An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

27

Adam Smith

exchange for it, he could easily proportion the quantity of the

metal to the precise quantity of the commodity which he had

immediate occasion for.

Different metals have been made use of by different nations for

this purpose. Iron was the common instrument of commerce

among the ancient Spartans, copper among the ancient Romans,

and gold and silver among all rich and commercial nations.

Those metals seem originally to have been made use of for this

purpose in rude bars, without any stamp or coinage. Thus we are

told by Pliny (Plin. Hist Nat. lib. 33, cap. 3), upon the authority

of Timaeus, an ancient historian, that, till the time of Servius

Tullius, the Romans had no coined money, but made use of

unstamped bars of copper, to purchase whatever they had occa-

sion for. These rude bars, therefore, performed at this time the

function of money.

The use of metals in this rude state was attended with two very

considerable inconveniences; first, with the trouble of weighing,

and secondly, with that of assaying them. In the precious metals,

where a small difference in the quantity makes a great difference

in the value, even the business of weighing, with proper exactness,

requires at least very accurate weights and scales. The weighing of

gold, in particular, is an operation of some nicety In the coarser

metals, indeed, where a small error would be of little consequence,

less accuracy would, no doubt, be necessary. Yet we should find it

excessively troublesome if every time a poor man had occasion

either to buy or sell a farthing’s worth of goods, he was obliged to

weigh the farthing. The operation of assaying is still more diffi-

cult, still more tedious; and, unless a part of the metal is fairly

melted in the crucible, with proper dissolvents, any conclusion

that can be drawn from it is extremely uncertain. Before the insti-

tution of coined money, however, unless they went through this

tedious and difficult operation, people must always have been li-

able to the grossest frauds and impositions; and instead of a pound

weight of pure silver, or pure copper, might receive, in exchange

for their goods, an adulterated composition of the coarsest and

cheapest materials, which had, however, in their outward appear-

ance, been made to resemble those metals. To prevent such abuses,

to facilitate exchanges, and thereby to encourage all sorts of in-

dustry and commerce, it has been found necessary, in all countries

that have made any considerable advances towards improvement,

to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of such particular

metals, as were in those countries commonly made use of to pur-

chase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and of those pub-

lic offices called mints; institutions exactly of the same nature with

those of the aulnagers and stamp-masters of woollen and linen

cloth. All of them are equally meant to ascertain, by means of a

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28

The Wealth of Nations

public stamp, the quantity and uniform goodness of those differ-

ent commodities when brought to market.

The first public stamps of this kind that were affixed to the

current metals, seem in many cases to have been intended to as-

certain, what it was both most difficult and most important to

ascertain, the goodness or fineness of the metal, and to have re-

sembled the sterling mark which is at present affixed to plate and

bars of silver, or the Spanish mark which is sometimes affixed to

ingots of gold, and which, being struck only upon one side of the

piece, and not covering the whole surface, ascertains the fineness,

but not the weight of the metal. Abraham weighs to Ephron the

four hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay for the

field of Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the current money

of the merchant, and yet are received by weight, and not by tale, in

the same manner as ingots of gold and bars of silver are at present.

The revenues of the ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have

been paid, not in money, but in kind, that is, in victuals and provi-

sions of all sorts. William the Conqueror introduced the custom of

paying them in money. This money, however, was for a long time,

received at the exchequer, by weight, and not by tale.

The inconveniency and difficulty of weighing those metals with

exactness, gave occasion to the institution of coins, of which the

stamp, covering entirely both sides of the piece, and sometimes

the edges too, was supposed to ascertain not only the fineness, but

the weight of the metal. Such coins, therefore, were received by

tale, as at present, without the trouble of weighing.

The denominations of those coins seem originally to have ex-

pressed the weight or quantity of metal contained in them. In the

time of Servius Tullius, who first coined money at Rome, the Ro-

man as or pondo contained a Roman pound of good copper. It

was divided, in the same manner as our Troyes pound, into twelve

ounces, each of which contained a real ounce of good copper. The

English pound sterling, in the time of Edward I. contained a pound,

Tower weight, of silver of a known fineness. The Tower pound

seems to have been something more than the Roman pound, and

something less than the Troyes pound. This last was not intro-

duced into the mint of England till the 18th of Henry the VIII.

The French livre contained, in the time of Charlemagne, a pound,

Troyes weight, of silver of a known fineness. The fair of Troyes in

Champaign was at that time frequented by all the nations of Eu-

rope, and the weights and measures of so famous a market were

generally known and esteemed. The Scots money pound contained,

from the time of Alexander the First to that of Robert Bruce, a

pound of silver of the same weight and fineness with the English

pound sterling. English, French, and Scots pennies, too, contained

all of them originally a real penny-weight of silver, the twentieth

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