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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

In the time of Servius Tullius , who first coined money atHome, the Roman As or Pondo contained a Roman poundof good copper. It was divided in the same manner as ourTroyes pound, into twelve ounces, each of which contained areal ounce of good copper. The English pound sterling inthe time of Edward I. contained a pound Tower weight, ofsilver of a known fineness. The Tower pound seems tohave been something more than the Roman pound, andsomething less than the Troyes pound. This last was not in-troduced into the Mint of England till the 18th of HenryVIII. The French livre contained in the time of Charle-magne a pound, Troyes weight, of silver of a known fineness.The fair of Troyes in Champaign was at that time frequentedby all the nations of Europe , and the weights and measuresof so famous a market were generally known and esteemed.The Scots money pound contained, from the time of Alexan-der the First, to that of Robert Bruce , a pound of silver ofthe same weight and fineness with the English pound ster-ling. English, French, and Scots pennies too, contained allof them originally a real pennyweight of silver, the twentiethpart of an ounce, and the two hundred-and-fortieth part of apound. The shilling too seems originally to have been thedenomination of a weight. When wheat is at twelve shillingsthe quarter , says an ancient statute of Henry III . then wastlebread of a farthing shall weigh eleven shillings and four-pence.The proportion, however, between the shilling and eitherthe penny on the one hand, or the pound on the other, seemsnot to have been so constant and uniform as that betweenthe penny and the pound. During the first race of the kingsof France, the French sou or shilling appears upon differentoccasions to have contained five, twelve, twenty, and fortypennies. Among the ancient Saxons a shilling appears atone time to have contained only five pennies, and it is notimprobable that it may have been as variable among them asamong their neighbours, the ancient Franks. From the timeof Charlemagne among the French, and from that of Wil-liam the Conqueror among the English , the proportion be-tween the pound, the shilling, and the penny, seems to havebeen uniformly the same as at present, though the value ofeach has been very different: for in every country of theworld, I believe, the avarice and injustice of princes andsovereign states, abusing the confidence of their subjects,have by degrees diminished the real quantity of metal, which