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glishmen have need of great sums there, and this raises the exchange, or price of bills. For what grows more into demand, increases presently in price.

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Returning money by exchange into foreign parts keeps not one farthing from going out; it only prevents the more troublesome and hazardous way of sending money in specie, forwards and backwards. Bills of exchange are sent more commodiously, and by scrips of paper even the accounts between particular debtors and creditors, in different countries, as far as the commerce between those two places is equivalent: but where the over-balance, on either side, demands payment, there bills of exchange can do nothing; but bullion, or money in specie, must be sent. For in a country where we owe money, and have no debts owing to us, bills will not find credit, but for a short time, till money can be sent to reimburse those that paid them; unless we can think men beyond sea will part with their money for nothing. If the traders of England owe their correspondents of Holland a hundred thousand pounds, their accounts with all the rest of the world standing equal, and remaining so, one farthing of this hundred thousand pounds cannot be paid by bills of exchange. For example, I owe a thousand pounds of it; and, to pay that, buy a bill of N. here, drawn on John de Wit of Amsterdam, to pay P. Van Lore, my correspondent there. The money is paid accordingly, and thereby I am out of Van Lore's debt; but not one farthing of the debt of England to Holland is thereby paid; for N. of whom I bought the bill of exchange, is now as much indebted to John de Wit, as I was before to P. Van Lore. Particular debtors and creditors are only changed by bills of exchange; but, the debt owing from one country to the other, cannot be paid without real effects sent thither to that value, either in commodities or money. Where the balance of trade barely pays for commodities with commodities, there money must be sent, or else the debt cannot be paid.

I have spoken of silver coin alone, because that makes the money of account and measure of trade, all through the world. For all contracts are, I think, every where

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made and accounts kept in silver coin. I am sure they are so in England and the neighbouring countries.

Silver therefore, and silver alone, is the measure of commerce. Two metals, as gold and silver, cannot be the measure of commerce both together in any country; because the measure of commerce must be perpetually the same, invariable, and keeping the same proportion of value in all its parts. But so only one metal does, or can do to itself: so silver is to silver, and gold to gold. An ounce of silver is always of equal value to an ounce of silver, and an ounce of gold to an ounce of gold; and two ounces of the one or the other, of double the value to an ounce of the same. But gold and silver change their value one to another: for supposing them to be in value as sixteen to one now; perhaps the next month they may be as fifteen and three quarters, or fifteen and seven-eighths to one. And one may as well make a measure, v. g. a yard, whose parts lengthen and shrink, as a measure of trade of materials that have not always a settled, invariable value to one another.

One metal, therefore, alone can be the money of account and contract, and the measure of commerce in any country. The fittest for this use, of all other, is silver, for many reasons, which need not here be mentioned. It is enough that the world has agreed in it, and made it their common money, and, as the Indians rightly call it, measure. All other metals, gold as well as lead, are but commodities.

Commodities are moveables, valuable by money, the

common measure.

Gold, though not the money of the world, and the measure of commerce, nor fit to be so, yet may, and ought to be coined, to ascertain its weight and fineness; and such coin may safely have a price, as well as a stamp set upon it by public authority; so the value set be under the market-price. For then such pieces coined will be a commodity as passable as silver money, very little varying in their price: as guineas, which were coined at the value of 20s. but passed usually for between 21 or 22s. according to the current rate; but,

not having so high a value put upon them by the law, nobody could be forced to take them to their loss at 21s. 6d. if the price of gold should happen at any time to be cheaper.

From what has been said, I think it appears,

1. That silver is that which mankind have agreed on to take and give in exchange for all commodities as an equivalent.

2. That it is by the quantity of silver they give or take, or contract for, that they estimate the value of other things, and satisfy for them; and thus, by its quantity, silver becomes the measure of commerce.

3. Hence it necessarily follows, that a greater quan tity of silver has a greater value; a less quantity of silver has a less value; and an equal quantity an equal value.

4. That money differs from uncoined silver only in this, that the quantity of silver in each piece of money is ascertained by the stamp it bears; which is set there to be a public voucher of its weight and fineness.

