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The Bank of England, notwithstanding their great annual coinage,

found, to their astonishment, that there was every year the same

scarcity of coin as there had been the year before; and that,

notwithstanding the great quantity of good and new coin which was

every year issued from the bank, the state of the coin, instead

of growing better and better, became every year worse and worse.

Every year they found themselves under the necessity of coining

nearly the same quantity of gold as they had coined the year

before; and from the continual rise in the price of gold bullion,

in consequence of the continual wearing and clipping of the coin,

the expense of this great annual coinage became, every year,

greater and greater. The Bank of England, it is to be observed,

by supplying its own coffers with coin, is indirectly obliged to

supply the whole kingdom, into which coin is continually flowing

from those coffers in a great variety of ways.