reason, and partly that, by liberating the public
revenue, they might restore vigour to that
government, of which they themselves had
the principal direction. An operation of
this kind would at once reduce a debt of
L.128,000,000 to L.21,333,333 : 6 : 8. In
the course of the second Punic war, the As
was still further reduced, first, from two
ounces of copper to one ounce, and afterwards
from one ounce to half an ounce; that
is, to the twenty-fourth part of its original
value. By combining the three Roman operations
into one, a debt of a hundred and
twenty-eight millions of our present money,
might in this manner be reduced all at once
to a debt of L.5,333,333 : 6 : 8. Even the
enormous debt of Great Britain might in this
manner soon be paid.
By means of such expedients, the coin of,
I believe, all nations, has been gradually reduced
more and more below its original value,
and the same nominal sum has been gradually
brought to contain a smaller and a smaller
quantity of silver.
Nations have sometimes, for the same purpose,
adulterated the standard of their coin;
that is, have mixed a greater quantity of alloy
in it. If in the pound weight of our silver
coin, for example, instead of eighteen penny-weight,
according to the present standard,
there were mixed eight ounces of alloy; a
pound sterling, or twenty shillings of such
coin, would be worth little more than six shillings
and eightpence of our present money.
The quantity of silver contained in six shillings
and eightpence of our present money,
would thus be raised very nearly to the denomination
of a pound sterling. The adulteration
of the standard has exactly the same effect
with what the French call an augmentation,
or a direct raising of the denomination of the
coin.
An augmentation, or a direct raising of the
denomination of the coin, always is, and from
its nature must be, an open and avowed operation.
By means of it, pieces of a smaller
weight and bulk are called by the same name,
which had before been given to pieces of a
greater weight and bulk. The adulteration
of the standard, on the contrary, has generally
been a concealed operation. By means of it,
pieces are issued from the mint, of the same
denomination, and, as nearly as could be contrived,
of the same weight, bulk, and appearance,
with pieces which had been current before
of much greater value. When king John
of France,[79] in order to pay his debts, adulterated
his coin, all the officers of his mint
were sworn to secrecy. Both operations are
unjust. But a simple augmentation is an injustice
of open violence; whereas an adulteration
is an injustice of treacherous fraud.
This latter operation, therefore, as soon as it
has been discovered, and it could never be
concealed very long, has always excited much
greater indignation than the former. The
coin, after any considerable augmentation, has
very seldom been brought back to its former
weight; but after the greatest adulterations, it
has almost always been brought back to its
former fineness. It has scarce ever happened,
that the fury and indignation of the people
could otherwise be appeased.
In the end of the reign of Henry VIII.,
and in the beginning of that of Edward VI.,
the English coin was not only raised in its
denomination, but adulterated in its standard.
The like frauds were practised in Scotland
during the minority of James VI. They
have occasionally been practised in most other
countries.
That the public revenue of Great Britain
can never be completely liberated, or even
that any considerable progress can ever be
made towards that liberation, while the surplus
of that revenue, or what is over and above
defraying the annual expense of the peace
establishment, is so very small, it seems altogether
in vain to expect. That liberation, it
is evident, can never be brought about, without
either some very considerable augmentation
of the public revenue, or some equally
considerable reduction of the public expense.
A more equal land tax, a more equal tax
upon the rent of houses, and such alterations
in the present system of customs and excise
as those which have been mentioned in the
foregoing chapter, might, perhaps, without
increasing the burden of the greater part of
the people, but only distributing the weight
of it more equally upon the whole, produce a
considerable augmentation of revenue. The
most sanguine projector, however, could scarce
flatter himself, that any augmentation of this
kind would be such as could give any reasonable
hopes, either of liberating the public revenue
altogether, or even of making such progress
towards that liberation in time of peace,
as either to prevent or to compensate the further
accumulation of the public debt in the
next war.
By extending the British system of taxation
to all the different provinces of the empire, inhabited
by people either of British or European
extraction, a much greater augmentation
of revenue might be expected. This, however,
could scarce, perhaps, be done, consistently
with the principles of the British constitution,
without admitting into the British
parliament, or, if you will, into the states-general
of the British empire, a fair and equal
representation of all those different provinces;
that of each province bearing the same proportion
to the produce of its taxes, as the representation
of Great Britain might bear to
the produce of the taxes levied upon Great
Britain. The private interest of many powerful