hey could help it. And how did we triumph, if meeting with some poor
raw servant, or ignorant woman, behind a counter, we got off a
counterfeit half-crown, or a brass shilling, and brought away their
goods (which were worth the said half-crown or shilling, if it had been
good) for a half-crown that was perhaps not worth sixpence, or for a
shilling not worth a penny: as if this were not all one with picking the
shopkeeper's pocket, or robbing his house!

The excuse ordinarily given for this practice was this--namely, that it
came to us for good; we took it, and it only went as it came; we did not
make it, and the like; as if, because we had been basely cheated by A,
we were to be allowed to cheat B; or that because C had robbed our
house, that therefore we might go and rob D.

And yet this was constantly practised at that time over the whole
nation, and by some of the honestest tradesmen among us, if not by all
of them.

When the old money was, as I have said, called in, this cheating trade
was put to an end, and the morals of the nation in some measure
restored--for, in short, before that, it was almost impossible for a
tradesman to be an honest man; but now we begin to fall into it again,
and we see the current coin of the kingdom strangely crowded with
counterfeit money again, both gold and silver; and especially we have
found a great deal of counterfeit foreign money, as particularly
Portugal and Spanish gold, such as moydores and Spanish pistoles, which,
when we have the misfortune to be put upon with them, the fraud runs
high, and dips deep into our pockets, the first being twenty-seven
shillings, and the latter seventeen shillings. It is true, the latter
being payable only by weight, we are not often troubled with them; but
the former going all by tale, great quantities of them have been put off
among us. I find, also, there is a great increase of late of counterfeit
money of our own coin, especially of shillings, and the quantity
increasing, so that, in a few years more, if the wicked artists are not
detected, the grievance may be in proportion as great as it was
formerly, and perhaps harder to be redressed, because the coin is not
likely to be any more called in, as the old smooth money was.

What, then, must be done? And how must we prevent the mischief to
conscience and principle which lay so heavy upon the whole nation
before? The question is short, and the answer would be as short, and to
the purpose, if