Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/107

] since shown as much insolence in parliament as he did meanness then, get returned, and in his mortification he committed suicide,—to such degeneracy had fallen the grandson of the illustrious patriot.

When parliament met on the 22nd, they again chose Foley as speaker of the commons. The king, in his speech, again demanded large supplies for the continuance of the war, and informed them that the funds granted the last session had fallen far short of the expenses. This was by no means agreeable news, and William well knew that there was a large party in the country which complained loudly of this system of foreign warfare, which, like a bottomless gulf, swallowed up all the resources of the country. But he took care to flatter the national vanity by praising the valour of the English soldiers, and by expressing his confidence that England would never consent to the French king making himself master of Europe, and that nothing but the power and bravery of England could prevent it. He complained that his civil list was fixed so low that he could not live upon it; and, passing from his own affairs, he strongly recommended to their consideration the deplorable state of the coinage.

When the address came to be considered, there were some strong speeches made against the enormous demands made by the king for this continual war, which really concerned his own country, yet ours had to pay for it. Musgrave and Howe represented the nation as actually bleeding to death under the effects of this Dutch vampyrism; but William had touched the right chord in the national character, and an address of thanks and zealously promised support was carried. The commons likewise voted again above five millions for the services of the year.

The first business which occupied the attention of the commons was the state of the currency. The old silver coin had become so clipped and sweated that, on an average, it now possessed little more than half its proper weight. The consequence was, all transactions in the country were in a state of confusion, and the most oppressive frauds were practised, especially on the poor. They were paid in this nominal coin, but, when they offered it for the purchase of the articles of life, the vendors refused to receive it at more than its intrinsic worth, by which means the price of everything was nearly doubled. The old hammered money was easily imitated, and whilst the clippers went on diminishing the weight of the coin, the forgers were as busy producing spurious imitations of it. The most terrible examples were made of such coiners, till juries refused to send such numbers of them to be hanged. All money-dealers took the advantage to receive the coin only at its value by weight, but paid it out by tale, and thus made enormous fortunes. The house of Duncombe, earls of Feversham, is said to have thus raised itself from insignificance to a coronet.

The house of lords, therefore, took up the subject of a recoinage, and invited the commons to unite with them in it; but the commons, considering it a matter more properly belonging to them, went into a committee of the whole house on the subject. The debate continued for several days. There was a strong party opposed to a recoinage, on the ground that, if the silver coin were called in, there would be no money to pay the soldiers abroad, nor for merchants to take up their bills of exchange with; that the consequence would be universal stagnation and misery. But at this rate the old coin must have staid out so long that literally there would none of it be left. It was resolved to have a new coinage; but Lowndes, the secretary of the treasury, proposed that the standard should be lowered—in fact, that a nominal instead of a real value should be impressed upon it; that ninepence should be called a shilling—as if thereby any greater value could be given to it. This mode of raising the price of everything by lowering the value of the coinage, which would now be laughed at by the merest tyro in political economy, had then its partisans; but John Locke exploded the whole delusion in a little tract written at the desire of Somers, which showed all the inconveniences and injustice which would flow from a lowered standard. There were, however, other difficulties to be met, and these were, whether the government or the public should bear the loss of the clipped coin, and by what means it could best be called in. If the government bore the loss, and ordered all persons to bring in their clipped coin and receive full-weighted coin instead, that would be a direct premium on clipping, and all the coin would be clipped before it was paid in. Somers proposed as a remedy to proclaim that all the hammered coins should henceforth be taken by government only by weight; but that, after having been weighed within three days, every one should take it back with a note authorising him to receive the difference between the deficiency of weight and the full weight at a future time. By this means government would have suffered the loss.

Locke, on the contrary, proposed that government should receive all clipped coin up to a day to be announced, at full value; after that day only at its value by weight; and something of this kind was carried by Montague after a debate in the house. It was ordered that, after a certain day, no clipped money should pass, except in payment of taxes, or as loans to government. After another fixed day, no clipped money should pass in any payment whatsoever; and that, on a third day, all persons should bring in all their clipped money to be recoined, making just what it would, and after that time clipped money should not be a legal tender at any value, or be received at the mint.

By this plan the holders of clipped money suffered part of the loss where they could not be in time; but the public eventually bore the greatest part of it, for a bill was brought in to indemnify government for its share of the loss, by a duty on glass windows, which was calculated to raise twelve hundred thousand pounds. This was the origin of that window-tax which under William Pitt's government grew to such a nuisance.

In order to meet the demand for milled and unclipped coin to be given in exchange for the clipped coin to be brought in, premiums were offered of five per cent, on good milled money, and of threepence per pound on all plate that should be brought in to melt into the new coins. The 4th of May, 1696, was fixed as the last day for receiving the clipped money in payment of taxes; and early in February furnaces were at work melting down the old coin into ingots, which were sent to the Tower in readiness, and the coining began. Ten of these furnaces were erected in a garden behind the Treasury; yet, in spite of every endeavour to prevent