FN 631 The first writer who noticed the fact that, where good money and bad money are thown into circulation together, the bad money drives out the good money, was Aristophanes.  He seems to have thought that the preference which his fellow citizens gave to light coins was to be attributed to a depraved taste such as led them to entrust men like Cleon and Hyperbolus with the conduct of great affairs.  But, though his political economy will not bear examination, his verses are excellent:—­

pollakis g’ emin edoksen e polis peponthenai tauton es te ton politon tous kalous te kagathous es te tarkhaion nomisma Kai to kainon khrusion. oute gar toutoisin ousin ou kekibdeleumenios alla kallistois apanton, us dokei, nomismaton, kai monois orthos kopeisi, kai kekodonismenois en te tois Ellisim kai tois barbarioisi pantahkou khrometh’ ouden, alla toutois tois ponerois khalkiois, khthes te kai proen kopeisi to kakistu kommati. ton politon th’ ous men ismen eugeneis kai sophronas andras ontas, kai dikaious, kai kalous te kagathous, kai traphentas en palaistrais, kai khorois kai mousiki prouseloumen tois de khalkois, kai ksenois, kai purriais, kai ponerois kak poneron eis apanta khrometha.

FN 632 Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary is filled with accounts of these executions.  “Le metier de rogneur de monnoye,” says L’Hermitage, “est si lucratif et paroit si facile que, quelque chose qu’on fasse pour les detruire, il s’en trouve toujours d’autres pour prendre leur place.  Oct 1/11. 1695.”

FN 633 As to the sympathy of the public with the clippers, see the very curious sermon which Fleetwood afterwards Bishop of Ely, preached before the Lord Mayor in December 1694.  Fleetwood says that “a soft pernicious tenderness slackened the care of magistrates, kept back the under officers, corrupted the juries, and withheld the evidence.”  He mentions the difficulty of convincing the criminals themselves that they had done wrong.  See also a Sermon preached at York Castle by George Halley, a clergyman of the Cathedral, to some clippers who were to be hanged the next day.  He mentions the impenitent ends which clippers generally made, and does his best to awaken the consciences of his bearers.  He dwells on one aggravation of their crime which I should not have thought of.  “If,” says he, “the same question were to be put in this age, as of old, ’Whose is this image and superscription?’ we could not answer the whole.  We may guess at the image; but we cannot tell whose it is by the superscription; for that is all gone.”  The testimony of these two divines is confirmed by that of Tom Brown, who tells a facetious story, which I do not venture to quote, about a conversation between the ordinary of Newgate and a clipper.

FN 634 Lowndes’s Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, 1695.

FN 635 L’Hermitage, Nov 29/Dec 9 1695.

FN 636 The Memoirs of this Lancashire Quaker were printed a few years ago in a most respectable newspaper, the Manchester Guardian.