I have found no branch of my subject so difficult to reduce to principles, as the doctrine of money: this difficulty, however, has not deterred me from undertaking it. It is of great consequence to a statesman to understand it thoroughly; and it is of the last importance to trade and credit, that the money of a nation be kept stable and invariable.
To circumscribe combinations as much as the nature of this subject will admit, I have in the first part adhered to a deduction of general principles, taking by way of illustration, as I go along, the present state of the British currency.
In the second part, I shall examine the effects of turning coin into a manufacture, by superadding the price of fabrication to its value; and point out the consequences of this additional combination upon exchange, and the interest of trading nations.
CHAP. I.
Of Money of Accompt.
What money is.
I. The metals have so long performed the use of money, that money and coin are become almost synonimous, although in their principles they be quite different.
The first thing therefore to be done in treating of money, is, to separate two ideas, which, by being blended together, have very greatly contributed to throw a cloud upon the whole subject.
Definitions.
Money, which I call of account, is no more than an arbitrary scale of equal parts, invented for measuring the respective value of things vendible.
Money of account, therefore, is quite a different thing from money-coin, which is price, and might exist, although there was no such thing in the world as any substance which could become an adequate and proportional equivalent, for every commodity.