178

WEAK OF COIN.

CHAP. XXIII.

have the coinage of England for its basis ; but itmay be taken at a different time, when the pe-culiar circumstances which existed—when, after along period in which gold was scarcely in use, itbecame again by degrees into general circulation—were not in operation. In the Appendix , No. 1,B, is exhibited some experiments made by theofficers of the Mint, in April, 1807, the object ofwhich was to ascertain the deficiency of weight ofthe average gold coins of the kingdom. At thetime the experiments were made, the suspensionof cash payments by the Bank had been main-tained ten years. There had been, consequently,a suspension also of the wear of the gold, for ithad almost all disappeared and could scarcely besaid to be in circulation. Between the suspensionof the payments in gold at the Bank in 1797 andthe date of the experiments in 1807, as very littlegold had been coined, that which was in existencemust have been of the coinage of years antecedentto 1797- Before that year all guineas were scru-pulously weighed, and what were found deficientwere withdrawn from circulation. Thus, in 1797,a number of guineas taken from a banker’s or anyother shop could not exhibit a fair average of thewear of the mass of guineas, but only the averageof the wear of those which had not been reducedbelow the current weight. To ascertain the actualaverage weight of the whole mass it would be ne-cessary to know how many pieces had been with-