But shillings in England, although they be at present in a manner no better than marks, because of their lightness; yet in the eye of the law they continue to be lawful money, and a legal tender in payments. It is therefore of great consequence that such shillings be not in too great plenty. That would have been the case, had government come in to the plan proposed for the coinage of shillings below the standard; such shillings would have been coined abroad, and run in upon England, to the great detriment of the nation; and although they had been proscribed in payments, beyond a certain sum, yet they would have been so multiplied in small payments, as to have furnished a means of buying up the gold coin, and carrying it out of the country for an under-value. Whereas the worn shillings do not produce that bad effect, from the scarcity of them, and from the impossibility of imitating them in foreign mints[5]. Footnote 5: It is commonly believed that shillings are coined at Birmingham, and that government winks at the abuse, because of the great scarcity of silver in England. I find no foundation for this belief, after the inquiry I have made. In the first place, Mr. Harris, who was the best assay-maker in Europe, told me, that a bag of those shillings had been sent to the mint by the Lords of the Treasury, to be tried by him: that he had found them to be English standard, to the most scrupulous exactness: that he did not believe any such correct assay could be made, except at the mint: that all the engravers of the mint declared it was impossible to imitate a worn shilling. The trials I myself made were of a different nature. I examined the shillings with a magnifying glass; and found almost every one different in the impression, as well as in the weight. In some the back-part of the head was worn, in others the face: none, in short, were worn perfectly alike. I put a handful of them into a coal fire; and taking them out when red-hot, and throwing them on the hearth, I plainly discovered, on many of them, some part of the arms of Great Britain appearing in the cross upon the reverse, in a different colour from the ground of the coin: in others indeed nothing could be seen: this was owing to the degree of wearing. How then can any dye strike an impression upon a coin, which answers all these appearances? I communicated to Mr. Harris the trials I had made, and he was perfectly satisfied, upon the whole, that no old shilling had ever been counterfeited at Birmingham. The answer to the third question, viz. Why money-jobbers are not always ready to give old shillings for new guineas? is easy, from what has been said. They cannot pick them up below the mean value of the currency; because of the great demand there is for them in exchange for guineas; therefore they can gain nothing by providing them for that purpose.