Part 4

But if the Buyers of Land, as the Merchants, Bankers and Scriveners are, were Sellers too, we should find Land rise in Proportion to every thing else.

And whereas you’ll say that Farmers and Grasiers are no Merchants, and wou’d be as well contented with passable Coin as old Standard, ’tis very true, but they keep up to such Prices as their whole-sale Chapmen can afford to give ’em; and when a Factor sells his Cloth at Blackwell-Hall; he considers the Necessity of the Buyer, as well as Expence of the Clothier; when a Merchant can make a better Profit, ’tis expected he should give a better Price.

But this with some unthinking People is the Effect of War; and because some things are dearer upon this Account than others, therefore every thing else that is dearer must have the same Cause assigned; but a general Cheapness of things should, methinks, be the Natural Effect of our War, if our Money with which we go to Market were as it should be.

The War consumes but little of our Product and Manufacture; it carries a great many Mouthes into Flanders, and that would naturally make Provisions cheap: Many of these Mouths had idle Hands, and so they are not miss’d in the Manufacture; but instead of them, a great many industrious Foreigners come among us who eat little and work much.

The Taxes, as I said, are great Inducements to Frugality, and the Advantages People have of late made of Money, have been no less.

These and other such like things if the Price of Gold and Silver had not risen, must have occasion’d a Fall of most other Commodities.

And now let us consider the Danger of the high Price of Gold as it stands at present.

Coin is the most portable Commodity, and Gold the most portable Coin; but we have run it up high, and therefore do’nt at present fear Exportation; but then, if ’tis considerably higher than among our Neighbours, there is great Reason to fear too great an Importation may be as dangerous, as a disadvantagious one doth already prove.

It seems to me so curious and nice a Commodity that always there may be Danger in it.

If in the great Thirst that’s now upon us, we take in too much that will occasion a still more dangerous Rise of Silver: For considering the present Balance of Trade, the more Gold is imported, the less there will be of Silver; and if we import too little, we leave our selves destitute of a Way of Trading.

And if the Gold which is our present Support, should by the Craft of Foreigners, or necessities of the War follow the Silver out of the Nation, we should be left, I doubt in a very bad Condition.

And if its Value should rise, as it must needs do if the Silver Coin grow worse and worse, then by how much it rises, by so much more all the Inconveniences and Dangers of its late Rise among us will encrease.

What those Dangers are at present is no great Mystery, the English Merchants will make none of it if they may be heard.

The melancholly Letters which their Factors abroad daily send ’em makes the Case plain.

That a Guinea in Holland and Flanders is now but 26 s. or to speak more properly and plainly too, so many Rials, or Dolars and Stivers as bear Proportion to 26 s. of our Money.

At that Rate they there buy our Guineas of Officers, which they can’t be hindered carrying over in their Pockets; then the Holland and Flemming Merchants send back to us the same Guineas to buy therewith our Staple Goods and Manufactures.

Here they are received at 30 s. And their Factors here, who buy our Manufactures as cheap of the Clothier or Stocking-Seller as our own Merchants, send back for 1000 Guineas. (for Instance) Received from Holland 1500 Pounds worth of our Goods, which when the Dutch or Flemming Merchant receives, he finds by his Accompts that these Goods stand him in no more than 1300 l. So that he has received beyond Sea the like Goods for 1300, &c. which hath stood our English Merchant in 1500 l. The English and Flemming Merchants then ship off each their Goods for Spain, Turkey, the East or West-Indies, and there they go to Market to sell these Goods, and the Flemming under-sells the English 13 per Cent. even in these Commodities which are the Product of England.

And now what is the plain Inference? but inevitable Ruine to the whole Trade of the Nation. Here’s an End of Merchandise, and (in Time of Peace) all Use of Shipping.

This I think is the natural and the present Effect of the Rise of Guineas.

But to return to my proper Subject, fare it as it will with Gold, the current Silver Coin of England is, by 3 Parts in 5 too little for our In-Land Trade, and must ruine in Process of time all those Traders who are wont to make several Returns of their Money in a Year; for the Scarcity of Money occasions the giving of longer Credit than is usual, and the giving of Credit hinders the Frequency of Returns.

Again, the Want of Silver Coin occasions the taking of Gold at such high Rates; and the Value of Gold Coin being uncertain, which Silver Coin hath not hitherto been, the Receiver will always allow himself for a probable Loss: (which would be the certain Effect too of making the Valuation or Silver Coin alterable and uncertain) that Allowance makes things bought so much the dearer, and that Dearness puts a Damp upon Trade.

So that the Scarcity of Silver is not only at present too visible, but so long as the Balance of Trade is lightest on our Side, is like to be more and more felt.

Yet the great Naval Stores we buy from abroad, the great Remittances to be provided for the Subsistence of our Armies and Fleets, are things inevitable, and ’tis impossible to hinder the Exportation of Bullion.

But ’tis very easie to hinder the Exportation of Money.

And as we shall do well to consider, that altho’ our Plate may serve us once at a dead Lift, as the French King show’d us the Way, yet it can’t serve us above once, and when that’s gone after the rest of our Silver, what are we to do next?

We must not only stop a present Gap, but provide for the future, and so I lay it down as a Conclusion.

That we are under a very great Want of Silver Coin to carry on the necessary Trade of the Kingdom.

CHAP. III. Of the Importation of Silver.