Further Considerations [19]
His Majesty to buy, or to borrow any where so much Bullion, or rather than be without it, melt down so much Plate, as is equal in weight to Twelve hundred pounds Sterling of our present mill'd Money. This let him sell for mill'd Money. And according to our Author's Rule, it will yield Fifteen hundred pounds. Let that Fifteen hundred pounds be reduc'd into Bullion, and sold again, and it will produce Eighteen hundred and sixty pounds: Which Eighteen hundred and sixty pounds of weighty Money being reduc'd to Bullion, will still produce One fifth more in weight of Silver, being sold for weighty Money. And thus His Majesty may get at least Three hundred and twenty thousand pounds by selling of Bullion for weighty Money, and melring that down into Bullion, as fast as he receives it; till he has brought into his hands the Million and Six hundred thousand Pounds, which Mr. Lowndes computes there is of weighty Monev left in England. I doubt not but every one who reads it, will think this a very ridiculous Proposition. But he must think it ridiculous for no other reason, but because he sees 'tis impossible, that Bullion should sell for One fifth above its weight of the same Silver Coin'd; That is, that an Ounce of Standard Silver should sell for six Shillings five Pence of our present weighty Money. For if it will, 'tis no ridiculous thing that the King should melt down, and make that profit of his Money. If our Author's Rule, (p. 78. where he says, That the only just and reasonable Foot upon which the Coins should be current, is the very price of the Silver thereof, in case it be molten in the same place where Coins are made current) be to be observed; Our Money is to be raised but an Halfpenny, or at most a Penny in five Shillings; for that was the ordinary odds in the price between Bullion and Coin'd Silver, before Clipping had deprived us, in Commerce, of all our mill'd and weighty Money. And Silver in Standard Bullion would not be in value one jot above the same Silver in Coin, if clip'd Money were not current by Tale, and Coin'd Silver (as Mr. Lowndes proposes, p. 73.) as well as Bullion, had the liberty of Exportation. For when we have no clip'd Money, but all our current Coin is weight, according to the Standard, all the odds of value that Silver in Bullion has to Silver in Coin, is only owing to the Prohibition of its Exportation in Money; And never rises, nor can rise, above what the Goldsmith shall estimate the risque and trouble of melting it down; which is so little, that the Importers of Silver could never raise it to above a Penny an Ounce, but at such times as the East India Company, or some Foreign Sale, calling for a great quantity of Silver at a time, made the Goldsmith scramble for it; and so the Importers of Bullion raise its price upon them, according to the present need of great quantities of Silver, which every Goldsmith (eager to ingross to himself as much as he could) was content to pay high for, rather than go without: His present gains from those whom he furnish'd, and whom otherwise he could not furnish, making him amends. The natural value then between Silver in Bullion, and in Coin, is (I say) every where equal; bating the charge of Coinage, which gives the advantage to the side of the Coin. The ordinary odds here in England, between Silver in Bullion, and the same in our Coin, is by reason that the Stamp hinders its free Exportation about a Penny in the Crown. The accidental difference, by reason of suddain occasions, is sometimes (but rarely) two pence in five Shillings, or somewhat more in great urgencies. And since the ordinary rate of things is to be taken as the measure of their price, and Mr. Lowndes tells us, p. 78. That if the value of the Silver in the Coins should be raised above the value, Or Market Price, of the same Silver reduced to Bullion, the Subject would be proportionably injured and defrauded; I leave him to make the Inference, what will be the consequence in England, if our Coin be raised here One fifth, or Twenty per Cent. Mr. Lowndes says farther, p. 80. That