Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [44]
so readily observe it. lf it be good to raise the Crown Piece this way One twentieth this Week, I suppose it will be as good and profitable to raise it as much again the next Week. For there is no reason, why it will not be as good to raise it again another One twentieth the next Week, and so on; wherein, if you proceed but 10 Weeks successively, you will by New-Years-Day next have every Half-Crown raised to a Crown, to the loss of one half of Peoples Debts and Rents, and the King's Revenue, besides the Confusion of all your affairs: And if you please to go on in this beneficial way of raising your Money, you may by the same Art bring a Penny-weight of Silver to be a Crown. Silver, i.e. the quantity of pure Silver separable from the Alloy, makes the real value of Money. If it does not, Coin Copper with the same Stamp and denomination, and see whether it will be of the same value. I suspect your Stamp will make it of no more worth, than the Copper-Money of Ireland is, which is its weight in Copper, and no more. That Money lost so much to Ireland, as it passed for above the rate of Copper. But yet I think no body suffered so much by it as he, by whose Authority it was made current. If Silver give the value, you will say what need is there then of the charge of Coinage? May not Men Exchange Silver by Weight, for other things; make their Bargains, and keep their Accounts in Silver by weight? This might be done, but it has these inconveniencies. 1. The weighing of Silver to every one we had occasion to pay it to, would be very troublesome, for every one must carry about Scales in his Pocket. 2. Scales would not do the business. For, in the next place, every one cannot distinguish between fine and mix'd Silver: So that though he received the full weight, he was not sure he received the full weight of Silver; since there might be a mixture of some of the baser Metals, which he was not able to discern. Those who have had the care, and government of Politick Societies, introduced Coinage, as a remedy to those two inconveniencies. The Stamp was a Warranty of the publick, that under such a denomination they should receive a piece of such a weight, and such a fineness; that is, they should receive so much Silver. And this is the reason why the counterfeiting the Stamp is made the highest Crime, and has the weight of Treason laid upon it: Because the Stamp is the publick voucher of the intrinsick value. The Royal Authority gives the stamp; the Law allows and confirms the denomination: And both together give, as it were, the publick faith, as a security, that Sums of Money contracted for under such denominations, shall be of such a value, that is, shall have in them so much Silver. For 'tis Silver and not Names that pay Debts and purchase Commodities. If therefore I have contracted for Twenty Crowns, and the Law then has required, that each of those Crowns should have an Ounce of Silver; 'tis certain my Bargain is not made good, I am defrauded (and whether the publick faith be not broken with me, I leave to be considered) if, paying me Twenty Crowns, the Law allows them to be such as have but Nineteen twentieths of the Silver, they ought to have, and really had in them, when I made my Contract. 2. It diminishes all the King's Revenue 5 per Cent. For though the same number of Pounds, Shillings, and Pence are paid into the Exchequer as were wont, yet these Names being given to Coin that have each of them One twentieth less of Silver in them; and that being not a secret concealed from Strangers, no more than from his own Subjects, they will sell the king no more Pitch, Tarr, or Hemp, for 20 Shillings, after the raising your Money, than they would before for 19: or, to speak in the ordinary phrase, they will raise their Commodities 5 per Cent. as you have rais'd your Money 5 per Cent: And 'tis well if they stop there. For usually in such changes, an out-cry being made of your lessening your Coin, those who have to deal with you, taking the advantage of the allarm, to secure themselves from any loss by your new Trick, raise