Consequence of this regulation to debase the standard.
This operation had the effect of making the gold a standard as well as the silver. Debtors then paid indifferently in gold as well as in silver, because both were supposed to be of the same intrinsic as well as current value; in which case no inconvenience could follow upon this regulation. But, in time, silver came to be more demanded; the making of plate began to prevail more than formerly, and the exportation of silver to the East Indies increasing yearly, made the demand for it greater; or perhaps brought its quantity to be proportionally less than before. This changed the proportion of the metals, and by slow degrees they have come from that of 1 to 15.2 (the proportion they were supposed to have when the guineas were fixed and made a lawful money at 21 shillings) to that of 14.5 the present supposed proportion.
The consequence of this has been, that the same guinea which was worth 1804.6 grains fine silver, at the time it was fixed at 21 shillings, is now worth no more than 1719.9 grains of fine silver according to the proportion of 14½ to 1.
That debtors will not pay in silver but in gold.
Consequently, debtors, who have always the option of the legal species in paying their debts, will pay pounds sterling no more in silver but in gold; and as the gold pounds they pay in, are not intrinsically worth the silver pounds they paid in formerly, according to the statute of Elizabeth, it follows that the pound sterling in silver is really no more the standard, since no body will pay at that rate, and since no body can be compelled to do it.
Besides this want of proportion between the metals, the silver coined before the reign of George I. is now become light by circulation; and the guineas coined by all the Princes since Charles II. pass by tale, though many of them are considerably diminished in their weight.
Let us now examine what profit the want of proportion, and the want of weight in the coin can afford to the money jobbers, in melting it down or exporting it.
Did every body consider coin only as the measure for reckoning value, without attending to its value as a metal, the deviations of gold and silver coin from perfect exactness either as to proportion or weight, would occasion little inconvenience.
That some people consider coin a money of accompt,
Great numbers indeed, in every modern society, consider coin in no other light, than that of money of accompt, and have great difficulty to comprehend what difference any one can find between a light shilling and a heavy one; or what inconvenience there can possibly result from a guinea’s being some grains of fine gold too light to be worth 21 shillings standard weight. And did every one think in the same way, there would be no occasion for coin of the precious metals at all; leather, copper, iron, or paper, would keep the reckoning as well as gold and silver.