Part 5

That which encourages the Importation of any Commodity is the Certainty and Quickness of a Market at a good Price.

But notwithstanding Silver is dear in England, at present we are but dull Traders for it.

For the Mint and the Silver-Smiths being the chief Buyers, these cannot go to Market.

The Mint cannot afford to buy and sell to lose; if an Ounce of Silver cost the Warden of the Mint 6 s. 5 d. he can’t afford to make a Crown-Piece of it.

And the fear of Plate’s being call’d in, to the Disadvantage of the Owner, puts too great a Damp upon the Silver-Smiths’ Trade.

And the actual calling it in, upon such Terms, would very little mend the Matter; People will not be very fond of buying more, for fear at least the same Trick should be serv’d ’em twice.

And yet our Coin being altogether insufficient, we must provide for a considerable Quantity more.

The Quantity we want must be imported according to our Occasions, or what we have already, be augmented, by altering the Species, or by coining out our Plate.

It cannot be soon enough imported in such great Quantities as we at present want, and yet if we could immediately buy it from abroad, we could not afford to coin what we buy, without altering our Coin from the old Standard, seeing our Necessity of having it, will make its Price rise abroad.

Therefore I shall refer what I have more to say, concerning Importation, to the Chapter of Exportation, and first speak of altering our Coin, for ’tis evident we must alter our Coin, as well as coin our Plate, or otherwise our Plate will last us but a little while, and in the mean time we may admit this Conclusion.

That England must be as good a Market for Silver as other Countries, or we shall have little imported, be it never so plentiful abroad.

CHAP. IV. Of Altering our Coin.

There are Three Ways of altering our Coin.

I. First, By not altering the Species of the Money, but the Value of it, as making a Crown Piece go for 6 or 7 s.

II. Secondly, By diminishing the Matter, but leaving the same Name, and there is no essential Difference between these two Ways.

III. Thirdly, by abasing the Fineness with more than ordinary Allay.

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.

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.