Samuel Pratt

“ Such an Importation of Money would I fear, be of worse Consequence than all our Exportation of Silver and Gold can prove.
If what cost our Merchants a Shilling, they should sell for a Groat, or if they shall buy of us an Ounce of Gold for Three or Four Ounces of Silver, or supposing ’em to buy it at 136 s. 6 d. per Ounce, they shall buy an Ounce for as much Counterfeit Money as shall not have 7 Peny-Weight of true Bullion in it, this would give our Balance of Trade, such a Terrible Swing, as no true Hearted English-Man would be willing to see. ”

“ These and other such like things if the Price of Gold and Silver had not risen, must have occasion’d a Fall of most other Commodities.
And now let us consider the Danger of the high Price of Gold as it stands at present.
Coin is the most portable Commodity, and Gold the most portable Coin; but we have run it up high, and therefore do’nt at present fear Exportation; but then, if ’tis considerably higher than among our Neighbours, there is great Reason to fear too great an Importation may be as dangerous, as a disadvantagious one doth already prove. ”

“ Whatsoever I have read or heard on this Subject, hath brought the Matters to this Dilemma, that either Coin must want of its intrinsic Value, so as to disatisfie most of the King’s loving Subjects, and endanger a fatal stop to Trade; or if it is to be made of near an intrinsic Value, according to the Rate Silver shall go at in the time of Coining, then upon every little Rise of Silver higher than that Price, we are in danger of having it exported and melted down; and so every Parliament may meet with the same Difficulties we at present labour under in the badness and scarcity of Silver Coin. ”

“ And indeed if Money were not allowed to be a commodity, yet ’tis a Pledge and Surety of every Traders Property, and I am not reconciled to the Justice of that Law which forbids a man to take his Pledge along with him.
54Such a Law makes money nothing but a Commodity, and then we must pay dear for what we buy of Foreigners, for most men will sell Cheaper than they will Barter. ”

“ Again, the Want of Silver Coin occasions the taking of Gold at such high Rates; and the Value of Gold Coin being uncertain, which Silver Coin hath not hitherto been, the Receiver will always allow himself for a probable Loss: (which would be the certain Effect too of making the Valuation or Silver Coin alterable and uncertain) that Allowance makes things bought so much the dearer, and that Dearness puts a Damp upon Trade.
So that the Scarcity of Silver is not only at present too visible, but so long as the Balance of Trade is lightest on our Side, is like to be more and more felt. ”

“ But when People see the Parliament has Conquer’d the Difficulty, and that there is a great Plenty of Money stirring about again, they will be baulk’d of their Expectations, and take Advantage of the First of the Market; this will conduce to the Cheapness of Bullion, and cause a Plenty: And if any continue still hoarded, it will be by People only who have an irremediable Humour that way; and ’tis better they should hoard that for which the Government pays no Interest, than to keep Unemploy’d Money by ’em at the expence of the Publick. ”

“ Foreigners have a knack at raising the price of Silver to draw over our Money to ’em; and I hear they can afford what they now daily do, viz. To Export, rather than fail, Clipt Money; and the only way to keep our Money at Home, Is to fix, during the War, one considerable part of its Value to the Kingdom; and when those Foreigners who must deal with us, cannot Export our Money, but with great disadvantage, they will be forced to take our Commodities in lieu of it, and be as industrious to make ’em valuable abroad as we are. ”

“ But there are some that look upon it with an evil eye, and then the badness of money, and the scarcity of it, and the Exporting and melting down, and hoarding it, and the rise of Gold, and the dearness of Commodities, and the badness of Trade are all as evident effects of the War as the Taxes are. ”

“ Undefaced and weighty pieces are now as so many Medals, people think it a great happiness to have a store of ’em. And as the Coyn degenerates these are more charily preserved, and will be so till the intrinsick value of ’em diminishes. I could give a shrewd guess where this weighty Money is to be found in great quantities, but be it where it will as I said before, I think every man hath a right do what he will with his own, so far as it is his own. ”

