An unpublished letter of David Ricardo on the double standard of money

Abstract

This article transcripts and comments a hitherto unpublished letter by David Ricardo, dated 19 January 1823 and addressed to Grenfell. In this letter Ricardo opposes the adoption of a double standard of money, two years after the return to convertibility of banknotes and in the midst of an economic recession that pressed for drastic monetary changes. It contains an argument – linking the double standard of money, the seignorage on the silver coin, the behaviour of the Bank of England, and the fall in the value of the pound – which is to be found nowhere else in Ricardo's works.