It is unfortunately true that Wellington, in the stress of waiting hours during the winter of 1810-11, used querulous and captious language concerning his supporters at home. The main point of his complaint was that he was not supplied rapidly enough with specie, that bills were sent him when he wanted dollars or guineas, and that so the pay of the army was falling into arrears. The fact was deplorable; but on a consideration of the condition of the English monetary system at this date it is hard to see how the difficulty could have been avoided. Since the suspension of the coinage of guineas in 1797, and the introduction of an almost unlimited issue of bank-notes, gold had gradually become an almost invisible commodity in Great Britain[90]. The guinea, when seen, commanded an ever-increasing premium; by 1809 it was worth £1 5_s._, or more, in paper. British silver was equally deficient; there had been none coined at the Mint since 1787, and the internal trade of the country was being transacted with difficulty, by means of Spanish dollars or half-dollars stamped with the king’s head, or by local tokens struck by banks and corporations, which only served in the immediate neighbourhood of their place of issue[91]. The Bank of England dollar, the only coin which circulated generally, passed for 5_s._, though it had only the value of 4_s._ 2_d._ in its weight of silver. When Great Britain could find no specie for its own internal business, the Government was required to send enormous remittances in cash to the Peninsula, because all transactions therein were made in silver or gold, and English paper was not negotiable[92]. That the coin was sent at all seems marvellous, rather than that it was sent late and in insufficient quantities. The worst time of all was in the early spring of 1811, when there was a severe commercial crisis at home, and the Government was issuing exchequer bills, to the amount of £6,000,000, as an advance to merchants and manufacturers to stave off general bankruptcy in London[93]. [90] Note that Perceval and Liverpool inherited the paper currency of Pitt, and were not responsible for its creation. [91] For some curious anecdotes as to the dearth of silver change see Lord Folkestone’s speech quoted in Yonge’s _Life of Lord Liverpool_, i. 368. [92] ‘How can you expect that we can buy specie here [London] with the exchange 30 per cent. against us, and guineas selling at 25 shillings?’ Huskisson to Wellington (private), 19th July, 1809. _Wellington MSS._, see Mr. Fortescue’s _British Statesmen of the Great War_, p. 254. [93] For notes on this see Walpole’s _Life of Perceval_, ii. pp. 207-8.