“ An Act of Parliament can as well make a Scotch Pound pass for an English, as half an Ounce of Silver in England to go for an Ounce in Holland, without some Consideration as may Balance the Difference.
Let us call a six peny-Weight of Silver a Crown-Piece, as loud and as long as we will, yet we shall never buy a Pound of Nutmegs with Four of ’em, unless you’ll give the Dutch Merchant 40a Yard of broad-Cloth, or something else into the Bargain.
’Tis a plain case, that when the real Value of Money is lessen’d, the Price of every thing will Rise accordingly, be the Extrinsic Value what it will. ”

“ The Denomination of the Silver Coin will not hereby be raised above the real value.
3. The Trade and Circulation of Bullion in and out of the Kingdom, will not be at all hinder’d, so that as much Silver and Gold may be yearly transported into Flanders, as the occasions of the War require, without loss of Coinage; and Money which is the Vital warmth of In-land Trade, by which People are enabled to pay Taxes, always preserved among us.
4. The frequent Rises and Falls of Money beyond Sea, will be no longer an effectual trick to cheat us, as it hath hitherto been. ”

“ It is not impossible that Foreigners in all parts of Christendom should immediately set themselves to counterfeit our base Money.
12There are beyond Seas as good Chymists, and Black-Smiths as at London, or Birmingham, and ’tis not impossible that they should secretly Import as much base Money, resembling that which goes current among us, and which hath not the intrinsic Value of One Shilling in Three, as if they please may not only buy up and Export Two or Three Millions Worth of our Staple Commodities, affording ’em Cheaper abroad than we can at home ”

“ But then again, suppose the Money to be Coyned shall be (as our Mill’d Money and diminished hammer’d Money is) pretty near the Intrinsick value of the Silver in each piece, and this will doubtless facilitate Exportation. If a Foreigner for instance bring to London and sells 40 Bales of raw Silk, or 40 Tun of Wine, and meets not here with such a Market for the buying of other Commodities to be Transported as he expected, perhaps 52those he wants are not of our Growth or Manufacture, or it may be he is in hast, or the Season calls him home ”

“ On our side Taxes are great, and the Subject cannot afford to buy so many foreign Commodities as at other times: And on their side they have not so good a Vent as they had; so their Commodities must stick on hand unless sold so cheap as may make amends for the Hazards of the Sea, and the Cheapness of Commodities wou’d be the natural Effects of Scarcity of Money, if our Money had the same real Value as formerly. ”

“ The Price of every thing will rise instead of falling.
39For if we were willing to submit to this at home, yet there is such a Combination, between our Foreign and Home Trade, and the Relation between ’em is so inseparable, that let the State give it what Name it will, it will pass for no more at home than it doth abroad, unless the heavy Balance of Trade was on our side the Water; and it will pass for no more abroad than it is really, not Extrinsically or Imaginarily, worth at home. ”

“ Suppose you called in by compulsion and Coyned all the Plate of England, and suppose it never so many Millions, and all after 59the old Standard, when the Plate is all gone people will have more Plate, and Silversmiths must still have work, and Goldsmiths their Trade, unless by prohibiting the use of silver Plate we proclaim an hypocritical Beggary to all the world, and ruin many thousand Families of Artisans. ”

“ Importation of Silver from all Parts Encourag’d, the Current Coin of ENGLAND Encreas’d; the Purity and Denomination of the Coin Continued; and all at the present Expence of Two hundred and fifty thousand Pounds, and a Yearly Land-Tax of One Penny in the Pound during the War, q. e. d.
The only Difficulty that remains, is, After what manner the Interest shall be paid. ”

“ And whereas you’ll say that Farmers and Grasiers are no Merchants, and wou’d be as well contented with passable Coin as old Standard, ’tis very true, but they keep up to such Prices as their whole-sale Chapmen can afford to give ’em; and when a Factor sells his 26Cloth at Blackwell-Hall; he considers the Necessity of the Buyer, as well as Expence of the Clothier; when a Merchant can make a better Profit, ’tis expected he should give a better Price. ”

