ENGLAND: CHARLES I.
The reign of Charles I., and the period of the Commonwealth, display similar characteristics to that of James I., but in a more modified and less malignant measure. Putting aside, after one nearly fatal slip in August 1626, the various propositions for a debasement which were made early in his reign, Charles made, throughout, no change in the denomination or value of his coins, and no change in the ratio. In 1627 the export of coinage became again perceptible, and a warrant was issued for erecting a Royal Exchange between England and Scotland, September 28, and for a proclamation forbidding all indirect practices of merchants, and underhand buying of uncurrent coin and foreign bullion.
In the following March, 1628, a committee was appointed to advise his Majesty concerning the coins, and to observe from time to time all accidents at home and abroad touching coins. Numerous schemes were proposed for the arresting of the process of export. They bear generally two characters—(1) as proposing a change of the ratio; (2) as proposing a differential issue of the silver issue coinage, i.e. coining 4d., 3d., and 2d. silver pieces at a different and higher rate than the larger silver pieces. Such schemes have no importance at the present day, save as foreshadowing the mechanism by which England finally evolved a mono
metallic system which permitted of the fullest retention of silver. The flow of coinage which these proposals were intended to meet was not now to the Netherlands but to France, and it must be attributed to the course of the French currency already indicated. In 1630 the names of certain merchants engaged in the transport of gold and silver were reported to the Council, together with the names of the French merchants who received the same in France. In June 1635 certain of these were arrested, and in 1638 not less than thirty-seven of them were prosecuted in the Star Chamber for this unlawful transportation. The drain went steadily on during the whole of the decade. On January 18, 1635-6, a proclamation was issued for restraint of the consumption of coin and bullion. In the following March an order of the King in Council was issued against the exportation of English and Scotch coin, and by gentlemen crossing the sea, and forbidding the wearing of jewels, etc., "because of the great quantity of money exported." Any such enactments were doomed to be futile. The true remedy, or rather the keynote of the situation, was contained in a proposition submitted to the Privy Council for the making current of certain foreign coins. "The forbidding of Spanish money in England," says the author Barrett, "was to enrich the Mint, which brought forth contrary effects, for the French, Dutch, and other nations, by advancing Spanish coins, received the greatest profit." He accordingly proposed that the King should raise the Spanish money to be
current in England by proclamation. The double pistolets weighing 16s. to be raised to 15s.; the piece of eight weighing 5s. to be raised to 4s. 6d., "and when there is store brought into the kingdom, then have a new proclamation to call in these coins to be stamped with a mark and apprised to the intrinsic value." The step was not adopted, and by his Majesty's declaration of 1639 in the Star Chamber, gold and silver were to be considered commodities of merchandise. "By 1640 there was not in the kingdom a million of silver," says Sir Ralph Maddison in a memorial. "Gold and silver," said Sir Thomas Roe in his speech on trade in the Commons, "are very scarce, and the kingdom is impoverished. Money has been drawn away into other kingdoms, especially into France and Holland, where it is worth more." One of the informants, who had been employed by the Government in the prosecutions of 1638, thus gave his testimony in a petition which he subsequently drew up: "Divers goldsmiths of London are become exchangers of bullion of gold and silver, and buy it of merchants and others, pretending to carry it to the Mint. But indeed they are the greatest instruments for transporting that are, and in a manner they are only those who furnish transporters with English and foreign gold, Spanish money, rixdollars, pistolets, cardacues, etc. Some of the goldsmiths make it their use and practice to buy light English gold of shopkeepers and others, which, by the laws of this kingdom, wanting beyond remedy, ought to be
bought as bullion, and upon the sale ought to be defaced and new-coined in the Mint. But they take another way, for they sell all this gold to transport, though it want four, five, or six grains above the allowance, and that a 20s.-piece will not make 19s. to be coined in the Mint. Yet the goldsmiths will not abate above 2d. or 3d., and sometimes but 1d. in the piece, let the gold want what it will, by which means they outgive the Mint, and the gold which the goldsmiths buy of the subjects, thinking it is to carry to the Mint to be new-coined, to pass in current payment, they put it into a dead sea, never to be made coin of in our commonwealth. For, weekly, French and English have bought up this gold, let it be as light as it will, at 19s. 9d., 19s. 10d., 19s. 11d., and so after that rate for all other gold, to the value of many hundred thousand pounds. Many thousands of dollars and Spanish money they furnish yearly to merchants that trade for Norway and Denmark, to transport silver for those parts."
ENGLAND: THE SITUATION IN 1638
The drain of coinage to France he distinctly attributes to the raising of the French coins. "At this present in France the native merchants there match us with such a point of policy that it would be hard for our merchants to be master of.... Since the raising of our 20s.-piece to 26s. there ... they have advanced the price of their commodities according to their advanced monies, to the full sum of 6s. in the pound more than they were before."
ENGLAND: SIR ROBERT STONE ON THE MINT
During the Civil Wars there is a remarkable