Defence of Usury

To put a stop to prodigality, if indeed it be worth while, I know but of one effectual course that can be taken, in addition to the incompleat and insufficient courses at present practicable, and that is, to put the convicted prodigal under an interdict, as was practised formerly among the Romans, and is still practised among the French, and other nations who have taken the Roman law for the ground-work of their own. But to discuss the expediency, or sketch out the details of such an institution, belongs not to the present purpose. LETT. IV. Reasons for Restraint. LETTER IV. Reasons for Restraint Protection of Indigence. BESIDES prodigals, there are three other classes of persons, and but three, for whose security I can conceive these restrictive laws to have been designed. I mean the indigent, the rashly enterprizing, and the simple : those whose pecuniary necessities may dispose them to give an interest above the ordinary rate, rather than not have it, and those who, from rashness, may be disposed to venture upon giving such a rate, or from carelessness combined with ignorance, may be disposed to acquiesce in it. In Protection of Indigence. S3 In Protection of Indigence. S3 In speaking of these three different classes of persons, I must beg leave to consider one of them at a time : and accordingly, in speaking of the indigent, I must consider indigence in the first place as untinctured with simplicity. On this occasion, I may suppose, and ought to suppose, no particular defect in a man's judgment, or his temper, that should mislead him, more than the ordinary run of men. He knows what is his interest as well as they do, and is as well disposed and able to pursue it as they are.…