The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Vaughan, a Discourse of Coin and Coinage
• Chap. I.: Of the First Invention and Use of Money.
• Chap. II.: Of the Matter of Money.
• Chap. III.: Of the Forms of the Money Anciently and Now In Use.
• Chap. IV.: Of the Proportions Held Between Gold and Silver, Antient and Modern.
• Chap. V.: Of the Raising of the Price of Money Both of Silver and Gold.
• Chap. VI.: Of Base Money.
• Chap. VII.: Of the Inconveniences In General Grown In the Matter of Money.
• Chap. VIII.: Of the Low Price of Our Silver.
• Chap. IX.: Of the Prohibition of Forrein Moneys, Especially Spanish.
• Chap. X.: Of the Unequal Coinage of Our Moneys.
• Chap. XI.: Of the Great Increase of the Proportion Between Gold and Silver, and the Things Valued By Them; By Which There Is Grown a Greater Want of Money In England Than Was In Antient Times, and of the Causes Thereof, and of the Remedies Which May
• Chap. XII.: Of the Raising of the Price of Moneys By Our Neighbours, and the Defect of Our Not Raising of Our Moneys Accordingly.
• Chap. XIII.: Of the Benefits Which Do Grow Unto the State By the Raising of Moneys, and the Prejudices Which Do By Not Raising of It.
• Chap. XIV.: The Benefits Which Do Grow to the State By the Not Raising of Money, and the Prejudices Which Do Grow By the Raising of It.
• Chap. XV.: Examinations of the Reasons For the Raising of Money.
• Chap. XVI.: Examinations of the Reasons For the Not Raising of Money.
• Chap. XVII.: Of Contracting With Forrein Nations By Ambassadors to Keep Their Moneys At a Certain Standard.
• Chap. XVIII.: Of the Ordaining of Solid Payments.
• Chap. XIX.: Of Equalizing the Exchange.
• Chap. XX.: Of Reducing Moneys to the Lowness of Ancient Values.
• Chap. XXI.: Of Raising Our Moneys According to the Raising of Our Neighbours.
• Chap. XXII.: Of Introducing Two Different Species of Money.
• Chap. XXIII.: Of Coining of Moneys Without Distinction of Weights.
• Lord Coke’s Account of Coin and Coining.
• Cotton, a Speech Touching the Alteration of Coin.
• The Answer of the Committees Appointed By Your Lordships to the Proposition Delivered By Some Officers of the Mint, For Infeebling His Majesties Monies of Gold and Silver.
• The First Part. the Preamble.
• Questions to Be Proposed to the Merchants, Mint Masters, and Goldsmiths Concerning the Alteration of the Silver-monies.
• Certain General Rules Collected Concerning Money and Bullion Out of the Late Consultation At Court.
• Advice of His Majesty’s Council of Trade, Concerning the Exportation of Gold and Silver In Foreign Coins and Bullion. (concluded December 11. 1660.)
• Reasons Aud Arguments For the Free Exportation of Gold and Silver In Foreign Coin and Bullion.
• Sir William Pettys Quantulumcunque Concerning Money, 1682.
• Questions.
• A Report Containing an Essay For the Amendment of Silver Coins
• The Second General Head Concerning the Present State and Condition of the Gold and Silver Conis.
• The Third General Head Discusses This Question, Whether It Be Or Be Not Absolutely Necessary At This Time to Re-establish the Coins.
• The Fourth General Head Is to Propose the Means That Must Be Obtained, and the Proper Methods to Be Used In and For the Re-establishment of the Silver Coins.
• The Fifth General Head Considers What Must Supply the Commerce, Pay Taxes, &c. Whilst the Clipt Money Is Under Its New Fabrication.
• In Quodam Libro Vocato Nigro Scripto Tempore Regis Henrici Secundi, Per Gervasium Tilburiensem, De Necessariis Scaccarii, Remanente In Curia Receptæ Scaccarii, Inter Alia Sic Continetur.
• A Computation of the Common Weight of a Hundred Pounds By Tale, In Ordinary Silver Money At This Day, Taken From a Medium of the Bags, Weighed At the Receipt of Exchequer, In May, June, and July Last.
• Note On the Re-coinage of 1696-99.
• Representations of Sir Isaac Newton On the Subject of Money. 1712-1717.
• Representation First
• Representation Second.
• Representation Third.
• Tables Illustrative of the Successive Changes In the Standard, In the Weight of the Coins, and In the Relative Values of Gold and Silver In England, From the Conquest Down to 1717.
• Note On Scotch Money, With Tables Showing the Successive Changes In the Standard In the Weight of the Coins, and In the Relative Values of Gold and Silver, From 1107 to 1707, When Scotland Ceased to Have a Peculiar Coinage.
• Observations On Coin In General, With Some Proposals For Regulating the Value of Coin In Ireland.
• Essays On Money and Coin I
• Part I.: The Theories of Commerce, Money, and Exchanges.
• Chapter I.—: Of the Nature and Origin of Wealth and Commerce.
• Chapter II.—: Of Money and Coins.
• Chapter III.: Of Exchanges.
• Essays On Money and Coin Ii
• The Preface.
• Part II.
• Chapter I.: A Summary Account of All the Alterations That Have Been Made In Our Standard of Money, From the Norman Conquest to the Present Time, With the Opinions of Some Very Eminent Men Upon Those Kinds of Measures.
• Chapter II.: The Established Standard of Money Should Not Be Violated Or Altered, Under Any Pretence Whatsoever.
• Postscript. of Standard Measures.
• Reflections On Coin In General
• Raper, an Inquiry Into the Value of the Ancient Greek and Roman Money.
• Introduction.
• § 1.: Of the Attic Drachm.
• § II.: Of the Eginean and Euboïc Talents.
• § III.: Of the Roman Money.
• § 4.: Of the Value of Gold In Greece and Rome.
• § V.: Of the Value of the Ancient Greek and Roman Money.
• Conclusion.
• Tables Showing the Denominations of the Principal Greek and Roman Coins, and Their Values In Sterling Money,

