weighty money, which we want, will be brought out to boot.

Money is necessary to the carrying on of trade. For where money fails, men cannot buy, and trade stops.

Credit will supply the defect of it to some small degree, for a little while. But, credit being nothing but the expectation of money within some limited time, money must be had, or credit will fail.

Money also is necessary to us, in a certain proportion to the plenty of it amongst our neighbours. For, if any of our neighbours have it in a much greater abundance than we, we are many ways obnoxious to them. 1. They can maintain a greater force. 2. They can tempt away our people, by greater wages, to serve them by land or sea, or in any labour. 3. They can command the markets, and thereby break our trade, and make us poor. 4. They can on any occasion engross aval and warlike stores, and thereby endanger us.

In countries where domestic mines do not supply it, nothing can bring in silver but tribute, or trade. Tribute is the effect of conquest: trade, of skill and industry.

By commerce silver is brought in, only by an overbalance of trade.

An over-balance of trade, is when the quantity of commodities which we send to any country do more than pay for those we bring from thence: for then the overplus is brought home in bullion.

Bullion is silver, whose workmanship has no value. And thus foreign coin hath no value here for its stamp, and our coin is bullion in foreign dominions."

It is useless and labour in vain to coin silver, imported into any country, where it is not to stay.

Silver imported cannot stay in any country in which, by an over-balance of their whole trade, it is not made theirs, and doth not become a real increase of their wealth.

If, by a general balance of its trade, England yearly sends out commodities to the value of four hundred thousand ounces of silver more than the commodities we bring home from abroad cost us, there is one hun

dred thousand pounds every year clear again; which will come home in money, be a real increase of our wealth, and will stay here.

On the other side, if, upon a general balance of our whole trade, we yearly import commodities from other parts to the value of a hundred thousand pounds more than our commodities exported pay for, we every year grow a hundred thousand pounds poorer. And if, besides that, we should also import a million in bullion from Spain every year, yet it is not ours; it is no increase to our wealth, nor can it stay here; but must be exported again, every grain of it, with a hundred thousand pounds of our own money to boot.

I have heard it proposed, as a way to keep our money here, that we should pay our debts contracted beyond seas by bills of exchange.

appear, when

The idleness of such a proposition will the nature of exchange is a little considered. Foreign exchange is the paying of money country, to receive it in another.

in one

The exchange is high, when a man pays for bills of exchange above the par. It is low, when he pays less than the par.

The par is a certain number of pieces of the coin of one country, containing in them an equal quantity of silver to that in another number of pieces of the coin of another country: v. g. supposing 36 skillings of Holland to have just as much silver in them as 20 English shillings. Bills of exchange drawn from England to Holland at the rate of 36 skillings Dutch for each pound sterling, is according to the par. He that pays the money here, and receives it there, neither gets nor loses by the exchange; but receives just the same quantity of silver in the one place, that he parts with in the other. But if he pays one pound sterling to receive but 30 skillings in Holland, he pays one-sixth more than the par, and so pays one-sixth more silver for the exchange, let the sum be what it will.

The reason of high exchange is the buying much commodities in any foreign country, beyond the value of what that country takes (of ours. This makes En

glishmen have need of great sums there, and this raises. the exchange, or price of bills. For what grows more into demand, increases presently in price.

Returning money by exchange into foreign parts keeps not one farthing from going out; it only prevents the more troublesome and hazardous way of sending. money in specie, forwards and backwards. Bills of exchange are sent more commodiously, and by scrips of paper even the accounts between particular debtors and creditors, in different countries, as far as the commerce between those two places is equivalent: but where the over-balance, on either side, demands payment, there bills of exchange can do nothing; but bullion, or money in specie, must be sent. For in a country where we owe money, and have no debts owing to us, bills will not find credit, but for a short time, till money can be sent to reimburse those that paid them; unless we can think men beyond sea will part with their money for nothing. If the traders of England owe their correspondents of Holland a hundred thousand pounds, their accounts with all the rest of the world standing equal, and remaining so, one farthing of this hundred thousand pounds cannot be paid by bills of exchange. For example, I owe a thousand pounds of it; and, to pay that, buy a bill of N. here, drawn on John de Wit of Amsterdam, to pay P. Van Lore, my correspondent there. The money is paid accordingly, and thereby I am out of Van Lore's debt; but not one farthing of the debt of England to Holland is thereby paid; for N. of whom I bought the bill of exchange, is now as much indebted to John de Wit, as I was before to P. Van Lore. Particular debtors and creditors are only changed by bills of exchange; but, the debt owing from one country to the other, cannot be paid without real effects sent thither to that value, either in commodities or money. Where the balance of trade barely pays for commodities with commodities, there money must be sent, or else the debt cannot be paid.

