english coins.—paper currency.—frequent executions for forgery.—dr dodd.—opinion that prevention is the end of punishment.—this end not answered by the frequency of executions.—plan for the prevention of forgery rejected by the bank.
english money is calculated in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings; four farthings making one penny, twelve pence one shilling, twenty shillings one pound. four shillings and sixpence is the value of the peso-duro at par. it is in one respect better than our money, because it is the same over the whole kingdom.
as the value of money has gradually lessened, the smallest denominations of coin have every where disappeared. the 242farthing is rarely seen; and as the penny, which was formerly an imaginary coin, has within these few years been issued, it will soon entirely disappear, just as the mite or half farthing has disappeared before it. a coin of new denomination always raises the price of those things which are just below its value; the seller finding it profitable as well as convenient to avoid fractions. the penny is a handsome piece of money, though of uncomfortable weight, being exactly an english ounce; so that in receiving change you have frequently a quarter of a pound of copper to carry in your pocket:—the legend is indented on a raised rim; and by this means both the legend and the stamp are less liable to be effaced. for the same reason a slight concavity is given to the half-penny. in other respects these pieces are alike, bearing the king’s head on one side, and on the other a figure of britannia sitting on the shore, and holding out an olive branch.
243the silver coins are four: the crown, which is five shillings, and the half-crown, the shilling, and the sixpence or half-shilling. the silver groat, which is four pence, and silver penny, were once current; but though these, with the silver three pence and half-groat, are still coined, they never get into circulation. those which get abroad are given to children, and laid by for their rarity. the crown piece in like manner, when met with, is usually laid aside; it is the size of our dollar, and has, like it, on one side the head of the sovereign, on the other the arms of the kingdom; but the die, though far from good, is better than ours. nothing, however, can be so bad as the other silver coins; that is, all which are in use. the sixpence, though it should happen not to be a counterfeit, is not worth one-fourth of its nominal value; it is a thin piece of crooked silver, which seldom bears the slightest remains of any impress. the shillings also are worn perfectly smooth, 244though not otherwise defaced; they are worth about half their current value. the coiners are not contented with cent. per cent. profit for issuing good silver, for which the public would be much indebted to them whatever the government might be, silver being inconveniently scarce; they pour out base money in abundance, and it requires more circumspection than i can boast to avoid the loss which is thus occasioned. the half-crown approaches nearer its due weight; and it is more frequently possible to trace upon it the head of charles ii., or james, of william, or queen anne, the earliest and latest princes whose silver is in general circulation.
a new coinage of silver has been wanted and called for time out of mind. the exceeding difficulty attending the measure still prevents it. for, if the old silver were permitted to be current only for a week after the new was issued, all the new would be ground smooth and re-issued in the same state as the old, as indeed has been 245done with all the silver of the two last reigns. and if any temporary medium were substituted till the old money could be called in, that also would be immediately counterfeited. you can have no conception of the ingenuity, the activity, and the indefatigable watchfulness of roguery in england.
there are three gold coins: the guinea, which is twenty-one shillings, its half, and its third. the difference between the pound and guinea is absurd, and occasioned some trouble at first to a foreigner when accounts were calculated in the one and paid in the other; but paper has now become so general that this is hardly to be complained of. compared to the piece of eight, the guinea is a mean and diminutive coin. there are five-guinea pieces in existence, which are only to be seen in the cabinets of the curious. the seven-shilling piece was first coined during the present reign, and circulated but a few years ago: there were such struck during the american 246war, and never issued. i know not why. one of these i have seen, which had never been milled: the obverse was a lion standing upon the crown, in this respect handsomer than the present piece, which has the crown and nothing else; indeed the die was in every respect better. both the current gold and copper are almost exclusively of the present reign. it may be remarked, that the newest gold is in the worst taste; armorial bearings appear best upon a shield; they have discarded the shield, and tied them round with the garter. medallie, that is, historical money, has often been recommended; but it implies too much love for the arts, and too much attention to posterity, to be adopted here. there has not been a good coin struck in england since the days of oliver cromwell.
there was no paper in circulation of less than five pounds value till the stoppage of the bank during the late war. bills of one and two pounds were then issued, and 247these have almost superseded guineas. upon the policy or impolicy of continuing this paper money after the immediate urgency has ceased, volumes and volumes have been written. on one side it is asserted, that the great increase of the circulating medium, by lessening the value of money raises the price of provisions, and thus virtually operates as a heavy tax upon all persons who do not immediately profit by the banking trade. on the other hand, the conveniences were detailed more speciously than truly, and one advocate even went so far as to entitle his pamphlet, “guineas an incumbrance.” setting the political advantages or disadvantages aside, as a subject upon which i am not qualified to offer an opinion, i can plainly see that every person dislikes these small notes; they are less convenient than guineas in the purse, and more liable to accidents. you are also always in danger of receiving forged ones; and if you do, the loss lies at your own door, for the bank refuses to 248indemnify the holder. this injustice the directors can safely commit: they know their own strength with government, and care little for the people; but the country bankers, whose credit depends upon fair dealing, pay their forged notes, and therefore provincial bills are always preferred in the country to those of the bank of england. the inconvenience in travelling is excessive: you receive nothing but these bills; and if you carry them a stage beyond their sphere of circulation they become useless.
