HISTORICAL and POLITICAL Essays or Discourses ON Several Subjects: VIZ. 

Money,  
Government,  
Peace,  
War,  
Trade,  
Arts,  
Navigation,  
Exchange,  
Usury,  
Banks.    
WITH Other PROJECTS for the Improvement and Raising the Credit of MONEY and TRADE, in all Parts of the World; but more particularly, relating to England.  
In a LETTER to a Noble PEER.  
LONDON: Printed for W. Chandeler, in the Poultry; and T. Scott, in Cranbone-street, Leicester-fields. 1698.   

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.  
THE Author of this Treatise, whom I have not the honour to know; whether through Infirmity, or by Engaging late in the Argument; seems to stand in need of an Apology with the Public, for not appearing earlier abroad, before the Subject had been so far canvased. Wherefore, the Reader may please to take Notice, That if he has not present leisure (amidst the warmth of Debates now on foot upon this Theme) to read and weigh the whole Discourse, in the Method wherein it is written, he may turn to Page 79, where the Dialogue gins; which discourses and applies the whole Argument to the immediate great Question; namely, The Causes and Remedies of the Disease of our Coin.   

A DISCOURSE OF Money, etc.  
My Lord,  
YOU command me to give you my judgement on this difficult Subject of Money, without Reflecting I fear, that as the Task is too great for my Forces, so the time you have allotted me is too little for the work, though my capacity and talents were never so promising.  
I am under a further difficulty by coming thus late into the Dispute, when others (who besides their being better able, and having better means to acquit themselves) have exhausted the Argument; so that the most I shall be able to do will be but a Gleaning after their Harvest.  
Under these disadvantages then of being constrained to take another method than I would choose were I left to my liberty; of avoiding to speak to many Points, as having been very pertinently spoken to already; and of going out of the beaten Road to find out something that may be thought new, entertaining, or instructing: If, I say, under these difficulties I shall chance to succeed in my attempt, and afford your Lordship the least addition of Light to the Knowledge you possess in most Subjects, I shall be very well pleased whatever pains it may cost me to obey you. Leaving it entirely to your Election, whether a Child of so weak a Father may be of strength to be adventured abroad and see the World or no.  
With this short Preface, and under the shelter of this just Apology, I proceed; purposing to observe a little more or less the following Method.  
I shall first Discourse generally, and go a little into the History and Antiquity of Money.  
Then I shall endeavour to show the the Reasonableness and Utility of the Institution and Invention of Money.  
I should have looked a little into the History of the Coin and Mint of England, which would have been necessary, but I perceive that is already well and painfully performed to my hand, by one who is both better able, and can have recourse to better means to do it; and therefore I shall therein be silent.  
I shall Essay to show in the expounding my Subject, how and when Money may be Useful and Currant, and answer all the Ends of that Invention without containing any real or intrinsic Value.  
I shall endeavour to explain the meaning of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Value, and show their Use, and how it came to pass that from making Money of worthless things, and base metals, Men came to Coin Gold and Silver; and on that Article shall endeavour to explain and assign the Proportion of the Intrinsic Value of Money, and determine the precise difference there ought to be between the Intrinsic and Extrinsic, or Political Value.  
I shall proceed to inquire into the Evils and Maladies incident to Money, and the mistaken Politics of some Nations (especially the Spaniards) therein, to the great Grievance of the People, the Dishonour, Damage, and Danger of the State.  
I shall discourse of Dearness and Cheapness of Money, and Things; which cannot be understood without reference to Money, and a comparison rightly stated between them.  
I shall mingle my Speculations on this Subject with Historical and Political Remarks, and frame perhaps, or suggest Schemes of ancient Government, to illustrate and explain difficult Questions, as they may occur about Money.  
I shall necessarily Treat of Government, Peace, War, Trade, Arts, Navigation, Exchange, Usury, Banks, and Money Projects, etc. as they tend to the Explication and right Knowledge of my Subject.  
In short, I shall travel necessarily over a great deal of ground, and endeavour to remove many rubs in my Passage before I can fairly come to my Journeys end; which is, to Establish a right Notion (at least my conceptions) of Money; and to propose a Remedy of the Evil under which the Nation at this day Languishes, on the occasion of the present Corruption and lamentable State of the Coin of this Kingdom.  
I may perhaps go into sundry other particulars which I have not here recited; and it may be those I have may not fall out in the order herein above specified: but I trust I shall no where be understood to go industriously out of my way to meet any foreign or offensive Matter in the course of my Design, which is to treat my Subject intelligibly, pertinently, and as becomes an English man, uninfluenced by any consideration that might be thought to bias my Love and Veneration to my Country.  
The Use of Money is of very great Antiquity, as ancient as History at least; whence may be gathered, that mankind had very early Notions of the blessing of Society, and therein of improving their common ease and intercourse, by inventing and subsistuting something that should render their Commerce one with another more practicable and beneficial, than by Barter or Exchange of one Commodity for another: Perhaps too it was consistent enough with the Virtue and Simplicity of the first Ages of the World, to Coin their Money of Iron, Brass, or other inferior matter or metals, which had very little, or no Intrinsic Value, but was made Currant, and received an Extrinsic or Political Value from the Stamp and Authority of the Prince or State, within whose Territory it passed and was received, but could be of no use without the Bounds of that Power by Virtue whereof it received that currant Value; because the profit accrueing by the coinage of base Metals being taken and assumed by the Prince, it became a Prerogative and Mark of Sovereignty; and as all Foreign Coin was therefore forbidden to be received, so it became Penal by that means to the Subject to imitate or falsify it, as being from thence, I suppose, justly called the Kings Coin.  
But as the Ambition of Princes, Luxury and Avarice grew in the World, the love of Money, and the desire to accumulate Wealth to compass the means and gratify the ends of our depraved Appetites increased. But because Ambition, which aims at Extent of Power and Dominion, could not be furthered but by Foreign helps of Power and Means, by Armies and Provisions of War; because Luxury and a voluptuous Life grew too great to be assuaged by the Native Growth or Product of our respective Climes and Countries; because the Avaricious Man, whose Vice is merely to hoard and heap up Riches, perceived that Money in those early days had little or no Intrinsic Worth, having but a nominal and arbitrary Signification; it being in the power of the Prince or State to alter its value: He therefore coveted by all possible means to possess something else not so liable to loss by accident, emergencies of State, or caprice of Princes; such as should contain a solid unalterable, independent Universal Approbation. Which, in short, is what we mean by Intrinsic Value.  
From these Causes then, and to answer the Ends aforesaid, we may fairly conclude, that those two noble and universally esteemed Metals of Gold and Silver obtained to be Coined and Manufactured into Money; which from thence is properly called Treasure.  
From the use then of Brass, Iron, or other base Coin (which having little or no real Value, and therefore had no Virtue beyond the Extent of that Authority which made it pass.) Men came from a Domestic (as I may say) to meditate on an Universal Coin; whereby their Intercourse might be spread beyond their own Frontiers; such as might obviate all the difficulties of Traffic in the World abroad; as namely, when by their native Fruits or Manufacturies by way of Barter, whether for Luxury or Necessity they could not easily be supplied, they might have present recourse to, to remove that difficulty, and facilitate their Intercourse; because with Money we may purchase every thing, but every thing, and very often many things, do in some conjunctures chance not to be Moneys-worth. Thus did Money by being made of Gold and Silver, and from no other cause, obtained that Virtue, and acquired the Reverence that it has in the World.  
If Intrinsic Value then appears so necessary, and that the more any thing contains of that Virtue which entitles it to the general Esteem, the greater right it will have to our Veneration; it is a plain consequence, that the purer and perfecter the Coin of a Kingdom is, the more acceptable and popular it will be; for as the plenty and scarcity of good Blood in our Natural Bodies, which by infinite and almost inperceptible Channels is conveyed and distributed to the remotest Members, establishes a good or bad Constitution: Such is the Treasure of the Body Politic, the strength and weakness, health and infirmity, whereof (to pursue the Parallel no further) is founded on the plenty or scarcity, perfection or impurity of the Coin. Wherefore I will take for granted, that I shall not be censured for spinning my Speculation too fine, if I briefly enumerate as they occur to me the Benefits accrueing to the Commonwealth, by a wise and scrupulous care in the Regulation of our Mint, whereby a just, rich, unadulterate Coin may be established and preserved.  
First, I observe that Arts will flourish with greater Lustre and Perfection; and Industry, the Child of Art and Mother of Riches and Plenty, will by this means be pursued and cultivated; in as much as Labour, which is the Original of Property, will grow more in Use and Fashion, in proportion to the value of the Reward. People at this Day do not Barter for Beads and Shells, but will expect a Pennyworth for their Penny; and as it is a mark of Slavery, so is it the means of Poverty in a State, where the Magistrate assumes a Power to set what Price he pleases on the Public Coin: It is a sign of Slavery, because the Subject in such Case lives merely at the Mercy of the Prince, is Rich, or Poor, has a Competency, or is a Beggar, is a Freeman, or in Fetters at his Pleasure; for a Man may enjoy enough to Day, and more than will suffice to pay his Debts, and to Morrow a Decree of the Prince, or a Proclamation of the State, to serve perhaps some sorry present Public End, may declare him a Bankrupt. 'Tis a cause of Poverty, because Arts and Industry by this means lose their Appetite, sicken into Sloth, and sink by degrees into Misery; for where People labour for uncertain or little Gain, the Edge of growing Rich is taken off, Poverty grows into a Habit, and every laudable Profession falls into Contempt; as it is at this Day in Spain, which we behold fallen from a flourishing State into the most abject forlorn Condition, that it is possible for a free unconquered Kingdom to sink to; much of whose Misery being, I am persuaded, owing to their want of a due Penetration into matters of Money, wherein no People play more at fast and lose. I say, all laudable Arts grow in proportion to the Reward; but Gold and Silver, which have obtained a real universal value, is a solid unchangeable unarbitrary. Recompense: Wherefore the finer and purer your Money is, the more it will charm and incite to the use of those Means that conduct Men to the Possession of it.  
The Species of Gold and Silver will by this means be propagated, and increase in proportion to the Industry and Application of the People to obtain it; because the Species growing more in demand, the use of it will spread wider; and the more any thing is in request, the surer we are of its increase, by People's engaging in a more general and ardent Endeavour to possess it.  
The plenty of Gold and Silver which grows from a pure and rich Coin, will raise the Value of your Land, which is the Natural Wealth of the State, as Treasure is the Artificial; for, as low Interest springs from the plenty of Money, so Land, which is the solid Foundation of that Security, which insures the Property of it to the Lender, and which can never increase or diminish in Quantity, must indisputably rise and fall in Value according to the plenty or scarcity of your Treasure, which will be ever liable to Ebbs and Floods, while States are obnoxious to Revolutions, by Sedition, War, Famine, Pestilence, or the like.  
The raising the Value of your Land, tends to the Improvement of Husbandry and Tillage; for People, otherwise never so heavy, have a quick Sense of the Profit of their Labour, and will bestow their Cost and Pains in proportion to the Worth of the Subject-Matter and the Benefit they gather from their Industry: This will multiply Husbandmen, and propagate a hardy and useful Race of People, the least Lucrative, the most Innocent and Profitable of all others to the State whether for peace or war.  
The love of Riches and desire of Gain thus growing upon us, becomes a greater incitement to engage in all sorts of Difficulties, to despise Perils and decline no means whatever that are likely to conduct us to our profit.  
Hence Navigation the Nursery of our native Strength, the Rock of our Safety, the Source and Foundation of all our Wealth, Power and Prosperity, becomes cherished and improved, and all the incident Arts of that noble and useful Profession cultivated and enriched; and how many hands are Employed; how many Trades and Professions subsist and increase by the the Art of Shipwrightry alone, exclusive of the Profits flowing to us by our Navigations, is too well known to need my Observation here.  
Let it be further remarked, that where your Money is pure, your Coin beautiful and perfect, People will be won to value it in Proportion; and when Interest is low, which is ever a sign of Riches, when it chances to fall of itself, as it will be a means whenever it shall be made so by a Law. When good Security is hard to find; when Men (of which sort there are many) have scruples about Usury, and some there are also who want Assurance to adventure great Sums of Money out of their hands: When these and the like Motives, I say, shall happen where the Coin of a Kingdom is Pure and without Blemish, People will be encouraged and invited to hoard and coffer up their Treasure, in proportion to their Plenty, as there is no doubt Men do their fair Money at this day, on the occasion of the present lamentable Corruption of our Coin. Which Money so reserved and laid up, shall give no Impediment to Trade and the general Commerce of the Nation; because it will be no other than as it were the over-flowing of our Wealth: And whenever it should chance that scarcity of Money might be justly ascribed to such or the like cause, the Mint when it is set on a right Basis (as shall be shown by and by) will be ever at hand to supply that want. Nor is it likely any such Sums so Treasured up, can lie longer hid than during the Lives of the Possessors, which, at their death at farthest, becomes spread and distributed amongst their Heirs, and takes its course again in the Common Currant-Channel of Business.  
