“In the old world, the Tory world, when coin was nothing more than an expedient for moving rents from the country to London, they would never have paid it so much notice. But Antwerp suggested, and Amsterdam confirmed, and London has now proved, that there is in Commerce at least as much wealth as in Land; and still no one knows what to make of it. But money makes it all work somehow, or, when it is managed wrong, makes it collapse. And so coins are as worthy of the attention of savants as cells, conic sections, and comets.”
