* Sir William Davenant's 'Discourses,' pp. 33-39; cited by Lord Liverpool, p. 67.

+ The guinea was so called because great quantities of them were coined out of gold brought from the Guinea coast by the Royal African Company.

In 1717 Sir Isaac Newton, then master of the Mint, gave it as his opinion that this continuous exportation was principally caused by the discrepancy between the actual and the nominal value of the guinea, which then passed at 21s. 6d. though its intrinsic worth was only 20s. 8d.; and, in accordance with his suggestion, its value was fixed at 21s., and no longer varied with the market price, as has been the case since 1663. This, the last debasement of English gold coin, increased the value of the Troy pound of the standard of twenty-two carats to £46 14s. 6d., and fine gold was thus estimated with regard to fine silver in the proportion of about 15 1/5 to 1.

Before quitting this part of the subject we may observe that the numerous debasements we have detailed seem to have proceeded from two motives; first, the augmentation of the royal revenue, and, secondly, the prevention of the export of coin. As regards the first, the object, at the expense of course of honesty, was perhaps temporarily attained; but only temporarily, as the cheat could not long remain undiscovered. And the second has been repeatedly shown to be quite fallacious. When the balance of commerce is unfavorable to a country, that is, when the value of the merchandise imported exceeds the value of that which is exported, then coin will necessarily be exported to make up for the deficiency; but when the balance of commerce lies the other way, the precious metals in the form of bars or coins will be imported. The adoption of the double-standard system results in the coins of one or other metal being driven out of circulation; but whichever kind remains in the country will be increased in like proportion. No alteration in the tale, quality, or weight of the coins can at all affect these principles. On the other hand, the debasement of the currency for whatever purpose is always injurious to a country, and must, if persisted in, destroy its credit. 'Whatever, therefore,' to quote the words of an eminent writer on ihis subject, 'may be the fate of future times, and whatever the exigency of affairs may require, it is to be hoped that that most awkward, clandestine, and most direful method of cancelling debts by debasing the standard of money will be the last that shall be thought of.' *

Copper coins were first issued by Charles II in 1672, for, though copper and brass ' tokens ' had previously been in circulation, their intrinsic value was so far below that at which they became current that they were not recognised as coins. From this time copper coins were in constant use till 1860, when they were superseded by the present bronze issue. Other metals have at times been used for coinage. Charles II issued tin farthings with a copper centre in 1680, and ten years later James II forced into currency money made of old guns and of pieces of iron, copper, and pewter, at exorbitant rates. Private 'tokens' of silver, lead, and other metals have also been permitted by the government to circulate, in order to supply a deficiency of silver coins.

The bronze coinage in circulation since 1860 is composed of 95 per cent. of copper, 4 per cent. of tin, and 1

* Harris, ' On Money and Coins,' part ii, p. 108.

per cent. of zinc. We may observe that in order to prevent the pennies from being too large and the halfpennies and farthings too small, the latter coins weigh more than the half and quarter respectively of the former. The proceedings of the royal mints appear to have been regulated from a very early date by contracts made between the sovereign and his mint-masters. The first of these now extant is a 'mint agreement' of the year 1279, between Edward I and one Turnemire,* who was at that time master of all the royal mints. It provides that the value of one lb. of silver sterlings shall be £1 0s. 3d.; that the king's net seignorage shall be Is. per lb.; that the mint-master's allowance shall be 7d. per lb. for pence, and 10 1/2d. for halfpence; and that the moneyer (or actual operative) shall receive 3 1/4d. per lb. A copy of another document of the same date called a 'Rotulus de Moneta + gives further the processes by which the coin is to be minted; provides that one penny piece of every ten pounds of standard silver minted shall be placed in the 'pyx,' of the two keys of which the mint-master shall keep one, and the warden (or king's representative) the other; and assigns to the supervising officers their various duties. It also informs us of the 'remedy' or 'tolerance of weight' then permitted to the mint-master, that is to say, the margin above or below standard weight allowed him in consideration of reasonable deviations from mathematical accuracy in the process of minting. The remedy here allowed is 2 1/2 dwts. per lb., and thus the exact standard weight of 243 pence being by the above-mentioned agreement 240 dwts., they would still have been legally current had they weighed 242 1/2 dwts. or 237 1/2 dwts. The ' Rotulus de Moneta' is moreover interesting as containing the earliest mention of the fourpenny piece (probably then coined for the first time), called a groat because it was the largest coin made; and the term seems less inappropriate when it is remembered that the groat of Edward I was somewhat larger than the present shilling. It also authorizes the issue of round farthings, these coins having been previously produced by the section of a penny into quadrants. The contract entered into by the king with the mint-master was afterwards embodied in a single deed called an 'indenture/ which endured, unless otherwise therein stipulated, till the death of one or other of the contracting parties. The earliest indenture now preserved is of the year 1344, and gives a clear description of the functions of the warden, who was appointed by the king wherever there was a mint, and who was entrusted with the general supervisal of the master's department; he received the seignorage, caused the assay of the coinage when completed, audited the accounts, and had charge of one of the keys of the ' pyx ' and of one of the keys of the strong box in which the coin was kept before its deliverance.* Very little practical alteration was introduced by the succeeding indentures till the year 1422, when the offices of warden and mint-master were assigned to one person. It must be mentioned, however, that during this period a third officer called the comptroller, who was, according to Ruding, first appointed in 1281, came into a definite and permanent existence. He, doubtless, represented the interests of the public, just as the master represented his own, and the warden those of the king. As each officer delivered a distinct account, the complicity of all three was necessary to a frau'd.+ The mutual double check of this triumvirate was destroyed by the amalgamation of the offices of master aud warden, which only, however, continued during the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV. The indenture of 1489 is remarkable as first authorizing the coinage of the ' sovereign,' which was made current for twenty shillings; and, in 1504, shillings and sixpences also were struck for the first time. The royal seignorage, too, exacted at this time by Henry VII is less than any other on record. The accession of Henry VIII carried with it, besides the extraordinary debasements of the coinage already mentioned, an entire change in the constitution of the mint itself. The general confusion throughout the country to which the degradation of the currency gave rise probably influenced these alterations to a great extent; but they were also, doubtless, occasioned by an attempt on the part of Henry VIII to increase the revenue arising to him from the coinage. With this object, he undertook the entire management of the Mint, put the Mint officers on fixed salaries, and paid himself the whole of the difference between the coinage expenses and a gross seignorage. A high-treasurer and under-treasurer were created in place of the warden and Mint-master respectively; to the latter belonged the duty of immediately superintending the manufacture and expense of the coinage, while the former audited his account, and took up the balance on behalf of the king, as the warden had done before with the seignorage. Several attempts were made by the Tudor sovereigns to rectify or ameliorate the disordered state of the Mint and coinage of this period, as many as five deeds under the title of ' establishments of the Mint' being set forth between 1544 and 1561. The last of these, issued by Elizabeth in 1561,* orders that the under treasurer 'shall yearleye, or as often as he shall be called, make accompte of his sayde office before the auditor of the Mynte,' who seems, therefore, to have at this time superseded the high-treasurer in some of his duties. The under treasurer, the comptroller, the assay master, and the provost of the moneyers are made jointly responsible for the ' true making of all the coyne according to the standard ordeyned, and within the remedyes of the same ' Ten years afterwards the Mint was re-established on its ancient footing; the office of auditor was abolished, and that of warden was restored; and, under the supervision of warden and comptroller, the Mint-master contracted and coined on the old system. But this politic reorganization endured only fifty-five years, and was succeeded by a revolution, in itself remarkable, but pregnant with, issues of yet greater importance to the Mint of two centuries later.