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They could melt the metals in furnaces, cast them in moulds made of clay and gypsum, hammer their work with remarkable dexterity, inlay it, and solder it with great perfection. The gold and silver work of these artists was extremely abundant in the country at the time of the Conquest, but Spanish greed had it all melted for coinage.
You will recall the undignified use Sir Thomas More would have us put it to, and how there was no money at all in the Republic of Plato, and in that later community for which he wrote his Laws an iron coinage of austere appearance and doubtful efficacy.... It may be these great gentlemen were a little hasty with a complicated difficulty, and not a little unjust to a highly respectable element.
The same reasons which would forbid Congress from parting with the power over the coinage would seem to operate with nearly equal force hi regard to any substitution for the precious metals in the form of a circulating medium.
Now we must observe, what the master of the Mint and the people about him ought to have observed before, that there is in the first instance a considerable expense incurred in the coinage of the double-sovereigns, without any possible object, except the expense itself may be an object, which is not impossible.
They thus obtained the immense advantage of precluding, in the case of the most important medium of payment, even the possibility of monetary fraud and monetary adulteration. Otherwise the coinage was as copious as it was of exemplary purity.
Whoever hath read the Report, will be apt to think, that a dozen precedents at least could be produced of copper coined for Ireland, by virtue of patents passed in England, and that the coinage was there too; whereas I am confident, there cannot be one precedent shewn of a patent passed in England for coining copper for Ireland, for above an hundred years past, and if there were any before, it must be in times of confusion.
Thus the Chilian dollar of 1833 had 456·24 grains of pure metal, while that of the Rio de la Plata has only 441·24 grains of silver. Nearly all the Mexican dollars differ in their quantity of pure silver; for example, that of the coinage of 1832 had only 442·80, while that of 1833 had 451·20 grains of pure metal.
In those pioneer times the "small and early" had not yet been introduced, but "the drunk and disorderly" was regarded with much favor. Free coinage was now discussed, and mints established. Wool was the principal export, and fine cloths were taken in exchange from the Continent. Women spun for their own households, and the term spinster was introduced.
Britain could merge her system with those of Canada and America, by simply making her "pound" the exact value of the American five dollars, it being now only ten pence less; her silver coinage one and two shillings equal to quarter- and half-dollars, the present coin to be recoined upon presentation, but meanwhile to pass current. Weights and measures are more difficult to assimilate.
The hoarding of gold which has already taken place indicates that we shall not escape the usual experience in such cases. So if this silver coinage be continued we may reasonably expect that gold and its equivalent will abandon the field of circulation to silver alone. This of course must produce a severe contraction of our circulating medium, instead of adding to it.
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