Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/152

132 An Act was prepared in compliance with the request of Sir Thomas Gresham, to limit the number of the right occasion that all our gold and silver shall remain within our realm. And, to be plain with your Grace, you shall never be able to bring this to pass except you take away one of the greatest occasions of the let and stay thereof, that there shall be no more made free of this company of Merchant Adventurers from this day forward. For verily they have been and are one of the chiefest occasions of the falling of the exchange; as also, for lack of experience they have brought the commodities of our realm clean out of reputation, as also the merchants of the same, which times past hath been most in estimation of all the merchants of the world. In the few years since the Act was made for the new Hanse the merchants and our commodities hath fallen in decay, and like to fall daily more and more, except the matter be prevented in time. For, as your Grace doth right well know, where there is no order kept, all things at length falleth to confusion. So, an it please your Grace, how it is possible that either a minstrel player, or a shoemaker, or any crafty man, or any other that hath not been brought up in the science, to have the present understanding of the feat of the Merchant Adventurers; to the which science I myself was bound prentice eight years, to come by the experience and knowledge that I have; nevertheless, I need not have been prentice, for that I was free by my father's copy. Albeit my father, Sir Richard Gresham, being a wise man, knew, although I was free by his copy, it was to no purpose except I was bound prentice to the same. So that by this it may appear to your Grace that these men that be made free by this new Hanse, for lack of knowledge, hath been and is one of the chiefest occasions of the fall of the exchange, as also hath brought our commodities out of reputation.'As a further example to your Grace, it is not passing twenty or thirty years ago since we had for every twenty shillings sterling thirty-two shillings Flemish; and the notable number that hath from time to time run in headlong into the feat of merchandise, and so entered into credit, when they had overshot themselves and had bound themselves with more than their substance would bear, then, for saving of their names, were fain to run upon the exchange and rechange; and the merchants, knowing that they had need thereof, would not from time to time deliver their money, but at their prices. So that in these few years the plenty of these new merchants, for lack of experience, substance, and credit, hath been only the occasion that the exchange fell from thirty-two shillings to 26s. 8d., which was done afore any fall of money passed in England.