ABSTRACT
In monetary matters the experience of the eighteenth century was of the most varied kind. It witnessed money functioning in times of peace and times of war. It was familiar with the difficulties of the double standard, with those arising from worn and clipped coins, with those created by excessive seigniorage charges, or by the refusal of the State to bear the costs of reforming the coinage. For the greater part of the century metallic money was in use, gold, silver and copper. England gradually took to gold. In France silver was more common. In the American colonies paper money was in use, and "necessity moneys," as Galiani called them, were frequently used in Europe. Above all, the eighteenth century escaped none of the problems arising from the prohibition of the export of money, from the "augmentations" and "diminutions" which, by changing the metallic value of the money of account, were used by rulers to lighten the burden of their debts or to give temporary satisfaction to creditors. With the exception of England, the coining of money was everywhere used by the State as a means of securing revenue.
