CURRENCY. 135 



the English nation. To have really restored the currency 

 in 1560 would have been to sacrifice twelve or fifteen years 

 of the public revenue to honesty, a problem as difficult of 

 solution in 1560, as it had been in 1433 to make the income 

 of Henry the Sixth (then eleven years old) square with his 

 expenditure. The recoinage of 1696 was costly enough, for 

 its charge was about a year and a-halfs revenue in time of 

 peace. 



Nothing is more curious than the suddenness with which 

 a discovery of the mischief was made, and the puzzled way 

 in which people tried to account for it. Godfrey, one of the 

 founders of the Bank of England, set it down to the gold- 

 smiths, and this before the goldsmiths had quarrelled with 

 the Bank. Most people alleged it to be due to the tempta- 

 tion which hammered money gave to the clippers. Some 

 said it was done by the Jews, and that Oliver, among his 

 many political crimes, had allowed the Jews to settle in 

 England and practise this nefarious act. One thing alone 

 was clear, that day by day coins grew worse and worse, and 

 that on the whole at least a third of the silver was gone 

 from the current coin. It does not appear that the gold 

 coin was clipped. 



The legislature knew that human hands had done the 

 work, that the currency was not brought into its then 

 present condition by fair wear, and that much of the wrong- 

 doing was recent. By straining the Statute of Treasons they 

 had brought clipping under the elastic law of Edward III, 

 and convicted offenders by the dozen, hanging the men and 

 burning the women. There is reason to believe that the 

 offence of clipping was trumped up against persons who 

 made themselves inconvenient on other grounds. The legis- 

 lature was right in its facts, but was negligent or ignorant 

 in the interpretation of the causes of the facts. 



There is no doubt a fashion in crime, perhaps an occasional 

 fascination, especially when the law tries to check special 

 offences with ferocious severity. At the end of the seven- 



