The denominations of the several silver currencies not proportioned to their intrinsic value.
From this exposition of the matter, it is very evident, that all these currencies must be of different intrinsic values, in proportion to their denomination; otherwise, why all this trouble about regulating the proportion to be received in payments? |Cause of this.| This proceeds from two causes: first, from the wearing of the pieces; the second, from the disproportion of the fineness in pieces of the same weight and denomination.
Regulations concerning the weighing of silver species in banks current.
As to the first, to wit, the wearing of the coin, I shall observe, that the three denominations of the good silver, to wit, the 3 guilder pieces, the 30 stiver pieces, and the 20 stiver pieces, are put up promiscuously in the same bags; being of the same fineness, and consequently of the same value, in proportion to their weight. These bags contain 600 florins each, and the legal and full weight, with which they are weighed at the bank current of Rotterdam, is 25 marcs 5 ounces and 10 engles. Now the exact weight of a florin, according to the regulation, is, as we have said, 200.21 aces fine; then the 600 florins ought to weigh 120126[120126] aces fine, which at the standard of 263 parts fine to 25 alloy, is 131545 aces standard: by this analogy, 263 : 120126[120126] :: 288 : 131545; which is equal to 25 marcs 5 ounces 10 engles and 13 aces. So the weight at the bank is but 13 aces lighter than in strictness it ought to be; which is so small a difference, that it could hardly turn a scale with such a weight suspended in it: for which reason, I suppose, it is left out, for the sake of the even reckoning of 25 marcs 5½ ounces.
Did these bags of silver coin come up to the full weight, then the silver currency in Holland would be good as to those pieces; but as the greatest part of them are old, having been struck with the hammer, and are of unequal weight, having been coined (al marco) in the old fashion, when coin was weighed by the marc, and not as at present piece by piece, it is impossible they should be of legal weight: the bank, therefore, allows 2 ounces of remedy in receiving those sacs, that is, they put 2 ounces into the scale with the sac, and if they find that the sac is still light, but that the deficiency does not exceed one ounce more than the remedy, they throw out the coin and reckon it over; and if the tale be just, and that none of the pieces appear to have been clipped, they receive it as if it were of due weight: if it prove above 3 ounces short of the just weight, they do not receive it.
All allowances for light weight are an abuse.
Here is a palpable abuse, from a disorder in the coin. If a sac is ever so little too light, why allow it to pass, as if it were of due weight? Nothing is so easy as to order such deficiency to be made good by the deliverer. Weights are made for exactness, and all remedies are aukward and incorrect.
This allowance must open a door to malversations in a country like Holland, where there is almost no milled silver coin. The old hammered money was not weighed at the mint, as has been said, piece by piece: it was sufficient that every marc of it answered to the legal denomination: under such a regulation, it is very plain, that there must be many pieces above the legal weight, as well as many pieces below it. Is it to be supposed that money-jobbers will not profit of that inequality, by reducing the heavy pieces to their standard weight, when by such an action they cannot be convicted of any crime? This is one abuse.
By reducing the heavy pieces to their legal weight, the currency is degraded; because that which is taken from these ought to be left to compensate what the light pieces fall short. The bank, therefore, by giving the remedy, gives a kind of sanction to this malversation.