IV. BOOK coin, but of foreign trade. A round-about foreign trade of confumption can be carried on more advantageoufly by means of thefe metals than of almost any other goods. As they are the universal inftruments of commerce, they are more readily received in return for all commodities than any other goods; and on account of their small bulk and great value, it cofts lefs to transport them backward and forward from one place to another than almost any other fort of merchandize, and they lose less of their value by being fo tranfported. Of all the commodities, therefore, which are bought in one foreign country, for no other purpose but to be fold or exchanged again for fome other goods in another, there are none fo convenient as gold and filver. In facilitating all the different round-about foreign trades of confumption which are carried on in Great Britain, confifts the principal advantage of the Portugal trade; and though it is not a capital advantage, it is, no doubt, a confiderable one. That any annual addition which, it can reásonably be supposed, is made either to the plate or to the coin of the kingdom, could require but a very small annual importation of gold and filver, feems evident enough; and though we had no direct trade with Portugal, this fmall quantity could always, fomewhere or another, be very easily got. Though the goldfmiths trade be very confiderable in Great Britain, the far greater part of the new plate which they annually fell, is made VI. made from other old plate melted down; fo that CHAP. the addition annually made to the whole plate of the kingdom cannot be very great, and could require but a very small annual importation. It is the fame cafe with the coin. Nobody imagines, I believe, that even the greater part of the annual coinage, amounting, for ten years together, before the late reformation of the gold coin, to upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds a year in gold, was an annual addition to the money before current in the kingdom. In a country where the expence of the coinage is defrayed by the government, the value of the coin, even when it contains its full ftandard weight of gold and filver, can never be much greater than that of an equal quantity of those metals uncoined; because it requires only the trouble of going to the mint, and the delay perhaps of a few weeks, to procure for any quantity of uncoined gold and filver an equal quantity of those metals in coin. But, in every country, the greater part of the current coin is almoft always more or lefs worn, or otherwife degenerated from its ftandard. In Great Britain it was, before the late reformation, a good deal fo, the gold being more than two per cent. and the filver more than eight per cent. below its ftandard weight. But if forty-four guineas and a half, containing their full ftandard weight, a pound weight of gold, could purchase very little more than a pound weight of uncoined gold, forty-four guineas and a half wanting a part of their weight could not purchase a pound weight, and IV. BOOK and fomething was to be added in order to make up the deficiency. The current price of gold bullion at market, therefore, instead of being the fame with the mint price, or 46l. 14s. 6d. was then about 47. 148. and fometimes about forty-eight pounds. When the greater part of the coin, however, was in this degenerate condition, forty-four guineas and a half, fresh from the mint, would purchase no more goods in the market than any other ordinary guineas, because when they came into the coffers of the merchant, being confounded with other money, they could not afterwards be diftinguished without more trouble than the difference was worth. Like other guineas they were worth no more than 46l. 14s. 6d. If thrown into the melting pot, however, they produced, without any fenfible lofs, a pound weight of ftandard gold, which could be fold at any time for between 47l. 148. and 481. either in gold or filver, as fit for all the purposes of coin as that which had been melted down. There was an evident profit, therefore, in melting down new coined money, and it was done fo inftantaneously, that no precaution of government could prevent it. The operations of the mint were, upon this account, fomewhat like the web of Penelope; the work that was done in the day was undone in the night. The mint was employed, not fo much in making daily additions to the coin, as in replacing the very best part of it which was daily melted down. Were the private people, who carry their gold and filver to the mint, to pay themselves VI. for the coinage, it would add to the value of CHA P. thofe metals in the fame manner as the fashion does to that of plate. Coined gold and filver would be more valuable than uncoined. The feignorage, if it was not exorbitant, would add to the bullion the whole value of the duty; becaufe, the government having every where the exclufive privilege of coining, no coin can come to market cheaper than they think proper to afford it. If the duty was exorbitant indeed, that is, if it was very much above the real value of the labour and expence requifite for coinage, falfe coiners, both at home and abroad, might be encouraged, by the great difference between the value of bullion and that of coin, to pour in fo great a quantity of counterfeit money as might reduce the value of the government money. In France, however, though the feignorage is eight per cent. no fenfible inconveniency of this kind is found to arife from it. The dangers to which a falfe coiner is every where expofed, if he lives in the country of which he counterfeits the coin, and to which his agents or correfpondents are expofed if he lives in a foreign country, are by far too great to be incurred for the fake of a profit of fix or feven per cent. The feignorage in France raifes the value of the coin higher than in proportion to the quantity of pure gold which it contains. Thus by the edict of January 1726, the mint price * See Dictionaire des Monnoies, tom. ii. article Seigneurage, P. 489. par M. Abot de Bazinghen, Confeiller-Comiflaire en la Cour des Monnoies à Paris. of IV. BOOK of fine gold of twenty-four carats was fixed at feven hundred and forty livres nine fous and one denier one-eleventh, the mark of eight Paris ounces. The gold coin of France, making an allowance for the remedy of the mint, contains twenty-one carats and three-fourths of fine gold, and two carats one-fourth of alloy. The mark of ftandard gold, therefore, is worth no more than about fix hundred and feventy-one livres ten deniers. But in France this mark of ftandard gold is coined into thirty Louis-d'ors of twenty-four livres each, or into feven hundred and twenty livres. The coinage, therefore, increases the value of a mark of standard gold bullion, by the difference between fix hundred and feventy-one livres ten deniers, and feven hundred and twenty livres; or by forty-eight livres nineteen fous and two deniers. A feignorage will, in many cafes, take away altogether, and will, in all cafes, diminish the profit of melting down the new coin. This profit always arifes from the difference between the quantity of bullion which the common currency ought to contain, and that which it actually does contain. If this difference is lefs than the feignorage, there will be lofs inftead of profit. If it is equal to the feignorage, there will neither be profit nor lefs. If it is greater than the feignorage, there will indeed be fome profit, but less than if there was no feignorage. If, before the late reformation of the gold coin, for example, there had been a feignorage of five per cent. upon the coinage, there would have been |