Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [47]
5 per Cent. So that if yesterday 20 Crowns would exchange for 20 Bushels of Wheat, or 20 Yards of a certain sort of Cloth, if you will to day Coin current Crowns One twentieth lighter, and make them the Standard, you will find 20 Crowns will exchange for but 19 Bushels of Wheat, or 19 Yards of that Cloth, which will be just as much Silver for a Bushel, as yesterday. So that Silver being of no more real value, by your changing your denomination, and giving it to a less quantity; this will no more bring in, or keep your Bullion here, than if you had done nothing. If this were otherwise, you would be beholden (as some People foolishly imagine) to the Clippers for keeping your Money. For if keeping the old denomination to a less quantity of Silver, be raising your Money (as in effect it is all that is, or can be done in it by this project of making your Coin lighter) the Clippers have sufficiently done that: And if their Trade go on a little while longer, at the rate it has of late, and your Mill'd-money be melted down and carried away, and no more Coin'd; your Money will, without the charge of new Coinage, be, by that sort of Artificers, raised above 5 per Cent. when all your current Money shall be Clipped, and made above One wentieth lighter than the Standard, preserving still its former denomination. It will possibly be here objected to me, That we see 100 l. of Clip'd Money, above 5 per Cent. lighter than the Standard, will buy as much Corn, Cloth, or Wine, as 100 l. in Mill'd-money, which is above One twentieth heavier: Whereby it is evident, that my Rule fails, and that it is not the quantity of Silver, that gives the value to Money, but its Stamp and Denomination. To which I Answer, That Men make their Estimate and Contracts according to the Standard, upon Supposition they shall receive good and lawful Money, which is that of full Weight: And so in effect they do, whil'st they receive the current Money of the Country. For since 100 l. of Clip'd Money will pay a Debt of 100 l. as well as the weightiest mill'd-money, and a new Crown out of the Mint will pay for no more Flesh, Fruit, or Cloth, than five clip'd Shillings; 'tis evident that they are equivalent as to the Purchase of any thing here at home, whil'st no body scruples to take Five clip'd Shillings in exchange for a weighty Mill'd Crown. But this will be quite otherwise as soon as you change your Coin, and (to raise it as you call it) make your Money One twentieth lighter in the Mint; for then no body will any more give an old Crown of the former Standard for one of the new, than he will now give you 5 s. and 3 d. for a Crown: for so much then his old Crown will yield him at the Mint. Clip'd and unclip'd Money will always buy an equal quantity of any thing else, as long as they will without scruple change one for another. And this makes, that the Foreign Merchant, who comes to sell his Goods to you, always counts upon the Value of your Money by the Silver that is in it, and estimates the quantity of Silver by the Standard of your Mint; though perhaps by reason of clip'd or worn Money amongst it, any sum that is ordinarily received is much lighter than the Standard, and so has less Silver in it than what is in a like Sum new Coin'd in the Mint. But whilst clip'd and weighty Money will equally change one for another, it is all one to him whether he receive his Money in clip'd Money or no, so it be but current. For if he buy other Commodities here with his Money, whatever Sum he contracts for, clip'd as well as weighty Money equally pays for it. If he would carry away the Price of his Commodity in ready Cash, 'tis easily. changed into weighty Money. And then he has not only the Sum in tale, that he contracted for, but the quantity of Silver he expected for his Commodities, according to the Standard of our Mint. If the quantity of your clip'd Money be once grown so great, that the Foreign Merchant cannot (if he has a mind to it) easily get Weighty Money for it, but having sold his Merchandise, and received Clip'd Money finds a difficulty to procure what is weight