A Discourse of Coin and Coinage [3]
there would remain 17 Penny weight, and 10 grains of Allay: and
again, when mention is made of a Pound of Silver fine, and Gold
fine, the meaning is so much Gold or Silver pure, is a pound
weight, besides the Allay which is mingled with it,but a pound of
Gold or Silver wrought, is but just a pound weight as it is
wrought either in Money or in Plate. The Allay being mingled with
it according to the ordinance of the State, for the practise is
now, almost in all States, to set a price upon Silver and Gold,
according to the weight and fineness, above which price
Gold-Smiths or others who trade in those metals wrought in Money,
may not sell them; which price is in certain proportion
underneath the value which is given to the same metals wrought in
Money; the over-value allowed to the Money, being so much
advantage given to the State in recompence of the charge of
Coynage, and in Acknowledgement of the Soveraignty, which hath
with it likewise this necessary use, that it makes the Money so
much the less valuable to him that either would transport it into
forrein parts, or melt it, and consequently retaineth the Money
so much the better within its proper limits and natural form.
Chapter 3
Of the Forms of the Money anciently and now in use
It follows in the next place to be Considered, by what
degrees Gold and Silver came into these forms of Money, which are
now in use. And for that purpose it is most manifest that the
most proper measure in nature for mettals is weight; and the
notice of Antiquity doth confirm it that it was so in practice;
for when the use of money hath excited the industry of men to
search for these rich metals and by study and practice to
discover their natures, it was easily found out that there was no
measure so fit to them as weight: But it was speedily found out
and discovered that weight alone was not a sufficient measure for
them, by reason that they are subject to mixture, and therefore
there was an examination made of the pureness of them, and a mark
impressed upon them to shew that they were approved; which was of
no other nature, but as the Assaymaster in the West Indies doth
mark the wedges of Silver to shew that they were approved of such
a fineness, and as the Corporation of Gold smiths in London, and
other Cities, do mark the Bullion which is melted as a Testimony
of fineness, but not to make it Current at any Price, because the
mark hath no relation to the weight but onely the fineness. The
most ancient and most undoubted Testimonies whereof are in
Scripture: as that of Abraham, when he had bought the field of
Ephron for the burial of Sarah, for which it is not said that he
paid, but weighed four hundred shekels of silver, approved among
Merchants; which denoteth the fineness. And it is said that the
sons of Jacob brought back their silver in the same weight that
they carried into Egypt; and Tobit lent unto Gabael the weight of
ten Talents: By which it is manifest they did not count their
Moneys in pieces,as they did in succeeding ages, or by imaginary,
or abstracted sums, as we do make their valuation, but by weight,
the fineness only is approved of by the mark. It were tedious to
search the proofs of Antiquity in this kind, but it is manifest
that almost all the Names of Moneys, both among the Hebrews and
Greeks, were not properly the names of any species of Money, but
of several sorts of weight. As of Sicle, Mina, Talent and
Drachma; so likewise the Original Moneys, both of the Romans, the
Francks, and of the Monarchy of England, were the As, the Livre,
the Pound and the Mark; and amongst the Romans, the ancient
Receivers were not called numeratores, but libripendes; the names
of Moneys being originally only the proportions of weight, and
the mark serving only for a proof of the pureness of the Metal:
There did succeed a form of Money, wherein the impression did not
only signify the fineness, but the weight also. This among the
Romans was moneta, from when our name of Money is derived a
Monedo: it is attributed to Servius