صفحة 793 من 2651

Had every particular banking company always understood and

attended to its own particular interest, the circulation never

could have been overstocked with paper money. But every

particular banking company has not always understood or attended

to its own particular interest, and the circulation has

frequently been overstocked with paper money.

By issuing too great a quantity of paper, of which the excess was

continually returning, in order to be exchanged for gold and

silver, the Bank of England was for many years together obliged

to coin gold to the extent of between eight hundred thousand

pounds and a million a-year; or, at an average, about eight

hundred and fifty thousand pounds. For this great coinage, the

bank (in consequence of the worn and degraded state into which

the gold coin had fallen a few years ago) was frequently obliged

to purchase gold bullion at the high price of four pounds an

ounce, which it soon after issued in coin at £3:17:10 ½ an ounce,

losing in this manner between two and a half and three per cent.

upon the coinage of so very large a sum. Though the bank,

therefore, paid no seignorage, though the government was properly

at the expense of this coinage, this liberality of government did

not prevent altogether the expense of the bank.