VALUE OF A LIMITED COIN 
~ 
31 
rate of 960 farthings, 480 halfpence and 240 pennies 
to the pound sterling. 
Even when the whole coinage was remodelled in 
1816 no one seems to have thought of applying the 
same simple plan to the silver coinage, but it was 
actually applied in consequence of what seems to have 
been merely a happy accident. It was intended to 
continue * free” coinage of silver, but to make it, 
as Adam Smith had recommended forty years before, 
subject to a seignorage of 4s. per lb. troy weight 
(the Mint price being fixed at 62s. for the lb., which 
was coined into 66s.). But for some reason or other 
free coinage was only to begin after the issue of a 
proclamation about it, and the issue of this proclama- 
tion was delayed. Meantime the Mint bought silver 
at the market price, coined it, and sold the coins to 
those who wanted them at the rates of 8 half-crowns, 
20 shillings and so on to the pound. This method 
being found profitable to the Mint and satisfactory 
to every one else, no one troubled about the pro- 
clamation, and it was never issued. It was only 
in 1870 that the provision for free coinage after the 
issue of the proclamation was struck out of the 
Statute-book, and even then the importance of the 
change made by the disappearance of free coinage 
of silver does not seem to have been recognized. The 
usual belief seems to have been the very extraordinary 
ong that the silver coins were kept in their proper 
relation to the sovereign by not being legal tender 
for more than £2, as if a disability of this kind could 
possibly have either kept the value of the coin above 
that of the metal of which it was composed or have 
kept it in circulation if the value of the metal was 
greater than the value at which the coin would circu- 
late. The {ac that silver coins are legal tender 
up to and not beyond £2 and that bronze coins are 
legal tender uo to and not beyond £o0°05 (a shilling)