Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/606

590 of governmental regulation, it would have been accomplished "by Spain.

All this time the prohibited calderilla and vellón grueso were in circulation, the latter running 74 maravedis to the marc, or about 56 cents of our money to the pound, while copper was worth about 29. The legalized premium on gold and silver was still fifty per cent. Even copper was now becoming scarce under the ceaseless labor of the mints. A proclamation of May 14, 1683, sets forth that it is for the common benefit to have abundance of copper money; and, in order that all the metal in the kingdom may be thus utilized, all pieces of copper brought to the mints will be paid for at the rate of 3$1⁄2$ ryals of vellón for the pound. To prevent its being wasted by consumption in the arts, all coppersmiths are forbidden to manufacture articles of it, or to repair old ones that may be brought to them to be mended. Their shops are to be visited, and their stocks of metal seized and paid for at the above price; inventories of their finished work are to be drawn up, and sixty days allowed for the sale of the articles. Anything concealed is declared to be forfeited, and severe penalties of fine, confiscation, and exile are decreed for evasions or infractions of the order. A false financial system had brought Spain to such a pass that, with the wealth of the Indies pouring into her lap, gold and silver had been driven from circulation, and she was ransacking the shops for scraps of copper to keep her mints busy.

These resources proved insufficient to supply the ever-growing demands of a depreciated currency, and resort was had to remonetizing the molino alloyed coinage which had been prohibited in 1680. By an edict of October 9, 1684, it was restored to circulation at a valuation double that which it had borne prior to its demonetization, which would seem to render superfluous an accompanying threat of penalties for its exportation, the same as for gold and silver.

Having thus apparently exhausted the possibilities of copper inflation, attention was turned to gold and silver which had hitherto been but little tampered with. A pragmatica of October 14, 1686, ordered a reduction of weight of twenty-five per cent in the silver ryal by working 84 to the marc in place of 67. The existing pesos or pieces of eight were rechristened crowns, and were ordered to pass for ten ryals, and the smaller coins in proportion. This was purely an inflation measure without any view of reducing the discount on vellón, for the fifty per cent premium was ordered to be applicable to the new light-weight silver coins, of which the piece of eight was declared equivalent to twelve ryals vellón, and the old one, now called a crown, to fifteen. No change was made in the weight of the gold coinage, but the value