CHAP. xv. OF GOLD AND SILVER. 



certain conclusions can be drawn from the amount 

 of this deduction at any one time, as the rate of 

 the seniorage seems to have been ever unsettled, 

 and to have depended on the caprice, the avarice, 

 or the necessities of the sovereign 1 .'* It appears, 

 however, by the accounts he has collected (chiefly 

 from the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British 

 Museum), that in one period of the reign of 

 Edward IV. a troy pound weight of gold, which 

 was coined into nominal money amounting to 

 twenty pounds sixteen shillings and eight-pence, 

 had cost to the merchant for the gold, eighteen 

 pounds six shillings and eight-pence ; to the master 

 of the mint, for coining, two shillings and four-pence; 

 thus leaving for seniorage two pounds seven shil- 

 lings and eight-pence, or more than thirteen per 

 cent. In the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII. 

 the troy pound of gold was coined into thirty 

 pounds of legal money of the day. The cost of 

 the gold to the merchant had been twenty-four 

 pounds eighteen shillings, thus leaving for the 

 fabrication and the seniorage five pounds two 

 shillings, or a profit of more than sixteen per 

 cent. These two instances of exorbitant seniorage 

 are the exceptions to the general practice ; as in 

 no other years did it reach the same extent, 

 though in a few they approached to it. On the 

 average of the period from the eighteenth of 



1 Ruding, vol. i. p. 180. 



