CHAPTER II

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 Page 147 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,