonable capital, which under prudent management would have led him to a comfortable independency; but was seduced by the example of those around him, and by the facility of getting discounts, into borrowing money of the banks, and trading on credit to a great amount. But he learned too late that the man who is always borrowing and paying interest for his money, is working for his creditor, and not for himself. At the time I saw him he was a wretched dependent on the caprice of banks, to whom, in the course of business, he had paid in discounts what would have been to him an immense fortune. He could not sleep at night ; for the sun never rose that did not see him in debt for more than he could pay. Every day he was obliged to run round to all his acquaintance to borrow money to pay his notes ; and not a day passed over his head, that he could tell whether he

would not be openly a bankrupt before night ; for all depended on the caprice of Bank Directors. To add to his distresses, his wife and children, fancying him a man of immense riches, indulged in every species of extravagance, and he had not the courage to tell them a few months would probably make them beggars. In fact, I had not been with him long, before the banks, either from necessity or caprice, drew in their discounts ; my master failed — the banks got all his property — the rest of his creditors got nothing ; and his wife and children found themselves in beggary, with a thousand artificial wants to pamper. His furniture was seized and sold, and the whole family crept into a small house in the suburbs. This I learned afterward, for I did not accompany them, having been passed away to a shopkeeper, by my master's lady, the day before he failed, in part payment for a cashmere shawl for which she gave a hundred and fifty dollars.

' My new master was a brisk, stirring little man, who made more bows than a dancingmaster, but got well paid for them, by cheating faster than he bowed. He always sold his goods at first cost, pledged his honour to every thing, true or false.

and possessed that inveterate habit of petty roguery, so common to people who loved no other object in life but making money. Judging from his style of living and his habits, I at first thought he must be very snug and comfortable in his circumstances, till all at once I found myself in a drawer with two or three of those pleasant invitations beginning with, ' Your note for o and so, becomes due, &ic.' Whenever my master rereived any of these mementos, he was seized with an alarming fit of the fidgets, and there was a terrible ' whipping of the cat,' as it is called, on the days the notes become due. This whipping the cat, is nothing more than a parcel of traders puffing at one another's heels, of a morning, to borrow money. One day one man is hunted for his money, and the next, when his own note becomes due, he hunts his neighbour, so that their funds are a common borrowing stock; and he who hunts as Actaeon one day, is a hunted Actaeon the next. In short, having one day an accidental peep at my master's books, I discovered that he had been actually insolvent for more than five years. About a week after I had been with him, he sent me to a certain bank, to help take up a

note of hand. In passing through the Directors' room, I heard it decided not to discount any more for my late master and his friends, as they were no longer safe, and did not owe any thing to the hank. So a few days after I heard it whispered, that they had thrown out all their notes. My old master broke first; he fell against his neighbour, and like a row of bricks, they all tumbled, one after the other, and took the benefit ' of the act.'

" Before I had been here long, I was taken out of the bank by one of the Directors, each of whom had a regular accommodation of fifty thousand dollars to shave notes of hand with. He carried me in his pocket some days, by which means I was present at some of their meetings on discount days, where I saw them refuse to discount notes, which my master shaved afterward on his own account ! I forgot to mention, that I was several nights deposited in the vaults of the bank, where, although this was one of the banks that paid specie, I give you my word there was not specie enough to pay a check of five thousand dollars. I saw but three small boxes of it, which was all that was there ; for being an owl, I could distinctly see though it was dark. The way they ma-

naged to pay specie was this : all the traders were given to understand, that if they asked for the least quantity of specie, they would forfeit all claim to future favours from the banks ; and such was the miserable state of dependence of the greater part of the community, that not one out of a thousand dared incur the penalty. This was called resuming the payment of specie ! 1 could tell you a great many tricks of these gentry, but it is not my interest to do it, since by injuring them I lose my own consequence in society, and am reduced to rags again.