CHAP. XXIII.

WEAR OF COIN.

179

drawn from them from being deficient. That,however, could not be known, and it becomesnecessary to have recourse to conjecture. It doesnot seem likely that the guineas to be met with in1807 were, on the average, of an older date thanthe year 17 & 7 > and the circulation having beensuspended for ten years, they could not havesuffered more than ten years’ abrasion. We seethat on one thousand guineas the loss from thestandard weight had been eighteen shillings andeleven-pence per cent., or that one part in a thou-sand and fifty had been lost. We see that on thehalf-guineas the loss from the standard weighthad been two pounds two shillings and seven-penceper cent., or one part in four hundred and sixty.The proportion of the half-guineas to the guineaswas, as recently, nearly as one to ten 1 , not on thenumber of the pieces but on their value. Theaverage wear in the two sizes of coin would thenbe shown to be at the rate of one part in ninehundred and fifty.

Such appears to be, as nearly as can be known,the loss in English gold coin, which was even atthat time the most durable of any in existence.It will have been observed, that the loss on thehalf-guineas was more than double the propor-tion to that on the guineas. It is indeed clear,

N 2

1 See Appendix, No. 3, B.