Liverpool had formed his conception of a monetary theory as early as 1773. None the less it is quite inadmissible to state, as has been done, that this restriction, so evidently and expressly only a temporary or interim measure of self-defence, was equivalent to a placing upon the statute-book of Lord Liverpool's gold monometallical theory. There was as yet no restriction on the legal tender of silver. It was still legal tender to any amount,—it was indeed the standard coin of the realm,—only, in order to avoid the effects of depreciation, and to prevent further depreciation, it was now the law of the land that payments of silver of sums over £25 should be made by weight, and the further coinage of silver was temporarily stopped.
This was not a gold monometallic system, and the Act which established that system was passed eight years after the death of Lord Liverpool, and six years after the Bullion Report of 1810 had been printed. Page 240
Further than incidentally it is inconsistent with the design of this book to refer to the period of suspension of cash payments and the Bullion Report. These latter are banking phenomena, and will find their place in a treatise of currency in the fuller acceptance of the term, rather than in a treatise definitely restricted to the subject of the metallic currencies. The events of 1797 which led to the suspension,—the remittances to the Continent for war purposes, a failure of credit, a run on the country banks, and then upon the London banks,—had been experienced in 1793 as acutely