Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/129

Rh inconveniences arising from the clipping of the silver currency began to be felt about the close of the reign of Charles II., and to a greater degree in that of James II., but only very seriously after the Revolution. In 1692 we find a clause in an act of parliament reciting that "the receivers of the revenue and aids given to their majesties, and divers other persons, have in many places of this kingdom refused to receive or take in payment any sort of cracked money, which by law is and ought to pass as the current coin of this realm, by reason of which refusal many of their majesties' good subjects are under great hardships and difficulties for want of money to pay their taxes and supply their other necessary occasions, whilst the said cracked money lies dead by them, and is rendered wholly useless to their majesties and their subjects." The clause goes on to enact that whoever should refuse to take in payment any cracked money being the current coin of the kingdom should for every such offence forfeit five pounds, to be recovered by action by any person who would sue for the same. But the evil was not to be cured in this way; no act of parliament could make a piece of silver intrinsically, for instance, worth only ninepence or tenpence pass for a shilling ; if dealers could not have the price of their goods in money of sufficient weight, they raised the price; and the law which compelled them to take the clipped money did not, and could not, prevent them from allowing discount to those who brought them shillings, sixpences, or half-crowns of the full weight, or from receiving gold coin for more than its legal value in silver; so that, except that it occasioned some inconvenience, this enactment proved quite ineffectual. Then, in 1694, an act was passed expressly "to prevent counterfeiting and clipping the coin." "It is manifest," says the preamble, "that of late years the current coin of this kingdom hath been greatly diminished by rounding, clipping, filing, and melting the same, and likewise many false and counterfeit coins have been clipped for the better