CHAP, xxiii. WEAR OF COIN. 179 



drawn from them from being deficient. That, 

 however, could not be known, and it becomes 

 necessary to have recourse to conjecture. It does 

 not seem likely that the guineas to be met with in 

 1807 were, on the average, of an older date than 

 the year 17^7 and the circulation having been 

 suspended for ten years, they could not have 

 suffered more than ten years' abrasion. We see 

 that on one thousand guineas the loss from the 

 standard weight had been eighteen shillings and 

 eleven-pence per cent., or that one part in a thou- 

 sand and fifty had been lost. We see that on the 

 half-guineas the loss from the standard weight 

 had been two pounds two shillings and seven-pence 

 per cent., or one part in four hundred and sixty. 

 The proportion of the half-guineas to the guineas 

 was, as recently, nearly as one to ten *, not on the 

 number of the pieces but on their value. The 

 average wear in the two sizes of coin would then 

 be shown to be at the rate of one part in nine 

 hundred and fifty. 



Such appears to be, as nearly as can be known, 

 the loss in English gold coin, which was even at 

 that time the most durable of any in existence. 

 It will have been observed, that the loss on the 

 half-guineas was more than double the propor- 

 tion to that on the guineas. It is indeed clear, 



1 Sec Appendix, No. 3, R 



N 2 



