Price of coinage upon ducats about 1 per cent.
So that there is not quite 1 per cent. taken in Holland upon the coinage of their gold ducats.
The price of coinage upon both species should be the same.
But upon the silver florins there is (as we have seen) near 1½ per cent. consequently, there is an encouragement of 1½ per cent. given for carrying gold to the mint preferably to silver; which, in my humble opinion, is ill judged. I allow that the expence of coining a sum in silver is greater than the expence of coining the same sum in gold; but I think it is better to allow an additional profit to the mint upon the gold, than to disturb the equality of intrinsic value which ought to be contained in the same sum coined in gold and silver. But indeed, according to the present state of the Dutch mint, this small irregularity is not much to be minded, as we shall see presently.
Riders are a coin but lately used in Holland. Formerly, the Dutch had no legal gold coin, silver was their standard; and ducats as a negotie pfenning (as they call them) found their own value, having no determinate legal denomination, as has been said.
has a legal denomination, and is a lawful tender in payments to ⅓ of the sum,
But of late the States have coined this new species of gold, to which they have given a fixed denomination, and the authority of a legal coin, to be received in all payments, so far as one third of the sum to be paid; the other two thirds must be paid in silver: but of this more afterwards, our present business being to examine the weight, denomination, and fineness of this species.
is coined always by the state and for the state; so there can be no mint price.
Riders are coined by the State alone, no private persons carrying bullion to the mint for that purpose; the coinage, therefore, not being open to the public, it is in vain to seek for a mint price. They are delivered at the mint by tale, not by weight; so we must inquire into the statute weight, fineness, and denominations of this species, in order to discover the quantity of fine gold which is contained in the florin of this currency: this we shall compare with the florin in the ducat, and so strike an equation between the florin in this standard coin, and in the other, which finds its own price, according to the fluctuation of the metal it is made of.