"In 1646, men of the Jersey Militia each received _5 sols_ per diem on Field days."--_Le Quesne_, page 486.
"A great improvement was effected in the organisation of the militia by Sir Thomas Morgan. He divided the militia into regiments, and remodelled the artillery. On his proposition, in order to compel the men to attend with regularity to their military duties, so essential for the preservation of the island, the States, on the 25th September, 1666, ordered that fines should be levied by the vingteniers for all defaults in the following proportions:--
A commissioned officer _sixty sols_.
A cavalry soldier _thirty sols_.
A private soldier, with musket (mousquetaire) _twelve sols_.
A private soldier, with halbert or staff (halbarde ou baston) _eight sols_."
--_Le Quesne_, page 489.
"It is an indication of the little traffic of the Island that payments were usually made in _liards_--small copper coins of the value of one-eighth of a penny. There are acts of the States passed at different periods alluding to the scarcity of money. According to the prevalent notions of those times, and of a much later period, one chief object of commercial legislation was to keep as much money or actual coin in the country as possible; and the balance of trade was to be so regulated as to insure this result. The exportation of coin has therefore, in various countries, been occasionally prohibited under severe penalties. The same notions existed in Jersey, and it was equally believed that coin or money could be retained, and should be retained, by legislative enactments. We find an act of the States, of the 3rd of October, 1701, forbidding all persons to take or send out of the Island to foreign countries any gold, silver, or other coin, to a larger amount than _thirty livres tournois_ at a time, on pain of confiscation of the money, besides a fine; and, in addition to this penalty, confiscation of the vessel on board of which such moneys should be found, and three months' imprisonment of the master and crew. This prohibition did not produce the results anticipated by the States; for we find them, on the 9th of April, 1720, complaining that, although the sending out of the Island of gold and silver was forbidden, yet very little remained in the Island. They could not understand that if a profit or benefit was to be derived in the purchase of commodities or provisions in France with actual money, such money would unavoidably find its way there. Coins, being in fact merchandise, will follow the same rules of exchange, and will be attracted to those parts where they bear a greater exchangeable or market value. The actual value of a coin in currency must be that of its intrinsic value; and if temporary circumstances cause it to bear a greater value elsewhere, thither it will tend, till the balance is restored, in defiance of any attempts to arrest its progress.
"The ill-success of the States, in their prohibition of the exportation of gold and silver coin, did not lead them to perceive the futility of the measure; but they were fearful that the copper money, the _sous_ and the _liards_, would follow their betters, particularly as sous and liards had risen in value in France, and that thus the Island would be deprived of all metallic circulation. They therefore, on the 9th of April, 1720, prohibited the carrying out of the Island of _liards_ and _sous_ to a larger amount than five livres tournois for each person, under the penalty of confiscation; and all persons were authorised to seize the moneys thus exported, and to require the assistance, if necessary, of the constables and centeniers in the searching of the vessels; while the master and crews on board of which such sums should be found, if cognizant of the fact, were to be liable to a fine and an imprisonment of three months.
"By an act of the States of the 3rd of May, 1720, it appears that there was no longer any gold or silver in circulation: it had disappeared, having been sent out of the Island; and the only metallic currency remaining was that of _liards_, which it was probable would also disappear. The States, in consequence, found it impossible to repay the sums which had been generously lent, without interest, by individuals, for the works at the harbour; and in order to obtain a supply which was to enable them to pay their debts, and to avoid the loss accruing from the variable market value of the coins, they resolved on the adoption of a plan which could only increase the evil, and perpetuate the banishment of gold and silver coin. The States evidently confused the want of funds with the want of metallic money; for had they possessed the former, the latter would have been forthcoming. An easy mode of creating money, according to them, which was to enable them to pay their debts, without any detriment or cost to anybody (sans qu'il n'en coute rien a personne), and to build the harbour without any expense to the Island, was by the issue of a paper currency, from the circulation of which the public were to derive much benefit, and which, besides, would not be liable to fluctuation in value. They seemed not to be aware that a paper currency must be based on a metallic one; that it must represent, and be exchangeable for, a metallic currency, and therefore must follow the fluctuations of the latter in value; since, if not exchangeable, at the option of the bearer, for metallic value, it at once becomes depreciated, and drives from circulation the metallic currency by which it is designated. The lower the value of the notes, or paper currency, the greater will become the scarcity of the coin. Such would naturally be the result of the enactment of the States, for they decided on issuing notes of a very low value. For instance, there were to be
2,000 notes each of twenty sous.
