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Dutch Commonwealth past, present, and future: not to speak of
the Mushroom Republics of all sizes. In Sect: 15, H. 17, it is Copper
money – of any Foreign Realms in the Plural: to after room for the application
of this part of the Bill, a man must therefore be convicted of
more Offences than one. Perhaps the Plural s was in this instance
the result of a merely clerical mistake.
8 It seems to be an oversight altogether that while Foreign Coin which
does not circulate here is included in the protection meant to be afforded
by the Bill. Such Coin which does circulate here, and which is Counterfeited
in Vast Quantities is omitted. In gold and silver, Ireland has no other
Coin than Britain: but in Copper it has a different Coin, which bearing
the head of the same King, has always had more or less Currency in
Britain, and accordingly has all along been Counterfeited to an
extent more or less considerable.
9 In Sect. 1 Ho: 3. If the old established expression Counterfeit was too
loose, and as such inadequate to the purpose of Conviction, the New Expressions
here employed are such as seem still looser and more inadequate – the world Round
is altogether useless, and the only effect it can have is that of affording
assistance for acquittal when by accident or design the deviates manifestly
from the Circle. By the disjunctive or, nearly resembling is opposed as it were
to resembling: as if near resemblance were not resemblance; and how is it
that any piece of Metal come nearly to resemble another if it does not
resemble it? The words with any devices thereon appear to be useless,
and they are even worse than useless, since they exclude Blanks – what
this leading Clause was intended to do – that was not done already – not
surely to include tokens. Not one of those which so long as it has any
device remaining on it can be found to resemble any Copper money of this
Realm to such a degree as to pass for it.
Upon the whole, it appears that under the Bill as it
stands at present, every body may be convicted, except the Guilty –
of the Field of Legislation which has been so well chalked out by Mr
Colquhoun it embraces but a small part, and the work it has done
on that part is so executed as to threaten to be more productive of mischief
than relief. To attempt to amend it would be labour lost.
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Identifier: | JB/149/174/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 149.
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149 |
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174 |
observations on the coinage bill |
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001 |
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copy/fair copy sheet |
3 |
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recto |
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[[watermarks::c patch 1798 [britannia with shield emblem]]] |
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george bentham; jeremy bentham |
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1798 |
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50028 |
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