Since the Revolution the state of the currency had been repeatedly discussed in Parliament.  In 1689 a committee of the Commons had been appointed to investigate the subject, but had made no report.  In 1690 another committee had reported that immense quantities of silver were carried out of the country by Jews, who, it was said, would do any thing for profit.  Schemes were formed for encouraging the importation and discouraging the exportation of the precious metals.  One foolish bill after another was brought in and dropped.  At length, in the beginning of the year 1695, the question assumed so serious an aspect that the Houses applied themselves to it in earnest.  The only practical result of their deliberations, however, was a new penal law which, it was hoped, would prevent the clipping of the hammered coin and the melting and exporting of the milled coin.  It was enacted that every person who informed against a clipper should be entitled to a reward of forty pounds, that every clipper who informed against two clippers should be entitled to a pardon, and that whoever should be found in possession of silver filings or parings should be burned in the cheek with a redhot iron.  Certain officers were empowered to search for bullion.  If bullion were found in a house or on board of a ship, the burden of proving that it had never been part of the money of the realm was thrown on the owner.  If he failed in making out a satisfactory history of every ingot he was liable to severe penalties.  This Act was, as might have been expected, altogether ineffective.  During the following summer and autumn, the coins went on dwindling, and the cry of distress from every county in the realm became louder and more piercing.

But happily for England there were among her rulers some who clearly perceived that it was not by halters and branding irons that her decaying industry and commerce could be restored to health.  The state of the currency had during some time occupied the serious attention of four eminent men closely connected by public and private ties.  Two of them were politicians who had never, in the midst of official and parliamentary business, ceased to love and honour philosophy; and two were philosophers, in whom habits of abstruse meditation had not impaired the homely good sense without which even genius is mischievous in politics.  Never had there been an occasion which more urgently required both practical and speculative abilities; and never had the world seen the highest practical and the highest speculative abilities united in an alliance so close, so harmonious, and so honourable as that which bound Somers and Montague to Locke and Newton.

It is much to be lamented that we have not a minute history of the conferences of the men to whom England owed the restoration of her currency and the long series of prosperous years which dates from that restoration.  It would be interesting to see how the pure gold of scientific truth found by the two philosophers was mingled by the two statesmen with just that quantity of alloy which was necessary for the working.  It would be curious to study the many plans which were propounded, discussed and rejected, some as inefficacious, some as unjust, some as too costly, some as too hazardous, till at length a plan was devised of which the wisdom was proved by the best evidence, complete success.