1,000 " " " thirty sous.
1,000 " " " sixty sous.
1,000 " " " one hundred sous.
750 " " " ten livres.
500 " " " twenty livres.
300 " " " thirty livres.
240 " " " fifty livres.
The aggregate amount of these notes was fifty thousand livres.
"The scarcity of gold and silver continued; and the States, on the 21st of December, 1725, declared that the only metallic currency in circulation was liards or deniers. They had on previous occasions prohibited the exportation of this copper money; they now forbade its importation, under pain of confiscation. In the following year, perceiving no doubt the futility of their enactments, they allowed, by their act dated the 19th of September, 1726, a free trade in liards--the free importation and exportation of this coin. On the same day they appointed a committee from their body to prepare a representation to his Majesty in Council, on the subject of the relative value of the coins in circulation in the Island. This representation was adopted by the States on the 25th of November, 1726. The ulterior sanction by Council of the recommendation of the States was the occasion of serious commotions and discontent in the Island. The avowed object of the States in their request to the Crown was to prevent the exportation of gold and silver coin from the Island, and to encourage the exportation of liards to France, which they asserted passed in Jersey above their intrinsic value, and with which they were very much burdened--reasons among the very worst which could be given, or upon which a legislative enactment could be based.
"An Order in Council, dated the 22nd of May, 1729, was issued, approving of the proposed alterations in the currency by the States; and it was accordingly ordered:--
"That the French silver coins be current in the said Island only according to their intrinsic value, in proportion to the British crown-piece.
"That the British crown-piece do continue at seventy-one sols; the half-crown at thirty-five sols and a half; the shilling at fourteen sols; and the sixpence at seven sols.
"That the French liards be reduced to their old value of two deniers each; and that the British half-pence be current for seven deniers; and the farthing for three and a half. And his Majesty doth hereby further order that the said coins do pass in all manner of payments, according to the said rates; but that this order shall not take effect till the expiration of six calendar months from the date thereof; and to the end that no person may pretend ignorance hereof, the bailiff and jurats of his Majesty's said Island of Jersey are to cause this order to be forthwith published, and to take care that it be executed according to the tenor thereof."
The act of the States and the Order in Council were, to say the least of them, highly injudicious. The only coin apparently in circulation was the _liard_, and the accounts were kept in _livres_ and _sous_. The proportion between the sol and the livre remained unchanged; but it followed, from the new law, that if a person did not meet his liabilities within the specified time of six months, his debts were consequently increased fifty per cent. if he had to pay them in liards; and he could pay them apparently in no other coin. The value of the _sol_ relative to the _liard_ was raised fifty per cent.; that is, six liards were to be estimated as equivalent to one sol, instead of four liards as heretofore. Now, on what grounds could the States establish this great difference, when it did not exist in reality? We ascertain positively by an act of the States of the 21st of December, 1725, that the real exchangeable difference between the liards, at their estimated value of four to a sol, and gold and silver coin, was only twelve per cent. in favour of the latter. The rate of exchange between countries is not dependent on or regulated by any legislative authority, however despotic or absolute it may be, but is regulated by the real intrinsic relative value of the coins in circulation in the two countries; and hence the rate of exchange, compared with the par of exchange, will show the depreciation sustained by the circulating medium of a country; for the difference between the par and the rate of exchange should in ordinary circumstances not exceed the cost of transmission of the precious metals from one country to the other. Now, by an act of the States of the 21st of December, 1725, we learn that they were indebted to a merchant at St. Malo for the proceeds of the sale of a cargo of wheat, which had been taken possession of and sold to the people by the States, at a time of great scarcity in the Island. They had remitted a portion of the amount; but there remained a balance due of 3,332 livres tournois, which Mr. Patriarche had engaged to remit to St. Malo. The States ordered that this amount should be paid to Mr. Patriarche by the deputy viscount in liards, thus incidentally proving that there was in reality no other coin in circulation; but as Mr. Patriarche had to pay the amount to the merchant at St. Malo in gold and silver, and as these bore a premium compared to liards, the loss, or rather the amount of the premium, had of course to be made good by the States; and they accordingly ordered that that difference, amounting to 416 livres ten sous, should be raised by rate on the parishes, and placed in the hands of the deputy viscount, for payment to Mr. Patriarche. We are thus enabled satisfactorily to ascertain the real comparative difference between the value of the liard and other metallic currency, or, in other words, the premium which the latter bore compared with the copper currency, at the rate of four liards to the sol. By a calculation on the data thus furnished, we find the difference to be precisely twelve per cent. in favour of gold and silver; and we are also to bear in mind that the great scarcity of gold and silver would of course add to the premium. By the Order in Council the difference was to be established at fifty per cent.
