Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/73

Rh and the practice was general in all the considerable towns throughout the kingdom.

In the second year of the reign of Charles I., a pound of gold of 23 carats 3½ grains fine was directed to be accounted of the value of 44l. 10s.; and a pound of 22 carats fine of the value of 41l. "In the former reign," observes Leake, "the great quantity of silver brought into Europe upon the opening of the mines of Peru and Mexico had raised the price of gold, and caused it to be exported, so that for two years hardly any usual payments were made in gold; but, the gold, by reason of this advanced price, being brought back, there followed as great a scarcity of silver." It had been the practice, too, of the goldsmiths for some years, he adds, to cull out the weightiest and best silver money, for which they would give a premium of two and sometimes three shillings on the hundred pounds, and to melt and export it. Above ten millions of pounds sterling in silver were coined from 1630 to 1643; "nevertheless, in 1632," Rushworth tells us, "there was such plenty of gold in the kingdom, and such scarcity of silver, that the drovers and farmers, who brought their cattle, sheep, and swine to be sold in Smithfield, would ordinarily make their bargain to be paid in silver and not in gold. And, besides, in this time people did ordinarily give two-pence, and sometimes more, to get twenty shillings in silver for the exchange of a twenty-shilling piece of gold, full weight. And in and about London and Westminster, as well as in other parts, most people carried gold scales in their pockets to weigh gold on all occasions," The coins struck by Charles in the early part of his reign were of the same denominations as those issued by his father. Among his schemes for raising money at this time were various projects which were set on foot for coining silver extracted from the lead-mines in different parts of England. Of these, however, the only one that turned out in any considerable degree productive was that for coining the silver yielded by the Welsh mines, for which