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OF USURY. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws [1777]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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OF USURY.

We are now come to the subject of usury. I am afraid the reader will be tired with hearing me repeat, that the Critic never understands the point in question, and never takes the sense of the passages he censures. He says, that here the Author finds nothing unjust in maritime usury: these are his words. Indeed The Spirit of Laws has a very sad interpreter. The Author has treated of maritime usury in the twentieth chapter of the twenty-second book: he must therefore have said in that chapter, that maritime usury is just. Let us see what he says.