The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1841-11-20
ACCOUNT OF THE PRECIOUS METALS.

NAONooN VI 4 lie fhEClOUS ME h-o'
The supply Of gold to the mint, when first began
TO be coined into money in the reign Of Edward Ill.,
could only have been preserved by purchase with sill
yer or with some other commodities as no account ap
pears Of any being furnished by the royal other do
nestle mines. Although il have little
ION with the actual supply Of gold il is scarcely pos
sible to pass without notice Of those decisions of
the human mind which extensively prevailed in former
ages, and has not been wholly dissipated in ours.
Raymond Lully, who came to England in the reign
OF Edward III, pretended, and believed possess
the power Of transmitting the inferior metals into gold
and silver. He seems to have been strange com
pound of fanaticism and imposture. He was origi-
naily Jew who had been converted to Christianity,
AMI had become a Dominican friar. CIemer abbot
OF Westminster, brought him to England, and intro
duced him to the king, for whom he agreed exercise
his science condition of the monarch entering into
war with the Turks The king was too much oc-
cupied with his in France to attack the Turks
and Lully refusing on that account to continue his
operations in making gold, in consequence i'm
prisoned and kept in durance a long time in the
Tower. 1t seems to have been believed by Ashmole
upon the testimony Of Norton and Hermes Bird that
the man actually made gold whilst prisoner in the
Tower and besides giving credit to this form of
dhon, he mentions corroborative proof that the
money coined from this gold had the reverse a
cross feury with lioneux, and the inscription Jesus
autem transiens per medium eorum ibat; inma,ing
that Jesus pass cd invisible and in secret manner
through the midst Of the PhaIisees, SO that gold was
made by an invisible and secret art amidst the igno
rant" Some instances of faith in this deusve NEGRO
mantle art may be traced in the statutes and other
public documents almost TO the first year Of William
and Mary, when the act of the 9Th Henry w. was re-
peaed which enacted to prevent the "cra Of the
multiplication of gold."-Jacob, vol L. CHI xiv. D. 1854
On the effect Of the increased quantity of the precious
metals prices, from the earliest period of history
till the establishment of the Roman Empire under
Augustus.
If the two precious metals be in fact commodities
like all Others except in possessing the faculty Of be-
ing used as the of the value OF all property
they must like the others be affected by their scarcity
abundance, though their denomination their val
ne with respect TO each other may remain unchanged
II gold and siirer rare they aciH erchange for
larger portion ofood clothing, other necessaries;
the supply Of them be large, they ioiH erchdnge for
smaller quantities Of those articles 1t is not then,
that other articles dearer cheaper but that gold
Precious Metals, vol. !, CHI. vi. p. l56.
Since the reign of Elizabeth, London has had the
only mint. In 1917 there were minis in 80 towns,
and 243 moneyers. In Hen. vi (obt. 446l) there
were minis; in Hen. VII. A Edward vi. 3.-Vol.
!, p. 3O5 CHI. x.