The same ingenious process is so easily applied to the coinage and colouring of false money, and also to the mixing of the metals of which it is composed, that it is not to be wondered at, that the avarice of man, urged by the prospect of immense profit, has occasioned that vast increase of counterfeit money of every description, with which the Country is at present deluged. The false coinages which have been introduced into circulation, of late years, are _Guineas, Half-Guineas and Seven Shilling Pieces, Crowns and Half-Crowns, Shillings, Sixpences, Pence, Halfpence, and Farthings_, of the similitude of the coin of the realm: of foreign coin, _Half Johannas, Louis d'ors, Spanish Dollars, French Half-Crowns, Shillings and Sixpences, 30 Sol pieces, Prussian and Danish Silver money, and other continental coins_; to which may be added, _Sequins of Turkey, and Pagodas of India_. These foreign coins except in the instance of the _Spanish Dollars_[43] issued by the Bank of England in 1797, have generally been sold as articles of commerce for the purpose of being fraudulently circulated in the British Colonies or in Foreign Countries. [Footnote 43: The circulation of stamped Spanish Dollars, in 1797, gave rise to a very extensive coinage of counterfeit money of the same species, which was generally executed in a very masterly manner, and before the fraud was discovered vast quantities were in the hands of many innocent members of the community. Several detections, however, having checked the circulation, and silver bullion having fallen greatly in price, those who were in the habit of dealing in base money availing themselves of this circumstance, purchased Dollars in great quantities at about 4_s._. 2_d._ which they instantly stamped and circulated at 4_s._ 9_d._ and by which species of villainy large sums of money were suddenly amassed.--One dealer in particular is said to have made above £.5000 in six weeks. The Laws attaching no punishment to this unforeseen offence, and the Author representing the circumstances of the case to the Bank Directors, the whole were called in, leaving, however, in the hands of the dealers a large surplus of actual counterfeits,--which appears to have suggested to them the expedient of finding a market in the British American Colonies and the United States, where, in general, frauds are less likely to be detected from the payments being made (particularly in the West India islands) in dollars put up in bags containing a certain value in each. However, they were fortunately defeated in this object by the timely notice given, by the Author of this Treatise, to his Majesty's Secretary of State, and the American Minister, and through these respectable mediums commercial people were put upon their guard before the intended fraud could be carried into effect.]