[152a-091]

Collateral Uses

3. Charitable Loan Office

Note continued

At Rome, and other towns in Italy, I have heard it frequently said by Travellers who received their information on the spot, and have even read as much in books which I know not at present how to refer to, the business is conducted upon terms still more favourable.

At Hamburgh, (if we may depend upon a work, now not very modern, but in its day of some account, having been compiled by government and printed for the sole use of Government in France) in Hamburgh, Pawnlending though performed at so low a rate of interest as 6 per cent, is reckoned among the sources of revenue: producing to the government an annual profit amounting in those days to 150,000 eens, whatever may have been meant by eens. Before government took this branch of trade into its own hands, the common rate of profit made by private dealers had been, (it is there stated) between 60 and 80 per cent. See Memoirs concernant les Impositions et Droits en Europe 4 Vol in-4 to a Paris Imprimerie Royale. 1768. Vol.[...?]. art. Hambourg.