[32] The coin deficient between one grain and three grains was not called in at the time this was written. This call was made in the Summer of 1776; and it brought in above three millions more than was expected. The quantity of gold coin should therefore have been stated at about Sixteen Millions, and the whole coin of the kingdom at 18 or 19 millions.—The evidence from which I have drawn this estimate may be found in the first Section of the Second Part of the next Tract.
[33] See Sir James Steuart’s Enquiry into the Principles of political Œconomy, Vol. II. Book 4, Chap. 32.
[34] See the Second Tract, [P. 65].
[35] Their debts consist chiefly of money raised by annuities on lives, short annuities, anticipations of taxes for short terms, &c. During the whole last war they added to their perpetual annuities only 12 millions sterling, according to Sir James Steuart’s account; whereas we added to these annuities near 60 millions. In consequence therefore of the nature of their debts, as well as of the management they are now using for hastening the reduction of them, they must in a few years, if peace continues, be freed from most of their incumbrances; while we probably (if no event comes soon that will unburthen us at once) shall continue with them all upon us.
[36] Mr. Lowndes in the dispute between him and Mr. Locke, contended for a reduction of the standard of silver. One of his reasons was, that it would render the silver-coin more commensurate to the wants of the nation; and check hazardous Paper-credit.—Mr. Conduit, Sir Isaac Newton’s successor in the mint, has proposed, in direct contradiction to the laws now in being, that all the bullion imported into the kingdom should be carried into the mint to be coined; and only coin allowed to be exported. “The height, he says, of paper-credit is the strongest argument for trying this and every other method that is likely to increase the coinage. For whilst paper-credit does in a great measure the business of money at home, Merchants and Bankers are not under a necessity, as they were formerly, of coining a quantity of specie for their home trade; and as Paper-credit brings money to the Merchants to be exported, the money may go away insensibly, and NOT BE MISSED TILL IT BE TOO LATE: And where Paper-credit is large and increasing, if the money be exported and the coinage decrease, THAT CREDIT MAY SINK AT ONCE, for want of a proportionable quantity of Specie, which alone can support it in a time of distress.”—See Mr. Conduit’s Observations on the state of our Gold and Silver Coins in 1730, Page 36, to 46.
[37] According to the accounts of the exports to, and imports from the North-American Colonies, laid before Parliament, the balance in our favour appears to have been, for 11 years before 1774, near a million and a half annually.
[38] See the substance of the evidence on the petition presented by the West-India Planters and Merchants to the House of Commons as it was introduced at the BAR, and summed up by Mr. Glover.
[39] The annual average of the payments into the Exchequer, on account of the duties on tobacco, was for five years, from 1770 to 1774, 219,117l. exclusive of the payments from Scotland.—Near one half of the tobacco trade is carried on from Scotland; and above four fifths of the tobacco imported is afterwards exported to France, Germany and other countries. From France alone it brings annually into the Kingdom, I am informed, about 150,000l. in money.
In 1775, being, alas! the parting year, the duties on tobacco in England brought into the Exchequer no less a sum than 298,202l.
[40] All the accounts and calculations in the Appendix here referred to, have been transferred to the 2d and 4th Sections of the 3d Part of the Second Tract.