An Essay on Currency and Banking; Being an Attempt to Show Their True Nature, and to Explain the Difficulties That Have Occurred in Discussing Them. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832 edition. Excerpt: ...point of comparison of the country at which they are always to pass, and be taken in the common intercourse of society. If this account of the introduction and employment of coins be correct, then it is very evident that the bullion, of which they are formed, can_have no connexion whatever with the ascertaining value until it is made into coins and issued under the authority of the government of a country. It has been the universal practice of all governments to retain the power of not only issuing the coins, but also of determining the quantity of metal in each, and fixing the exact value which it is at all times to bear, and at which rate only it is to be allowed to circulate. But to assume that, because a certain quantity of gold, under a certain form and denomination, had been directed to pass and be current at a certain fixed value; therefore the same quantity of gold, under whatever form or shape it may be, is, and must always and at all times be, exactly of the same value and perform the same office, appears to be as absurd as it would be to argue, that because mercury put into a glass tube and fixed to a graduated scale, shows in one instance heat or cold, and in" another wet or dry; there3 fore, mercury, in whatever state, or under whatever form it may be, must at all times show heat or cold, wet or dry. That an assumed standard of value has been, and still is, in use in England, and that the coins circulated there have invariably been made and issued with a reference to that standard, the following brief statement will show: The term pound sterling was first established by William the conqueror. It then applied to a pound of fine silver, and was divided into twenty shillings and two hundred and forty pence. Silver pieces, ...