CURRENCF. J99 



book of the Rawlinson collection in Bodley's library. Doubt- 

 less the plan was abandoned, because it would have disturbed 

 money values, would have given rise to a suspicion that the 

 queen intended to enhance her own money dues, and would 

 not in the end have effected any good adequate to the distrust 

 which it would certainly have caused. 



The ratio of gold to silver was during the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries at from iojf| to HT|T, according to Lord 

 Liverpool. The gold was either 'fine' of 23*3^ carats fine, i.e.! 

 nearly pure, or 'crown' of 22 carats fine with 2 carats alloy. 

 The distinction was first introduced by Henry the Eighth 

 in 1527, and was continued till the Restoration, when the 

 mintage of fine gold was abandoned, and crown gold made, 

 as it has continued ever since, the standard of the English gold 

 currency. Henry probably learnt fraud from the French kings. 



The English gold coins were the Rose noble or rial, coined 

 throughout the fifteenth century up to the 18 Hen. VIII; the 

 angel, originally the third of the pound or half a mark ; the 

 angelet, which was half the angel ; the quarter angel ; the 

 sovereign ; the double sovereign coined by Henry the Eighth 

 only; the George noble, the crown and half crown, coined also 

 by Henry the Eighth ; and the pound and second rial continued 

 from Henry to Elizabeth, the latter by Elizabeth only. From 

 notes which I have made, I find that the exchange of silver 

 into gold generally involved a small agio in favour of the latter. 

 See notes on year 1569. 



It ought to be reiterated that the possibility of the executive 

 giving an arbitrary value to the currency without affecting 

 prices materially, or even at all, depends on the extent to 

 which the industry of the country is excluded from the effects 

 of foreign trade. There is, indeed, no economical problem 

 which is more difficult of solution than that of determining 

 the extent of this power. We are told that internal prices in 

 India and Russia have not been traceably affected by the depre- 

 ciation of silver, and the debasement of the paper rouble ; and 

 it might be the case that even the serious lessening of the 



