A singularly bold and ingenious expedient occurred to Somers and was approved by William.  It was that a proclamation should be prepared with great secresy, and published at once in all parts of the kingdom.  This proclamation was to announce that hammered coins would thenceforth pass only by weight.  But every possessor of such coins was to be invited to deliver them up within three days, in a sealed packet, to the public authorities.  The coins were to be examined, numbered, weighed, and returned to the owner with a promissory note entitling him to receive from the Treasury at a future time the difference between the actual quantity of silver in his pieces and the quantity of silver which, according to the standard, those pieces ought to have contained.641 Had this plan been adopted an immediate stop would have been put to the clipping, the melting and the exporting; and the expense of the restoration of the currency would have been borne, as was right, by the public.  The inconvenience arising from a scarcity of money would have been of very short duration; for the mutilated pieces would have been detained only till they could be told and weighed; they would then have been sent back into circulation, and the recoinage would have taken place gradually and without any perceptible suspension or disturbance of trade.  But against these great advantages were to be set off hazards, which Somers was prepared to brave, but from which it is not strange that politicians of less elevated character should have shrunk.  The course which he recommended to his colleagues was indeed the safest for the country, but was by no means the safest for themselves.  His plan could not be successful unless the execution were sudden; the execution could not be sudden if the previous sanction of Parliament were asked and obtained; and to take a step of such fearful importance without the previous sanction of Parliament was to run the risk of censure, impeachment, imprisonment, ruin.  The King and the Lord Keeper were alone in the Council.  Even Montague quailed; and it was determined to do nothing without the authority of the legislature.  Montague undertook to submit to the Commons a scheme, which was not indeed without dangers and inconveniences, but which was probably the best which he could hope to carry.

On the twenty-second of November the Houses met.  Foley was on that day again chosen Speaker.  On the following day he was presented and approved.  The King opened the session with a speech very skilfully framed.  He congratulated his hearers on the success of the campaign on the Continent.  That success he attributed, in language which must have gratified their feelings, to the bravery of the English army.  He spoke of the evils which had arisen from the deplorable state of the coin, and of the necessity of applying a speedy remedy.  He intimated very plainly his opinion that the expense of restoring the currency ought to be borne by the State; but he declared that