24

2

oa

ef

e

st

y
Wr

1t

1%

Sf

eae

an

iter
Jhis
nty
and
441

age
ner,
But
the

'Urse
ir of

ABES

3 out
pon

y old

RECOINAGE OF 1696 435
the currency was most deplorable. Very little silver was A.D. 1689
to be had, and what was forthcoming was defective and ~~ °
debased. As Lowndes says, “Great contentions do daily
arise amongst the King’s Subjects, in Fairs, Markets, Shops,
and other Places throughout the Kingdom, about the Passing
or Refusing of the Same, to the disturbance of the Public
Peace; many Bargains, Doings and Dealings are totally
prevented and laid aside, which lessens Trade in general;
Persons before they conclude in any Bargains, are necessitated
 first to settle the Price or Value of the very Money
they are to Receive for their Goods; and if it be in Guineas
at a High Rate, or in Clipt or Bad Moneys, they set the
Price of their Goods accordingly, which I think has been
One great cause of Raising the Price not only of Merchandizes,
 but even of Edibles, and other Necessaries for
the sustenance of the Common People, to their Great
Grievance. The Receipt and Collection of the Publick Taxes,
Revenues and Debts (as well as of Private Mens Incomes)
are extreamly retarded.” The larger silver pieces had
suffered most and the smaller coins were comparatively
uninjured; but the malpractices had been carried so far gulte
that the prices of commodities in silver appear to have risen arieof
considerably, This metal was still the recognised standard 27ic® 2,
of currency, and the fall in the value of silver coins became in silver.
apparent, both in the high rates which had to be paid for
guineas? and in the unfavourable state of the exchanges?.
It became obvious that no satisfactory remedy could be
carried out, unless the evil was dealt with in a thoroughgoing
 fashion, and the old coinage was called in. An ingenious
 scheme for amending the silver coinage, with the
least possible disturbance to prices, was put forward by
Mr Lowndes, the Secretary of the Treasury. He proposed i
that the new money should be issued at higher denomina- ending
bons; a silver coin of the weight and fineness of the old “4%
crown should be made current, not as 60, but as 75 pence, Soagh ais.
and the half-crown should represent, not 80, but 37} pence. to prices
+ Essay for Amendment (1695), in Maceulloch, Tracts, p. 233.
! The silver price of guineas was from 24/- to 30/. Haynes, op. cit. 120.
¢ The discount on English drafts in Amsterdam varied between 13-7 per cent.
and 23-5 per cent. Thorold Rogers, First Nine Years of the Bank of England, 40.
28.9

30 as to
couse great
inconvenience