I have spoken of silver coin alone, because that makes the money of account and measure of trade, all through the world. For all contracts are, I think, every where

made and accounts kept in silver coin. I am sure they are so in England and the neighbouring countries.

Silver therefore, and silver alone, is the measure of commerce. Two metals, as gold and silver, cannot be~ the measure of commerce both together in any country; because the measure of commerce must be perpetually the same, invariable, and keeping the same proportion of value in all its parts. But so only one metal does, or can do to itself: so silver is to silver, and gold to gold. An ounce of silver is always of equal value to an ounce of silver, and an ounce of gold to an ounce of gold; and two ounces of the one or the other, of double the value to an ounce of the same. But gold and silver change their value one to another: for supposing them to be in value as sixteen to one now; perhaps the next month they may be as fifteen and three quarters, or fifteen and seven-eighths to one. And one may as well make a measure, v. g. a yard, whose parts lengthen and shrink, as a measure of trade of materials that have not always a settled, invariable value to one another.

One metal, therefore, alone can be the money of account and contract, and the measure of commerce in any country. The fittest for this use, of all other, is silver, for many reasons, which need not here be mentioned. It is enough that the world has agreed in it, and made it their common money, and, as the Indians rightly call it, measure. All other metals, gold as well as lead, are but commodities.

Commodities are moveables, valuable by money, the

.common measure.

Gold, though not the money of the world, and the measure of commerce, nor fit to be so, yet may, and ought to be coined, to ascertain its weight and fineness; and such coin may safely have a price, as well as a stamp set upon it by public authority; so the value set be under the market-price. For then such pieces coined will be a commodity as passable as silver money, very little varying in their price: as guineas, which were coined at the value of 20s. but passed usually for between 21 or 22s. according to the current rate; but,

not having so high a value put upon them by the law, nobody could be forced to take them to their loss at 21s. 6d. if the price of gold should happen at any time to be cheaper.

From what has been said, I think it appears,

1. That silver is that which mankind have agreed on to take and give in exchange for all commodities as an equivalent.

2. That it is by the quantity of silver they give or take, or contract for, that they estimate the value of other things, and satisfy for them; and thus, by its quantity, silver becomes the measure of commerce.

3. Hence it necessarily follows, that a greater quantity of silver has a greater value; a less quantity of silver has a less value; and an equal quantity an equal value.

4. That money differs from uncoined silver only in this, that the quantity of silver in each piece of money is ascertained by the stamp it bears; which is set there to be a public voucher of its weight and fineness.

5. That gold is treasure as well as silver, because it decays not in keeping, and never sinks much in value.

6. That gold is fit to be coined as well as silver; to ascertain its quantity to those who have a mind to traffic in it; but not fit to be joined with silver as a measure of commerce.

7. That jewels too are treasure, because they keep without decay, and have constantly a great value in proportion to their bulk; but cannot be used for money, because their value is not measured by their quantity, nor can they, as gold and silver, be divided, and keep their value.

8. The other metals are not treasure, because they decay in keeping, and because of their plenty, which makes their value little in a great bulk; and so unfit for money, commerce, and carriage.

9. That the only way to bring treasure into England, is the well ordering our trade.

10. That the only way to bring silver and gold to the mint, for the increase of our stock of money and treasure, which shall stay here, is an over-balance of our