[Sidenote: _Mr. Lownds’s Report_, p. 28. and onwards.]
This has been judicially and fully stated by Mr. _Lownd_’s, who hath
shown the undeniable Expediency of keeping up always our Silver Coin, to
the present Fineness, as that illustrious and solid Writer Sr. _Robert
Cotton_ had likewise shew’d, and therefore I will say nothing on this
Topic, lest I should seem to build upon other Mens Foundations; and I
the rather omit it, because all that hath, or can be said, against the
raising of the extrinsic Valuation of Coin, above the real Value, is
applicable to the abasing of it by Allay, and I fully assent to that
Axiom, That the debasing our Money, by Allay, and raising the Value of
the Standard, is only doing one and the same thing, (to most Intents and
Purposes) by two several Ways or Means.
Suppose then but two Ways of debasing it, by Quantity, or by Quality,
and still that is all but _debasing_ of it, that is, giving it a Value
in Name, of more than it hath Intrinsically or Really; for this more
than Intrinsic Value, is meerly Extrinsical, supposed, or denominated:
in short ’tis a fictitious imaginary Value, and not a real one, above
the intrinsic.
[Sidenote: _Cotton’s Posthuma_, p. 287.]
And this, to say no more of it, is the reviving of that Monster which Q.
_Elizab._ of Happy Memory so gloried in the subduing; and I doubt we
have Monsters enough to deal with, without reviving more.
This is such a devouring Expedient as will immediately swallow down a
Part of every Man’s Estate, and at last consume the Nation.
The Price of every thing will rise instead of falling.
For if we were willing to submit to this at home, yet there is such a
Combination, between our Foreign and Home Trade, and the Relation
between ’em is so inseparable, that let the State give it what Name it
will, it will pass for no more at home than it doth abroad, unless the
heavy Balance of Trade was on our side the Water; and it will pass for
no more abroad than it is _really_, not _Extrinsically_ or Imaginarily,
worth at home.
An Act of Parliament can as well make a _Scotch_ Pound pass for an
_English_, as half an Ounce of Silver in _England_ to go for an Ounce in
_Holland_, without _some Consideration as may Balance the Difference_.
Let us call a six peny-Weight of Silver a Crown-Piece, as loud and as
long as we will, yet we shall never buy a Pound of Nutmegs with Four of
’em, unless you’ll give the _Dutch_ Merchant a Yard of broad-Cloth, or
something else into the Bargain.
’Tis a plain case, that when the _real_ Value of Money is lessen’d, the
Price of every thing will Rise accordingly, be the _Extrinsic_ Value
what it will.
Two Crown-Pieces do not buy a Yard of Cloth, because they contain Ten
Shillings, but because they contain almost two Ounces of Silver.
Gold and Silver are the universal Pledges and Security of all Trade, in
every Nation, and what’s wanting in their Value must some way or other
be made Good, more than in Name or Supposition.
’Tis True, in _Holland_ and elsewhere, they have a base Under-Money, and
there is not an Ounce of Silver, perhaps, in as many Stivers or
Schillings, as are Equivalent to Ten Shillings in our Money.
But if in _Holland_, you can exchange so many of them, as have not an
Ounce of pure Silver in ’em, for as much of their better Coin, as
contains two or three Ounces of good Silver, then doubtless you can buy
as good Commodities for those, as you can proportionably for their
better Money; as here you might formerly have bought as much Pack-Thread
for 48 Tin Farthings as for a Silver Shilling; the Reason is, because
there was a recourse; and base Money will have a proportionable Value to
Good, in that place where it can be changed into Good; but that’s a very
different thing, from debasing the whole _Species_ of Money throughout
the Nation, so that a Man shall be forc’d always to take Under-Money,
without any prospect of remedy.
I have nothing to say against an inferior sort of Money; a _Verna
Nummus_, provided there be a _Regina Pecunia_ too; and it is indeed a
dishonouring him, whose Image and Superscription our Money bears, if we
shall make use of our Money to cover over a Fraud; it is a respect we
owe to the King, not to suffer his Impress upon any thing but what is
really Valuable; and it is for the Nation’s Honour that the vilest of
our Coin hath a real Value; but if the Wisdom of the _Parliament_ shou’d
think otherwise, yet there is a vast Difference between having the
under-Money, and all the Money of the Nation of an Imaginary Value.
The Arguments that may be made use of against such an imaginary
Valuation of Money, are perhaps invincible, and almost innumerable; but
were there no other but this, I think it might be sufficient without any
more; considering our present Case.
We must have an Army in _Flanders_ or a War in _England_.