Description
Autograph Letter Signed, to ‘My dear Beaumont’, comparing the relative weights and values of sovereigns and napoleons. 4 pp. 7 x 4½ inches, in good condition, light dust soiling only. With a separate newspaper cutting (1869) from the Civil Service Gazette being a satirical poem about Hankey. 45 Portland Place, 25 January 1867. Thomson Hankey (18051-1893), politician and political economist, Governor of the Bank of England (1851-52). After the commercial panic of 1866, Hankey criticised the constitution and action of the Bank. He was the author of The Principles of Banking, Its Utility and Economy. “One word more about Sovereigns & Napoleons. 125o Napoleons are found to be worth at 77:10½ per ounce, £989:17. 1000 Sovereigns at the point below which they would cease to be legal tender are worth £993:14:4. What your friend proposes to do is to enable a man in England who owes £1000 to discharge it by paying that which he can buy of £989:17. We should soon be without a gold English Sovereign or see out gold circulation composed of 20/- pieces – you might perhaps say that a man can now discharge his debt of £1000 by paying Sovereigns of the minimum legal weight which would only be worth £993:14:4….”