The Regulating Silver Coin, Made Practicable and Easie, to the Government and SubjectPratt, Samuel
History
The Regulating Silver Coin, Made Practicable and Easie, to the Government and Subject
Pratt, Samuel
Coinage -- Great Britain -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain. Parliament -- Early works to 1800
2. _That there is not in England at present
above_ 4.000.000 _l._ Sterl.
3. _That there passes not publickly above_ 3.000.000 _l._ Sterl.
4. _That the hoarded Silver Coyn is about_ 1.000.000 _l._ Sterl.
5. _That the present Current Counterfeited Coyn
is about_ 1.000.000 _l._ Sterl.
6. _That the present Current Silver Coyn not
counterfeited, but clipt filed or otherwise
diminished is about_ 2.000.000 _l._ Sterl.
7. _That the Current Silver Coyn in daily use,
not counterfeited but cliped or otherwise
diminished is not intrinsically above_ 1.000.000 _l._ Sterl.
Now the _Axioms_ I shall build upon are chiefly these.
AX. I.
_That a way to induce the Subject to a voluntary compliance with the
necessities of State, is preferable to any manner of Compulsion._
And by this I intend to obviate two Projects, _viz._
1. _That the Clipt Money be all called in without giving full
satisfaction to the Proprietors_; and this I take to be a piece of
Injustice, because this Money was at first given out to us by the
Government, as a sufficient pledge and unalterable Security of our
Properties, and it was at first issued out of the Mint in such various
and undesigned Shapes, in respect of the Peripherie or Circumference in
which it hath been debased, and so various withall in the thickness and
weight of each respective piece, that ’twas almost impossible for the
Subject to distinguish the diminutions, which at first were so Curious,
so Subtil, and small as was not to be easily suspected; and it hath been
by gradual and sensible approaches that the present abasements are so
considerable.
But this cannot be so well urged in behalf of Counterfeit Money, it is
not any thing we have received of the State, it never was given to us,
as a Pledge and Security; and so never was Money properly so called, but
a False, and Counterfeit sort of Ware which every man Bartered for at
his own Peril, and to such _Caveat Emptor_ might properly have been
said.
But if the wisdom of _Parliament_ things fit to make Compensation for
all the Counterfeit Money, I have nothing to say against it: They are
the proper Judges.
Or if they shall not think fit to give a full Compensation for the Clipt
Money, I have nothing to say, it would be great presumption in a private
man to dictate.
In the method I shall tender, I shall make provision for a full
Compensation for all the clipt and diminished money of the Royal
Standard; at the small expence of 250.000 _l._ which is vastly less than
I have heard yet proposed, I reckon three quarters of the money may be
paid back in good Milled Coyn forthwith, as fast as it can be coyned.
The second Project I designed by the former Axiom to obviate is,
_The compelling of people to supply a present exigence by bringing in
their Plate into the Mint_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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