By thus laying up and hoarding a proportion of our superfluous Wealth, how eagerly soever over anxious Misers, and Men of Worldly Minds may contend to the contrary, may, I am persuaded, without a Paradox, be made intelligible enough to be a means of increasing the capital Stock of National Treasure, though it lie useless and yields only the present pleasure of Possession to the injoyer. And how laudable it would be, and of what mighty Consequence it might prove to the Glory, Power, and Felicity of a Nation, (and especially ours) to have the Mastery of an immense Treasure spread and distributed among Myriad of wellminded Subjects, who having it in their power, it will be odds but it will be always in their Will too in any emergency of Danger or Distress of the State (which is the bottom wherein all their Treasure is embarked) to part with each Man his proportion to the Prince, thereby inableing him to save the whole. I ask then whether this would not be more eligible to a Thinking Man and an Englishman, to be always in a capacity of obliging and gratifying a good Prince, by the most signal and substantial Expressions that may be of his Duty and good Will: which is parting with his Money to serve and support him; whereby a perpetual concord betwixt Prince and People is preserved, good Laws obtained, and every Grievance cured or prevented. Than on the other hand, for a Nation to be unblessed with a covetous ambitious Ruler, who is himself a hoarder up of Treasure, and who by great Parsimony, and perhaps for dangerous Ends shall be able out of his standing Revenue, in a few years, to engross and become Master of all the Money in the Kingdom, where it must lie as dead and useless as in the most concealed Coffers of the People, or be converted to other uses than those for which it will be given, when regularly demanded and appropriated. We behold the superfluities of most Men's Estates to run out into Jewels, Plate, and rich Movables; all which in time lose of their Value, and become for the most part of damage to the owner. Now if to gratify their Vanity, and for bare Ostentation, Men will yield to this Expense: How much more Praiseworthy would it be, and turn better to Public and Private Account, for every wealthy Man, by cureing his mind of the anxious Thoughtfulness of letting Money lie dead by them, as they call it, to have always a proportion of their Store so laid up in good Money, which as it may be lodged with more safety, so is it kept with better Fruit; for as the making costs him nothing, so the owner loses nothing by the Fashion whensoever he parts with it, as in his Plate, and most other things of Value he doth; almost every thing besides becomes the worse for the wearing, but pure and perfect Coin, which contains its due Intrinsic Value, shall, in all likelihood, be like rich Wine, which acquires Virtue by its Age; for I think it may be proved to a Domonstration, that Gold and Silver is not likely to grow much more plentiful in the world, but in all probability to rise in value according to the growing scarcity of the Species; which I shall endeavour further to explain anon. Furthermore, whatsoever Men have lying by them which they keep not for profit, or show, or present use, they part with more easily, and miss with less pain when it is out of their Possession: Nor is it beyond the prospect of any Thinking Man that such a practice of laying up Money in proportion to our Store, may become a means of propagating the Species of Gold and Silver among us, and so of lowering the Rates of Usury; which would beget a retrenching of the worst and most pernicious sort of Gain of all others in a State, and a borrowing, as I may say, from lazy Avarice, to lend on easier terms to the industrious and painful Merchant, Trades-man and Artificer, etc. whose prime material being Money, when that shall be obtained with less difficulty, they will be enabled to prosecute their useful Callings with more Comfort to themselves, and greater Fruit to the Commonwealth; for let interessed and avaricious Men say what they can to the contrary, when all is done, the Merchant (and consequently every Trade and Mystery depending on our Commerce with the World abroad) must now adays rest contented to Trade and Labour for less Profit than heretofore, for Reasons too long to explain here; from which Consideration, if the Interest of Money, either by a Law, or some other means, does not fall proportionably, our Rivals abroad, who perhaps see better in that medium, or stand in a better Light than we do, may come to convince us of our Error when too late. I say, unless wise and magisterial Remedies be applied, Trade must inevitably decay, languish, and give up the Ghost, and at length the majority of Mankind be reduced to row in the Usurer's Galleys: But this whole Paragraph may perhaps seem superfluous, or be thought too long a digression; wherefore in one word, if sober and well-principled Men would weigh and digest this Proposition, I am in little doubt but they would see Truth or Probability enough in it to win their Approbation, for as it promiseth those good Effects and more than I have enumerated, so like Goliah's Sword, which, tho' it seem to lie by the Walls, it may in time come to be said there is nothing like it; for it may chance to tend towards the cure of that Leprosy whose Contagion is become epidemical; infecting our best and noblest Families, whose Ancestors thought Usury as infamous as Forgery, which, in ancient and more innocent Times, stood branded by the Laity, and censured by the Church. For Usury is no other than a kind of a petty Tyranny, where the Borrower sells himself into Bondage to the Lender, who are for the most part the cruelest Taskmasters in the World: And because Usury was a Burden upon the majority, for the sake of a few, and yielded no increase to the Public Stock, it was therefore forbidden to the Jews by the alwise Lawgiver, God himself; that is to say, among themselves, while to their Neighbours round about (whom they had leave to vex and impoverish) it was permitted them to lend and let out their Money on the hardest terms, the Avarice of that sordid Nation could suggest. In a word, that I may not be thought to declaim while I am so much in Earnest, let me once for all observe to you, That where a Government is easy, where Arts and Industry flourish, where Money abounds, and Trade is encouraged, where Interest is low, and where all those Benefits accrue to a Nation, which we have specified and endeavoured to prove, to be in a great degree the Product of an excellent and well-understood Coin: That State, I say, under such an Oeconomy, shall above all, and to crown their Felicity, increase and abound proportionably in People; such a Country, like a great Market, where every good and needful thing is to be had, shall invite every Body to come; and People will abide and set up their Rest there where they can be most at their Ease. This, as it will further insure our Happiness by augmenting our Strength; so, according to Sir William Petty's reckoning (who was a most excellent Calculator) our Treasure will grow from our Numbers, which is from the Power itself that Protects our Possession of it, by the Proportion of Ten Pounds per Head per Annum for every Man the Nation contains; after which Rule of computing, One hundred thousand additional Inhabitants only, will amount to a Million of pounds' profit per Annum to the Public; and such an accession of Wealth and Power to a Land of Plenty as ours is, that perhaps yields, or may be made to produce Sustenance for double the Inhabitants that now live on it, aught to be in every ones Wish and Aim to compass.  
From my general Notions of Coin, the Original, Institution, Nature and Use of Money, which seemed a necessary Induction towards the due Explication of my Subject, I proceed to observe, That Mankind had no sooner found it necessary, from the Reasons we have rendered, that their Money should contain Intrinsic Value, when their choice of the Matter whereof to make it, fell inevitably on Gold and Silver; from the general Esteem, the Durableness, the Beauty, Ductileness and Purity of those Metals, whereby they became every where more valued among civilised Nations than any other Species; that is to say, a less quantity thereof would be bartered or exchanged for a greater of any other Matter or Metal whatsoever. Now that which contains more value in less compass, is necessarily more worth, will lie in less room, is transported with more ease, concealed and secured from Violence with less trouble, and the Possessor enjoys it with less Hazard and Anxiety.  
Tacitus observes, that the Scythians (otherwise barbarous enough) abounded with Gold: The Reason was plain, they were a Nation always in motion, flying, marching and wand'ring with great Celerity; had no abiding Place, and therefore naturally and wisely chose to be Masters of such a Species of Wealth as they could move, transport, stow, and dispose of most commodiously. From hence then we may conclude, the World came to determine their choice of Gold and Silver, whereof to make their Money, which for the sake of, and in order to that extent of Commerce, whereof they began to have a taste, this kind of Money being designed for perpetual Motion, was more apt for Circulation, and better adjusted to the Uses of Intercourse, than any other whatsoever.  
From the Reasonableness, or Necessity, or both, of the choice Men made of Gold and Silver, whereof to make and coin their Money, it may not be much out of our way to make a short Inquiry into the Original of the Rates and Value of Money; how it became determined how it rises and falls, why and how the Proportion between Money and Things varies, and by what Rules, to attain a right and useful Notion of this intricate Subject.  
Mankind for the Offence of our first Parents was by his Maker Sentenced to Labour; By thy sweat shalt thou live, says the Text; that is, thou shalt Labour or Die. This Sentence as it was the fruit of Original Sin, so it seems to be the Foundation of Original Property: We can have no title to any thing; we can call nothing honestly our own; we can neither be sustained, clothed, or preserve our Being, but by Labour: The Earth, our Common Mother by which we are nourished, will yield us nothing without Labour and Cultivation. I go to a River or a Fountain to fetch water for my use, the water was nobody's, had no Proprietor, and was no more worth than the Labour which I bestowed in fetching it; from whence a natural Right and Property of that water is derived to me, and I may dispose of it to another for so much of something else which he hath and I want, as my labour may be deemed worth. You have Gold and Silver, and I have none; you would employ me for a year in your Service; I am a poor Man who live by my Day-Labour and have but from hand to mouth, as they say. Now 'tis plain, if you compute what Sum of Money will suffice to pay for the Labour that produces all those Species of things that must go to sustain Cloth, and keep me for this term of a Year, that Sum is what I ought to receive for my Wages; and that term being reduced to days, will show what I ought to have per diem for my Service, which in natural Justice is enough. By this Instance of a Contract, we may be enlight'ned in the Notion, Use, and Value of Property, which by no other way can be so easily rated; and by this Rule and no other, we calculate and make our Estimates of the value of Works and Things; namely, by beginning our reckoning from simple and uncompounded Labour; which, I say, is the Original of property, is every Freeman's own, who has a right to sell it for what it is worth; and how that is calculated I have endeavoured to explain.  
The next thing to be sought in this Enquiry, is the Value cumparatively of Gold and Silver, with other things which are bought with Money, namely, how it comes to pass that just so much Money, or such a quantity of Gold or Silver, a little more or less, comes to be a competent Price for such Things or Commodities as we need, and which to supply our Necessities we are obliged to go to Market for and Purchase with Money.  
This Query is in like manner best resolved by an Example, which may show us in one view, how the Value of Money comes to be regulated to such a Proportion with other Species, so as to be consistent with the Ends and Uses of Traffic and Intercourse, to which Purpose it was Originally instituted.  
It is not hard to suppose, that a Thousand Men with their Wives and Families should transport themselves by agreement, to some Spot or Island, as History tells us the Venetians did, and others have done; invited by the Fertility and Bounty of the Soil and Climate, which might be made to yield every thing needful for the supply of their Necessities. We may farther easily imagine, that a due Proportion of People of all useful Professions, were sorted and chosen by joint Consent, whereof to form and compose this little Body of a Republic; every one, as it chanced carrying with him what Treasure he had; which Treasure, in order to their Establishment, is cast into a Common Bank, and destined to the Use of the Community. This Colony we can grant plants its self where they have no Intercourse or Communication with the rest of Mankind, but must live on their own Stock, and be sustained and supplied by their Labour and the Fruit of their own Industry. Now 'tis plain, That with reasonable Men, the first thing they would go about would be to deliberate how, by Laws and Institutions, to establish themselves so as to live at their best Ease. They know the Use of Money, whereof they have a certain Stock in Bank, which being never likely to increase, nor, as it may be managed, is it absolutely necessary to their Happiness that it should; wherefore they devise how to make this Stock of Treasure, be it more or less, to become a certain Fund for Perpetuity, whereon to establish their common Intercourse; in order to which, what is more obvious than first to reckon and determine how many Species of Things, and no more, are or shall be necessary to be had or used for their simple and commodious Subsistence. Next they will calculate what Quantity will be necessary of each respective Kind. And Thirdly, They will find the comparative value of these Species one with another, which is known by the labour each Thing will cost to make and it fit for their Use: For I observe, that every Man's Day-labour must produce his daily Subsistence, or the Community at a long run must dissolve: This being known and established, the next Step, which is very easy to make, is to calculate from the respective Ages of the People, whereof our little Body-Politick is composed, a mean proportional Expense of the abovesaid Species per Annum, necessary to one single Member thereof; that is, how much Labour it will cost to produce all those Particulars that any one single Person shall need or be permitted to consume or expend within the circuit of one Year; to which Revolution I the rather limit it, because within that space the Earth yields her Increase, and the ordinary Changes of Things happen, and it being the great Period by which Time itself is measured: This being obtained, and your Stock of Treasure known, will produce a Rule that will amount to a Demonstration for assigning a Value to your Money. Admit then for Evidence-sake, that your Number consists of Ten thousand Souls, this Ten thousand People will by your Calculation consume a known and certain Quantity of the abovesaid several Species, which will cost such a Proportion of Man's Labour to produce; now upon examination into your Treasure, we will suppose you find just Two hundred thousand Pounds in Bank; divide your Two hundred thousand pounds' Cash by Ten thousand, which was the Number of your People at that time, and the Quotient will be Twenty, which is twenty Pounds in Money; which twenty Pounds must inevitably answer for and be equivalent to the Labour of any one, caeteris paribus per An. then upon reducing your Year into Days, the Product will be about Ten Pence per Diem, and so much was the Day-labour of one Man worth at that time; that is, while your People and your Treasure hold this Proportion one with another; wherefore by this Rule every Member of this Community has a right to receive Twenty Pounds out of the common Stock, to be enabled to bring the Year about: Which will beget a constant intelligible Circulation of your Coin, by you intended to answer all the Ends of Traffic and Intercourse within the circuit of the Year.  
But your People you will say, in so healthful a Soil and Climate, where neither the Sword, Plague, or Famine is likely to diminish them, will soon by the course of Nature multiply, but your Treasure cannot; and in such Case how will your Money, which was but just enough before, suffice then? The Answer to this Objection is easy, and will show us at once the chief Causes of the rising and falling of Money, that is the Dearth or Plenty of the Species of Things which happens in the wide World; where Government comes to be relaxed and Chance for the most part Rules, where Necessity, which is blind, stumbles bless on Remedies and Expedients next at hand, to redress the Evils of our Mismanagement or want of Foresight: But by our Hypothesis there can never happen any such thing as dear and cheap, plenty and scarcity of Money; which I thus prove. I say that your Treasure, which is Two hundred thousand Pounds, and which is not to increase or diminish, is by this Contrivance and Calculation plainly rendered a sufficient Fund to answer all the Ends of Intercourse in this little Republic of Ten thousand People, but your stock of Money being impossible to increase, and very probable that our Numbers of People should; what Expedient can be found to get over this Objection, since by our Calculation the Money you have in Bank is but just enough for the Uses of your present Numbers. Thus, I say, this seeming Difficulty is obviated; after the Revolution of one Year you make a Census, and upon the Roll you find your People increased one in Ten: Hereupon by the same Calculation and Rule of Proportion, you plainly find that Nine Pence this Year in Money must inevitably be worth, purchase and buy in the Market, whatsoever the last Year cost ten Pence; and so, if your Numbers come to double, that which originally cost a Shilling, must then cost but Six Pence: The like Rule serves in Case of the dimunition of your People, by which means your Money shall, by exact Methods of Proportion, be preserved in a due and perpetual Balance with the Species it is to purchase; and the Price of Labour by the same Rule regulated and duly stated, and your Stock of Treasure, by this means, becomes an everlasting unexhaustible Fund, to answer all the Uses of the Government. And there is no doubt but by this manner of Calculation, or some way like it, the Law of Assize was found and established, whereby every needful thing was yearly rated and set at a certain Price, which in frugal States is still practised, and it were to be wished it were every where more in Fashion.  
