The bullion debate- or controversy as Mills call it- refers to a growing movement in England during the early 1800s over the return to the gold standard for money and banking. The debate occurred between the bullionists, like the prominent economist David Ricardo (a close family friend of Mill’s father), and anti-bullionists, who were defenders of the Bank of England. Rumors of a French invasion in 1797 had caused a panic among the British, who demanded the bank convert their paper notes into gold bullion. Then, the British government responded by suspending the Bank of England’s obligation to change notes into gold bullion until 1821. However, this suspension created a large public response, and hundreds of pamphlets were written during those two decades supporting or criticizing convertibility and the gold standard. Finally, Parliament passed legislation in 1819 returning Britain to the gold standard, marking the end of the Bullion Controversy.
Sources:
Laidler, David (2000) : Highlights of the Bullionist controversy, Research Report, No. 2000-2, The University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics, London (Ontario)
Carpenter, Cecil C. “The English Specie Resumption of 1821.” Southern Economic Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, 1938, pp. 45–54. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3693802. Accessed 25 Feb. 2021.