Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/114

94 iron, hops, and such others, could not make so many divisions of his grain, neither should he at all times need that which the merchants of necessity must sell. So it was that money must serve for the common exchange.'

But why, the question then rose, must money be only of gold and silver? why not of leather or of brass? Was it for the 'sovereign virtue' of the precious metals? was it for their cleanliness in handling? Plain only it was that when the coin was pure, all men sought for it; when it was corrupt, all men detested it. It might have been thought 'that, when the King's stamp was on the coin, it should be received of every man as it was proclaimed.' But experience showed that it was not so; and experience showed further, that good and bad money, though stamped alike, could not exist together; the bad consumed the good. One of the party then observed keenly, 'that among merchants, when cloth, silk, and other wares are sold, the owners do set on their marks, and upon proof made of the goodness of the wares and the making, with the true weight and measure, it cometh to pass that after such credit won there needeth no more but shew the mark, and sell with the best; and if the makers of such wares do after make them worse, their trade is lost, insomuch as if after they would reform the same fault, it will ask time before credit be won again.'

The Government was the merchant, the coin was the ware, the King's head was the mark. Prices had risen with bad money. Whether it was better that