Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/25

 1500.] THE ENGLISH A T II A VRE. j all outstanding debts or contracts might be graduated in the same proportion. The objections to this project, it is easy to see, would have been infinite. It fell through was heard of no- more. But in their first moments of serious leisure, immediately after the Scotch war, in September 1560, the council determined at all hazards to call in the entire currency, and supply its place with new coin of a pure and uniform standard. Prices of all kinds could then adjust themselves without further confusion. The first necessity was to ascertain the proportions of good and bad money which was in circulation. A public inquiry could not be 'ventured for fear of creating a panic, and the following rudely ingenious method was suggested as likely to give an approximation to the truth. ' Some witty person was to go among the butchers of London, and to them rather than to any other, because they retailed of their flesh to all manner of persons in effect so that thereby of great likelihood came to their hands of all sorts of money of base coin : and to go to a good many of them thirty- six at least and after this manner, because they should not under- stand the meaning thereof, nor have no suspicion in that behalf requiring all of them to put all the money that they should receive the next forenoon by itself, and likewise that in the afternoon by itself, and they should have other money for the same ; promising every one of them a quart of wine for their labours, because that there was a good wager laid whether they received more money in the afternoon whereof nine score pounds