o the
number of knaves which the nation was encumbered with before.

The case to me is very clear, namely, that neither by law, justice, nor
conscience, can the tradesman put off his bad money after he has taken
it, if he once knows it to be false and counterfeit money. That it is
against the law is evident, because it is not good and lawful money of
England; it cannot be honest, because you do not pay in the coin you
agreed for, or perform the bargain you made, or pay in the coin expected
of you; and it is not just, because you do not give a valuable
consideration for the goods you buy, but really take a tradesman's goods
away, and return dross and dirt to him in the room of it.

The medium I have to propose in the room of this, is, that every man who
takes a counterfeit piece of money, and knows it to be such, should
immediately destroy it--that is to say, destroy it as money, cut it in
pieces; or, as I have seen some honest tradesmen do, nail it up against
a post, so that it should go no farther. It is true, this is sinking so
much upon himself, and supporting the credit of the current coin at his
own expense, and he loses the whole piece, and this tradesmen are loth
to do: but my answer is very clear, that thus they ought to do, and that
sundry public reasons, and several public benefits, would follow to the
public, in some of which he might have his share of benefit hereafter,
and if he had not, yet he ought to do it.

First, by doing thus, he puts a stop to the fraud--that piece of money
is no more made the instrument to deceive others, which otherwise it
might do; and though it is true that the loss is only to the last man,
that is to say, in the ordinary currency of the money, yet the breach
upon conscience and principle is to every owner through whose hands that
piece of money has fraudulently passed, that is to say, who have passed
it away for good, knowing it to be counterfeit; so that it is a piece of
good service to the public to take away the occasion and instrument of
so much knavery and deceit.

Secondly, he prevents a worse fraud, which is, the buying and selling
such counterfeit money. This was a very wicked, but open trade, in
former days, and may in time come to be so again: fellows went about the
streets, crying '_Brass money, broken or whole;'_ that is to say, they
would give good money for bad. It was at first pretended that they were
obliged to cut it in pieces, and if you insisted upon it, th