I am well ware that Projectors, Money-mongers, Bank-Brokers, and petty Dealers in Politics, will be apt to take this Argument by the wrong Handle, and be very earnest and in pain to show me a thousand Errors in my Hypothesis; but these Gentlemen may please to understand, that as I am not conscious of any Talents in the Politics, so neither is it my Purpose to wade in so deep Water, a depth I know so much above my head; let it suffice, that by this Scheme of a little State, where Religion, Justice, Innocence, Temperance, and Industry are the Basis, the Building may stand, and Rules may be calculated to a Demonstration for its Perpetuity. And the farther Men wander by Ambition, Violence, Luxury, Avarice, Sloth, and the like Irregularities, from the Innocence and Simplicity of this Original, the harder it is to conceive and propound Remedies for the Evils such Errors produce. Wherefore, as we know an Unite to be the beginning and simplest of Numbers, yet find too, that it is the Basis of the Pyramid on which Arithmetic itself stands and is sustained; so upon the simplest and least compounded Government, the Unite, as I may say, of a State, unmixed and clean from all Infection of the Corruptions of humane Frailty; we can best build our Speculations when we have a mind to amuse ourselves on the Subject of Laws and Government, because 'tis to that Fountain alone which we can safely resort for Succours in the greatest straits of our Meditation, deriving so much Light from the Reason and Evidence contained in a simple, sound, regular Form of State, which is governable and durable to a Demonstration; I say, we may be best aided in our Notions by reference to this Original, when our Thoughts are busied about any other Form, how diversified, distressed, or diseased soever: And for this Reason, and no other, have I conceived and produced this Pattern, which serving my Purpose to exemplify the Facility of obtaining a due understanding of my Subject of Money alone, affords no just Latitude for Critics to busy themselves about any collateral Reflections.  
From this principal Rule then being taught to make a general Judgement of Money, its Nature, Use and Properties, we may with ease be supplied with Reasons sorted to every incidence of that Subject; as namely (to mention a few) why Labour heretofore in England was worth but a Penny a Day, which now is ten or twenty times that Value? Why an Ox that was then sold for a Noble, is now worth Ten or Fifteen Pounds. How it came to pass that such numerous Armies were heretofore paid and sustained when Money was so hard to find, and the like? so that in short, by this clew we may be conducted through all the Labyrinths of our dark and intricate Subject, and from the right Knowledge of the Causes be enabled to take better aim in our Deliberations about the Effects; for as Mankind grew to swerve from those first few rules which were adjusted to the simplicity of Original Government, the love of Ease which is natural, (Labour being a kind of pain, which we willingly shun) introduced Violence; the stronger compelling the weaker to Labour, while he lived at his Ease. Sloth and Idleness thus indulged, begat a taste of Pleasure; Pleasure fructifyed into Luxury and Excess. This gave up the Reins to the Empire of the Passions, which multiplied by the Power they gained, and became so many Tyrants and Taskmasters; which at this day Rule with so much Cruelty over Mankind, and is the Source of all those Vices, Impieties, and Misrule which at this Day infect the World: And how various and diversified, how jarring and discordant soever they may be amongst themselves, do nevertheless all combine and unite in the single Service of this one Idol Money, whose Mysteries, in such a Babel of worship, we are not to wonder should be so hard to unfold.  
By these Encroachments then upon the Liberties of right Reason, through the growth and corruption of our Appetites, which begat so many deviations from the first Standard simple Maxims of Government, here by me, for Illustration sake, propounded; we may by Analogy and Comparison be furnished with Helps in our Judgement on every Doubt about this entangled Subject: As the Jews heretofore had recourse to the Sanctuary, where all their Original Standards of Coins, Weights and Measures were lodged, and from that Reason I suppose they were called the Shekel, the Balance, and the Cubit of the Sanctuary. Pursuant then to our Method, let us inquire what can be thought to disturb the Tranquillity of our little Commonwealth: To which I answer, That nothing (humanly speaking) but a departing from, or a relaxation of that Strictness of Order and Discipline on which their Prosperity was founded: And this may spring from infinite Causes, but I will instance only one or two; and first, by Ambition from without or within, by invading of their Neighbours, or by their invading them: This arises from Injustice, which infers Hostility, and Hostility introduces Violence of every kind, whereby the Balance becomes broken, and the Harmony of our little State threatened with Dissolution. But, to go no further than one single abstracted instance of this Vice of Ambition, let us suppose a tenth part of the Number which composes our Colony to be destined to the War: Is it not evident, that if one Man out of ten shall be taken from the Plough, or any other civil Occupation, and diverted to other Uses, foreign to the Original Establishment, who shall be thereby exempted from the Labour and Duties incident to his Membership of a peaceable State, that the remaining Nine must by their Labour produce the Subsistance of Ten? This I think is plain, and from hence, as the disproportion increases, Scarcity, Poverty, and Necessity are introduced; for the Labour of the Industrious becomes at length too little to sustain and provide for those who live excused from Labour, and who must subsist whether they contribute towards their Subsistence or no: Whereupon Despair, Desertion, Depopulation, and every evil Incident to War ensues. Hence then, I say, doth Ambition (which is a Dropsy of the Mind, the thirst whereof is increased by the possession of what it most covets to assuage it) makes a Breach in our Establishment, and urges a recourse to other Means and Methods than were originally necessary to the well-being of the State; and thus Treasure becomes needful, is more sought after, and consequently more scarcy and more worth: For, as the wise Man saith, Money answers all things; so is it most true, that it becomes the only Plaster to all the Sores that are made and fester through the malignity of this dangerous Disease, Ambition; and tho' civil Necessities should clamour never so loud, 'tis not heard amidst the clashing of Arms and Noise of Cannon, for Military Wants press to be relieved like Spanish Beggars, with their Hand on their Sword, and plead a stronger Title to our Compliance than any other Demand, how needful and just soever: And this indeed is the Root and Original of men's desires to acquire Riches; because they would be out of the Power of those Accidents which threaten their Repose, and cover to possess so much thereof as they conceive may suffice for themselves and others. But this Fund, whether Public or Private, has a Bottom, and while the Cause continues the Effects grow every Day less and less supportable, and in the upshot, as I have shown, terminates in Misery and Desolation. Thus we behold, how by this single Instance of Ambition, which is an Enemy to our Establishment, the Order and Oeconomy of our supposed Commonwealth is broken, and the State runs to ruin; because the Means that are to minister to it have Limits, but Ambition has none.  
Avarice, which is an irregular love of Money, arising from a false Fear of Want or Poverty, and grows into a habit of accumulating Riches, from an over-anxious observation of the straits People are often driven to, by men's breaking through the Boundaries of good Government, is another Evil, of pernicious consequence to the very Essence of the Establishment we have erected; for, let it be supposed that Usury alone, which is the Darling and Firstborn Evil of this Vice, should chance (by indulging this Error) to be introduced, (without mention of manifold other Mischiefs which attend it,) and that there were but ten Jews or Money-Mongers, with each one hundred Pound in his Pocket, admitted into the State, and these Misers had leave to lend their Money at Ten per Cent. per Annum Interest; what think you would be the Consequence of this Violation of our Establishment? Why plainly this, That in fifty or threescore Years the Usurers would become Masters of all your Treasure; that is, your whole Stock of two hundred thousand Pounds, Original Money, would within that space of time centre in their Coffers; which is true to a Demonstration.  
I might enforce manifold Instances of the Fruit of Misgovernment, and by recurring as occasion should be given to our original Form of a little Commonwealth, show by plain Political Arithmetic, and evident Calculation, how and by what proportions Error prevails, and by what Steps the Body Politic sickens and dissolves; as, namely, through Sedition, Luxury, Prodigality, Sloth, and the like, but these may suffice for Samples, whereby to explain my general Notions of Money, which I thought a necessary Induction to the Question under debate.  
I come now to draw Use from the Doctrines I have delivered: Wherefore to apply them to our present Case, I observe our Government in the present Conjuncture, to be under two very pinching Difficulties about Money; the one, from the exorbitant present Occasion for the consumption of our Treasure; the other, from our Coins being so abominably adulterated, diminished, and abused. As to the First, I am not qualified to determine what the Nation can spare: But, for the Second, I am sure I may say, it is more than we can possibly bear. I will not therefore presume to meddle with the Merits, or enter into the Necessity of the one, as not being mine; but the Business of the Great Council, now met, by whose Wisdom that important Question ought to be discussed; but, in the other Point, I conceive it can give no reasonable distaste to interpose one's Opinion, who by being an unbiass'd Observer, may, 'tis likely, stand in a Light proper enough to discern; whose Tongue being untied by the danger he sees, may have a little Right to lend a word of Warning to divert an impending Stroke, whereof he is sure, when ever it lights, to have a share of the Smart: Wherefore let me take leave to say, without meaning the least Offence or Injury to any single Man, and for no other End than to set a , whereby to shun this Rock for the future; that had our Pilots looked well out, this heavy Disaster, under which the Nation grieves, had never befallen us; being a Mischief plainly begotten for want of foresight of those in Authority, and was propagated to the dangerous degree wherein we now behold it, by the Villainy and guilty Practices of Goldsmiths, Bankers, Refiners, and Money-Brokers, etc. who have been Gainers, Incouragers, Receivers, and Pourveyors to this abominable Crime; and consequently, all Sharers in the guilt of so much Blood as the severity of our Laws hath drawn to punish it; of the present Sufferings the Nation is under in the Consequence, and of the Expense of the Remedy, which will be very great when ever we go about it.  
Being now, after a longer Voyage than I intended, arrived within view of my Port, and consequently obliged to steer my course with more caution than in the wide Sea of Generals was necessary, I shall therefore I think do best right to the subject I am treating, by resolving the whole matter now resting to be debated into Dialogue, and the rather because I see abundance of questions every where made, and doubts raised about it; I shall therefore digest the remaining and principal part of my Discourse into Question and Answer, viz.  
Question, Why is our English Coin called Sterling?  
Answer, This is doubtful, but the prevailing Opinion is, that Money was first Coined and made a Native of England at a Town of that Name, about the Ninth Century, and was thence called Sterling Money; before which time perhaps the Roman Coin, and that of other civilised Nations, was the Currant Money among us, as Cob's and all sorts of Outlandish Coin go at this day, or very lately did in Ireland.  
Q. Have there been any Alterations made in the Mint of England since this first Establishment; because there is a great deal of talk, and People make much  about the Sacredness of our Standard; and much talk there is about the Mysteries of the Mint, etc.  
A. There have been many Changes, Reductions and Establishments made in the Mint since King Edward the First, whatever were before; in whose Reign the Proportion of the Denarius or Penny, which Originally was the twentieth part of an Ounce, became altered from twenty pence, to twenty six, from thence (as seeming Reason of State perhaps suggested) to thirty two, from thirty two to forty Pence, from forty to forty five, and thence to sixty Pence the Ounce; and this last happened in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; from which time to this day, there has not been I take for granted, the least Reformation made in the Mint by any solemn Public Act of State.  
Q. I desire to be informed what the Motives might be for so many Alterations as you have enumerated; for, methinks, wise Men should not alter and determine in a Case of this Magnitude, without some very well-grounded Reasons.  
Ans. I confess I am to seek for a solid Reason for their so doing, unless it were to propagate the Species, and so spread it wider among the People, by mincing it into so many lesser Parts, to the end every Body, how poor soever, might share in the Pleasure of possessing it; go to Market with more ease, and manage their common Traffic with less difficulty; for, when a Pullet was sold for a Penny, what Species of current Coin could be found to buy a thing that was not worth the twentieth part of a Pullet, I cannot guests; for it is plain, we go to the Shops and the Market at this day, to purchase sundry things, for our Money, that are not the twentieth or the fortieth part of the value of a Pullet; and we have no Reason to conclude but our Forefathers did the same: Wherefore I must give you this for my best Reason, till I can be furnished with a better.  
Q. Would there be any good or harm in changing on, by enacting, for Example, that the Ounce of Standard Silver, that now is established at sixty Pence, should be rated at seventy or eighty Pence, and so forward, as Reason may seem to suggest?  
Ans. If you only mean barely the subdividing your Ounce of Silver into lesser Particles, and do not intent by this Question to put a value, of your own making, upon the Ounce of your Standard Silver, (for that will be the Subject of another great Question,) than I think it would only beget a good deal of Trouble and Intricacy in Business and Accounts, now that the Nation is grown so deeply engaged in Foreign Trade and Commerce: Other good or harm I see none in it; for our Coin is now cast and established into so low a Denomination, that the poorest People have none of those Impediments in their Deal, which heretofore might be thought to vex and encumber them, when their Penny was the twentieth part of an Ounce, which is now grown to be the sixtieth; and when that was the lowest current Silver Coin, saving only that in those days People for their convenience divided that Penny, either by breaking it, or by Scissors, dividing it into four parts; which Species of Money, tho' now almost quite worn out and extinct, has yet within our Memory been pretty plenty, and that was our old thin blind Groats, which I believe, and think I have some reason so to do, were for the most part those original Pence or Denarius', that were coined while the Penny continued to be the twentieth part of an Ounce, and obtained to be called Groats; perhaps from the old Saxon or Danish word Grott, (which is great,) that is, the great Penny; to distinguish it from the latter Penny, which was so much less.  
Q. How long think you Silver-Money, which is in continual use and circulation, may last? For, it is plain, it wears and grows lighter by motion and usage, and at length, without clipping or diminishing by Art, will wear out of itself, and become too light to pass.  
Ans. My Answer to the foregoing Question may be a sort of solution to this, namely, that if those Groats were the old Penny, it is near Four hundred Years ago since that Species was last coined; but this depends much upon the size of your Coin, and the quantity of current Money in Stock and Use, and other Circumstances, of no great moment to mention here.  
Q. I think, however, one good Use may be made of this Observation; and that is, to calculate from thence a little, more or less, by what Proportions current Money may waste, and at length be worn out; for 'tis plain, that by the bare usage, telling, and motion in its Circulation, it will diminish, and at a long run be consumed: Whence we gather, that if there were no other way to destroy it, there must be a supply from abroad to obviate that Evil, how little soever it may seem: Wherefore I pray give me your Opinion therein.  
