Wealth & Money Quote by John Buchanan Robinson

Money is “used,” and the privilege of using it carries a price. Robinson’s line is doing more than sketching an economic condition; it’s smuggling in a political verdict. By framing interest as “large sums” paid simply because metallic currency was scarce, he invites the reader to see high rates not as moral failure or borrower recklessness, but as a structural bottleneck engineered by the monetary base itself.

The phrasing “gold and silver” matters. In Robinson’s era, that’s not neutral description; it’s a signal flare in the long fight over hard money versus monetary expansion. Scarcity here is cast as an impediment to “commercial transactions,” the everyday churn of a growing economy that wants liquidity. The subtext: a nation can be rich in land, labor, and enterprise and still be forced to rent its own circulatory system from whoever controls the limited supply of specie. That’s a populist inflection without the pitchforks.

“Because the available amount... was far less than was needed” turns a contested policy choice into an almost natural law: too little currency means money becomes dear. That rhetorical move shifts blame upward, toward the rules of the game and the people who benefit from them, rather than downward toward individuals who “shouldn’t have borrowed.” It’s a tidy argument for reform (more flexible currency, credit expansion, looser specie constraints) disguised as a calm observation about “the times.”