"The States soon perceived that they had either committed a great mistake or that they must yield to public opinion, which was strongly and decidedly opposed to the change ordered. They accordingly, on the 20th of December, 1729, petitioned his Majesty in Council for the recall of the Order in Council, being apprehensive that the said regulations would not answer the ends they at first expected from them. The States, on the 24th of April, 1730, named a deputy in support of their petition.
Counsel were heard by the committee of the Privy Council for the States, and also for several members of the States and others who opposed the petition of the States; but the opinion of the committee was, that the Order in Council regulating the currency ought not to be suspended or revoked, but carried into execution. His Majesty in Council, therefore, on the 9th of July, 1730, ordered that the said Order in Council of the 22nd of May, 1729, be carried into execution: but that during the term of six months from the date hereof all creditors in the said Island do receive their debts, if tendered to them at the rate at which the coins went current immediately before making the aforesaid Order in Council; and, in case of refusal, that such creditors do forfeit one-third of their debts to the benefit of the debtors."
In 1774, in France, from whence the small change for the Channel Islands was being obtained, the _sou_ was equivalent to twelve deniers, the _double-liard_ or _half-sou_ to six deniers, and the _liard_ or _quarter-sou_ to three deniers.
"Established custom, and the relative value of coins, proved of greater force than the Orders in Council. Livres, and sous, and liards tournois continued, in fact, the currency of the Island at their old rate; and many of the native inhabitants of the Island still keep their accounts, or make their reckonings, in the livre tournois--the livre being estimated at twenty sous, and the sou at four liards or twelve deniers.
When the English currency was, in the year 1835, adopted as the legal currency of the Island, it was done by declaring the relative value which it bore in circulation to the livre tournois. This was to meet the objections which were raised to the adoption of the English standard with regard to wheat rents, and other mortgages, which were estimated in the old currency tournois. Twenty-six livres tournois, or old French currency, were declared to be equivalent to one pound sterling, which was, and is now, the current rate.
"Allusion is still made in some legal and official documents to order-money or, as it is called, argent d'ordre, or argent selon l'ordre du roi. But the question may reasonably be asked, 'What is order-money?
What is the standard of order-money? Does order-money really exist, or has it ever existed?' The livre of order-money is considered worth fifty per cent. more than the livre-tournois; and the distinction is supposed to be derived from the Order in Council of the year 1729. But that Order in Council did not establish that difference: it did not change the relative value of the sou and the livre. There was, in fact, no such thing as order-money, except for liards, and thus it did not apply to sous or livres. The value of the liard, as compared to the sou, was, it is true, changed and regulated; but the relative value of the sol, compared with the livre, could not be changed or affected thereby; it remained the same as before. There were twenty sous to the livre: the coin, the sou in circulation, was not enlarged, or made of more intrinsic value. Such as it was before, such it remained still. There was no other sou or livre known or acknowledged in use than the tournois; and the Order in Council did not substitute any other. The Order in Council could not, with any degree of fairness or justice, be supposed to affect those persons who paid their accounts in sous or livres, or in gold or silver, and not in liards. This was not, however, the view taken of the Order; and hence the indignation felt; for the interpretation given, and the claim of fifty per cent. more than was in fact due, bore the semblance of great injustice.
"The present value in circulation in Jersey of English silver coin will illustrate my meaning. The shilling passes current for twenty-six sous, or thirteen pence of old Jersey currency; but the value of the shilling is not intrinsically or really changed--whether it is called twelve pence British or thirteen pence Jersey. In either case, a shilling remains a shilling, a pound sterling a pound sterling, worth twenty of the shillings, whether called twelve pence or thirteen pence. The intrinsic value of the coin, of the shilling, is precisely the same; and its relative value to the sovereign is not in the slightest degree modified. The only mode of changing the value of a coin is by an addition of the metal of which it is composed, or by deterioration. If a coin contains the same quantity of metal of the same standard, it does not vary in intrinsic value, whatever may be the denomination given to it, or whatever may be the depreciation of a coin of less value. For the same reason, whether the sou was called six liards or four liards, twelve deniers or eight deniers, that made no difference whatever in the real intrinsic value of the sou or the livre. Persons could not in justice be compelled to pay their accounts in liards, when the amount was stated in livres or sous; and hence to oblige them to pay fifty per cent. more than the amount due, when the amount offered was gold or silver, livres or sous, was egregiously unjust."--_Le Quesne_, page 421.
