complaining that, through the monetary disorder, trade and exchange was being driven from the city, as within a short period the exchange with Frankfort had fallen from 74 kreutzer (=32 schillingen Lübeck) to 62 Page 105 kreutzer (=32 schillingen Lübeck), and the exchange with Amsterdam from 46 stivers (=32 schillingen Lübeck) to 39 stivers. To the Senate's proposal for the erection of an exchange bank, the merchants would, however, have nothing to say, considering it unnecessary and dangerous, and called for the suppression of the notes which the merchants had brought into use to facilitate their settlements.
Three years later, however, the Senate declared more strongly for the establishment of a bank, premising in the preamble of their resolution that "it is many ways known and plain how disastrous a disorder has hitherto been in the currency, both from the rise of the larger silver species and from the excessive importation of smaller depreciated specie, whereby not only private individuals but also common interests, as churches, hospitals, widows, and orphans are greatly pinched in their incomes."
It was as the outcome of this resolution that the celebrated Hamburg bank was instituted in 1619, the later life of which was to become of so much importance for the monetary and commercial history of North Germany.
The curious point to observe is the short time—a few months merely—by which the crisis in Germany preceded that in England, and