14 Dec.r 1801

Maximum

2

Compulsion being out of the question, what assurance it may be asked can you have

that your price when settled /thus fixed/ will be accepted of {by the parties

interested}?, and /but/, if not accepted of, then comes famine. I answer – the

same assurance that exists in all other cases /instances/: and that in all other

cases, is proved to be well-grounded by experience: the abundance of /natural

sufficiency of/ the inducements for brining the article to market: the absence

of all inducements for keeping it back, I should /might/ have said a much

stronger assurance. The {measure of} profit still obtainable will not be a

profit merely equal to the greatest usually obtainable in other trades – or at

other times in this trade – but much greater: the inducement which without the

maximum prompts men to keep back the article, would by the maximum be taken

away: without the maximum, experience holds out almost a quadruple price as

obtainable, presumption might hold out a greater and indefinite one: the maximum

admitting of no more than a double price little more or less putting /puts/ an

end to all such expectations, leaving /and leaves/ the allowed price as the only

obtainable as well as abundantly sufficient price.