nd [wm 1798]

To the Bank

Alteration

26

Note will be capable of being altered into a Fifty Pound Note or into a Sixty

Pound Note: A Twenty Pound Note, into a Thirty Pound Note: and so on. What may

be the number of such different classes at present in circulation, and what the

respective sums, I do not pretend to know: nor would it be so much as worth

enquiring: since fresh classes i:e: Notes for sums not at present extant, may

come to be issued at any time.

Forgery in the way of alteration having been practiced, (if I may speak from a

loose recollection derived from Newspapers), and that, with a degree of

temporary success, in more instances than one, the idea of making a difference

in point of general appearance in this view has already, (I am inclined to

think) not only suggested itself, but been carried into practice, in some

instances at least: whether throughout is more than I am informed of .

What I am apprehensive of is – that if, in this view or any other, any such

differences have been studiously made, they are not of such a nature as to be

(according to the second of the rules above given) expressible in words. What is

certain is – that whatever may be the differences, no such notification of them

as is proposed in the third rule is to be found in any instance.

But