Ans. If that be the use you would make of this Query, and you but grant me leave to state the Question on the Proportion of our Moneys wearing out in the space of four hundred years, than it is visible that your Stock of Money, without a proportionable Recruit, will, without any other cause, be totally extinct within that space of time; and so by Calculation it will be found to waste after the Rate of a quarter per Cent. per Annum; that is, five Shillings in the hundred Pounds; but than you must suppose it to be all small Money; as there is reason to believe it was in those Days; for I do not know whether Crowns, Half-crowns, Shillings, and Six-pences, are above two hundred Years old, if so much; by which Proportion, at least, it is found, I say, that your Money must be repaired to keep the Balance even. And by this reckoning too we may gather, that our Money naturally and necessarily wastes one eighth part as much as some Nations take for the Interest of their Money.  
Q. Have there not been other kinds of Regulations and Changes made in our Mint, besides those you have mentioned?  
Ans. Yes, several; but let it suffice to mention only one in King Henry the Eighth's time, which Prince, by his Profusions in pompous Living, Spectacles, and vain Wars, being driven to great straits for want of Money, which the Nation could by no means supply: That Prince was made to believe that he might be a very great Gainer by embasing his Coin, namely, (for Example-sake, for I am not sure of the Proportion) by the allowing but Nine Penny worth of fine Silver to the Shilling, and supplying the rest with Alloy, and then telling the People, by his Proclamation, that the new Shilling, which was intrinsically worth but Nine Pence, should pass for as much as the other Shilling, which was worth Twelve Pence; by which means he would save or gain five and twenty per Cent, in the payment of his Debts, and in the pay of his Armies, and the like his Fleets, etc.  
Q. What Objection does there lie against such a Project, when the straits of a Prince or State are pressing?  
Ans. There are manifold Objections, so manifest, so just, and of so great moment, that it would be tedious to enumerate them; which that Prince soon saw, and endeavoured to reform his Error. First, a Prince or State that yields to such Councils is a Bankrupt, and, like a broken Citizen, compounds for his Debts at five Shillings in the Pound loss to his Creditors, and by his or their Proclamation publishes, That all Creditors whatsoever shall lose one fourth part of what is justly owing them; all Landlords one fourth part of their Arrears of Rent, and all Leases for Years to come (to name no more) shall lose one fourth part of their Value; which, as it would be very unrighteous, and a most grievous Injustice, so the Cure which such a Practice might be thought to give to the Disease, would become a much greater Malady, and prove no other than a senseless Chimaera and crude Notion in the addle Head of the Projector.  
Q. But will not the Public Stock of Money by such an Act of State be increased proportionably? And shall not we then buy for Nine Pence what before cost us a Shilling? And, if so, is this a small Benefit?  
A. You are under a mistake, for your Shillings would 'tis true be twelve Shillings then, for nine there was before; but than you don't reflect that these twelve new Shillings will buy no more Bread and Beef in the Market than nine Shillings did when your Money was five and twenty per Cent. better; so that over and above the Folly (not to say Iniquity) of such an Act, there are these further Evils attend it; as Namely, when your Money is commanded to be coined, and currant at the rate of one quarter more than it is intrinsically worth, all your Neighbours round about you, will Coin and furnish your Money from abroad, every ill Man will be Coining it at home, and Coin none but legal Money neither, if they please, because the Profit will be great, without going farther: While yet, the Temptation of greater gain would be likely further to prevail, by debasing your Money yet lower and lower, which they may do without much danger of Suspicion; because when once the public Money comes to be so impoverished with allay, the Beauty and Complexion of your Coin is lost, and then an additional Fraud, of three, four or five per Cent, is not so easily discerned; by which means in process of time, the whole Mass of National Money, shall be in danger of being impoverished into Counters. Furthermore, all this sort of Money which you shall Coin yourselves, you shall lose by in the Coinage after the Rate of Five and Twenty per Cent, which is easy to conceive, by observing to you, that the labour and charge in the Manufacturage of your new Shilling, which is worth but Nine Pence, is equal to that of your old Shilling, which was worth Twelve Pence; so that it plainly appears, that one quarter per Cent. of the charge of the Coinage is thereby lost: Wherefore computing your Coinage at the rate only of Two per Cent. you will be damnified in the charge of the Manufacture, or Re-Coinage of five Millions of Money, the sum of five and Twenty Thousand Pounds at least. In short, such a mistaken Act of Regulation will, in my humble Opinion, amount to little less than a Law to make Clipped Money pass; for it would be tantamount: The Species of Gold and Silver would by this means by degrees vanish from among us; and what farther mischiefs to the State such an Act might produce, a little time would tell us.  
Q. One Question begets another. You lay a great deal of Stress I perceive on your Notion of Intrinsic Value, wherein, (tho' you have already spoken to very good purpose) yet I must pray you to assist me farther in my Notion of it in our present Case.  
Ans. I would not multiply Words, nor confound you with Terms and abstracted Notions of Intrinsic and Extrinsic, but come briefly to my Answer, which I will now limit to the single Question of Money, that being our Theme; pursuant to which, I reply, That Gold and Silver, for the Reasons I have delivered in my general Discourse of Coin, have obtained universally to be the Matter whereof to make and coin Public Money; because those two Metals are every where more esteemed; and, when fashioned into Money, there lying more worth in less room than in other Metals, is thence more adjusted to the Uses of Motion and Circulation; and therefore more proper and aiding towards the Ends of general Commerce; for the sake whereof, and for no other purpose, I conceive it to have been invented and established in the World. I say, Gold and Silver is all the World over of more value, and preferred to most other things, and Men will give you more in exchange of any other Commodity which shall be of greater bulk, weight, or measure than either of these two Species contain in themselves; and if this adds any thing to what I have already said, namely, That whatever has most worth lying in least room, will be generally understood to be specifically more valuable; then Coin made of Gold and Silver, does every where contain most Intrinsic Value. Which Repetition perhaps may seem superfluous.  
Q. By this Corollary drawn from your general Axiom, that Money now adays must have its due Intrinsic Value; I infer, that the more Allay you put into your Coin, or the less Gold or Silver it contains, the less valuable it w●ll be in the Eye of the World, and that it is not the calling a piece of Money a Shilling by a Proclamation that will work any Effect; but, that if your Coin be made generally base or light, it will be rated accordingly; where it will go for no more than what it is intrinsically worth, notwithstanding any Edict to the contrary: For, tho' it is in the Power of the Prince or State, to call a piece of Money a Crown or a Shilling, and to make it Penal for the Subject to refuse it for such; yet we may safely presume, that such an Act of State can never be thought to influence the Seller of any Commodity, who will be still left at liberty to vaalue it according to its real worth. Do I conceive you right, or no?  
Ans. You do; and the Reason is very plain; for Money is the Rule of Commerce, and Commerce is become universal; but it cannot be a Rule if it be not equally calculated and rectified to the Use of the general Good; which is the Honour, Profit, Ease, and Tranquillity of the State.  
Q. Explain a little more your meaning, by calling Money the Rule of Commerce.  
Ans. 'Tis a Rule, because Reason suggested and Custom has established it such; and, without this Rule, Trading People would be ever in the dark, and not know how to make one regular Step in their Business, and consequently, the majority of Mankind would have little or nothing to do without their own Boundaries.  
Q. Open it further, by some Instance or other of Fact.  
Ans. Let it be thus then: A Spanish Merchant observing here in England, that Colchester Bays are at such a Price, and has a mind to send a Parcel into Spain, where that Commodity is in request; but, that he may be under some certainty, he writes to his Correspondent in that Country, to be informed what Price Bays bear there: He tells him, so many Rials a Piece; the Merchant knows the Intrinsic Value of those Rials, and presently reckons whether it will be worth his while to buy Bays here in England (as the Price goes) to send to Spain to be paid for them, as his Factor has informed him they will yield: And by this Rule only he is or can be governed.  
Q. But, do not the Spaniards now and then transgress this Rule, by altering the Price and Value of their Money, and thereby violate this Law of Commerce?  
Ans. Yes, I grant they do, to the very great damage of the Trade of that Country, the distraction and confusion of Accounts, and impoverishment of the Subject; who by that means, whilst they furnish Gold and Silver to all the World, have very little or none Current among themselves, and (as I have observed elsewhere) do manifestly owe much of the Misery they are in to their want of a right understanding of this Mystery; and, were it not for their Mines, and other Profits that arise by that Trade, which make ample amends for this unjust as well as unwise Practice, the Trading World would have no Deal with them.  
Q. But methinks, after all that you have said, it might be compassed by the Wisdom of a thinking well-governed People, to make their Money current on what Terms they please to decree; which may be done by Enacting good Laws of Assize, thereby establishing a determined Rate or Price on every thing: In which Case let your Money be little or great, base or fine, it may be made to suffice for all your Uses.  
Ans. I grant you would have Reason, and might make Nuts and Shells pass for Money, as they do at this day in some Countries, if you were to be secluded from the rest of the World, and would hold no Intercourse without your own Frontiers; but, since by the corruption of our Manners, Mankind has stamped this value on Gold and Silver, their Use is become necessary to our Ease and Safety, and we can neither gratify our Passions and Appetites, nor defend and secure our Peace, Liberty and Possessions without it; insomuch that Treasure of Gold and Silver is become Essential to our subsisting and well-being in the World; and in regard the only means of acquiring it is by our Industry, and the Arts of a wide and universal Commerce, we can have recourse to no other Rule, than by going with the majority in the trodden Track of Business, and bustle in the World abroad, in order to the acquiring those Things which Custom through Vice and humane Frailty has made necessary to our temporal Felicity; wherefore your Law of Assize would here avail little or nothing; while I grant, that in Domestic Matters it may be of great Use for the ease of the Poor, and better Being of labouring and industrious People, who must labour daily to eat their daily Bread: Here I own indeed, that a judicious Regulation of the Prizes of all Things we consume within ourselves of our own growth, would be a means to encourage Industry, and tend even to the Advantage of our Commerce abroad.  
Q. I think you have made it pretty plain now, that if we would be Rich, Safe, and Happy, we must swim with the Tide of the World, and steer the general Course to arrive, at the general Haven; and that pursuant to this End, in the Calculations of our Measures about Money, we cannot wisely determine therein, but by borrowing many Arguments from abroad, where our chief Intercourse lies, and from whence we derive those means, (for they are not, I perceive, of our own growth) which, humanly speaking, can insure our Prosperity.  
Ans. You conceive me right; wherefore, I think, there will need no more Words on this Point of our Debate.  
Q. You told me but now that Money was the Rule of Commerce, which you explained well enough; I would now willingly be informed by what Rules I may be able to make a judgement of Money itself, or of the value of Gold and Silver, whereof Money is made: For, can Money buy itself, or Gold and Silver be purchased with Gold and Silver? This is a little dark to me, and puts me in need of your help to explain.  
Ans. My Answer to your Question is shortly this; That Gold and Silver, which are a Merchandise, the same with Silk, Spice, or any other Commodity which we purchase by Traffic, are of late Years grown more scarce, either by being applied to more Uses, or that the Circle of their Use is become wider; by which means it spreads thinner, and the quantity of the Species by that means appears to be less, and indeed is so, comparing the Use that is now made of them with what was practised twenty or thirty Years ago: Whence the World wanting Gold and Silver more, they come to be more sought after, and so better worth; which is no more than to say, That less of either of them will suffice now than in those Days, to purchase Labour, Bread, or any other Thing we need and would buy with Gold or Silver. Wherefore there is no Impropriety at all in saying, That Silver is become dear; namely, That an Ounce of that Species, which twenty or thirty Years ago was not worth five Shillings, is now risen to be valued at above six Shillings, because as much Silver as would make five current legal Shillings, according to the Standard of the Mint then, aught to produce by that Proportion six such Shillings now. I still use whole Numbers, it not being our business here to insist on rigid Truth of Calculation, but to show barely how every thing is reducible to it.  
Q. Since you have led me thus far in search of this necessary Truth, I would willingly be further instructed by your Reasons, how, and in what manner (by descending to some particular Causes) this scarcity or dearness of Gold and Silver is come to pass in the World; for the true Reason being known and consented to, good use, I do not doubt, may be made to the Public of such Knowledge.  
Ans. The Reasons and Causes of this Scarcity I take to be manifold, I will name but a few, and shall begin with a main Cause; and that is, The long and obstinate War in Europe, whereby, through the Passion and Ambition of Princes and States, the regular established Methods of Business and Intercourse of the World is broken. By Sea there is nothing but Violence, Piracy, and Depradation; whereby the Hands of Industry are weakened; and that great Channel and Roads of the World's Commerce is possessed and beset by Enemies and Robbers; and we here in England chief, who pretend to be in our proper Element, who boast of Conquest and Dominion there, whether by the Violence and good Management of our Enemies, or the Drowsiness or Incapacity, or both, of our own Pilots and Friends at home, whose Duty it is to be more on the watch, and to look better out; have received so many deep Wounds in that tender and mortal part of our Body, that it seems a Miracle how we subsist and survive it; while any one, who should presume to probe and search this Sore to the quick, by nakedly stating the Fact in our Maritime History and Conduct since the War, and tho' it should be never so well meant, and merely in order to the Cure of the Malady, he would be thought, I fear, to give too much Anguish to be endured; and such an Enterprise (let the Purpose be never so honest and inoffensive) would taste too bitter, and look too like a Libel to be suffered to pass uncensured of Authority.  
Thus it is with us by Sea: By Land the War rages more universally, and with greater Violence, tho' not so sensible to our feeling here in England, because our situation has hitherto secured us from Hostilities at our Doors, and our Fields and Farms are not yet foraged and plundered as our Neighbours are; but what we pay, as I may say, to be exempted from such Violence, is almost tantamount, and at a long run will as certainly impoverish and undo us: And we may collect from manifold Symptoms, that our Destiny, without some almost miraculous Means to save us, is not far off. Now to give you a Reason how War impoverishes the World, because captious and sceptical Contenders in such Disputes will be apt to say, What do you mean by broaching such Opinions, and maintaining Paradoxes? Does War annihilate your Money? Is your Gold and Silver dissolved, or gone into the Earth, from whence 'twas taken? This is Malice and Trifling, and nothing else. To these Gentlemen then, and out of respect to Truth and plain Dealing, these few following Reasons, of the chief Causes of Poverty and scarcity of Money by War are tendered; Let us compute by the gross, we have shown that Riches are the Product of Arts and Industry; whence is inferred, That the greater Numbers there are of Men of Business and Traffic, Artisans, labouring and industrious People, which are the procuring Cause of Wealth, the greater will be the Effect. But War is a mortal Foe to Arts and Industry, and consequently produces Effects directly contrary.  
