RECOINAGE OF 1696 433 
in monetary history’. The policy of allowing the export of AD, 03% 
bullion has on the whole been maintained, although it was ’ 
frequently set aside by proclamation? under Charles II.; and de, of 
the practice of coining money, without making a charge for free coin- 
seigniorage, has been regularly followed, in spite of occasional 
protests®. As a result, the English currency became liable 
to be depleted, through the very slightest fluctuations in the 
value of the precious metals. The changing ratio of gold 
and silver was doubtless a constant cause of trouble; and 
frequent difficulty arose from the fact that silver was rated 
so low in England‘ that it was occasionally remunerative to 
melt down the silver coins, issued from the Mint, in order of we'g 
to sell them as bullion. Besides this, till the mill and press pa 
were introduced® in 1663, the currency consisted entirely of 
hammered money, and the pieces varied considerably from 
one another, in size and weight. As payments were made 
by tale, there was a frequent temptation to hoard the new 
pieces which issued from the Mint, or to melt them down for 
sale to silversmiths and for purposes of export’. The coins 
left in circulation became more worn and defective as time 
passed, so that the difference, between the nominal value of 
the coins as money and their real value as silver. became 
E 
A 
n 
2Y 
1 Tt has been reprinted by J. R. Macculloch, in Select Collection of Rare 
Tracts on Money, p. 145. 
3 Shaw, History of Currency, 163. 
3 E.g. by Dudley North. Discourse of Trade, quoted by Shaw, History 
of Currency, 221; also Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain, 
mo. 12, 
¢ See above, p. 137. This difficulty appears to have been felt, though in 
a less degree, in the reign of James I. (Proclamations 18 May, 1611, S. P. D. 
J. I. Lxni. 88, and 23 March, 1614, S.P.D., J. I. cLxxxvir. 87. Some confusion 
was caused at that time by the rate at which Scotch gold coins were rendered 
current in England (Rnding, 1. 362, and Proclamation 8 April, 1603, Brit. Mus. 
506. b. 10 {5)). Owing to the scarcity of silver, an attempt was made to put 
farthing tokens, duly issued from the Mint, iuto circulation. Proclamation 
19 May, 1618, Brit. Mus. 506. h. 12 (75). 
¢ H. Haynes, op. cit. p. 40. 
¢ Haynes describes the conditions in some detail. “Bat tho’ all the pieces 
together might come neer the pound weight or be within remedy; yet diverse of 
‘em compar’d one with the other were very disproportionable; as was too well 
known to many persons, who pick’d out the heavy pieces, and threw ’em into 
the Melting pott, to fitt ‘em for exportation, or to supply the Silver Smiths. And 
‘twas a thing at Inst so notorious, that it ’scap’d the observation of a very few; 
for ‘twas pretty commonly known that the following pieces of hammer’d mony 
® IR