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."
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."
During the Civil Wars there is a remarkable Page 150 paucity of reference to the subject, doubtless owing to the supreme importance of the war itself. On the 26th August 1643, and on the 24th February 1643-4, the Long Parliament issued orders, on the petition of merchant strangers who were prevented from importing bullion by the rigours of the search of their vessels, for their due encouragement. The petitions would argue a tendency towards an importation of specie, but in 1649 this was again changed, and a heavy export became perceptible.