We behold Europe at this day engaged in a bloody and wasteful War, which, for aught I know to the contrary, employs a Million in Arms, besides Horses and Beasts of Burden, destined by Nature's Law to the Uses of Peace and humane Ease, besides some hundreds of thousands who are exercised about Military Matters, as Arms, Ammunition, Stores and Utensils of War, Fortifications, and the like: All which mighty Numbers of Men and Things, are not only employed in the profitable Professions of Peace, but are and must be sustained by purchase, and paid for out of the Sweat and Industry of those that are, who by degrees do not only grow too few for the work, but are over and above Sufferers, and molested a thousand ways in their peaceful Methods of Life, as namely, by the Violence, Rapine, Insolence, and Iniquity of those very People, whom they are honestly, with great hardship, pain and parsimony, labouring to maintain; till at length they come to cut down the very Bough that bears them, and kill the Tree by whose Harbour they were sheltered, and by whose Fruit they were fed. Thus the Land comes to mourn and lie waste, and the Means necessary to the Support of great Armies becoming exhausted; Oppression, Poverty, and Calamity, inevitably succeed. Furthermore, scarcity of Money is begotten in times of Hostility, from great Sums falling into Hands where it is under no regulation, being prodigally and voluptuously employed, squandered and scattered carelessly about; by which means it does not circulate so currently, and make such regular returns into the Public Coffers as in times of Peace, when Business and Traffic is contained within their proper Channels.  
Add to these one very great further 'Cause of the decay and scarcity of Treasure; and that is, the Caution and Jealousy People are put under, every one to save his own private Stake. For when Demands of Public Supplies wax pressing, and Taxes begin to be felt, 'tis very natural for Men to begin to meditate on Self-preservation, to foresee and provide for the Storm e'er it overtake them: Whence those who best can, whose Fortunes principally consist in Money and Movables, withdraw their Effects to Countries as far as they can from Danger; others hid and conceal by a thousand Arts every thing that is Money or Moneys-worth, and cover from the World's Eye every appearance of Wealth; profess Poverty, and practise all the methods of Parsimony imaginable, to disguise and shelter themselves from the Jealousy and Tyranny of Tax-gatherers, and will choose to abide the worst Treatment those cruel Ministers can inflict, rather than discover Money, which they are sure will yield them Comfort in better Times. And this I know to have been the Practice time out of mind, in the Kingdoms of Barbary, where Tyranny reigns with a high Hand, where the least suspicion of Wealth suffices to expose a Man to the utmost Peril; where People therefore live under a perpetual Mask, and no Body enjoys the least good thing, (whatever he may possess) but by stealth, from which Cause (as I have been often assured from the Natives themselves) the better half of the Treasure of those Countries is hid in Holes, and covered under Ground: Insomuch, that it is grown into a habit, even among their Princes, who take a Pride and Pleasure to bury their Gold. This, I say, is another great Cause of the scarcity of Money in dangerous and hostile Times; and, if we may allow but a fifth or sixth part of the Treasure (which would otherwise appear among us here on this side the World) to have been so withdrawn and diverted, there would be no doubt but such a diminution would work a good part of the Effect we are searching after. To these common and evident Causes of the Evils incident to War in general, we may here subjoin why War is of late more Burdensome than heretofore; and that is, by the overgrown Greatness of the French Monarch, that aspiring Prince, who would put a Yoke on the neck of Europe, conceiving that by the force of an immense Treasure, whereby being enabled to bring greater Bodies of strength into the Field, than was ever before practised in our Hostilities on this side the World; he was given to hope perhaps thereby to overwhelm us; which Design, though we see hitherto to want the effect, we are from thence nevertheless instructed in the Causes of this over-burthensome warfare, whereby we are put under an invincible necessity of providing an equal Force, which produces an equal Charge to withstand him, which I thought necessary to Note. Lastly, and over and above the Impediments to our general Commerce, and the Interruption thereby of our general Supplies of what we need, whereby the price of Money is enhanced, and every thing comes harder to us. The Mines themselves of Gold and Silver, I am well assured are exhausted, and yield not the Species in so great Plenty as heretofore; to which, adding the wide use Silver and Gold every day obtains, by spreading further into the North, and the Inland Countries: The great Exportations to the Indies, Turkey, etc. from whence none returns, must to any judicious thinking Man, be concluded to be among the Causes of that general scarcity of Gold and Silver here in Europe, in comparison of what was observed to circulate amongst us in Twenty or Thirty Years ago; which has raised the value of the Species, and begotten that difference in price you inquire after.  
Q. You have sufficiently explained the general Causes of the decay of Gold and Silver in the World abroad, and in gross, would it be amiss to bring the Question home, by ask you, how we here in England seem at least to share a greater degree of the Smart of this Evil than most other Nations? Wherefore, if it would not take up too much room, (for I observe our Subject gins to run into a longer Argument than I expected) I should be glad you would instruct me a little.  
Ans. Your Question is reasonable, and I am ready to gratify you by recounting a few of the many causes of this evil felt by us here at home, in a greater Degree of late than ordinary. I shall begin with Trade, which is a rich, cunning and coy Mistress, must have much Art and Address to acquire, and great Attention and Assiduity to retain when gotten. This Lady seems to have been neglected and ill treated by us of late. We do not, I fear, reflect enough, that her Favours once lost are hardly recovered, because we have many Rivals, who are jealous, wise and wary, and will be sure to stop the least gap we leave, and hit every blot we make in our Conduct. There are loud Lamentations in our Streets on this single Article of Trade: Let Authority be pleased (at whose Door it lies) to lend some Attention to these Cries, and sift and search the Causes to the Bottom, and they will find Sluts Corners enough. Let them in their Debates and Deliberations, take knowing Men to their Assistance, using such caution in their Choice; as that when they would penetrate, and cure the Evils and Errors of one Branch of Commerce, to hear their Reasons with a more willing Ear, who are sufferers by such Faults, than those of others who are gainers by them, be their Parts and Talents otherwise never so Superior. For Interest is a Passion, and Passion is both Deaf and Blind. The Turky-Merchant exclaims against the East-India Company, and these against them, while perhaps both Trades may need Reformation with respect to the Public. The Art is well to distinguish, for Trade, though it be the public Mistress, is courted by particulars for private gain, which may, and do often interfere with the general good, so that there is a less Mystery, and a greater to be discovered, for private Men go as much in the dark, and in cuvert to their profit as they can, and to find out and detect these bad intricate and buy ways, seems to be the behoof of those who would go in earnest upon this work, which requires more Judgement and Pains to execute well, then perhaps is practised by our Physicians. In short, 'tis from this great Fountain Trade, that all our Wealth flows: If that be troubled and infected the Streams cannot be pure; every Branch and Channel will gather filth, run thicker and slower, and in the end the Stream will stand still, and the Circulation cease. But the most visible and grievous Disease, of which our Commerce languishes, seems to me to be the heavy Burdens of all Kind's laid on Navigation, which is the very bottom on which all our Prosperity is built. Surely we should be more cautious if we considered that we are running a Race with our Rivals in Trade; and a Prize of unspeakable Value is set before us, where he who carries least weight is surest to win the Course. Our Newmarket Gentlemen tell us, That barely an Ounce or two in the weight of a Sett of Horseshoes suffices to lose the four Mile Course: Shall we want the Discretion of a Jockey in our Deliberations about the most solemn Thing that belongs to the Government? I could wish this Point were better weighed, that we might discern better, and lay it more to Heart, and that our Friends and Neighbours the Dutch, might be our Teachers and Examples in the Arts and Wisdom they Practise, to further Foreign Trade, in the Ease and Encouragement they give to Navigation; which being the great Wheel that regulates all the lesser Movements of the Machine of Business and Profit; should be watched with a wakeful Eye, that nothing might clog or disturb its Motion.  
Q. While we are on this Article of Trade, I pray instruct me a little in the Mystery of Exchange, which seems to me to have a great influence on Money-Matters; which is the principal Subject of our Inquiries.  
Ans. Your Questions grow harder and harder, and I honestly here own my Ignorance of abundance of Arts, or rather Tricks, that are introduced and practised by crafty Traders in this dark way of Dealing. But thus far I may observe, That Exchange is a kind of Usury, or lending and borrowing Money at Interest, wherein Usance (as they call it) governs, and the Premium is proportioned to the hazard and time of Payment: And, forasmuch, as Credit (on which this Intercourse is founded) is a less solid Security than Land, the Profit thereby does therefore excel that of ordinary Usury. In a word, Exchange is lending and borrowing in one Place to pay and receive in another; and was invented to facilitate the Motion of Commerce, but is grown to an Art of setting the Dice on Necessity, and making every Man fine for his Wants; which is as much as to say, That the more these Money-Dealers are let into the Secrets of your straits, the higher they will raise the Price of your Redemption. Time was when Exchange was regulated here by Public Authority, and established on an exact and solemn Scrutiny into the Nature and Value of all Foreign Coin wheresoever we had any Deal; to the end in exchanging Money for Money, the Par (as they call it) being known and adjusted, (which was the Proportion between the Value of Sterling and Foreign Money) they knew to a trifle th● comparative Intrinsic Difference of their respective Coins, and so rated and governed their Exchange by that Rule, out of a jealousy lest we might part with more of our Bullion for less of theirs in this kind of Intercourse; which, at a long run, might prejudice and exhaust the capital Stock of Treasure. But these wise Cautions are long since ceased.  
Q. But have not you been silent in one very essential Point in the Use of this Mystery of Exchange; as namely, that of being applied to even the Scales and Balance the Inequality that shall at any time be found betwixt our Importations and Exportations, etc.  
Ans. 'Tis true; and therefore something ought to be said here on that Subject: Wherein you may be pleased to observe in few words, that in Trade, when particular Merchants Export more Goods in Value than they Import, or Import more than they Export, the Balance of each Man's Trade is always made up by the help of Exchange; that is, they Lend or Borrow in one place to Receive or Re-pay in another, as I have said. But when a Nation Exports more Goods than Purchase the Goods they Import, they Trade to their Gain, and must receive in Money what rests, to balance the Account. When what they Export is not sufficient so to do, they must then Pay the Balance, and if there be extraordinary Occasions to make Payments abroad, that Debt must needs be increased, and they must pay so much the more, but which way soever the Balance incline, it is made even by no other way but by Bullion, or by Money by way of Exchange. And this I think may suffice for Answer to your last Quaery.  
Q. What is your Opinion of Banks?  
Ans. I have heard long and intricate Arguments pro & contra on this Subject; but as Men for the most part contend more for Victory than Truth, I have not been much Edified by either's Reasons, as not having not been possessed enough of the merits of the Dispute; but he sees least into a Mystery who is least in the secret of the Design. In a Popular and new Erected State where the People's minds are doubtful and fluctuating, I think it to be a useful Invention; because all who engage and incorporate into such a Community, do in effect give Sureties for their good Behaviour; for in such a case Men are engaged by stronger Bonds than can be had from Conscience, Religion, Honour, or any other specious Tie; because in these we are sure there may by Hypocrisy, but in Interest we know there is none. On the other hand, these great and public Banks in a State that is tottering and in danger are very Pernicious; for where the Treasure is there will be the Power; and in such a case if the Bank should chance to decline from the Established Form of Government, so great a weight can hardly fail to turn the Scale.  
Q. Why should not a National Bank be always on the side of the Established Government, is not that their safest way?  
Ans. Because there are manifold instances of great Evidence, whereby it might be made appear, that the distresses of State may instil Fears into the Bank Proprietors, that their Money is in Danger, and in such Case, they will not incline to favour the State; but because it is within the Memory of Man, that the Bankers and their Creditors were grievous Sufferers by one of those many Cases incident to such Institutions. I will forbear to mention any other, and observe only that the Bank then was not a Corporation, had no Consistence or Constitution of Strength, to withstand such Attack; but wherever a body of Men becomes established by Public Authority, shall be built on Public Funds; obtain the sanction of Laws, to regulate and sustain them, and this Body shall come to know its own Strength, to gather and grow Richer and Wiser in their way, as they will do every Day, more and more: What Seeds of Faction and Sedition may be Sown, and Spring from such an Innovation; what strength of Opposition may be formed against the Measures the Government may at some time or other take in the Regulation or Reformation of Abuses in the State as may not suit with their Ends: In a word, what Influence such a Body of Men may acquire over the Established Form of Government, who shall be backed with Laws, enriched with the collective Treasure of the Nation, and united by the strongest Bonds, superior to Oaths and Sacraments, Interest. Of what force such a new Thing may be in an old Monarchy, repugnant every way to the form of the State, methinks a short view with a very little attention may discern. Wherefore I will take leave to conclude, That if Monopolies of little Things are declared unlawful by our Statutes, from the Evils that are observed to grow to the Public by Tollorateing them; than à Fortiori, a Monopoly of Money (as 'tis plain such Banks are no other) must be so with a witness. We are told by Classic History, that the Bankers or Monyers, (which was one and the same thing among the Romans in that Age) became so Rich and Powerful, and by that means so unruly, that the Grievances the State suffered under, by the Licence that Body of People (who were Established by Authority) had for their Lucre and unjust Gain introduced, cost no less than a Civil War to redress; and the Dispute was long deciding: The Riches and Impudence of the seditious Wageing a doubtful Contest with that very Power that sat them up.  
Such Establishments for aught I know, may be suitable enough to a Republic, as being in their Nature of a Piece with such Forms of State. And the History of the Bank of Venice may inform us how far it availed there towards the Fettering of the People, and the establishment of that Aristocracy: But how consistent they are with our ancient English Monarchy methinks there should be some reason for wise Patriots and true English Men to weigh, before we wade too far in such uncertain Depths.  
