FN 637 Lowndes’s Essay.

FN 638 L’Hermitage, Dec 24/Jan 3 1695.

FN 639 It ought always to be remembered, to Adam Smith’s honour, that he was entirely converted by Bentham’s Defence of Usury, and acknowledged, with candour worthy of a true philosopher, that the doctrine laid down in the Wealth of Nations was erroneous.

FN 640 Lowndes’s Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins; Locke’s Further Considerations concerning raising the Value of Money; Locke to Molyneux, Nov. 20. 1695; Molyneux to Locke, Dec. 24. 1695.

FN 641 Burnet, ii. 147.

FN 642 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 22, 23. 26. 1695; L’Hermitage, Nov 26/Dec 6

FN 643 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 26, 27, 28, 29. 1695; L’Hermitage, Nov 26./Dec 6 Nov. 29/Dec 9 Dec 3/13

FN 644 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 28, 29. 1695; L’Hermitage, Dec. 3/13

FN 645 L’Hermitage, Nov 22/Dec 2, Dec 6/16 1695; An Abstract of the Consultations and Debates between the French King and his Council concerning the new Coin that is intended to be made in England, privately sent by a Friend of the Confederates from the French Court to his Brother at Brussels, Dec. 12. 1695; A Discourse of the General Notions of Money, Trade and Exchanges, by Mr. Clement of Bristol; A Letter from an English Merchant at Amsterdam to his Friend in London; A Fund for preserving and supplying our Coin; An Essay for regulating the Coin, by A. V.; A Proposal for supplying His Majesty with 1,200,000L, by mending the Coin, and yet preserving the ancient Standard of the Kingdom.  These are a few of the tracts which were distributed among members of Parliament at this conjuncture.

FN 646 Commons’ Journals, Dec. 10. 1695; L’Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 6/16 10/20

FN 647 Commons’ Journals, Dec. 13. 1695.

FN 648 Stat. 7 Gul. 3.c.1.; Lords’ and Commons’ Journals; L’Hermitage, Dec 31/Jan 10 Jan 7/17 10/20 14/24 1696.  L’Hermitage describes in strong language the extreme inconvenience caused by the dispute between the Houses:—­“La longueur qu’il y a dans cette affaire est d’autant plus desagreable qu’il n’y a point (le sujet sur lequel le peuple en general puisse souffrir plus d’incommodite, puisqu’il n’y a personne qui, a tous moments, n’aye occasion de l’esprouver.

FN 649 That Locke was not a party to the attempt to make gold cheaper by penal laws, I infer from a passage in which he notices Lowndes’s complaints about the high price of guineas.  “The only remedy,” says Locke, “for that mischief, as well as a great many others, is the putting an end to the passing of clipp’d money by tale.”  Locke’s Further Considerations.  That the penalty proved, as might have been expected, inefficacious, appears from several passages in the despatches of L’Hermitage, and even from Haynes’s Brief Memoires, though Haynes was a devoted adherent of Montague.

FN 650 L’Hermitage, Jan 14/24 1696.