it was in 1816, it could not have left the country. The straits of the poorer classes in those years of hardship were due to the existing bimetallic system, and to it must, therefore, be attributed the aggravation rather than alleviation of the bank restriction.
If anything is required to confirm such view it can be found in the very terms of that statute of 1816 (56 Geo. III. c. 68), which established the gold standard in England. They reveal the fact that the Act was not so much a philosophical or theoretical declaration of monometallism, such as might have been expected if Lord Liverpool had still lived to dictate it, but a measure for the protection of and relating almost entirely to silver.
"Whereas the silver coins of the realm have, by long use and other circumstances, become greatly diminished in number and deteriorated in value, so as not to be sufficient for the payments required in dealings Page 243 under the value of the current gold coins, by reason whereof a great quantity of light and counterfeit silver coin and foreign coin has been introduced into circulation within this realm, and the evils resulting therefrom can only be remedied by a new coinage of silver money...."
The Act therefore prescribes the coining of silver, 11 oz. 2 dwts. fine, at a tale after the rate of 66s. per Troy pound, whether the same be coined in crowns, half-crowns, shillings, or sixpences, or pieces of a lower denomination, but to be issued to the importer of the silver, or to the public, after a