the frequent executions for forgery in england are justly considered by the humane and thinking part of the people as repugnant to justice, shocking to humanity, and disgraceful to the nation. death has been the uniform punishment in every case, though it is scarcely possible to conceive a crime capable of so many modifications of guilt in the criminal. the most powerful intercessions have been made for mercy, and the most powerful 249arguments urged in vain; no instance has ever yet been known of pardon. a doctor of divinity was executed for it in the early part of the present reign, who, though led by prodigality to the commission of the deed for which he suffered, was the most useful as well as the most popular of all their preachers. any regard to his clerical character was, as you may well suppose, out of the question in this land of schism; yet earnest entreaties were made in his behalf. the famous dr johnson, of whom the english boast as the great ornament of his age, and as one of the best and wisest men whom their country has ever produced, and of whose piety it will be sufficient praise to say that he was almost a catholic,—he strenuously exerted himself to procure the pardon of this unfortunate man, on the ground that the punishment exceeded the measure of the offence, and that the life of the offender might usefully be passed in retirement and penitence. thousands who had 250been benefited by his preaching petitioned that mercy might be shown him, and the queen herself interceded, but in vain. during the interval between his trial and his execution he wrote a long poem entitled prison thoughts; a far more extraordinary effort of mind than the poem of villon, composed under similar circumstances, for which, in an age of less humanity, the life of the author was spared. had the punishment of dr dodd been proportioned to his offence, he would have been no object of pity; but when he suffered the same death as a felon or a murderer, compassion overpowered the sense of his guilt, and the people universally regarded him as the victim of a law inordinately rigorous. it was long believed that his life had been preserved by connivance of the executioner; that a waxen figure had been buried in his stead, and that he had been conveyed over to the continent.
more persons have suffered for this offence since the law has been enacted than 251for any other crime. in all other cases palliative circumstances are allowed their due weight; this alone is the sin for which there is no remission. no allowance is made for the pressure of want, for the temptation which the facility of the fraud holds out, nor for the difference between offences against natural or against political law. more merciless than draco, or than those inquisitors who are never mentioned in this country without an abhorrent expression of real or affected humanity, the commercial legislators of england are satisfied with nothing but the life of the offender who sins against the bank, which is their holy of holies. they sacrificed for this offence one of the ablest engravers in the kingdom, the inventor of the dotted or chalk engraving. a mechanic has lately suffered who had made a machine to go without horses, and proved its success by travelling in it himself about forty leagues. a man of respectable family and unblemished conduct has just been executed 252in ireland, because, when reduced by unavoidable misfortunes to the utmost distress, he committed a forgery to relieve his family from absolute want.
there is an easy and effectual mode of preventing the repetition of this offence, by amputating the thumb; it seems one of the few crimes for which mutilation would be a fit punishment. but it is a part of the english system to colonize with criminals. it is not the best mode of colonizing; nor, having adopted it, do they manage it in the best manner. of all crimes, there should seem to be none for which change of climate is so effectual a cure as for forgery; and as there is none which involves in itself so little moral depravity, nor which is so frequently committed, it is evident that these needless executions deprive new south wales of those who would be its most useful members, men of ingenuity, less depraved, and better educated in general, than any other convicts.
253i have seen it recorded of some english judge, that when he was about to sentence a man to death for horse-stealing, the man observed it was hard he should lose his life for only stealing a horse; to which the judge replied, “you are not to be hanged for stealing a horse, but in order that horses may not be stolen.” the reply was as unphilosophical as unfeeling; but it is the fashion among the english to assert that prevention is the end of punishment, and to disclaim any principle of vengeance, though vengeance is the foundation of all penal law, divine and human. proceeding upon this fallacious principle, they necessarily make no attempt at proportioning the punishment to the offence; and offences are punished, not according to the degree of moral guilt which they indicate in the offender, but according to the facility with which they can be committed, and to their supposed danger in consequence to the community. but even upon this principle it is no longer possible to 254justify the frequent executions for forgery; the end of prevention is not answered, and assuredly the experiment has been tried sufficiently long, and sufficiently often.
in other cases, offences are held more venial as the temptation thereunto is stronger, man being frail by nature; in this the punishment is made heavier in proportion to the strength of the temptation. surely, it is the duty of the bank directors to render the commission of forgery as difficult as possible. this is not effected by adopting private marks in their bills, which, as they are meant to be private, can never enable the public to be upon their guard. such means may render it impossible that a false bill should pass undiscovered at the bank, but do not in the slightest degree impede its general circulation. what is required is something so obvious that a common and uninstructed eye shall immediately perceive it; and nothing seems so likely to effect 255this as a plan which they are said to have rejected,—that in every bill there should be two engravings, the one in copper, the other in wood, each executed by the best artists in his respective branch. it is obvious that few persons would be able to imitate either, and highly improbable that any single one could execute both, or that two persons sufficiently skilful should combine together. as it now is, the engraving is such as may be copied by the clumsiest apprentice to the trade. the additional expense which this plan would cost the bank would be considerably less than what it now expends in hanging men for an offence, which could not be so frequent if it was not so easy. the bank directors say the pater-noster in their own language, but they seem to forget that one of the petitions which he who best knew the heart of man enjoined us to make is, that we may not be led into temptation.
