distress, with which the country is surrounded; with the state of our circulation and currency; of our agriculture and manufactures; of our internal and external commerce; and above all with the condition and reward of the industrious, and laboring classes of our community.

On all these particulars, as they respect this question, we think that Parliament is almost wholly uninformed; on all, we see reason for the utmost anxiety and alarm from the operation of this law. Lastly, Because, if we could approve of the principle and purpose of this law, we think that no sufficient foundation has been laid for its details. The evidence before us, unsatisfactory and imperfect as it is, seems to us rather to disprove than to support the propriety of the high price adopted as the standard of importation, and the fallacious mode by which that price is to be ascertained. And on all these grounds we are anxious to record our dissent from a measure so precipitate in its course, and, as we fear, so injurious in its consequences.

ON THE

CURRENCY;

OR THE

ALTERATIONS IN THE VALUE OF MONEY,

THE GREAT CAUSE

OF THE

DISTRESSED STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

WITH A

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE STATE OF THE CURRENCY

IN THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III. AND ITS PRESENT DEBASED OR DEPRECIATED STATE,

ORIGINAL,

LONDON.

ESSAY,

&c. &c.

ONE great error which has been committed by those who advocate a restoration of the Currency to its ancient standard, and which has occasioned much confusion of ideas, and greatly tended to bring the country into its present difficulties, has been the representing and believing, that the depreciated state of our Currency of late years, is analogous to the deranged or debased state of the coinage in former periods of our History, and more particularly to its state in the Reign of William the 3rd, from 1692 to 1697.

A candid and impartial inquiry will show, that a very wrong view has been taken of this subject, and that the deranged or debased state of the Currency, by clipping of the silver money in William the Third's time, was little similar in its nature, and less so in its effects, to the depreciated state of our Currency at the present mo

ment.

Mr. Peel, in his Speech on the subject of the restoration of the Currency, when introducing and recommending the bullion payment plan, May 24th, 1819, is reported to have said, "If the House would look to the arguments on both sides, (alluding to the reformation in the coinage in William the Third's Reign) at those advanced by Lowndes on the one side, and those by Locke on the other-they would see how analogous they were to those advanced at present. Lowndes complained that the value (price) of silver was enhanced, and wished for the return of the good old times when silver was at 5s. 2d. an ounce, while then it was at 6s. 3d.; and also contended that the shilling was the real standard of value.

Locke on the other hand maintained, that the pound weight of silver was the standard of value, and that the coin was depreciated and not the bullion raised. The present value (price) of silver he affirmed to be as formerly, 5s. 2d. an ounce, and therefore not at all altered except in comparison with the deteriorated Currency (clipt money); silver in coin was of the same value as silver in bullion. It was perfectly true, he said, that an ounce of silver, which the Mint -regulations determined to be only 5s. 2d, in value, had risen to 6s. 3d.; but that was only because the silver coin had been clipt or reduced in value, by the difference between 5s. 2d. and 6s. 3d. Give me,' says he,' Five shillings of Standard weight and fineness, as originally coined, together with 2d., and I will with that sum purchase for you an ounce of silver, for which you now give 6s. 3d. (in the clipt money).' Mr. Locke had no abstract idea of a shilling, or standard of value, as detached from something substantial and tangible." "These arguments, (says Mr. Peel) happily prevailed, and notwithstanding the expence, the project of the new coinage was carried into execution."

In another part of this speech Mr. Peel acknowledges with candor, the errors which he had before entertained on this subject, viz." that the Currency or paper money had not been depreciated,' and he says, he does it without pain or remorse; but he now sees that the paper money had been depreciated; and silver having risen to 7s. 3d. an ounce, and gold to 110s. an ounce, at the close of the war, as paid for in the paper money, was a clear and convincing proof of that depreciation. But when Mr. Peel was acknowledging his former errors, he ought to have been particularly cautious that he was not again running into errors on the opposite extreme, quite as great, and much more injurious to the interest and permanent welfare of his country. Instead, therefore, of hastily forming his opinion again, upon this intricate and embarrassing subject, from assertions unsupported by proof and from the opinions of others, had he carefully read throughout, and attentively considered, the treatises and arguments of Lowndes and Locke, he never would have come to the conclusion to which he did come, or have recommended the restoration of that depreciated paper money Currency again to its former standard, at this critical juncture. For, had he read those treatises attentively throughout, he must have perceived the great distinction, and wide difference, existing between the two cases, and that they bore little analogy to each other. And if Mr. Peel will now give himself the trouble to read over those treatises and carefully reconsider the subject, possessing as it is believed he does possess, great candor and sense of justice and humanity, he will perceive with pain, that the measure which he then recommended, and which is now being acted upon, has been the

cause of bringing upon a great mass of his countrymen their present ruin, misery, and degradation; and he will, or ought to be, among the first candidly to come forward and acknowledge the contrary error, which he has been led into, and before it be too late, do all in his power to endeavour to relieve the country from the evils now impending over it, which are fast destroying its peace and prosperity, and which he has been so greatly instrumental in bringing about.

In order to understand this subject more clearly, it will be necessary to consider with attention the arguments, which really were made use of, between Mr. Lowndes and Mr. Locke, and particularly those of Mr. Locke, in whose treatise (setting aside some trifling errors on the abstract subject of money) the whole affair is clearly explained. The true state of the Currency then was much as follows:

In William the Third's Reign (according to Locke,) {silver was the legal money, and standard of value. The gold coins were then permitted to pass, or to find their value in the silver money by an agio, or at whatever people pleased to give or to take for them, the Guinea usually passing for 21s. 6d. in the legal silver money. From 1690 to 1697 was a period of continental wars, and it was in the early part of William's Reign, that the Bank of England was first established, and the paper money and funding systems began.

To go into the detail of all the transactions of those periods as connected with the subject of money, would occupy too much time; but it may be necessary to refer to some of those transactions, in order to form a more correct idea of the cause of the then debased state of the currency, and of the effects, which such debasement, and the subsequent reformation of the money, had upon individuals and upon the general prosperity of the country.

During that war, in consequence of subsidies and payments abroad, the balance of payments and the exchanges became unfavorable to this country; this balance could only be made good by the transmission of bullion or coin, consequently as long as this unfavorable balance continued, no bullion would have been brought into this country to remain in it, or to be taken to the Mint to be coined into money; but what did arrive from Spain or from America, was immediately bought up for exportation to the Continent, at a price above the price paid by the Mint, to coin into money.

The Mint price at that period, was 5s. 2d. an ounce for silver and 778. 10 d. an ounce for gold, and the exportation of the coin of the Realm was prohibited under severe penalties. Consequently, as long as the balance of payments continued against this country, a demand for bullion for exportation would continue also, and silver bullion would then bear a price above the value of the coin, as much higher as would cover the risk of the illegal exportation