176

WEAR OF COIN.

CHAP. xxrn.

standard wear faster in proportion to their declinein fineness. The twenty franc pieces of France wear faster than even our guineas did. TheSpanish doubloons are worse than the French gold, and wear away faster; and it is affirmed bysome accurate goldsmiths, that the gold used bythem of eighteen carats fine suffers a loss verymuch greater than even the Spanish coin.

Our new gold coinage only commenced in1817, and the whole amount coined in that yearwas four million two hundred and seventy-fivethousand three hundred and seventy-seven pounds;and in the three next years the coinage amountedonly to three million eight hundred and fifteenthousand four hundred and sixty-four pounds, tenshillings 1 . Though partial payments in gold weremade at the bank, they were very soon suspended,and it was not till the large coinage of 1821, whennine million five hundred and twenty thousandseven hundred and fifty-eight pounds had beenprepared, that the necessary measure of a generalreturn to cash payments could be with safetyadopted. If we may judge from the small diminu-tion of bank notes after June, 1823, when therestriction on the bank ceased, and from currentrumours that the bank was overloaded with gold,we should conclude that very little of the newcoinage was in circulation before the latter end of

1 See Appendix, No. II.