gold bullion seldom exceeds £ 3:17:7 an ounce. Before the reformation of the gold coin, the
market price was always more or less above the mint price. Since that reformation, the market
price has been constantly below the mint price. But that market price is the same whether it is
paid in gold or in silver coin. The late reformation of the gold coin, therefore, has raised not
only the value of the gold coin, but likewise that of the silver coin in proportion to gold
bullion, and probably, too, in proportion to all other commodities ; though the price of the
greater part of other commodities being influenced by so many other causes, the rise in the
value of either gold or silver coin in proportion to them may not be so distinct and sensible.

In the English mint, a pound weight of standard silver bullion is coined into sixty-two
shillings, containing, in the same manner, a pound weight of standard silver. Five shillings
and twopence an ounce, therefore, is said to be the mint price of silver in England, or the
quantity of silver coin which the mint gives in return for standard silver bullion. Before the
reformation of the gold coin, the market price of standard silver bullion was, upon different
occasions, five shillings and fourpence, five shillings and fivepence, five shillings and
sixpence, five shillings and sevenpence, and very often five shillings and eightpence an ounce.
Five shillings and sevenpence, however, seems to have been the most common price. Since
the reformation of the gold coin, the market price of standard silver bullion has fallen
occasionally to five shillings and threepence, five shillings and fourpence, and five shillings
and fivepence an ounce, which last price it has scarce ever exceeded. Though the market price
of silver bullion has fallen considerably since the reformation of the gold coin, it has not fallen
so low as the mint price.

In the proportion between the different metals in the English coin, as copper is rated very
much above its real value, so silver is rated somewhat below it. In the market of Europe, in the
French coin and in the Dutch coin, an ounce of fine gold exchanges for about fourteen ounces
of fine silver. In the English coin, it exchanges for about fifteen ounces, that is, for more silver
than it is worth, according to the common estimation of Europe. But as the price of copper in
bars is not, even in England, raised by the high price of copper in English coin, so the price of
silver in bullion is not sunk by the low rate of silver in English coin. Silver in bullion still