“ The Coin’d Silver of the whole Nation, may in times of Peace be reduced to the old Standard, and Intrinsick Value, without recoining or altering the Species.
8. Those who hide and hoard up their Money, to defeat the Intents of a Tax upon it, will be disappointed of their Ends, and become greater Losers than by producing it; whereby Money may be affected by Taxes, which now cannot so easily be done. ”

“ All the Advantages which can be proposed to the Publick by Coining 125after the old Standard, will hereby be effected, at a very inconsiderable present Expence, and no more than one Million at the end of the War.
11. Guineas will hereby fall in their Estimation, by an easie, natural, and gradual Abatement.
12. The Plenty of Money will be much greater, the Intrinsick Value more, and the Certainty of what a Man takes clearer than is at present.
And the real Value of our Coin, as great as ever, to all Intents and Purposes, but of Exporting, Melting-down, and Hiding. ”

“ But this with some unthinking People is the Effect of War; and because some things are dearer upon this Account than others, therefore every thing else that is dearer must have the same Cause assigned; but a general Cheapness of things should, methinks, be the Natural Effect of our War, if our Money with which we go to Market were as it should be. ”

“ This I think is plain, but as yet there is more in it than so; and suppose it, any other Nations turn to want Silver as much as we now do, and Silver should be there at an higher price than with us, then our Money becomes good Merchandice, and he gets most who carries most over: And the lower the value of our Coyn is the less Foreign Commodities we shall have for it. ”

“ The War consumes but little of our Product and Manufacture; it carries a great many Mouthes into Flanders, and that would naturally make Provisions cheap: Many of these Mouths had idle Hands, and so they are not miss’d in the Manufacture; but instead of them, a great many industrious Foreigners come among us who eat little and work much.
27The Taxes, as I said, are great Inducements to Frugality, and the Advantages People have of late made of Money, have been no less. ”

“ But if we can at present so order it, that instead of importing 1500 l. worth of Silk we shall import 1000 l. worth of Silk, and 500 l. worth of Silver we shall be no losers in the Article I am upon, and which is the only thing I have undertaken to look after, viz. That the Nation shall never want Money be the Trade what it will: for if 500 l. in Silver be Exported and as much Imported every Year, we can never have a Peny worth of Bullion less than we have.
And if other Nations must get by us, they had better get any thing than our Money ”

“ And as to that Notion that we must not glut the Markets 117abroad with our Commodities, it is a Vulgar Errour unless we make this distinction, That ’tis dangerous when our English Factories glut the Market; for when Foreigners see the Market full, they combine together to keep down the Price, knowing that we must Sell; but then Foreigners who are better acquainted with their own Markets and Fairs than we are, and can spread a Trade much farther than our Factories can do, when they Export our Commodities and cannot Trade at all with us without exporting ’em ”

“ Nor must the Two several Values be too far Different one from the other, lest Foreigners be Tempted to Counterfeit our Coin.
106I don’t mean by sending Us over such a Counterfeit as shall be of Less intrinsick Value than our Own; but they can Afford all the Charge of Curious Coinage, and Pure Silver, and Full Weight, and Hazard of Importing it contrary to all Laws that We can Make; If any more considerable Sum, than Twenty per Cent. could be Gain’d by such Importation: But no body can afford all the Charge and Hazard, if the Profit be no Greater, and the Punishment Capital. ”

“ The Silver then of which you coyn your new Plate must come from abroad, or be procured out of your money.
The Goldsmith will go the cheaper way to work, and rather than he’ll give 5 s. 10 d. to a Merchant for an ounce of Plate, he’ll fling in a Crown and 6 d. into the melting Pot, and though the Laws against melting down Coyn be never so severe yet people will venture any thing for gain, as you may see Clippers do daily; especially if their Consciences don’t check ’em, and few mens Consciences 60will scruple making the most of their own. ”

“ Turn the Tables, and suppose the King of Spain should advance his Real of Eight weighing but 17 Penny Weight 12 Grains to double the value it now bears, and yet needing by reason of the barrenness of his Country more of 51Foreign Wares than he can Countervail by Barter with his own; he must part with his Money and not gain by enhauncing his Coyn. One Real of Eight would not then buy of us as good a Yard of broad Cloth as two doth now, and why should we think to over reach them more than they us. ”