by making the nation itself choose the remedy.
The best way therefore to accomplish such a work, is, to put it into the hands of the nation itself. When the people are fully instructed in the matter, when the state of the question is laid before them in a clear light, and stripped of all money-jargon, they will see the natural consequences of every innovation; and when they have well considered of them, they may resolve whether they will keep the pound sterling they have, or whether they will take another.
If the present standard is departed from, every other to be pitched upon is arbitrary.
The question to be determined, is, what the weight of the pound sterling now is, and what it ought to be. If it be made different from what it is at present, that operation must be conducted with justice and impartiality. If a new standard is to be pitched upon, the choice is quite arbitrary, as has been said; and were any weight to be preferred to another, the best of any, no doubt, would be the pound troy of standard silver. This was the pound sterling for many ages, and the most that can be said for Queen Elizabeth’s act, is, that it is the last deliberate adulteration by law of the English coin.
The next question is, how to conduct that operation so as to do justice to every man in the nation in contracts already entred into; how to do justice to the creditors of Great Britain; how to do justice to Great Britain with respect to her creditors; how to do all this, I say, and at the same time to make an innovation upon the present state of the coin.
People imagine the present standard is the same with that of Queen Elizabeth.
Debasing the standard is odious in the opinion of every mortal; and it seems also to be the opinion of many, that every regulation which shall not carry the value of a pound sterling, to the value of the silver appointed to enter into it by the statute of Queen Elizabeth, is a debasing of it from what it is at present.
In order to cast more light upon the historical part of the English coinage, I shall here lay together some short observations upon the state of that question from the reformation to the present time.
Debasements of the standard during the reformation.
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. during the violent convulsions of the reformation, so sophisticated the fineness of the coin, and so curtailed the weight of it, that all proportion of value was lost.