1825 WEAR OF COIN. CHAP. XXIII. 



known that more silver was coined than the circu- 

 lation could absorb, that much was left in de- 

 posit at the Bank which could not be issued, that 

 the bankers, especially in the country, were full 

 of complaints of the dead weight of the silver coins 

 that were accumulated in their coffers, of which 

 they could make no interest until they incurred 

 the expense of sending it to London, where only 

 it could be exchanged for better money which 

 could be used in discounting or lending out on 

 securities. There was no outlet for it in foreign 

 countries from the high value affixed to it. It 

 was issued at the rate of sixty-six shillings to the 

 pound weight of silver, and as that pound was not 

 worth quite sixty-two shillings in gold, it was con- 

 sidered, and very properly, not as money, but as a 

 token of money, and no one, even in the country 

 where the fictitious value of it was enforced by law, 

 would keep more of it than was necessary in small 

 transactions to make payments of fractions of a 

 pound. 



It is neither the design to blame or to ap- 

 plaud the conduct of members of the government 

 which fixed our present silver coinage, and the cir- 

 cumstance does not come under consideration here 

 further than as it may lead to a calculation of what 

 may be deemed the fair rate of its loss by wear. 



If we estimate, as we are fully justified in doing, 

 that one-third of the silver coin was in a constant 

 state of rest, either with the Bank of England or 



