set of politicians, who were for a general and immediate
recoinage, but who insisted that the new shilling should be worth only
ninepence or ninepence halfpenny. At the head of this party was William
Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury, and member of Parliament for the
borough of Seaford, a most respectable and industrious public servant,
but much more versed in the details of his office than in the higher
parts of political philosophy. He was not in the least aware that a
piece of metal with the King's head on it was a commodity of which the
price was governed by the same laws which govern the price of a piece of
metal fashioned into a spoon or a buckle, and that it was no more in
the power of Parliament to make the kingdom richer by calling a crown
a pound than to make the kingdom larger by calling a furlong a mile.
He seriously believed, incredible as it may seem, that, if the ounce
of silver were divided into seven shillings instead of five, foreign
nations would sell us their wines and their silks for a smaller number
of ounces. He had a considerable following, composed partly of dull men
who really believed what he told them, and partly of shrewd men who were
perfectly willing to be authorised by law to pay a hundred pounds with
eighty. Had his arguments prevailed, the evils of a vast confiscation
would have been added to all the other evils which afflicted the nation;
public credit, still in its tender and sickly infancy, would have been
destroyed; and there would have been much risk of a general mutiny of
the fleet and army. Happily Lowndes was completely refuted by Locke in
a paper drawn up for the use of Somers. Somers was delighted with this
little treatise, and desired that it might be printed. It speedily
became the text book of all the most enlightened politicians in the
kingdom, and may still be read with pleasure and profit. The effect of
Locke's forcible and perspicuous reasoning is greatly heightened by his
evident anxiety to get at the truth, and by the singularly generous
and graceful courtesy with which he treats an antagonist of powers far
inferior to his own. Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, described the
controversy well by saying that the point in dispute was whether five
was six or only five. [640]

Thus far Somers and Montague entirely agreed with Locke; but as to the
manner in which the restoration of the currency ought to be effected
there was some difference of opinion. Locke recommended, as