The Coinages of the Channel Islands

by B. Lowsley

"The scarcity of gold and silver continued; and the States, on the 21st of December, 1725, declared that the only metallic currency in circulation was liards or deniers. They had on previous occasions prohibited the exportation of this copper money; they now forbade its importation, under pain of confiscation. In the following year, perceiving no doubt the futility of their enactments, they allowed, by their act dated the 19th of September, 1726, a free trade in liards—the free importation and exportation of this coin. On the same day they appointed a committee from their body to prepare a representation to his Majesty in Council, on the subject of the relative value of the coins in circulation in the Island. This representation was adopted by the States on the 25th of November, 1726. The ulterior sanction by Council of the recommendation of the States was the occasion of serious commotions and discontent in the Island. The avowed object of the States in their request to the Crown was to prevent the exportation of gold and silver coin from the Island, and to encourage the exportation of liards to France, which they asserted passed in Jersey above their intrinsic value, and with which they were very much burdened—reasons among the very worst which could be given, or upon which a legislative enactment could be based.

"An Order in Council, dated the 22nd of May, 1729, was issued, approving of the proposed alterations in the currency by the States; and it was accordingly ordered:—

"That the French silver coins be current in the said Island only according to their intrinsic value, in proportion to the British crown-piece.

"That the British crown-piece do continue at seventy-one sols; the half-crown at thirty-five sols and a half; the shilling at fourteen sols; and the sixpence at seven sols.

"That the French liards be reduced to their old value of two deniers each; and that the British half-pence be current for seven deniers; and the farthing for three and a half. And his Majesty doth hereby further order that the said coins do pass in all manner of payments, according to the said rates; but that this order shall not take effect till the expiration of six calendar months from the date thereof; and to the end that no person may pretend ignorance hereof, the bailiff and jurats of his Majesty's said Island of Jersey are to cause this order to be forthwith published, and to take care that it be executed according to the tenor thereof."

The act of the States and the Order in Council were, to say the least of them, highly injudicious. The only coin apparently in circulation was the liard, and the accounts were kept in livres and sous. The proportion between the sol and the livre remained unchanged; but it followed, from the new law, that if a person did not meet his liabilities within the specified time of six months, his debts were consequently increased fifty per cent. if he had to pay them in liards; and he could pay them apparently in no other coin. The value of the sol relative to the liard was raised fifty per cent.; that is, six liards were to be estimated as equivalent to one sol, instead of four liards as heretofore. Now, on what grounds could the States establish this great difference, when it did not exist in reality? We ascertain positively by an act of the States of the 21st of December, 1725, that the real exchangeable difference between the liards, at their estimated value of four to a sol, and gold and silver coin, was only twelve per cent. in favour of the latter. The rate of exchange between countries is not dependent on or regulated by any legislative authority, however despotic or absolute it may be, but is regulated by the real intrinsic relative value of the coins in circulation in the two countries; and hence the rate of exchange, compared with the par of exchange, will show the depreciation sustained by the circulating medium of a country; for the difference between the par and the rate of exchange should in ordinary circumstances not exceed the cost of transmission of the precious metals from one country to the other. Now, by an act of the States of the 21st of December, 1725, we learn that they were indebted to a merchant at St. Malo for the proceeds of the sale of a cargo of wheat, which had been taken possession of and sold to the people by the States, at a time of great scarcity in the Island. They had remitted a portion of the amount; but there remained a balance due of 3,332 livres tournois, which Mr. Patriarche had engaged to remit to St. Malo. The States ordered that this amount should be paid to Mr. Patriarche by the deputy viscount in liards, thus incidentally proving that there was in reality no other coin in circulation; but as Mr. Patriarche had to pay the amount to the merchant at St. Malo in gold and silver, and as these bore a premium compared to liards, the loss, or rather the amount of the premium, had of course to be made good by the States; and they accordingly ordered that that difference, amounting to 416 livres ten sous, should be raised by rate on the parishes, and placed in the hands of the deputy viscount, for payment to Mr. Patriarche. We are thus enabled satisfactorily to ascertain the real comparative difference between the value of the liard and other metallic currency, or, in other words, the premium which the latter bore compared with the copper currency, at the rate of four liards to the sol. By a calculation on the data thus furnished, we find the difference to be precisely twelve per cent. in favour of gold and silver; and we are also to bear in mind that the great scarcity of gold and silver would of course add to the premium. By the Order in Council the difference was to be established at fifty per cent.

"The States soon perceived that they had either committed a great mistake or that they must yield to public opinion, which was strongly and decidedly opposed to the change ordered. They accordingly, on the 20th of December, 1729, petitioned his Majesty in Council for the recall of the Order in Council, being apprehensive that the said regulations would not answer the ends they at first expected from them. The States, on the 24th of April, 1730, named a deputy in support of their petition. Counsel were heard by the committee of the Privy Council for the States, and also for several members of the States and others who opposed the petition of the States; but the opinion of the committee was, that the Order in Council regulating the currency ought not to be suspended or revoked, but carried into execution. His Majesty in Council, therefore, on the 9th of July, 1730, ordered that the said Order in Council of the 22nd of May, 1729, be carried into execution: but that during the term of six months from the date hereof all creditors in the said Island do receive their debts, if tendered to them at the rate at which the coins went current immediately before making the aforesaid Order in Council; and, in case of refusal, that such creditors do forfeit one-third of their debts to the benefit of the debtors."

In 1774, in France, from whence the small change for the Channel Islands was being obtained, the sou was equivalent to twelve deniers, the double-liard or half-sou to six deniers, and the liard or quarter-sou to three deniers.

"Established custom, and the relative value of coins, proved of greater force than the Orders in Council. Livres, and sous, and liards tournois continued, in fact, the currency of the Island at their old rate; and many of the native inhabitants of the Island still keep their accounts, or make their reckonings, in the livre tournois—the livre being estimated at twenty sous, and the sou at four liards or twelve deniers. When the English currency was, in the year 1835, adopted as the legal currency of the Island, it was done by declaring the relative value which it bore in circulation to the livre tournois. This was to meet the objections which were raised to the adoption of the English standard with regard to wheat rents, and other mortgages, which were estimated in the old currency tournois. Twenty-six livres tournois, or old French currency, were declared to be equivalent to one pound sterling, which was, and is now, the current rate.

"Allusion is still made in some legal and official documents to order-money or, as it is called, argent d'ordre, or argent selon l'ordre du roi. But the question may reasonably be asked, 'What is order-money? What is the standard of order-money? Does order-money really exist, or has it ever existed?' The livre of order-money is considered worth fifty per cent. more than the livre-tournois; and the distinction is supposed to be derived from the Order in Council of the year 1729. But that Order in Council did not establish that difference: it did not change the relative value of the sou and the livre. There was, in fact, no such thing as order-money, except for liards, and thus it did not apply to sous or livres. The value of the liard, as compared to the sou, was, it is true, changed and regulated; but the relative value of the sol, compared with the livre, could not be changed or affected thereby; it remained the same as before. There were twenty sous to the livre: the coin, the sou in circulation, was not enlarged, or made of more intrinsic value. Such as it was before, such it remained still. There was no other sou or livre known or acknowledged in use than the tournois; and the Order in Council did not substitute any other. The Order in Council could not, with any degree of fairness or justice, be supposed to affect those persons who paid their accounts in sous or livres, or in gold or silver, and not in liards. This was not, however, the view taken of the Order; and hence the indignation felt; for the interpretation given, and the claim of fifty per cent. more than was in fact due, bore the semblance of great injustice.