Q. I see many printed Proposals of Banks, of a lower Rate; Projects and Funds of Gain and Security, etc. to Adventurers, every where published and pressed on the People: What is your Opinion of these new Inventions?  
Ans. This Proposition does not seem to be within the Circle of our Inquiries, which are calculated for national and general Use. But, so far as I conceive our Subject and the Public are concerned in the Question, I will adventure to speak my Mind, and no further; having nothing to do with the Designs and Revelations of private Men, who may think they see when they Dream, and often, like bold unskilful Pilots, carry themselves and those who trust them into Perils and Loss. Tho' for the most part such Projects are Snares, being calculated and laid for the certain Gain of the Inventors, and doubtful Emolument of the Adventurers. Or, if you please, the Comparison will best hold with the Art of Angling, wherein the cunninger the Artist is, the more will be his success. Now the Bait is Profit, with which he covers his Hook; and, if he would fish for Gudgeons, which is a greedy foolish Fish, it is no matter how bare the Hook lies, so the Bait be but alluring: And here let our Artist but light on their haunts and he is sure to have sport enough. Thus greedy, covetous and weak Men are caught, whose Avarice and Hunger after great Gain seals their Eyes to the hazard. But, when our Angler would catch shy and subtle Fish, he has recourse to more sleights, will fish finer, and bait more cunningly, that the Hook may not appear; and often is obliged to trouble the Water too, the better to hid his Purpose: And this way Men of more Wit and Caution are taken. But here let me be so just to own, that I am persuaded there are very many wellmeaning ingenious Men, whose Heads lying this way, do now and then, by long Meditation and racking their Brains on one and the same Subject, light upon Things laudable enough; but then such Projects are for the most part intelligible at first sight, and, like Columbus' Egg, do not need tedious and troublesome Explications, through the multiplicity of Calculation, whereby the Evidence is discerned by but a few, and they see but darkly neither: For all Projects are to be suspected of Artifice or Error, where many Questions must be begged; where Contingencies are visible, and many Casualties are incident: Which consist of many nice and intricate Parts, that, like many Movements in a Machine, where, upon the failure of the least Wheel, the Motion of the whole is destroyed. A further Objection, for the most part, lies against these kind of Money-Projects; That they are out of the Road and Circle of common Business; which is very hard to break, and Men of repugnant Methods mere as it were in the dark in their Negotiations, and so interfere, justle, and overturn one another; for, those who would go to their Profit by a nearer cut than their Neighbours, must leave the trodden Path of Business, where they will either lose their way, or must trespass and do damage to many for the sake of a few. Furthermore, all new Inventions of this sort, wherein Wit and Subtlety go to their Composition, over and above the suspicion, the middle Rank of Men (which are the majority) will and aught to have of their Utility; so of course the fewer will be found to take part and engage with them, while the greater and stronger Party, not being of their Mind, will become Enemies, and watch perpetually to cross and perplex them, and combine a thousand ways to defeat them: And thus their Success by that means is in danger of disappointment. Let me add to these Cautions, That I, for my part, take all Projects of this sort, which are erected on a view of Private Advantage, that are conceived with much Art, and require to be managed by equal Address, seem to me to be little better than Play at Cards or Dice, where Skill and Cunning (which is a sort of out-witting ones Neighbour) mostly governs: And as this is but a lesser degree of Fraud, so it often degenerates into rank Cheating; besides, being out of the way of that simplicity of Intercourse, which is intelligible and practicable by most Men, and by which all Ranks and Capacities of People may be guided and bettered by honest Industry and Plain-dealing: I have therefore singled out these few general Objections to such Projects of Profit, wherein the Public seems not only to be nothing at all interested, but for the most part endangered thereby of suffering Damage: I thought it therefore but a little out of my way to encounter them, and, as I have spoken perhaps with more freedom than will be forgiven me by some, yet I am persuaded I shall have the majority on my side. In a word, I would fain see some of these supersine Artists spin a Web of Use and Strength for Public Wearing; I would see Projects for Improvement and Encouragement of Industry and Peopling the Land, which mourns; for introducing and increasing such laudable Arts and Manufactures as we have not, and for Reformation of Abuses which have crept into those we have; When I shall behold Proposals for alleviating the unmerciful Burdens laid on Navigation, and transferring them, if they must be born, on something wherein our Wisdom and good Sense may be better seen; which Burdens are as certainly the Bane of Trade and Foreign Commerce, as Navigation is the Basis of all our Strength and Riches. When there shall be found Men fruitful of Invention of Public and Popular Minds; who (without driving so furiously, and hunting with so much anxiety after mystical Gain, of no kin at all to the Commonwealth,) shall tell us how by plain and practicable Methods, we may be rid of the Beggars and Idlers in our Streets; whose subsistence, as it is said to cost the Nation near a Million a Year, that Sum might not only be saved to the Public, but half as much, for aught I know, gained by a wise and artful Employment of the Labour of that very Poor, whom we now sustain at so very burdensome an Expense: When such praiseworthy Projects as these shall be suggested and made Public, it will be Matter of Joy to every honest Englishman, and no Objection will lie against the Matter and Meaning, whatever may be said to the Form of such Proposals. But let us hasten to our main Question.  
Q. Let me prosecute my Curiosity then to the Mark we have been all along aiming at; and, according to the Light you have given me into the Subject of Money in general, to ask you, how we shall be able to compass a just Rule for the regulating our Coin here at home, while the Question seems, by your way of handling it, to lie so deep, and is surrounded with so much darkness, that we must pry into many Mysteries of State, travel into Foreign Trade and Intrigues of Business to attain a due knowledge therein?  
Ans. Perhaps the Question is not so hard, as at first sight it may seem: This at least I may be sure of, that such Truths cannot lie very deep, which my weak Forces may suffice to draw up. To proceed then, I first six this Maxim, That as your Coin may be too Poor, so it may be too Rich, either of which is a Disease; and is to be understood by the Comparison and Proportion it bears, with the matter of Gold and Silver out of which it is made; for we have shown already the Necessity we are under, of making our Money so as to contain intrinsic value; and being got over that Point, we come now to make an Essay, towards determining the Proportion. I say then, that Money is poor or base Comparatively, as when you make more Shillings out of the same quantity of Bullion, by a new Law then was allowed by your old Establishment, for this makes you but nominally the Richer, while Virtually and in Truth, you become poorer by a quarter per Cent of the Charge of the Mintage of all the new Money that shall be so Coined, observing the proportion mentioned already, and not to repeat the Evils enumerated, this one more we may add; Namely, the Trouble and Molestation of Telling, carrying and using more Money for less Profit than before, which is some clog to Trade, whose course should be made to move with all the Arts of Ease, Invention can suggest. That no Profit can arise to the public any way, by such an Establishment of our Mint, (whereby your Coin becmes so impoverished.) We need to go no further for a Proof, than the Observation may be made of what has befallen us by Chance, in our Clipped and bad Coin now grown and established by Custom into use among us, which happening to be diminished to almost half the Original Value: We behold every thing risen in Price as it were by that Proportion; and our Gold Coin which is not so liable to Corruption and Dimunition, risen from the same cause near a Third Part, which may suffice to show how the public is affected, when your Coin either by Law or Chance comes to be too Poor.  
Your Coin is too Rich, when a piece of Money, for Example, a Mild Crown shall go but for Five Shillings in Money, to buy and go to Market with; when if it were lawful to melt it down and fell it, for its due worth, would yield you Six Shillings, there being Six Shillings worth of Silver in that Piece. I still use round Numbers; the nicety of Calculation not being here necessary. Now, as on the one Hand, when your Money is bad and poor, and this becomes established by Law or Custom into use; every Nation abroad, and every bad Man at home (who has art enough) will be Coining this Money for you, and will impart and utter it for your use, and their profit, as some Nations (which I need not name) serve the Spaniards at this day, by their base black Money, which doth not contain a sixth part of the value for which it passeth with that blind Nation. I say by this means, as your Mint shall grow out of use by the plenty of such Coin as shall be Manufactured by others to your Hands; so your Money shall grow worse and worse, (for there will be no end of debasing it) till your whole Mass of Silver Coin shall be destroyed and converted into Trash and Counters, rather than Money.  
On the other Hand, when your Money happens to be too Rich, as hath been our Case by the great rising of Bullion in value, since the coining of our Mild Money, 'tis plain, and there can be no room for doubt, but that such Coin will be transported out of the Land, and by those whose profession best enables them, will be melted down into Bars and Bullion, and from this Cause, Namely, it's over richness or goodness this Disease Springs, and hence is Consumed, Vanished, and Extinct all or the most part of the noble Milled Coin, which was Minted in the two last Reigns; there being no Action, how vile soever that Gain with Impunity will not Sanctify, or hardly any Conscience so scrupulous, that this Charm has not Power to Quiet and Absolve; wherefore let those, who by their Occupation have the means of touching most Money, consider and be ware what sort of People this Crime is likely most to touch,  
Q. If this Doctrine of yours be bottomed on sound Reason (as it has the appearance) it is visible that we are led into an Error, by those who would teach us, that the Standard established Rule of the Mint, (namely, That your Money must for ever be just so fine, and of such a weight) is Sacred, and cannot be altered without damage and danger to the State.  
Ans. 'Tis seen by what has been said, and is, I think, as demonstrable as any Problem in Geometry, That the Rules for Coinage, and the Standard of the Mint, must vary according to the general scarcity or abundance of the Species of Gold and Silver; and that 'tis, consequently, an Error in Fundamentals to hold the contrary, as I have endeavoured to show, and will need no further Explanation here.  
Q. Why (if what you say be true) is there so much variety in the Coin of Countries, how comes it to pass that there is such diversity of coarse and fine, light and weighty Money in the World? And that all Mankind, who are linked in one general League of Intercourse, do not come to accord in one universal Standard for their Money, which would save abundance of Trouble in the Course of general Traffic, and set the Intercourse of the World on a much surer and easier foot?  
Ans. First, Because Silver and Gold are more or less plenty in the divers Countries of the World, comparatively, and so becomes more or less worth. Secondly, 'Tis hard and hazardous to change any rooted Custom of a Country; especially, in a Case of this general Importance, tho' in Speculation it should appear never so just. Thirdly, The Use of Money (which was originally invented for the Ease and Benefit of Commerce) is become corrupted, and made an Instrument of Tyranny and Oppression: The Passions of Princes and States, where the Government is absolute, making their Power, in this Point of Money, to become a Yoke and a Burden, which was meant for the Comfort and Ease of Mankind; forging Racks and Shackles for the Subject, out of that very Matter, which by Nature, the first Institution and the right Reason of the Thing was decreed, and devised for their Benefit and Consolation.  
Q. You were speaking of Monopolies of Money but now, Do not Princes who enjoy absolute Power, by this unlimited Authority, make a kind of Monopoly of Money?  
Ans. Yes, such Princes can do that by their Power, which a great Bank may compass by Art, or come to do by Accident and from the Nature of the Thing: And we know the King of France himself, with all his boasted Wealth, often Practices such poor Shifts; proclaiming one Value on his Money when he has a great Sum to pay, and another when he has much to receive. But the World abroad, by whose Sentiments Trading-People must be governed, will not heed it; nor are influenced by it, and no solid Fruit can ever be gathered from such Devices, which are ever signs of a sickly Constitution; and the Prince or State that uses them, are like Men whose Bodies are decayed by much drinking of Spirits; they are relieved indeed in the present Pangs they feel, but by the very Draught, which in that Moment yields them Comfort, they are in the end destroyed.  
Q. Why is it called the Mystery of the Mint, if our Princes here in England make none of those undue Uses of Coinage, as are in Practice among absolute States?  
Ans. Perhaps 'tis continued to be called a Mystery from the Power our Princes heretofore claimed, or had, to make Coinage some way or other turn them to Account, and the Profit arising thereby, being kept secret, was therefore called so. Or, it may be styled a Mystery, from the difficulty most Men are under, to conceive and see clearly in so cloudy and perplexed a Subject.  
Q. How long have our Princes been so Wise, and so Good, as to part with a Power which yielded them but a doubtful Profit, at the purchase of great Jealousy of the People, lest such a Power as looked a little Arqitrarily, might in time degenerate into Licence, and so come to be called a Grievance, and the cause of Discontents and Murmurs, in so free and noble a Constitution as ours is?  
Ans. I think King Charles the Second quitted his Right to the Profits accrueing by the Mint, for some valuable Consideration, which at that time, by reason of great Coinage, amounted to thirty or forty thousand Pounds per Annum: Since when we are, I presume, at liberty to consult and determine, by the best Rules that Wisdom and Science can suggest, about such Laws and Regulations for the Mint, as may be found most easy and beneficial for the State.  
Q. How did that Profit arise to King Charles the Second, etc. by the Mint?  
A. I suppose divers ways, but principally this; namely, that Bullion in those days being much lower in Value than now, because more plentiful, and the Standard Established to such a weight and fineness (which was not to be altered) a proportional Profit came by that means of course to the King through the cheapness of the Material out of which the Coin was Manufactured, in so much that the Merchant or Goldsmith had a Merchantable Profit, to encourage them to send their Bullion to the Mint, and the King a competent share of Gain in the overplus. But pray note, upon this Question (which helps to unsold the Mystery) that since those days (through the causes we have endeavoured to explain) the Material of your Money is risen in Value it may be a fifth part at least; and that Batgain which was thought (and it may be really was) so profitable to the King; then should his Majesty have entered into Covenants with his People to Coin a certain Sum of Money yearly of the Established Standard weight and fineness (which he could not alter) He might have lived to see himself a great deal more a loser by such a Contract, than he had been a Gainer; and behold all his Money to vanish as fast as it was Minted, as we have plainly enough shown.  
Question, I am now at length every way convinced, that our Money ought to be all new Coined. And that by reason of the new and exorbitant price of your Bullion, you must have a new Standard and Proportion for your Mint. But how that can be found and settled, is a new Question, to which I stand in need of your Answer?  
