82 



Coin and Currency in [No. 9, new series. 



ously to the year 50 B. C, we should have to infer, from the 

 known proportions between the silver, gold, and bronze coinage of 

 that date, that gold bore to silver the ratio of 7'8 : 1 — which is 

 too low to be admissible. In the later Commonwealth the dena- 

 rius was worth S^d. 



The Roman silver coin was never so pure as the best Athenian. 

 Under the Emperor Gallienus (A. D. 259-268) the natural order 

 of things was so completely reversed that the silver coinage con- 

 sisted of i silver and f alloy. 



The mines near Carthago Nova in Spain, chiefly supplied the 

 Roman Republic with silver. They are said to have been so pro- 

 ductive as to yield 25,000 drachmae daily. 



In England, the Saxons had a silver currency, and no other. 

 Tribute, however, was paid in kind until the Conquest, when William 

 ordered it to be paid in money, this money was paid by weight. In 

 those days a pound was a bona fide pound. A penny too, Eng- 

 lish and Scots, was a genuine pennyweight of silver. In fact as we 

 ascend towards the origin of coin in every land, the distinction 

 between coins and weights vanishes. Adam Smith quotes a pas- 

 sage which proves that the shilling too was originally a weight, 

 though before William the Conqueror its proportion to the pound 

 above and the penny below was not constant. At one time we 

 find the Saxon shilling equal to Jive pence. The penny seems 

 at all times to have borne its present fixed relation to the 



pound, and William fixed the varying shilling, the proportions 

 between the three denominations have remained the same from 

 his time to ours. 



In the reign of Edward I. the English pound sterling was a 

 pound, Tower Weight, of silver of certain known fineness. This 

 Tower pound was a little more than the Roman — a little less than 

 the troy-pound, which latter was introduced into the mint in 15, 

 Henry VIII. The Scots pound from Alexander I. to Robert 

 Bruce was a pound of silver of the same weight and fineness as 

 the English. From that day when the troy pound of standard 

 silver was coined into 20 shillings to the present when 66 are 

 struck from it, the depreciation has been considerable ; but most 

 or all of it was previous to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Since 

 Philip and Mary, both the denomination of the English coin has 



