Staunton Spectator

CAPT. CAMM PATTERSON falls into a common error in assuming that, because there is not specie enough in the country to pay the public debt, therefore it can never be paid in specie. Now, if the debt had to be paid all at once, this might be an impossibility. But it should be remembered that a hundred dollars may, in passing from hand to hand, pay more than a thousand dollars of indebtedness.

The Government has paid off about one-third of the debt existing at the end of the war, and there is more coin in the country now than there was then. And when the whole eighteen hundred millions shall have been paid off, there will be still more specie in the country than there is to day.

All the food and raiment that Virginia will require in the next twenty years, could not be conveniently had just now, but it will be forthcoming as it shall be needed. It should be remembered also that the bonds of the Government mature at different periods, and when any considerable number of them are paid off, the money goes back into circulation, and will be available to pay off later maturing obligations.

There are very few men in business, who do not, in the course of twenty years, handle vastly more money than they are worth, or could command at any one time. It often happens too, that men go in debt for property when they have nothing to pay with. But give them time, and even slowly accumulated savings will bring them out.— And so it may be with a Government that is in debt.—Lynch. Virginian.