Writers, therefore, to be distinct, ought never to mention these matters, without removing the ambiguity, in favour of readers of all denominations. As for example: The King raised his coin, and debased his money of accompt. For this reason the French expression is good, and easily understood; augmenter la valeur numeraire des especes, is liable to no obscurity.
There are also two terms used by French writers, which appear synonimous, and yet are directly opposite; AFFOIBLISSEMENT, et DIMINUTION de la monnoïe. Such terms are perplexing, and ought either to be avoided, or constantly explained. The first signifies the coining the specie of the same denomination lighter in the metals than before: the last signifies the lowering the denominations of the coin already made. The first therefore diminishes, the second increases the value of the unit, which is the livre.
Quest 2d. What is the difference between raising the value of coin, by imposing coinage, and raising the denomination of it?
Quest. II. What is the difference between the effects produced by raising the value of the coin by the imposition of coinage, and raising the denomination of it? This question is proposed as a further means of rendering the money-jargon intelligible.
Answ. The imposition of coinage, when it gives an advanced value to coin above the metals it contains, is very different from that advanced value which the coin appears to receive when the Sovereign arbitrarily raises the denomination of it; or as the French call it, when he augments its numerary value.
Answer. The first is real, and affects foreign nations; the other does not.
When the imposition of coinage gives an advanced value to the coin above the bullion it contains, that value becomes real, and extends itself to foreign nations; that is to say, the coin, so augmented as a manufacture, must be bought with more foreign coin than formerly. But when the denomination, or numerary value, is augmented, the same piece (though augmented in denomination) is bought by strangers with the same quantity of their coin as before. An example will make this plain.
Let us suppose the coin in France, in war time, reduced to the value of bullion, and that the value of a crown of three livres, by the course of exchange, should be then worth 29½ pence heavy silver sterling money; if the balance of the French trade should become favourable in general, and that coin should become 8 per cent. dearer than bullion in the Paris market, then the price of the crown of three livres will rise 8 per cent. upon the London exchange above 29½ pence heavy silver sterling money, although there be respectively no balance to be paid in bullion either by England or France. But let the King of France ordain, that the crown of three livres shall be raised in its denomination to six livres, and let the coin at that time be supposed to be at par with bullion in the Paris market, the crown of three livres will then be paid as formerly with 29½ pence. That is to say, the augmentation of the denomination will have no effect upon the value of the coin in other countries; whereas the augmentation affected by the operations of trade, in consequence of the imposition of coinage, is a real augmentation, since it extends to foreign nations.