THE PREFACE.

IN the preceding part of this essay, I have endeavoured to explain the theory and nature of money, in such a manner, as to leave no room for any doubts or difficulties concerning it. But notwithstanding all my care, I do not expect universal approbation: Such are the infinite diversities and warpings of the human mind; and such are the inadvertencies, perversenesses and prejudices of many, that unanimity in any one point is hardly to be expected. And unfortunately, money is a subject wherein men in general have given themselves the least trouble of enquiry; and yet a subject upon which they think themselves best qualified and best entitled to decide: A subject upon which, more jejune, incoherent and dangerous positions have been held, and more glaring absurdities advanced, than, perhaps, upon any other whatsoever. But truth is mighty; and to as many as can think freely for themselves, and have considered what I have already laid before them, I hope that what is here offered will appear evident and incontestible.

The design of this second part is a very arduous and important one: It is to defend and preserve every man’s right and property; to preserve unsullied the national faith, honour and credit; to preserve a reign hitherto distinguished by equal laws and equal administration of justice, from a blot that would remain to all posterity: To vindicate and defend all these, I say, from an assassination in the dark, by a debasement of the long established standard of property. Some of our opponents in this question, no doubt, mean well; and persist in their errors for want of understanding the subject, and that perhaps too, only from their not having duly considered it. Others, it is to be feared, seek only their own private gain; in competition with which, it is not to be expected that with such men, either the dishonour or distresses of their country, should have much weight.

Towards the close of the last century, this country swarmed with projectors, who were for debasing the standard of money. These were fully answered, if they would have taken an answer, by the great Mr. Locke, as to the point then in debate. The very ill state of our coin at that time, might mislead many well meaning people into wrong notions, as to the means of redressing that great evil, which the nation then labour’d under: But, after what was then said and done, to have the same false doctrine maintained and propagated at this day, is truly matter of astonishment.

Mr. Locke seems to have been called to this work, before he had considered the subject at large; and although he was perfectly right as to the main point then in debate; yet it must be owned that his tracts upon this subject, though voluminous, if considered as a system of the theory of money, are very deficient and imperfect, if not in some places bordering upon mistakes. It is with much reluctance, but it is with a very honest design, that I say thus much to the disparagement of this truly eminent author: It is to guard the reader against trusting too far to a guide, that would scarce be able to conduct him clear of many obstacles that might fall in his way.

I have endeavoured to supply this defect, to remove all those difficulties which seem to have misled people upon this delicate, complex, and important subject, and to frame the whole structure upon self-evident principles. It should not be here concealed that we have on our side of the question, some of the most distinguished names that this or any other country hath produced: No less than the great Lord Burleigh, Lord Halifax, Lord Sommers, Sir Thomas Rowe, Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, Martin Folkes, Esq.; &c. Some of these are quoted, in their own words, in the first ensuing chapter; and it is but fair and equitable, that those who will not or cannot think for themselves, should pay a due regard to such venerable and great authorities.

Before I conclude, I ought in justice to acquaint the reader, that this tract was not undertaken from any apprehension, that our government now hath or is likely to have any design of altering our standard; it is rather with a view to the quiet of those in power from the importunities of wrong-headed politicians, as well as to the safety of the whole from the intrigues of wily projectors.