THE COATS OF ARMS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
Since the coats of arms for the islands of Guernsey and Jersey appear on the coins minted for these islands in England in the nineteenth century, the following notes may be of interest:--
In 1279 King Edward I. granted a Public Seal, with arms (as for England), to the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. The arms for Guernsey now differ only from those of Jersey in being surmounted by a sprig of laurel, or another plant. It is not, however, stated why or when this sprig was conferred. The arms read--
_Gu_--three lions or leopards passant gardant--_or_.
From the impressions of the Bailiewick seals, at different periods, it appears that slight differences occur. The inscription on the seal for Jersey runs--"S. Ballivic Insule de Jerseye."
Alderney and Sark, being dependencies of Guernsey, have on legal or authoritative documents either the seal as granted for that island or else local seals, as will be specified.
The Rev. G. E. Lee, Rector of St. Peter's, Port Guernsey, communicates the following interesting and very full note on the above-named matter:--
"Edward I., in the 7th year of his reign, November 15th, 1279, granted a seal for the use of both Bailiewicks. The seal used in both islands was the same in all respects, except that one had, as legend, _S. Ballivic Insule de Gerseye_, and the other, _S. Ballivic Insule de Gernseye_.
Both seals are appended to a document formerly belonging to the abbey of Mont St. Michel. The seals bore the three lions of England crowned, _and were both surmounted by a branch_, of which more below. The document is of the year 1315. The Guernsey side has the counterseal of Macey de la Court Bailiff. The Jersey counterseal has no name, but bears three lions passant, with some sort of bird as a crest. The Bailiff of Guernsey still uses a _facsimile_ of the original seal. In Jersey the seal has been modernized, and the surmounting branch omitted, perhaps by the carelessness of the engraver. The said branch is usually styled a laurel branch, but why I know not. It has stiff sprays, and I am convinced was intended for the _Plantagenista_, the well-known badge used by King Edward I."
It cannot, however, but be observed that if the sprig be intended to represent the slight, insignificant foliage of the Plantagenista [called "Broom" in the south of England], the design is very unlike and misleading.
As regards the official seals used locally for Alderney and Sark, under date, Alderney, 22nd February, 1895, the Procureur of Alderney informs me:--
"The Guernsey seal is not ours, nor is it ever used by us. A _facsimile_ of our seal and coat of arms is enclosed, but I know not when granted, nor by whom."
This seal is a lion rampant, with a sprig in right paw, and above the legend JUGE D'AUREGNY. The heraldic tinctures are not indicated on the seal.
With reference to the seal used locally for Sark, W. F. Collings, Esquire, informs me, under date, Sark, 8th March, 1895:--
"The seal of the Seigneurs was authorized to be used by act of the Royal Court, Guernsey, bearing date the 12th day of August, 1661, by virtue of a clause in Letters Patent of James I.--of date, August 12th, 1611. The seal was lost in the wreck of the steamer _Gosforth_, November 26th, 1872."
The Rev. G. E. Lee supplements the above as follows:--
"I find that the Alderney seal was granted by the Lords of the Privy Council, on May 23rd, 1745. It bears the legend _Sigillum Curiae Insulae Origny, 1745_.
"Origny is an older form than Auregny; the mediaeval Latin was _Alrenorium_.
"The seal you have got with _Juge d'Auregny_ is not the official seal I have described, but an adaptation of it doubtless.
"I can gather no record of any minting having ever taken place in Guernsey. There is, however, an estate in the parish of St. Andrew called _La Monnoye_ or _Monnaie_, which _may_ mean 'The Mint.'"
The extract furnished by Mr. Le Brun, vicar of Alderney, with the impression of the seal of that island, is:--
"Sceau ou _cachet accorde_ a La Cour, 1745, Mai 23e. Les Seigneurs du Conseil Prive de Sa Majeste, par leur ordre ou Conseil de ce Jour authorisent (_sic_) la Cour d'Auregny d'avoir un cachet pour certifier tous et tels ecrits qui leur pourront etre presentes pour y opposer le sceau."