WEAR OF COIN. CHAP, xxill. 



standard wear faster in proportion to their decline 

 in fineness. The twenty franc pieces of France 

 wear faster than even our guineas did. The 

 Spanish doubloons are worse than the French 

 gold, and wear away faster ; and it is affirmed by 

 some accurate goldsmiths, that the gold used by 

 them of eighteen carats fine suffers a loss very 

 much greater than even the Spanish coin. 



Our new gold coinage only commenced in 

 1817, and the whole amount coined in that year 

 was four million two hundred and seventy-five 

 thousand three hundred and seventy-seven pounds; 

 and in the three next years the coinage amounted 

 only to three million eight hundred and fifteen 

 thousand four hundred and sixty-four pounds, ten 

 shillings 1 . Though partial payments in gold were 

 made at the bank, they were very soon suspended, 

 and it was not till the large coinage of 1821, when 

 nine million five hundred and twenty thousand 

 seven hundred and fifty-eight pounds had been 

 prepared, that the necessary measure of a general 

 return to cash payments could be with safety 

 adopted. If we may judge from the small diminu- 

 tion of bank notes after June, 1823, when the 

 restriction on the bank ceased, and from current 

 rumours that the bank was overloaded with gold, 

 we should conclude that very little of the new 

 coinage was in circulation before the latter end of 



1 See Appendix, No. II. 



