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Subject Area: Economics
Topic: Money and Banking

REPRESENTATION FIRST - John Ramsay McCulloch, A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money [1856]

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A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money from the Originals of Vaughan, Cotton, Petty, Lowndes, Newton, Prior, Harris, and Others, with a Preface, Notes, and Index (London: Printed for the Political Economy Club, 1856).

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REPRESENTATION FIRST

to the Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford and Earl of Mortimer, Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain.

May it please Your Lordship,

ACCORDING to your Lordship’s Order, signified to me by Mr. Secretary Harley, in his Letter of February 26th last, I have considered the Letter of his Grace the Duke of Ormond, Her Majesty’s Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, sent to your Lordship, together with the Representation sent to his Grace from the Lords of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council of that Kingdom, mentioning a late Proclamation for making current in that Kingdom some Pieces of Foreign Gold and proposing to make current there, by further Proclamation, several other Pieces of Foreign Gold therein named, to prevent the Counterfeiting thereof: and as to the Value of the Pieces, I humbly represent, that the Spanish Pistoles, one with another, as they are brought hither by the Merchant, weigh 103 Grains each at a Medium, and are in Fineness half a Grain worse than Standard, and after the Rate that a Guinea is valued in England at 1l. 1s. 6d. are here worth 17s. 1d. and in Ireland, where the Silver Money is raised a Penny in the Shilling, if the Gold be raised in the same Proportion, become worth 18s. 6d. And in Proportion to the Quadruple Pistole weighs 412 Grains, the Double Pistole 206 Grains, and the Quarter Pistole 25¾ Grains: But in the Representation the Quadruple Pistoles are said to weigh 408 Grains, the Double Pistole 204 Grains, and the Quarter Pistoles 25 and an half Grains, whence I gather, that in the former Proclamation the Weight of the Pistole was but 102 Grains, which is a Grain lighter than the just Weight, this Grain, as I conceive, being abated to give a legal Currency to such lighter Pieces as want not above a Grain of their just Weight; and upon this Consideration the Quadruple, Double, and Quarter Pistoles may be put in Weight and Value as is expressed in the Representation; and so may the Double and Quarter Luidores, they being of the same weight, Fineness and Value with the Double and Quarter Pistoles.

The Moydores of Portugal, one with another, as they are brought hither by the Merchant, weigh 165¾ Grains at a Medium, and a Quarter of a Grain better than Standard, and in England are worth 27s. 8d. Half-penny, and being raised a Penny in the Shilling, become worth 30s. in Ireland: In the Representation their Weight is put 168 Grains, which is certainly too much; and thence it comes to pass, that they are therein valued at 1l. 10s. 6d. which is 6d. too much. I have examined the Weight of 30 Parcels of Moydores, containing a Thousand Moydores in each Parcel, and thereby found, that the Moydore, at a Medium, weighs only 165¾ Grains; if in Favour of the lighter Pieces the Fraction be abated, their Weight and Value, in a new Proclamation, may be put as follows. The Portugal Piece of Gold, called a Moydore, and weighing 165 Grains, to pass at 1l. 10s. the Half Moydore weighing 82 Grains and an half, at 15s. and the Quarter Moydore, weighing 41 Grains and a Quarter, at 7s. 6d.

Gold is over-valued in England in Proportion to Silver, by at least 9d. or 10d. in a Guinea, and this Excess of Value tends to increase the Gold Coins, and diminish the Silver Coins of this Kingdom; and the same will happen in Ireland by the like over-valuing of Gold in that Kingdom. But it’s convenient that the Coins should bear the same Proportion to one another in both Kingdoms, to prevent all fraudulent Practices in those that Trade between them, and that the Proportion be ascertained by Proclamation.

All which is most humbly submitted to your Lordship’s great Wisdom.

Is. Newton.