But after what manner it is to be made good, is the great Question.
If they, into whose Hands the newcoin’d Silver shall first come, should be allowed for the Intrinsick Want of it, then, in the paying it out again they must transmit the Allowance the State gives; or else the First Receivers would be Savers, and the rest Losers: But if the State must immediately give the Full Allowance, then it might as well have Coin’d to the full Intrinsick Value. But the Intrinsick Value is lessen’d, and the Real given, because the Government is better qualified at present to pay Interest than Principal.
Therefore an Interest is to be paid equivalent to the Extrinsick Value, and fully satisfactory for the Want of Intrinsick; that so the Subject may be no Loser, and the Government put to no Difficulties.
Beside, that Money would return to its Intrinsick Value, if a Shilling were always to be tack’d to a Crown or Four-Shilling Piece; which is One of the chief things we are to avoid.
Let this Interest be 5 per Cent. and let it be look’d upon as a sufficient Interest, as it better will appear to be, when I come to answer the Objections, which may be made to this Method.
The Interest of a Million of Pounds Sterling, which is wanting to make up the Real Value of the New Coin at 5 per Cent. amounts to Fifty thousand Pounds per Annum.
But, to Ease the Nation of half this Charge, let it be duly and carefully considered,
That if the present Possessor of an entire 100 l. be entitled to this Interest, and not of a less Sum, every less Sum will have such a Value Real, as the Possessor of an entire 100 l. can make of it, and will allow for it.
And there will be no occasion for the Government to pay Interest for lesser Sums, because the valuation of lesser Sums will always bear that proportion which Merchants, Goldsmiths, and Bankers will receive ’em at, from the least Sum to the greatest.
If I pay in, for instance, to a Goldsmith Fifty pounds to day, and Fifty pounds to morrow, he will no more scruple to give me a Note for One hundred pounds, than if I had paid it in at once: And, if I pay my Brewer Five pounds a week, as he brings in my Drink, for twenty weeks together, he will look upon it as good Pay as if I paid him at the twenty weeks end One hundred pounds together; and if Five pounds will pass from me as the fifth part of an Hundred, why not, by the same Rule of Proportion 20 Shillings for the hundredth part? That which hath the Value of Five pound Lumbard-street, hath the same in Pater-Noster-Row, and the same likewise at Brentford, or elsewhere: And there can be no Instance or Reason given, why Money of the like weight; Intrinsick and Extrinsick Value, should not be as passable in little Sums as in great, since there is an easie Resort, and at hand always; in which, without any distinction, they daily determine.