Although Sir William appears to have consigned to the official pigeon-hole this thoroughly sensible document, the common sense of the London merchant in time produced its effect upon the government; and, towards the close of the following year, the Council had no course left but to accept the advice of Mr. Lane and of other merchants of the City. However oppressive upon the people at large, there was no way of overcoming the difficulty, or of meeting the sufferings which the issue of base money had created, but by the desperate remedy of proclaiming that all the holders of coin must rest satisfied with receiving in exchange for it the value of the pure silver it contained. This loss, however, would have been so serious to many persons, the silver coin consisting of at least fifty per cent. of alloy, that the Council did not venture at first to do more than order that the shilling in future was to pass for ninepence, and the groat for threepence, a proclamation which did not remedy the evil. Every holder of coin felt that the second fall must follow sooner or later, yet, in the face of this certainty, the Council ordered a fresh issue of 80,000l. worth of silver coins, of which no less than two-thirds was alloy, and, in a fortnight afterwards, a further issue of 40,000l. in coins of which three-quarters was alloy.[117] The falling process once begun had to be completed, and the second proclamation, which appeared within two months of the first, ordered that the shilling should pass for no more than sixpence, nor the groat for more than twopence!! Proceedings such as these could not fail to seriously affect every branch of the national commerce.
The corruption of the Council extends to the merchants.
English cloth had hitherto borne the palm in the markets of Europe. Genoese and Venetian shipowners had bought the woollens of England as cargoes for their vessels in preference to all other similar manufactures. Portuguese ships sailed with them from the Thames for the Brazils, Peru, and the Indies, East and West. The Germans on the Rhine, and the Magyars on the Danube, were clothed in English broadcloth. But the spirit of deception which had pervaded the Council in the debasement of its coin extended to the merchants, and the guilds became powerless because their members were corrupt. Huge bales of English goods lay unsold on the wharves at Antwerp, because they were “fraudulent in weight, make, and size.” Such was the state of commercial affairs in England when Edward VI. closed his reign, and it was only by the sale of the crown lands, and other property, that the government was enabled to remedy the many evils which a debased currency had created.
Accession of Elizabeth, A.D. 1558.
War with Spain.
Nor did commercial affairs improve when Mary ascended the throne. Though her marriage with Philip of Spain may have given English merchants an increased knowledge of the West Indies, Mexico, and South America, that unfortunate union became the source of so much trouble, that the maritime commerce of England decreased during the five years of her reign, and, when Elizabeth succeeded her sister, was even more depressed than it had been at the death of Edward. The events that followed did not tend to improve it. The war with Spain, the immediate result of her accession, if it developed the energy and daring of English seamen, and opened wider and richer fields for buccaneering, almost annihilated for a time the now limited legitimate commerce of England.
Temporary peace with France, soon followed by another war.
Demand for letters of marque.
Having broken off all political connection with Spain, and having reserved only such commercial and maritime intercourse as it was necessary to maintain between the two countries, Elizabeth found it desirable to make a hasty, though honourable, peace with France, more especially as that country had meditated the annexation of Scotland. But the death of Francis II., king of France, husband of the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, changed the face of affairs, and the return of this princess to Scotland created new and harassing complications. France after his death was torn by civil and religious wars, and Elizabeth finding it necessary for her own security to support the Protestants in that country, a war again ensued, which in this instance perhaps more than in any other created immense excitement, especially among the maritime population of England. Religious sentiments, in the case of a misunderstanding with Spain, blended with the love of pecuniary gain, had raised, as in the war of the Crusades, people to a state of speculative fury against their hereditary enemies far more bitter and far stronger than had ever happened before. And when it became known that one Clarke, an English shipowner, with only three vessels, had in a cruise of six weeks captured and carried into Newhaven as prizes no less than eighteen vessels, whose cargoes were valued at 50,000l., applications to the Queen for letters of marque poured in from all parts of the kingdom.
Number of the royal fleet, A.D. 1559.