The introduction of paper money and the value of bank notes versus moral value in England: The daily essays of Steele and Addison in the Spectator

At a time when the invention of paper money was at the core of a controvers y between the Whigs and the Tories and when it was accused of corrupting al l the values, commercial, moral, as well as social, the Whigs Steele and Ad dison used their daily essay paper The Spectator to show that the spread of paper was beneficial to the public. They made The Spectator a metaphor for all forms of exchange: commercial, moral, social and artistic. Thus they i ndirectly enhanced the value of bank notes by showing that fiction (whether financial or artistic) caused the spreading of taste and politeness, two c oncepts that they related to the Whig ideology.