Although most nations have coined copper, yet that metal is so impure, that it has never been considered as constituting the money standard. This is affixed to the two precious metals, because they alone will admit of having their intrinsic value precisely ascertained. But nations differ very much in the relation they have established between gold and silver. In some European countries an ounce of pure gold passes for fifteen ounces of pure silver. In others for fourteen. In China it passes for much less. The standard, therefore, which is affixed to both metals is in reality affixed to neither. In England, gold is to silver nearly in that proportion of one to fifteen, and in France nearly of one to fourteen. If a man carries fourteen ounces of gold from France to England he receives two hundred and ten ounces of silver, which in France purchases fifteen ounces of gold. In like manner he who carries from England fourteen ounces of silver to France receives one ounce of gold, which in England purchases fifteen ounces of silver. If it be, then, supposed that the coins of these two countries were alike pure, it must follow that in a short time all the gold coin of full weight would be in England, and all the silver coin of full weight in France. But the light silver circulating in England, and the light gold in France, the real standard of coin in each would be different from the legal, and seek a medium of fourteen and a half of silver for one of gold, although the legal standard might still be in the one place fifteen and in the other fourteen.
The demand which commerce might make for any of the precious metals, in preference of the other, would vary this real standard from time to time, and in every payment a man would get more or less of real value for his debt, according as he was paid in the coin of greater or less value, in relation to the real standard. If, for instance, the debt were contracted when the silver was to gold as one to fifteen, and paid when as one to fourteen; if the debt were paid in silver he would gain one thirtieth, and if in gold he would lose one thirtieth. In England the money standard is rather affixed to gold than to silver, because all payments are made in the former; and in France it is rather affixed to silver than to gold.