Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/227

No. 19. return to England, his excellency said, "He had pressed the matter often, in proper time and place, and to proper persons; and could not see any difficulty of the least moment, that could prevent us from being made easy upon this article."

Whoever carries to England twenty-seven English shillings, and brings back one moidore of full weight, is a gainer of nine pence Irish: in a guinea, the advantage is three pence; and two pence in a pistole. The, who are generally masters of all our gold and silver, with this advantage, have sent over as much of the latter as came into their hands. The value of one thousand moidores in silver would thus amount in clear profit to 37l. 10s. The shopkeepers, and other traders, who go to London to buy goods, followed the same practice; by which we have been driven into this insupportable distress.

To a common thinker it should seem, that nothing would be more easy than for the government to redress this evil, at any time they shall please. When the value of guineas was lowered in England from 21s. and 6d. to only 21s. the consequences to this kingdom were obvious, and manifest to us all: and a sober man may be allowed at least to wonder, although he dare not complain, why a new regulation of coin among us was not then made; much more, why it has never been since. It would surely require no very profound skill in algebra to reduce the difference of nine pence in thirty shillings, or three pence in a guinea to lestless [sic] than a farthing; and so small a fraction could be no temptation either to bankers to hazard their