Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/128

 document, the common sense of the London merchant in time produced its effect upon the government; and, towards the close of the following year, the Council had no course left but to accept the advice of Mr. Lane and of other merchants of the City. However oppressive upon the people at large, there was no way of overcoming the difficulty, or of meeting the sufferings which the issue of base money had created, but by the desperate remedy of proclaiming that all the holders of coin must rest satisfied with receiving in exchange for it the value of the pure silver it contained. This loss, however, would have been so serious to many persons, the silver coin consisting of at least fifty per cent. of alloy, that the Council did not venture at first to do more than order that the shilling in future was to pass for ninepence, and the groat for threepence, a proclamation which did not remedy the evil. Every holder of coin felt that the second fall must follow sooner or later, yet, in the face of this certainty, the Council ordered a fresh issue of 80,000l. worth of silver coins, of which no less than two-thirds was alloy, and, in a fortnight afterwards, a further issue of 40,000l. in coins of which three-quarters was alloy. The falling process once begun had to be completed, and the second proclamation, which appeared within two months of the first, ordered that the shilling should pass for no more than sixpence, nor the groat for more than twopence!! Proceedings such as these could not fail to seriously affect every branch of the national commerce.

English cloth had hitherto borne the palm in