5. That gold is treasure as well as silver, because it decays not in keeping, and never sinks much in value.

6. That gold is fit to be coined as well as silver; to ascertain its quantity to those who have a mind to traffic in it; but not fit to be joined with silver as a measure of commerce.

7. That jewels too are treasure, because they keep without decay, and have constantly a great value in proportion to their bulk; but cannot be used for money, because their value is not measured by their quantity, nor can they, as gold and silver, be divided, and keep their value.

8. The other metals are not treasure, because they decay in keeping, and because of their plenty, which makes their value little in a great bulk; and so unfit for money, commerce, and carriage..

9. That the only way to bring treasure into England, is the well ordering our trade..

10. That the only way to bring silver and gold to the mint, for the increase of our stock of money and treasure, which shall stay here, is an over-balance of our

whole trade. All other ways, to increase our money and riches, are but projects that will fail us.

These things premised, I shall now proceed to show wherein I differ from Mr. Lowndes, and upon what grounds I do so.

Mr. Lowndes proposes, that our money should be raised (as it is called) one-fifth: that is, That all our present denominations of money, as penny, shilling, half-crown, crown, &c. should each have one-fifth less silver in it, or be answered with coin of one-fifth less value. How he proposes to have it done I shall consider hereafter. I shall at present only examine the reasons he gives for it.

His first reason, p. 68, he gives us in these words, "The value of the silver in the coin ought to be raised to the foot of six shillings three-pence in every crown; because the price of standard silver in bullion is risen to six shillings five-pence an ounce."

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This reason seems to me to labour under several mistakes; as

1. That standard silver can rise in respect of itself. 2. That standard bullion is now, or ever was worth, or sold to the traders in it for 6s. 5d. the ounce, of lawful money of England. For if that matter of fact holds not to be so, that an ounce of sterling bullion is worth 6s. 5d. of our milled weighty money, this reason ceases: and our weighty crown-pieces ought not to be raised to 6s. 3d. because our light clipped money will not purchase an ounce of standard bullion, under the rate of 6s. 5d. of that light money. And let me add here, nor for that rate neither. If therefore the author means here, that an ounce of standard silver is risen to 6s. 5d. of our clipped money, I grant it him, and higher too. But then, that has nothing to do with the raising our lawful coin, which remains unclipped; unless he will say too, that standard bullion is so risen, as to be worth, and actually to sell for, 6s. 5d. the ounce, of our weighty milled money. This I not only deny, but farther add, that it is impossible to be so. For 6s. 5d. of milled money weighs an ounce and a quarter near. Can it therefore be possible, that one ounce of any commodity.

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should be worth an ounce and a quarter of the selfsame commodity, and of exactly the same goodness? for so is standard silver to standard silver. Indeed, one has a mark upon it, which the other has not; but it is a mark that makes it rather more than less valuable: or if the mark, by hindering its exportation, makes it less valuable for that purpose, the melting-pot can easily take it off.

The complaint made of melting down our weighty money answers this reason evidently. For can it be supposed that a goldsmith will give one ounce and a quarter of coined silver for one ounce of bullion; when, by putting it into his melting-pot, he can, for less than a penny charge, make it bullion? (For it is always to be remembered, what I think is made clear, that the value of silver, considered as it is money, and the measure of commerce, is nothing but its quantity.) And thus a milled shilling, which has double the weight of silver in it to a current shilling, whereof half the silver is clipped away, has double the value. And to show that this is so, I will undertake that any merchant, who has bullion to sell, shall sell it for a great deal less number of shillings in tale, to any one who will contract to pay him in milled money, than if he be paid in the current clipped money.

Those who say bullion is risen, I desire to tell me, what they mean by risen? Any commodity, I think, is properly said to be risen, when the same quantity will exchange for a greater quantity of another thing; but more particularly of that thing, which is the measure of commerce in the country. And thus corn is said to be risen among the English in Virginia, when a bushel of it will sell or exchange for more pounds of tobacco; amongst the Indians, when it will sell for more yards of wampompeak, which is their money; and amongst the English here, when it will exchange for a greater quantity of silver than it would before. Rising and falling of commodities are always between several commodities of distinct worths. But nobody can say that tobacco (of the same goodness) is risen in respect of itself. One pound of the same goodness will never ex

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