It is known enough that the crown is supposed to be neither gainer nor loser by coinage of any metal: for they subtract, or ought to subtract, no more from the intrinsick value than what will just pay the charges of the mint; and how much that will amount to is the question. By what I could gather from Mr. McCulia, good copper is worth fourteen pence per pound. By this computation, if he sells his copper notes for two shillings the pound, and will pay twenty pence back, then the expense of coinage for one pound of copper must be sixpence, which is 30 per cent. The world should be particularly satisfied on this article, before he vends notes; for the discount of 30 per cent is prodigious, and vastly more than I can conceive it ought to be. For, if we add to that proportion the 16 per cent, which he avows to keep for his own profit, there will be a discount of about 46 per cent. Or, to reckon, I think, a fairer way: whoever buys a pound of Mr. McCulla's coin, at two shillings per pound, carries home only the real value of fourteen pence, which is a pound of copper; and thus he is a loser of 41l. 13s. 4d. per cent. But, however, this high discount of 30 per cent will be no objection against McCulla's proposal; because, if the charge of coinage will honestly amount to so much, and we suppose his copper notes may be returned upon him, he will be the greater sufferer of the two; because the buyer can lose but fourpence in a pound, and McCulla must lose sixpence, which was the charge of the coinage.
Upon the whole, there are some points which must be settled to the general satisfaction, before we can safely take Mr. McCulla's copper notes for value received; and how he will give that satisfaction, is not
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