Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/598

582 was becoming more and more desperate. Recourse was again had to a forced loan under the device of another inflation of the currency. A royal cédula of March 12, 1636, called in all the restamped vellón; from the day of publication of the edict no one was to pass it, or spend it, or pay it out, but was to convey it to the nearest mint, where he would receive its current value; and whoever, after eighty days, was found in possession of any of it incurred the severe penalties decreed against the holders of unlawful money. Having thus provided for obtaining possession of all the coinage, the mints were set to work restamping it with a valuation threefold that which it had born: the quarto, thus far current for four maravedis, was raised to twelve, and the other coins in proportion, while death and confiscation were threatened for any violation of the coinage laws. The result of this arbitrary creation of value is seen in the edict of April 30th of the same year, permitting a premium on gold and silver of twenty-five per cent until the arrival of the galleons, after which it was to be reduced to twenty; and that this was below the ruling market rate is assumable from a sharpening of the penalties provided for those who should demand or accept a higher premium. Six months later an effort was made to bring the precious metals to par by suspending the permission to exchange them at a premium, but the distress caused by this suspension was so severe that a decree of March 20, 1637, renewed the recognition of twenty-five per cent premium, and added that in the larger cities casas de diputación, or exchanges, could be established, where transactions could be negotiated at twenty-eight per cent, with a brokerage of one quarter or one half. The extreme importance attached to regulating the premium is visible in the punitive clauses of the edict. Any deviation from the established rate was classed with treason, irrevocably punishable with confiscation, disability for office, and personal infamy. In prosecutions all reasonable means of defense were withdrawn from the accused; the names of witnesses were kept secret, and judicial forms were not to be observed. Even ambassadorial immunity was set aside; the foreign ministers resident in Madrid were liable to accusation, when the king would determine as to their imprisonment and punishment.

This was speedily followed by a reaction. Of course, there were two parties in Spain, as elsewhere—inflationists and contractionists—and the policy of the state fluctuated as one or the other obtained preponderance with the king, or rather with his all-powerful minister, the Count-Duke Olivares. The contractionists now had control, and their views were expressed in a pragmatica of January 29, 1638, which lamented the misfortunes brought upon the land by the superabundance of vellón money which had