Ans. We have travelled a great way to arrive fairly at this single Question; and if we have gone somewhat about and made our Journey seem longer, than might be thought necessary to some? I Answer, That it was for the sake of the Majority, that this Voyage was taken, and therefore but just to go their pace. Our Subject lies in the dark to the Multitude, and therefore we cannot open too many Windows to let in the Light, to the end, the weakest Sihht may be enabled to discern and make some Judgement, whereby to determine in a matter, that so nearly touches every Body.  
Question, Your Apology is reasonable, and I believe will be thought so by most Men; but let us come now to an Issue, and decide this arduous Question: How, and by what Methods and Rules of Proportion our Mint may be Reformed.  
Answer, I will not trouble you with References to what has been said, that we may not multiply Words, and will take for granted, you bear in Mind that our Hypothesis is framed upon Reasons drawn from abroad, as well as at home; wherefore we must take Foreign as well as Domestic Considerations to our Aid. Your Money, I have shown is subject to these two chief Diseases, of being too Rich, which is containing more worth than it goes for in Coin, which begets a Consumption, and wasting by re-converting it into Bullion, exporting and the like; too Poor, when it is either Coined by Authority through mistaken measures of State, with too great an extrinsic allowance, or corrupted, clipped and falsified by others, so as to become notoriously diminished in the intrinsic Value; Which raiseth the Price of all things by the like proportion; begets doubts Difficulties and Vexation in your common Traffic, and enhaunses the rates of Exchange with your Neighbours, which hath a mighty Influence on your Trade abroad, encourages bad People at home to diminish and falsify it every day more and more, because there is no rule left to compare and know your Money by; And invites the Nations round about you (who may do it with more safety) to import and utter it in such quantities, and still worse and worse, till in the end, all your Silver Coin, the unclipped and the clipped shall be gone out of the Kingdom; and what a calamitous State such a People must be in, needs no Exaggeration here.  
Q. I am glad you have repeated and renewed in my Memory these two chief Diseases of Money, and given so reasonable a Prognostic of the Effects; because I reckon you will now come to propose the remedy for Restoring and Establishing the Health of our Coin, by such Rules as may seem as just as your Argument hitherto has appeared to me reasonable.  
Ans. To arrive then at that right Rule of proportion you require, (and which we have been thus long in quest of) I first propose, that we should look a little back here at home, and inquire, and be at a certainty, what Price Bullion bore, when our last milled Money was coined. And we will suppose it here about the round sum of Five Shillings the Ounce, then let us grant it to be risen and advanced in Price, from Five to Six Shillings or thereabouts the Ounce, which shall be the Value we will give it at this day: Both which Prizes may be more or less, without damage to our reasoning about the Rule which I would propose for our Government in this great Question. Now pray note, that while the King had his Profit by the Mint (which was indefinite) and Silver was at an Underrate no great difficulty could occur in the Coinage, for as long as that gain lasted be it little or much, the King had it, who was enabled over and above still to allow the Merchant or Goldsmith One or more per Cent profit, to invite them to bring their Bullion to the Mint; that is, their Silver became so much more worth to them when manufactured into Money (which they could presently utter and employ) than when inthe Mass in their Warehouse: Upon which Motive (namely their Gain) they carried it to the Mint. But that incitement ceasing from the reasons I have given; there is not only no more Money now coined, but even the Milled Money, which in those days was minted (from the same Motive Gain) is melted down again, and reconverted into Bulloin, as we have noted, and cannot too often repeat. If this be true, who can with any shadow of Reason gainsay the necessity we are under of changing the proportions of our Mint, which must inevitably and for ever change; rise and fall by a Scale of proportion rectified to the rising and falling Value of your Bullion.  
Let it be granted then, that your Silver is risen in Value from the causes which have been enumerated: We will suppose here just fifteen per Cent. since your last Coinage of milled Money; if this be true, than I say your Coin at this day, if your Money were truly minted at that time, (which you are likewise to consider) ought to be just fifteen per Cent. lighter than that milled Money was; for I would by no means propose the least alteration in the purity of the Standard; for the many reasons I have already delivered. Wherefore let Authority be pleased by the help of Merchants, Goldsmiths, the Officers of the Mint, and by all the cautious and judicious means possible, compass a right knowledge of this Difference (which we do not you see here determine) and the Rule for their Guidance in assigning, the just Proportion to your Coin must plainly result from thence; as namely, if the Difference of fifteen per Cent. here by me propounded were the exact truth, than your new Shilling to be coined, and to be of the same fineness with the old milled Shilling, must weigh and be worth (within a very small fraction) Ten-pences farthing; I go the plainest way to work I can, to make my meaning intelligible to every capacity.  
Q. But methinks by this Rule you are leading into the Error, which you have been all along cautioning us to avoid, for by thus taking from the Subject One Penny Three Farthings out of every Shilling seems to me to be very hard, and will for certain be so reckoned by every Body.  
Ans. With your pardon, no Body by this Rule, is, or ever can be injured; because if People would but open their Eyes, and look with attention, they would Discern, that this Ten-pences farthing will buy as much of every thing in the Market now, when your Coin shall be rectified, as Twelvepences would have done at that time; which I think may suffice to satisfy your scruple.  
Q. What would be the hurt then, if you should make your Shilling yet lighter, provided it keep the fineness.  
Ans. Every visible Departure from this Rule, would prove a proportional damage to the Subject, and have the same Effect as in the case of clipped woney; for your Coin would abate in its Esteem with the People, in proportion to the Dimunition of its due intrinsic Value; whereby all the Species of things would rise, and grow dear, accordingly as we find to have come to pass on the occasion of our Clipped Money; and in such case, I grant, the Objection you have made would amount to a Grievance.  
Q. But have you not taught that we are not to make our Rule for Regulating the Mint from Observations and Reasons ariseing barely from among ourselves here at home, but with regard also and reference had to our Neighbours abroad with whom we have Commerce?  
A. I have and can suppose the price I have already assigned to Bullion at this Day to be the result of a Calculation founded on that regard, but because it is necessary to explain it I will, as well as I can, why that Caution is necessary.  
We here in England live in the Neighbourhood of divers great Nations who are our Rivals and Vie with us in the Arts of Trade, the Dutch especially, who perhaps are Our Superiors in every thing that belongs to that great and profitable Mystery. They are every way under a better Oeconomy and observe every thing nearer than we do; they live with greater Frugality, which is their Wisdom, as enjoying but few necessaries to their subsistence of their own growth; which habituates them to a narrower Inspection and Observation of every the least thing that relates to their profit. This penurious Method of Life which in them is a Virtue would not with us, it may be, thought so, who live in a wide, rich and plentiful Country, abounding in all things needful to humane life and ease. But this greater Extent and Latitude of Life and Manners which we inherit, naturally mollify's us towards Luxury Sloth and Improvidence, and whatever Virtues our good Soil may produce and our better Stars may shed towards the exalting our Courage, enlargeing our Generosity, and forming our minds for Magnanimity and other noble and plausible Endowments, which I think are more inherent in us than most other Nations; these native benefits do, I say, beget and infer an incapacity to deal with these our Neighbours in those contests where Diligence, Penetration, Vigilance and good Husbandry are to be the Weapons. Now Trade which they prosecute more by much for necessity than we do, for they must Navigate or Starve, is the Prize held up between us, and I fear 'tis found but too evident to our Cost, that in this strife the Virtues and Manners which they profess are more appropriated to enable them for Victory than ours. It would be tedious and perhaps Invidious to enumerate by how many Arts they have won upon us of late, but I leave that Speculation to wiser Heads, and keep within my own Circle which is the subject of Money; wherein how far and by how many sleights they have contributed toward the pressures we at this Day are sinking under on that Score, Printed Papers do so plainly and honestly every day evince that I may spare here to explain. It is very likely then (not to say very true) that all the Bullion wherewith we abounded before this War, and all the Silver that has been clipped from our Money, does this day in a manner Centre in Holland and thereabouts; this must in evitably infer a greater abundance of that Species among 'em and a proportionable scarcity with us; that plenty with them must needs in some degree lower the value of the Species, while this high Tide of Affluence lasts; as it must by the same Rule enhance it here in our low ebb of Poverty. I pray then consider and weigh with your utmost attention, how to attain and arrive at such a Proportion in the renewing the Establishment of your Mint, that it may not be said Your want of Wisdom and a thorough Insight into a Matter of so great Moment shall afford them a new handle whereby to hurt you with your new Money. For Example, if you Mint your new Coin with an overgreat Extrinsical Price, out of an over value and regard to the present appearing Rate of Bullion here, which, I note has acquired, as I may say, an undue and preternatural Ascent in our esteem; You will thereby be in danger of your Neighbours improveing the advantage of their lower price of Bullion to your Detriment, by Importing it to our Mint and purchaseing therewith; even to the laying up in store for Years to come every Staple Commodity and Manufacture of the Kingdom, by which means whatever present appearance there may be of quickness of Trade, the consequence must be pernicious; and I will adventure to say, that as no People whatsoever can be conceived to contribute a greater share of Blood and Treasure towards supporting the Burden of the War, so none I am sure even by this very means are likely to taste less consolation from a Peace, whenever it shall happen. Which must yield but Melancholy Reflections to every thoughtful Englishman, and therefore one would think aught to awaken us; lest we sleep the sleep of Death.  
Q. What Method would you advise to obviate this Evil, for there is no doubt but our superiors would be glad to turn every Stone to settle our Mint on a right bottom.  
A. You ought I think to begin with this first necessary Reflection, namely, that this Exorbitant rising of the price of your Bullion, is in a good degree due to the present badness of your Currant Coin, and the difference in price even betwixt us and Holland in like manner to be grown in some proportion from the same cause: Now both these Reflections are to bear some weight in your Deliberations, lest by over-rateing the causes you bend your Argument (which you would straighten) too far the other way. To explain this point a little, you are to reckon that whenever your Coin shall come to be bettered (be it more or less) the difference or height of Exchange, or of the Price of Silver betwixt you and Holland (which is all one) will be less of course, as from the same reckoning the value of your own Bullion at home will sink too. Now I say that the Amount of those two, which are but co-incident Effects, is to be computed, and by proper helps (I mean such as may be had from Men who are most busied in Trade and Exchange and as shall be thought to have Integrity enough to be trusted) an Estimate ought to be first made, namely, to state to what degree, a little more or less, the Exchange with Holland and the Price of our Bullion here at home may fall, as a bare and simple effect of the regulating our Mint, without heeding any other matter at all relateing to the subject. When this Effect, I say, which is accidental shall be determined, as if it shall be deemed to amount to 3.4. or five per Cent, more or less, than this sum, or difference is to be deducted and left out of the Argument; as namely, if you conclude that this accidental Effect will be 5. per. Cent, that your Bullion will fall of course on the Re-coining your Money; in such case if your Bullion be risen 20 per Cent. in the whole you must deduct this 5 per Cent, out of that difference; because it ought to have no Existence among the solid Reasons for the change you are about to make.  
Q. If I understand you right then, I conceive if the appearing difference betwixt the price of Bullion now and heretofore be observed to amount to 20 per Cent. the real difference by your reckoning is but fifteen per Cent, and upon that Calculation, your Rule for a new Regulation of the Mint must be Built.  
A. You understand my meaning. The next step I would propose is to consider, what was the Driginal Motive of Assigning an Extrinsic or Political Value to Mo●ey; I mean that little Value which was given to the public Coin more than it was really worth, without regard to the false Reasons of State that afterwards prevailed, and is at this Day in Practice in Rigid and Violent Governments; and this was plainly for no other End, than to keep every one their own Coin within their own Territory; For while it obtained, or there was given 2, or 3, or more per Cent. Extrinsical worth by the Mintage, it was so much more in esteem where it was a Native than else where; which was a very reasonable Device to prevent its wand'ring without the Circle of its Currant Virtue. Wherefore let your Coin be Established with such a proportion of Political Value as may prevent its going abroad, and yet may not be thought to affect you at home in the Prices of the Species of Things, which would amount to an injustice and a grievance, in proportion to the Error you shall commit; as I have shown. On the other hand, if you make your Money without any Nominal or Extrinsic signification, it will (as I have often said and proved) be the cause of your losing it, by melting down, or going out of the Kingdom, upon the least advance of ●●e price of Bullion, and there 〈◊〉 no manner of question to be ●ade but that Material will rise very day more and more as long 〈◊〉 the War lasts, from the general muse's to which I have already scribed. The growing scarcity of Money in the World, now as 〈◊〉 will be very hard to hit a just ●ean proportion betwixt these ●vo, so I think 'tis the safest Error to incline to the giving our new Money too much ra●er than too little Extrinsic Va●ne, because as an Excess on ●at side will as it were ob●●ate the danger of the rise●g Value of your Bullion, so ●he Error here, will affect us ●ess than the other way, because money, though a little too poo● is yet better by far than none a● all; is much more easily melte● down and transported than it 〈◊〉 Coined and Counterfeited, the on● may be done easily by any body any where; the other can be per● formed but by a few, and require great secrecy and many Tools the one is a fault Finable only, th● other Punished with Death, an● therefore likely to have fewe● Offenders.  
Q. I see but one very visible Objection to lie against this Opinion of your● of giving your Money rather an ove● than under Exstrinsic Value, and that is the profit arising by the Mintage; for if your new Money shall be made t● go for something more than it is Intrinsically worth, will there not arise a certain profit somewhere by the Mintage.  
A. Yes, plainly; for if you allot but 5 per. Cent Extrinsic Value to your new Coin, the charge of the Manufacturage, which will not be above two per. Cent, being deducted out of that 5 per. Cent. there will still remain 3 per. Cent profit; which in the minting of five Millions of Money rises to 150000 pound.  
Q. Whose will this Profit be? for the King you say has quitted his right to it.  
A. I am no Judge of that; but if I had the honour of being a Member of Parliament, I should willingly give my Vote to bestow it towards a Fund for the new Hospital at Greenwich; For as no sort of Men have a greater right to our general Charity than Seamen, so no Charity could rise so easily and from so public a Fountain as this.  
