Further Considerations [35]
the rest with a Graining, are wrought secretly. And indeed this is so great a Guard against Counterfeiting as well as Clipping our Money, that it deserves well to be kept a Secret, as it has been hitherto. But how that can be, if Money be to be Coin'd in nine other Mints, set up in several Parts, is hard to conceive. And lastly, perhaps some may apprehend it may be of ill consequence to have so many men instructed and employ'd in the Art of Coining, only for a short job, and then turn'd loose again to shift for themselves by their own skill and industry, as they can. The Provision made in his fourth Rule, p. 136. to prevent the Gain of subtile Dealers by culling out the heaviest of the clip'd pieces, though it be the Product of great Sagacity and Foresight, exactly calculated, and as well contrived as in that case it can be; yet I fear is too subtile for the Apprehension and Practice of Country Men, who, many of them, with their little quickness in such matters, have also but small Summs of Money by them, and so neither having Arithmetick, nor choice of clip'd Money to adjust it to the Weight there required, will be hardly made to understand it. But I think the Clippers have, or will take care that there will not be any great need of it. To conclude, I confess my self not to see the least Reason why our present mil'd Money should be at all altered in Fineness, Weight, or Value. I look upon it to be the best and safest from counterfeiting, adulterating, or any ways being fraudulently diminished, of any that ever was coined. It is adjusted to our legal Payments, Reckonings, and Accounts, to which our Money must be reduced: The raising its Denomination will neither add to its Worth, nor make the Stock we have, more proportionate to our Occasions, nor bring one Grain of Silver the more into England, or one Farthing Advantage to the publick: It will only serve to defraud the King, and a great number of his Subjects, and perplex all, and put the kingdom to a needless Charge of recoining all, both mill'd as well as clip'd Money. If I might take upon me to offer any thing new, I would humbly propose, that since Market and Retail Trade requires less Divisions than six pences, a sufficient quantity of Four penny, Four pence half penny, and Five penny Pieces should be coined. These in change will answer all the Fractions between Six pence and a Farthing, and thereby supply the Want of small Monies, whereof I believe no body ever saw enough common to answer the Necessity of small Payments. Whether, either because there was never a sufficient quantity of such pieces coined, or because of their Smallness they are apter to be lost out of any Hands, or because they oftner falling into Childrens Hands, they lose them, or lay them up; so it is, there is always a visible Want of them: To supply which without the Inconveniencies attending very small Coin, the proposed pieces, I humbly conceive, will serve. If it be thought fit for this end to have Four pence, Four pence half penny, and Five penny pieces coined, it will, I suppose, be convenient that they should be distinguished from six pences, and from one another by a deep and very large plain difference in the Stamp on both sides, to prevent Mistakes, and Loss of Time in telling of Money. The Four pence half penny, has already the Harp for a known Distinction, which may be fit to be continued: The Five pence may have the Feathers, and the Four pence this Mark IV of four on the Reverse, and on the other side they may each have the king's Head with a Crown on it, to shew on that side too, that the Piece so coined is one of those under a Six pence; and with that they may each on that side also have some Marks of Distinction one from another, as the Five penny piece this Mark of V the Four pence half penny a little Harp, and the Fourpence nothing. These, or any other better Distinctions, which his Majesty shall order, will in Tale readily discover them, if by chance any of them fall into larger Payments, for which they are not designed. And thus I have, with as much Brevity