Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [46]
For, 1. Coinage by the Hammer less secures you from having a great part of your Money melted down. For in that way there being a greater inequality in the weight of the Pieces, some being too heavy, and some too light, those who know how to make their advantage of it, cull out the heavy pieces, melt them down, and make a benefit of the over-weight. 2. Coinage by the Hammer exposes you much more to the danger of false Coin . Because the Tools are easily made and concealed, and the work carried on with fewer Hands, and less noise than a Mill; whereby false Coiners are less liable to discovery. 3. The pieces not being so round, even, and fairly Stamp'd, nor Mark'd on the Edges, are expos'd to Clipping, which mill'd Money is not. Mill'd Money is therefore certainly best for the Publique. But whatever be the cause of melting down our Mill'd-money, I do not see how raising our Money (as they call it) will at all hinder its being melted down. For if our Crown-pieces should be Coin'd One twentieth, lighter. Why should that hinder them from being melted down more than now? The intrinsique value of the Silver is not alter'd, as we have shewn already: Therefore that temptation to melt them down remains the same as before. But they are lighter by One twentieth. That cannot hinder them from being melted down. For Half Crowns are lighter by half, and yet that preserves them not. But they are of less weight, wnder the same denomination, and therefore they will not be melted down. That is true, if any of these present Crowns that are One twentieth heavier, are current for Crowns at the same time. For then they will no more melt down the new light Crowns, than they will the old Clip'd ones, which are more worth in Coin, and Tale, than in Weight and Bullion. But it cannot be suppos'd that Men will part with their old and heavier Money, at the same Rate that the lighter new Coin goes at; and pav away their old Crowns for 5 s. in Tale, when at the Mint they will yield them 5 s. 3 d. And then if an old Mill'd Crown goes for 5 s. 3 d. and a new Mill'd Crown (being so much lighter) go for a Crown, What I pray will be the odds of melting down the one or the other? The one has One twentieth less Silver in it, and goes for One twentieth less; and so being weight, they are melted down upon equal terms. If it be a convenience to melt one, it will, be as much a convenience to melt the other: Just as it is the same convenience, to melt Mill'd Half Crowns as Mill'd Crowns; the one having with half the quantity of Silver, half the value. When the Money is all brought to the new rate, i.e. to be One twentieth lighter, and Commodities raised as they will be proportionably, What shall hinder the melting down of your Money then, more than now, I would fain know? If it be Coin'd then as it is now Gratis, a Crown-piece, (let it be of what weight soever) will be as it is now, just worth its own weight in Bullion, of the same fineness. For the Coinage, which is the manufactury about it, and makes all the difference, costing nothing, what can make the difference of value? And therefore, whoever wants Bullion, will as cheaply melt down these new Crowns, as buy Bullion with them. The raising of your Money cannot then (the Act for free Coinage standing) hinder its being melted down. Nor, in the next place, much less can it, as it is pretended, hinder the Exportation of our Bullion. Any denomination or stamp we shall give to Silver here, will neither give Silver a higher value in England, nor make it less prized abroad. So much Silver will always be worth (as we have already shew'd) so much Silver given in exchange one for another. Nor will it, when in your Mint a less quantity of it is raised to a higher denomination (as when Nineteen twentieths of an Ounce has the denomination of a Crown, which formerly belong'd only to the whole 20) be one jot rais'd, in respect of any other Commodity. You have rais'd the denomination of your stamp'd Silver One Wentieth, or which is all one 5 per Cent. And Men will presently raise their Commodities