140

CHAPTER measure ; and, contrary to all reason and fact, a guinea in
one country would express no more value than a shilling
in another : the prices of one would be indefinitely raised
above the prices of another; and money, in defiance of
the interests of those, whose subsistence depends upon
their unremitting attention to the smallest variation in its
value, would be continually exported from the place
where its value was highest to the place where its value
was lowest, and ebb and flow regardless of the laws,
Mhich have uniformly directed its motion.

This inability of Lord Liverpool to account for the
excess in the market price of money, and explain the
cause of its efflux, necessarily prevented the suggestion
of an adequate provision to obviate them.

For the general character and talents of Lord Liver¬
pool I entertain, in common with the nation at large, the
most sincere respect; but in the particular effort which
he has made, in his Letter to the King, to elucidate the
principles of coinage, his success is inferior to his esti¬
mation. For the accuracy of his historical detail, the
perspicuity of his arrangement, and the elegant simplicity
of his language, too much praise cannot be given; but
as he failed to attain to a just perception of the principles
of the system, which he has attempted to establish, his
conclusions are necessarily erroneous.