THE DEBASEMENT OF COINAGES. 585 



by tyrannical laws which were intended to make the debased coin 

 pass for just as much as the pure. Nothing would be gained unless 

 this could be done. Mint-officers were sworn to secrecy, but the 

 nialting-pot revealed the fraud. Proclamations were issued by Ed- 

 ward II., commanding, under heavy penalties, that the money should 

 be kept current at the stamped value, and that no one should enhance 

 the price of his goods on that account, for it was the king's pleasure 

 that the coins should be kept up to the same value they were wont to 

 bear ! Later, in the reign of Edward VI., when the debasement reached 

 its lowest depths, a maximum was set on the price of corn, and those 

 who refused to carry their grain to market were to be punished. 



Absurd as such compulsory laws may seem to us, they are perfectly 

 logical outcomes of any attempts to lower the standard of money. 

 There is nothing to be gained by debasing coinage unless the opera- 

 tions of commerce can be regulated upon the assumption that a part 

 is equal to the whole. Edward's proclamation, that it was his pleasure 

 that the coins should be kept up to the value that they were wont to 

 bear, and that people should be compelled to market their goods at 

 the old prices, was more difficult of enforcement, but not different in 

 principle, no whit more dishonest, than a law which shall make 90 

 cents a legal tender for 100, in the discharge of all debts. 



It was hardly to be expected that a higher standard of morality 

 would be found among subjects than that held to by their rulers. 

 The tampering was begun by the people on their own account, the 

 more readily as the nature of the coin made this an easy matter. 

 In making the coins the metal was divided with shears, and afterward 

 shaped and stamped by hand with the hammer. They were not exact 

 in size or weight : some contained more, and some less, than the cor- 

 rect quantity of silver; few pieces were exactly round ; and, as the 

 edges were smooth, nothing was easier than to take a slight paring 

 from the pieces as they passed from hand to hand. 



Coin-clipping was discovered to be profitable and comparatively 

 safe, and it was practised with great industry. As early as the reign 

 of Elizabeth it was prohibited, on the pain of life and limb, and the 

 forfeiture of all lands. But the practice was too lucrative to be thus 

 checked, and by the time of the Restoration the larger part of the sil- 

 ver in circulation was mutilated. Macaulay has described in most 

 graphic manner this episode in the history of British coinage. All 

 trade and industry was deranged by the confusion which arose from 

 the disgraceful state of the money. " Nothing could be purchased 

 without a dispute. Over every counter there was wrangling from 

 morning till night. The workman and his employer had a quarrel as 

 regularly as the Saturday came round." 



Guineas, which had originally been coined to be equal to 20s., rose 

 as the silver grew worse, till they were current at 30s. of the base 

 trash which passed by the name of silver coin. The shrinkage on the 



