Page:Edinburgh Review Volume 158.djvu/336

1883. during the next ten years. His name continually appears at meetings of the States of West Prussia and of Ermland; he composed the formal memorial in which the grievances of the Chapter against the Order were laid before the Diet of Graudenz, July 25, 1521; above all, he was deeply concerned in efforts for the reform of the Prussian coinage.

Never was reform more urgently needed. Successive Grand Masters had sought a no less fatal than facile exit from accumulated embarrassments by debasing the currency. The Prussian towns of Thorn, Dantzic, and Elbing, to which the privilege of separately coining money had been reserved by the Treaty of Thorn, appear not to have been behindhand in imitating the evil example. Indescribable and intolerable confusion ensued. The commerce of the country was threatened with extinction. A remedy was, on all sides, called for, and, when found, was on all sides rejected.

Copernicus, after his fashion, went to the root of the matter. He had found that no peddling cure would help the disorders of planetary theory, and he applied the lesson to the distempers of his native country. In a paper marked by clear and sound economical views, he recommended to the Diet of Graudenz in 1522 the establishment of a single mint for the whole of Prussia, both East and West, which should issue money of a certain definite and high standard of intrinsic value. But the proposal regarded the general welfare rather than special interests, and accordingly met with little countenance. The towns clung to their noxious privilege; the bankrupt Order was unwilling or unable to replace bad money with good; the King of Poland was bent on a complete assimilation of the currency throughout his dominions. Thus nothing was done, or worse than nothing; for an edict prohibiting trade between the adjacent Prussian provinces can have only added new, without alleviating old, mischiefs.

Meantime, a serious change was looming on the political horizon. Margrave Albert had been twice admonished from Rome to reform the degenerate religious corporation of which he was the head. He went for advice on the subject to Wittenberg. The remedy for the evils complained of which Luther recommended was a drastic one. 'Dissolve the Order,'