that the currency history of England during all the reign of Elizabeth shows such remarkable quiescence. From 1558 to the fatal blunder of 1601 there was no change in her Mint rates. The complaints of exports of coins, and the evidence of the action of bimetallic law, appears only at three isolated and widely separated periods. The inference can only be—and it is more than an inference—that her reign, besides being a period of currency expansion, was one in which the ratio existing in England facilitated the flow of metals from the Continent, and secured the permanence of that currency expansion. On this increased basis of currency was built that commercial and national, yea even literary, growth and expansion, which have made the Elizabethan age the glory of our history. Similarly, the unrest and commercial credit crises under James I. and Charles I., which resulted from the same wide causes and principles, underlay and played a vitally determining part in the agitation and revolution-sowing of their reigns, and that, too, in a manner which has never yet been appreciated. The uprisal of England, which resulted in the first dethronement of the Stuarts, was as widely and vitally based upon economic causes as upon legal or religious,—possibly, indeed, much more so, if we only knew it.
At first James was determined to proceed with the monies which were being wrought by Elizabeth's warrant. But on the 11th November, in the first year of his reign, a new indenture was made for the
coining of a new piece called the Unite, to commemorate the union of the two crowns of England and Scotland. While preserving the same value as the pound sovereign of Elizabeth's issue of 1601 (viz. 20s.), its weight was only 154 26⁄31 grains, while that of Elizabeth's was 171 61⁄67. In the following year the angel was reduced from 78 66⁄73 grains to 71 1⁄9. The combined effect was to raise the ratio from 10.90 (as in 1601) to 12.15. Elizabeth's blunder was thereby effectually remedied, but it was not before an outcry had been made about the decay in shipping, and in the export of English cloth.
Even this higher ratio did not remain permanently, or for long, effective. In 1607 the transportation of specie rose to such a height that a proclamation had to be issued against it, 9th July, and there was again talk of establishing "a true and perfect way to keep the money within the kingdom by instituting a register for all payments made by way of exchange." Again, two years later (10th August 1609 and 18th May 1611), the proclamation had to be twice renewed; no less a person than Sir Francis Bacon drafting the clause in the first case. The anxiety which the subject caused to the Privy Council is quite apparent in the State papers, and much division of opinion prevailed before the only possible remedy—a raising of the denomination of the coinage—was adopted. Salisbury was at first adverse to the measure, but set himself carefully to study the question. The slow working of his mind is still traceable in the paper of notes he
drew up for his own guidance. "All the proportions of bullion ought to be xij for one between the gold and silver unmixed. Our sterling standard is wrought with a mixture of 18 dwt. in every lb. weight, which is 12 oz.; so as every 18 dwt. is 4s. 6d., and therefore that is wanting.
SALISBURY ON CURRENCY
"Now, two things are in question, one the inconvenience of general transportation, the other of the particular, viz. Scotland. In the general this is the mischief, that our gold is not so much alloyed as our silver, and therefore being more worth than silver is bought and carried away. The particular, of Scotland, is more notorious, because it is not forbidden....
"The gold ought to be 24 caretts.
"Now oure angell is not so much but neare it, about 23 caretts 3 grains and 1⁄2.
"4 grains makes a caret. 24 caretts an oz.