The Bullion Committee was established early in 1810 to report to Parliament on the “bullion question”. Britain had suspended the redemption of bank of England notes in bullion (silver or gold) in 1797 in order to smooth funding of the French wars, and since then inflation had been very high and sterling had depreciated on foreign exchanges. The questions which the Committee address were what was the “true” relationship between paper values and bullion values, had the government issuance of so many notes been responsible for the decline in the sterling exchange rate, and how could the government fulfil its obligation to return to the gold standard six months after the conclusion of peace.
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Citation: Clark, Robert. "Bullion Committee, January 1810-June 1816". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 October 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19332, accessed 23 November 2024.]
