The Laws are severe enough made, and put in Execution, and yet _New-Gate_ is perhaps now as full of Clippers as it was Three or Four Years ago.
Nothing but a Sense of Religion doth restrain Men from profitable Sins, and the _Ordinary_ of _New-Gate_ can inform us, how little the Guilt of Clipping affects the Criminal’s Conscience.
Nor will preaching do much Good, upon those that never come to Church.
Clipping is the gainfulest Sin that ever was invented, and sits the easiest upon the Sinner’s Mind, and ’tis never to be remedied but by making it impracticable, which Mill’d Money only (and no other to be current) can do.
And what a perpetual Discontent and Confusion must it end in, if People shall come at last to proffer a Groat for a Shilling?
This must increase still vastly the Value of Guineas; this must raise the Price of all Commodities, this must make it impossible to expect any Money at all, either for the King’s Use, or Balance of Trade; and this will not only force us to recall our Troops from _Flanders_, and by a natural Consequence let in the War upon us, but it would put a sudden and universal stop to all Foreign Trade.
And what fatal Consequences may it have in the mean time at home let us consider.
It may very well be suppos’d that a Dragooner may proffer to a Corn-Chandler 2 _s._ for a Bushel of Oats, and that the Corn-Chandler seeing that there is not Three Peny _wt._ or 9 Peny worth of Silver in both the Shillings, should not like the Bargain, what’s now to be done?
Should There be a Law with Penalty for refusing clipp’d Coin, as there is for crack’d Six-pences, this would encourage Clippers to leave nothing remaining in a Shilling but the Figure XII.
Should the Law prohibit the passing of all Silver clipp’d within the Ring, than two Thirds of the present Money of _England_ would be immediately cry’d down: Then the Loss of clipp’d as well as counterfeit Money would be very hard upon the Proprietors, and we should have two Thirds less Money for carrying on our Trade:
And now we have two Thirds less than we should have, and if that two Thirds, which is cry’d down at the Owner’s Loss, should be carry’d to the Mint, and new coin’d, it would scarce yield a twelfth Part of what we should then want.
