5 86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



average of the pieces in circulation amounted to nearly or quite 50 

 per cent. The most rigorous and cruel laws were passed, but they 

 were ineffectual, and, while scores of miserable wretches were dangling 

 from the gibbets, clipping was as rife as ever. 



Clipping is here referred to at some length, because it differs from 

 other degradations of coinage only in respect to the parties by whom 

 it is done. It is reducing the value of coin without public authority, 

 and is the least mischievous of the two forms, because, as no one is 

 compelled to take clipped coins, the loss is forced on no one. 



The first effort to correct the evils which had thus arisen was, by 

 furnishing a large supply of fresh, honest, milled coins. The poli- 

 ticians of that day believed that, if the people were given plenty of 

 new and good money, it would soon displace the old ; and so the 

 mints were run to their utmost capacity, but the new coins vanished 

 from sight as fast as they were put ont. Gresham's law, that " bad 

 money drives out good money, but that good money cannot drive 

 out bad money," although not then formulated, worked its inevitable 

 result. The statesmen marveled that men would not pay 12 ounces 

 of silver when 10 could be made to serve the purpose, but they per- 

 sistently refused to do so. By the time of William III., the necessity 

 of resorting to some measures which should be effectual was generally 

 felt. 



It was evident to all that the old coinage must in some way be 

 supplanted by a new, but the manner in which this should be done 

 was warmly disputed. Mr. William Lowndes, then Secretary of the 

 Treasury, was ordered to make a report and did so, recommending 

 that the standard of the new coin should be depreciated to the level 

 of the trash in circulation, by making the new shilling worth nine- 

 pence or thereabouts. He asserted, and attempted to prove, " that 

 making the pieces less, or ordaining the respective pieces (of the 

 present weight) to be current at a higher rate, might equally raise 

 the value of silver in our coins; "and seriously argued that, if an ounce 

 of silver were but cut up finer, other nations would be induced to sell 

 their products for a smaller number of ounces. He had a consider- 

 able following, composed, Macaulay says, " partly of dull men who 

 really believed what he told them, and partly of shrewd men who 

 were perfectly willing to be authorized by law to pay a hundred 

 pounds with eighty" a description which fits with sufficient accu- 

 racy the advocates of the Bland Bill. 



Lowndes's fallacies were exposed with great ability by Locke, and 

 fortunately wiser counsels prevailed. The old standard was main- 

 tained in the new issues, and the clipped coins were called in, the loss 

 falling, as it should do, on the public at large. Space forbids the in- 

 troduction here of the arguments by which this wise course was sus- 

 tained. The controversy is interesting and instructive, and deserves 

 attention, for it was revived 116 years later when Bank-of-England 



