CHAP. XXI.: Of lending by Contract, and the State of Usury amongst the Romans.

BESIDES the loans made for the advantage of commerce, there is still a kind of lending by a civil contract, from whence results interest or usury.

As the people of Rome increased every day in power, the magistrates sought to insinuate themselves in their favour, by enacting such laws as were most agreeable to them. They retrenched capitals; they first lowered, and at length prohibited interest; they took away the power of confining the debtor’s body: in fine, the abolition of debts was contended for, whenever a tribune was disposed to render himself popular.

These continual changes, whether made by the laws, or by the plebiscita, naturalised usury at Rome; for the creditors seeing the people their debtor, their legislator, and their judge, had no longer any confidence in their agreements; the people, like a debtor who has lost his credit, could only tempt them to lend, by allowing an exorbitant interest; especially as the laws applied a remedy to the evil only from time to time, while the complaints of the people were continual, and constantly intimidated the creditors. This was the cause that all honest means of borrowing and lending were abolished at Rome, and that the most monstrous usury established Tacit. Annal. lib. vi. ^†203 itself in that city, notwithstanding the strict prohibition and severity of the law. This evil was a consequence of the severity of the laws against usury. Laws excessively good are

the source of excessive evil. The borrower found himself under a necessity of paying for the interest of the money, and for the danger the creditor underwent of suffering the penalty of the law.