2. The other Temptation is the great Intrinsick Value of our mill’d money, most of which was coyn’d when Silver was 5 s. 2 d. 5 s. 4 d. or 5 s. 6 d. per ounce, and the price of Silver rising, a Crown piece has now the intrinsick value of 6 s. or thereabouts, this is a mighty temptation to melt it down.
Titius owes Sempronius 10 l. and pays him in mill’d money, Sempronius owes a third man as much, but first melts it down and sells it to a Goldsmith for 12 l. and so puts 40 s. in his Pocket. This might have been prevented you’ll say before all the mill’d money was gone; by crying down all other money, for if the Goldsmiths had given 12 l. in mill’d money for an Ingot melted out of ten Pounds, they must at length have been ruined; and therefore the Crying down all other money must have brought down the price of Silver necessarily, or none could have been sold.
If 5 s. melted down would not have yielded a Crown Piece, who would have melted ’em; and if they would have yielded more, the money of the Nation how much soever must soon have vanished, for more could not have been coyn’d, till the price of Silver should fall: But how could the price of Silver have fallen so low in England, as not to be worth any mans while to melt down the milled money, if Silver should at the same time of its melting bear an higher price in other Countries than it did here at the time of its Coyning: So that the Coyning down of base money would at any time have been so far from helping us, that it would have immediately ruined us, it being impossible to Coyn more upon the old Standard, if the price of Silver is higher beyond Sea than it was when that old Standard was Coyned: And ’twill be impossible for us to Coyn new money after the old Standard (till we can bring down the Foreign Price of Silver) so fast as it will be melted down.
To make this plain upon which so much depends, put the Case thus.
Suppose you called in by compulsion and Coyned all the Plate of England, and suppose it never so many Millions, and all after the old Standard, when the Plate is all gone people will have more Plate, and Silversmiths must still have work, and Goldsmiths their Trade, unless by prohibiting the use of silver Plate we proclaim an hypocritical Beggary to all the world, and ruin many thousand Families of Artisans. The Silver then of which you coyn your new Plate must come from abroad, or be procured out of your money.
The Goldsmith will go the cheaper way to work, and rather than he’ll give 5 s. 10 d. to a Merchant for an ounce of Plate, he’ll fling in a Crown and 6 d. into the melting Pot, and though the Laws against melting down Coyn be never so severe yet people will venture any thing for gain, as you may see Clippers do daily; especially if their Consciences don’t check ’em, and few mens Consciences will scruple making the most of their own.
And as the accurate Mr. Lowndes observes, notwithstanding ever since Ed. 3d’s. time prohibitory Laws have been against melting down Coyn, pag. 68. and the profit of melting it sometimes very inconsiderable, pag. 69. the practice hitherto was never prevented. But it may be said money shall be coyned of an intrinsick value or near thereabouts (Coynage only allowed) in proportion to the present value of Silver, be it more or less as it shall alter from time to time, and so the abatement for Coynage shall always keep the Estimate of the Coyn above the Intrinsick value of the Silver, but instead of bringing remedy this will make the Case tentimes worse, for then upon every rise of Silver the Goldsmiths and others will melt down all that was Coyn’d at a lower Price, and if the form of the Coyn don’t direct ’em to be dextrous, the Prentices shall follow the old Trade of weighing money Night and Day too.
So that without going farther upon this Topick, I may lay it down as a Conclusion or Maxim.
That if the Intrinsick Value of Coyn be subject to alteration the Coyn is always in danger of being melted down.