Q. You Determine then, I presume, that we ought to Re-coin the whole stock of National Money; I do, because I think there cannot possibly Occur any mischief by much so grievous and dangerous to the Nation, through any difficulty that may be suggested to spring from the new Minting your Money, as those which we suffer, and are threatened us by delaying it. For the Mint or public Money is the Pulse of the Body politic: And Tacitus tells us, that the Health and Infirmity of the State was always measured by that Motion. And grave Authors further assure us, That as the Roman Empire declined, it was manifested by their Mint; their Money debasing, as the Power and Virtue of that great People sunk and declined. Money is the public Measure of every thing we have; all our Meum and Tuum is weighed and dispensed by no other Scale or Rule: If that be unequal, false or doubtful, what Injustice, what Vexation, Murmur, Poverty and Peril, threatened the State thereby, needs no Rhetoric to enforce! Let it be seen by the timely Wisdom of our Remedies, that the Disease was not Mortal, and the Danger beyond the possibility of a Cure: The Calamitous Fire of London was a Disaster which the World thought would have been a Death's blow to the State, and, during the Operation of People's Prognostics thereupon, brought us very low in our Neighbour's Eyes: But the sudden Repair of that stupendous Loss, by the Rebuilding with so much Magnificence the greatest City (for aught I know) in the Universe, raised the Reputation of Our Glory, Courage and Wealth, to a more surprising Degree of Value in the World's, and our own Esteem too; which by Art, or Wisdom's Rules, could never have been known or calculated. We may hope for the like fruit from the same wise and steady Counsels: The Calamity of our Coin is not inferior; the Cure seems not, in my poor Judgement; harder; nor will the Benefits which the Nation shall reap in the Effect be less.  
Q. Have you no further Advice to give, or Cautions to offer, in the main Point of Regulating the new Coinage of Our Money?  
A. I cannot repeat too often, and therefore once more do recommend to your utmost Attention, the deliberating and determining the Proportion betwixt the Real and Nominal Value of your Money; which is the Key of the whole Difficulty, and requires the greatest Advice, Gravity, and Penetration to fix.  
Q. Have not you said that the Material of your Money is not likely to grow cheaper, but to rise still higher and higher; and yet but just now you gave me an Instance of your foresight that on the Moment your Coin shall be regulated, (whether it should chance to be rightly or wisely performed or no,) yet there would presently, as a pure and simple Effect of such a Reformation, be a Fall of the Value of Silver and Gold, and all the Species of things to a Certain degree, the Quantum being undetermined?  
A. In this Objection you seem not to be ware, that the Abatement of the Value of your Silver and Gold you speak of, is no other than an accidental Effect of that Cause: But the growing Value of Gold and Silver, whereof I have given you my Prognostics is from the general Causes already by me produced; And therefore this Effect, by the buy, has no Weight in your Objection, because it will presently expire, and the general growing Scarcity be no ways influenced thereby.  
Q. You seem to have yet taken but little notice how our Gold Coin will be affected by the Regulation of our Mint.  
A. I have already noted, that your Gold must necessarily fall in its Value upon the Repairing of your Silver Coin, the obvious Reason of its exorbitant Rise being from the low Reputation of our Silver-Money; so that it has grown higher through the reason of Comparison (as I may say) becoming so much the more worth from the others happening to fall so low, which is therefore owing purely to this unhappy Accident here at home: But of what ill influence it has been to our Affairs; the use our watchful Neighbours have made thereof, we are loudly and truly  told by public Papers. But a great deal of this Evil, I say, will cure of itself, by your Silver Coin recovering its Reputation: After which, if Gold shall be thought still to bear too high a Value, I believe it may be in the Power of the Government to Regulate that at any time by a Proclamation, or some wise Result of Council.  
Q. I think I have now asked you all my Questions about the Matter; Let me now ask you a few touching the Manner wherein you would proceed in this great Work.  
A. I think, according to Advice already published, that more Mints than One ought to be employed to carry on the business. And as a foundation to this great Work, I propose that One Million at least, or Fifteen Hundred Thousand Pounds worth of Bullion may be by one means or other compassed to be first Coined into Shillings and Sixpences, to be a Fund ready prepared to pay upon the spot for such Clipped Money as shall be brought in.  
The next step I would propose to be made, should be the Calling in of all the Half-crowns, Thirteenpence-halfpenies, Ninepences, and the rest of that unequal Money; your Shillings and Sixpences to remain still currant till this first Work shall be over. This Money being brought in to the several Receivers appointed, to be spread and distributed in the most populous Places of the Kingdom, shall be paid for in ready new Money by the said Officers; viz. Five new Shillings for five Shillings of your clipped Halfcrowns, &c receiving all the old Money by Weight as well as Tale, according to the Method and Regulation proposed by Mr. Lowndes; for to think of paying People by piece-meal with Bills or Paper, who shall come from far, full of Doubts, and pinched with Poverty, and vexed already to the Quick with the Hardships they have suffered, and still lie under; and where the Majority will be found to need every pennyworth of the Money they shall bring in to be Exchanged for present currant Money: I say, to propose such a Method as should not be very easy and intelligible to the greater part of the People, might breed a Mischief of no verb easy Digestion.  
Wherefore I humbly propose, that this Million and a half (or whatsoever the Decay of the whole Treasure of the Nation shall be computed to amount to) may be first found and provided by such means as to the Wisdom of the Parliament shall appear most feasible; which, in my poor Opinion, will not be an insuperable Work. This being first done, and you being then in possession of the Balance of this Debt, which is owing to your general Stock of Treasure, by the Clipping and Impairment it has suffered; there will remain no other Difficulty but in the Minting and orderly Distributing and Exchanging your Money by such Rules as I think have been already very prudently and masterly propounded by the said Mr. Lowndes.  
I propose your beginning with Halfcrowns, etc. because the Work must be done Gradatim, and cannot be compassed otherwise without much greater Difficulty and Disorder; wherein a good deal must still happen after all your utmost care to prevent it.  
Your Halfcrowns, etc. being received and paid for (wherein I note that no Brass or base Money is to be received,) this is presently to be Minted up to increase your Stock of new Money to be Exchanged for the old. When this Difficulty is passed, I would humbly propose that Proclamation should be made for People to bring in one half or one quarter of their Shillings and sixpences, or such a proportion as ●all be Deemed to amount to the imm of new Money you shall ●ave got Minted. Which propor●on of Shillings and Sixpences being brought in and paid for, (a new ●hilling for an old, etc.) shall be forthwith Coined up to produce wherewithal of new Money to ●arry on your Payments for the ●ld.  
I propose this gradual Method ●n the Coining and Calling in of your Shillings and Sixpences I ●ay, to obviate the Trouble, and ●afe you in the many Difficulties which must needs otherwise occur ●n the transacting so voluminous ●nd multifarious a Work. When ●our first proportion of Shillings ●nd Sixpences shall be brought in ●nd paid for, etc. you are to proceed to the next, and so on til● your Business shall be finished.  
Q. You have yet made no mention of the remaining Mill'd-Money, and the rest of the weighty and undefaced old Coin of the Kingdom; of which sort there must needs be a good quan●tity. What would you propose should be done with that?  
A. I propose, that whosoever has been so honest as to spare from the general Spoil committed o● our Coin, or so frugal or provident to have reserved or laid any part thereof up, that it is but Justice they should be considered for the same. Wherefore my Advice is, That all such Money should be left to the choice of the Owners whether to Melt it down and sel● it for its real Worth, or to dispos● of it to the utmost height of it● Value to those who may have a ●ind to buy it, but still to be obliged to dispose of it, so as ●hat it may be reconverted into ●oin.  
Q. Will not bad Men fall to Cliping the Clipp'd-money anew, when ●t shall be published by Proclamation, ●hat all the Clipp'd-money is to be ●aid for on the spot with good new●in'd legal Money? Or will not those who have culled out all the fair Mo●ey from the bad (which is not honest) ●nd who by touching a great running ●ash, have it always in their power, ●ill not such Men be able to make a ●etter hand of it by sending this picked Money to the Clippers to be trimmed, ●nd pared as close as Knavery and avarice can suggest, than by selling ●nd re-converting such fair Coin into ●ullion, as you propose?  
A. I believe this might be very easily prevented, and people would not think of Transgressing a new or of making that undue use o● their fair Money as you mention if this single Resolution shall be taken: Namely,  
That Authority would be pleased to direct a judicious Scrutiny to be forthwith made into the lowest declension the Coin of the Kingdom is at this day under, and has suffered by Clipping and Wasting it; and then admitting they find it to b● sunk, for Example, Forty in th● Hundred, and that to be the most▪ In such case I humbly conceive that if they shall determine that al● Money as shall be brought to th● Receivers to be Exchanged, which shall fall out to be diminished be low that proportion, such Wan● shall be made good by the Bringer or Proprietor, and not by the Public. As on the other hand, all fair Money as shall be so brought in, that shall be found to amount to more than the Value assigned to your new Money; such surplus to be accounted for and made good to the Deliverer, as I have proposed. I know there are some Objections seem to lie against this Expedient; but I am convinced too, that the Benefit in the main outweighs them.  
Q. What sort of Money would you propose to be Coined in the Minting your new Money?  
A. I know Crowns & Halfcrowns are less chargeable in the Manufacture; but being more liable to Diminution by Drilling, & other Arts, and more coveted by Strangers, and therefore more in danger to be Exported. I should therefore prefer the Coining all into Shillings and Sixpences, with some small proportion of lesser Money. But above all, I humbly propose that the whole Mass of public Money should be re-coined and reduced to one Fashion and Manufacture; And would avoid, as a Rock, all new Names and new Values to Money, tho' I observe it to be somewhere proposed to be done with such old Money as might be thought to remain undiminish'd; which they would have stamped with certain Marks to express its new Value by; I say all new Christened Money, and all new Marks to be stamped on old Money; and all odd, intricate and puzzling Valuations of Money, contain so many Dangers, Vexations and Difficulties, as I trust we shall take care to avoid by the Self-evidence of the Evils that attend such a Resolution.  
Q. When you have done all you can, and your Money becomes re-established to your Wish; will it be ever the likelier to remain at home, do you think, tho' we should follow in every Article the Rules and Cautions you have propounded to prevent it?  
A. You have been told by several Treatises of Trade lately published, that a main Consideration in the Conduct of our general Commerce, is to avoid, by wise and cautious Measures, the overbalance of our Trade. For tho' you should have Five thousand Trading Ships at Sea, and ten times that number of Seamen employed in your Navigations, you Trade to loss, if you buy from abroad, and pay more Money for what you fetch from Foreigners, than you receive from them for your Service, and your own native Fruits and Manufactures; with all this show of quick Trade, I say, and extent of Commerce, you are blowing a dead Cole, and take all this pains but to diminish your Capital or National Stock of Treasure: For Trade, without this prime regard, is but little better than Usury: It may enrich a few subtle, bustling, busy Men by chance; but the Land will grieve for their gain, and such profit to particulars will become a Charge on the Debtor-side of the public Leiger-Book,  that Point shall come to be narrowly sifted and debated.  
Now if great Wisdom and Attention are due to the keeping this balance in our hands, and the disposing it to lean towards our Profit, lest by inclining never so little the other way, it should, like a slow Fever, at length consume us. What Providence in our foresight, what Talents and reach of Wit, Prudence and Application, may suffice to save us from the ruin which seems to bode us by the exorbitant Overbalance we behold at this day! Which, like a Comet, threatens the Nation, with this difference only, That we can Calculate to a certain degree, where and how the Malevolence of the One will work, while we can but guests at the Effects of the Other.  
Q. But since this Burden must be bourn, and the bearing of it seems the lesser Evil of the two, because Poverty is still better than Bondage: Methinks we ought to set all our Wits on the stretch to find Expedients how it may be longest sustained, and carried most commodiously: For why should we want the Discretion of a Porter or a Slave; who being condemned to bear and carry a certain Weight, will be sure to dispose of it, so as it shall least gall and wring his Shoulders. Wherefore if we must sustain this Weight, I would be glad to know your Opinion, which is the best way to do it in such manner as not to sink under it so suddenly as you seem to fear.  
A. This Question is too bold for Men without Doors to meddle in; wherefore I shall touch it with the greatest tenderness You know (for it is no Secret) that there goes out of the Nation at this day a great deal above a Million yearly in ready Money or Bullion, and by what Means this Money can circulate or return to us again (it being the overbalance of our Trade, and therefore moving in foreign Channels) is very hard to Divine.  
Now this great Sum, whether your National Coin be good or bad, must go out of the Kingdom, if this overbalance must be paid; And therefore if you have no Bullion, you must send Money, where your extrinsical Value will not be understood, and where your Clipped Shilling, which passes for a Shilling here, shall go for no more than it weighs; and therefore there must go a great deal more to pay a foreign Debt, than would suffice to pay the same Debt here at Home.  
Wherefore if a Million of this Money, which by the urgency and fatality of this destructive War goes yearly out of the Kingdom, were in another manner employed; as, namely, to maintain a so much greater Maritime Strength of our own as may amount to that Sum; and by thus easing our Neighbours of just so much in their Naval Expense, which they might transfer and employ to the same Uses for which our Money is at this day Remitted into Holland: I say, if such a Project were feasible, the Benefits to us would be unspeakable, whereof that I may Enumerate a few: First, this great Sum would then Circulate within Ourselves. Secondly, Our Naval Strength would be augmented by a third part more than it is at this Day; whereby our Line of Battle would be stronger by the Union and Consistence of our own Native Strength, and we should have to spare to cover our Commerce from that Desolation that has hitherto afflicted us; and by securing especially our Plantation-trade, which is our Mines of Gold and Silver, we should taste the relief which that Trade would afford us to our much greater profit. Thirdly, Trade, which now languishes and is at deaths-door, would by this means revive among us; so many more hands would be set a work in every Profession, and so many Species of things of our own growth would be uttered and spent, that I am persuaded if such a difficulty could be overcome, it would give a new and cheerful face to our Affairs here at home at least. Lastly, by thus increasing our Maritime, which is our Native Strength, we shall shine brighter in our own Orb, and grow stronger, as resting more on our proper Centre. We shall increase our Strength by borrowing no body from their peaceful Trades and Business, but employ such, as when the War shall be ended, will be still in their Element and Profession, where our wide Commerce shall with open Arms be ever ready to embrace, cherish and employ, to the Nations best and surest Interest.  
Decemb. 1. 1695. I am, YOUR LORDSHIP'S Most Humble Servant, etc.