A year later a third scheme was proposed to remedy the under-valuation of English monies, "by the coinage of small silver monies of coarser silver, so as to raise the value of the larger money in proportion; the old standard to be observed in payments of rents, the new in ordinary bargains."
The step actually and finally adopted, however, by the proclamation of 1611, did not equalise the exchange for more than a twelvemonth. The rise on the Continent continued, and the outflow recommenced. In 1612 the Council took note of the persons concerned in this trade of transporting, with a view to proceeding against them, while on their side the general commercial public, or such of them as did not share the secret and the gain of bullion-broking, demanded that the under-valuation of English monies should be redeemed by further raising the value of the coins one penny in the shilling. On the 14th May 1612 a proclamation was issued forbidding merchants to exceed Mint prices in buying bullion. A year later (4th July 1613) we are told that the Privy Council had sat twelve or thirteen hours on the Sunday, and "have been forced to dismiss the gold and silver business, and also that of the fishing, as involving many points in the treaties with Burgundy and Holland."
The State papers of this year contain quite numerous references to the subject: "Statement of the Undervalue set upon English Money in Foreign Countries, as proved by the last Placard of the Low
Countries"; "Notes of the Advantage arising to the Crown of England from raising the Shilling to 13 1⁄2 Pence, and the Proportion of Gold from 12 1⁄2 to 13"; "Suggestions as to the Means of Preventing Foreign Nations from taking Advantage of the English in the Exchange of Monies, viz., raising English Coins in Nominal Value," etc.
On the 23rd March 1615 a further proclamation was issued against the export of gold and silver coin, and in the following year the exports of the East India Company were limited to £6000 in bullion or specie. The Mint officials proposed a raising of the denomination, and again the matter was hotly debated in and out of the Council. But a different race of men from Raleigh had succeeded, and, on the 31st December 1618, the Privy Council determined that "silver shall not be raised in value at present, and uniformity in the weight of the coin is to be observed; the melting of gold for braid or plate forbidden, but further regulations postponed till the committee for exchanges bring their report."
ENGLAND: THE MEASURES OF 1619
As it happened, owing to the necessity of replenishing the King's finances, the question had become complicated, and some of the measures proposed for staying the coin had a more sinister bearing, as is apparent in one of the schemes referred to (supra, p. 136), being, in short, cloaked proposals of debasement. In setting its face against such proposals of debasement the Council was right, but such proposals had relation only to the King's finances, and not to the
currency crux, and in delaying the proper tariffing of the English against the continental coins the Council did wrong. By 1619 the evil had risen to so great a height that the Council determined to act upon its own proclamations. Eighteen merchants were sentenced in the Star Chamber for exporting gold (8th December 1619), five being acquitted. The total of the fines imposed on the sentenced men reached £140,000, and it was stated that since the beginning of the reign a matter of £7,000,000 of gold had been surreptitiously exported. On the 31st July 1619 proclamation was issued for a new coinage. The gold angel was reduced in weight from 71 1⁄9 grs. to 64 11⁄15, being equivalent to an increase of an eleventh in its denominational value: and in January 1620, following the convictions of the merchants referred to, the Council busily debated "the erecting an exchange for monies, to prevent the export of silver by the goldsmiths who have been the offenders."
All these steps were taken too late, and the currency crisis which shook Germany ran its full course, too, in England.
In 1620 there was a great scarcity of silver in the country, and the trade of the Eastland merchant was gone—a scarcity and decay which they attributed "to the rise of foreign coin, especially that of Poland and Holland, during the last four years in which the Hollanders have farmed the King of Poland's Mint." The export of cloth had sunk to one-third the output