The Maintenance of Free Trade [4]
unmaske his discourse, and nevertheless to supply (according to my former Treatises) The maintenance of free Trade, wherin I endeavour to be Compendious and Substantiall, and to follow his Method and some distribution for the better understanding, as a most important businesse of State, which is the cause that so many Statutes and lawes have beene made concerning moneyes and exchanges. 2. So many Proclamations for the due execution thereof have bin published. 3. Lastly, so many Treatises and Conferences have beene had had from Time to Time, Both with other Princes and within our selves, which in the judgement of the said Author are neglected as unnecessary, or by ignorance not mentioned; concluding with him, That as there are many causes discussed and discoursed of, at this time of the decay of Trade: So are there many Remedies propounded, wherein if either the Principall Causes be mistaken (as hee hath done) or defective Remedies propounded: The present disease of this Trade may increase and cast the Body into a more dangerous Sicknes. For the efficient Cause being unknown, putteth out the Phisitians eye, as the Proverbe is. Now let us come to the handling of the particulars in order, and afterward to the True Remedies, which must arise from the matter of exchange, as shall bee plainely demonstrated to the judicious Reader, voide of partiality; for the exchange is the faculty or Spirit of the soule of moneyes in the Course of Traffique.
Chapter One
The Causes of the Want of Moneys in England.
This Assertion we shall now bring to the hammer, the Anvel and the Touchstone, namely to firme Reason, by his owne first Argument of the immediate Cause of the want of money in England, alleaged by him to bee the undervaluation of his Majesties Coyne, where he saith by way of interrogation: Who will procure licence in Spaine to bring Realls into England, to sell them here at Tenne in the hundred Gaine, which is lesse then the exchange from thence will yeeld, when he may have for the same, five and twenty in the hundred in Holland? Here in an obscure manner, he observeth the exchange from Spayne to be Sixe pence the Reall, as value for value, or the Par in exchange, whereby it is less (as hee saith:) and hee doth account the price of 8. Reals at 51 Stivers in Holland, and the Rate of exchange at 22 shillings 4 pence Flemish to answer our 20 shillings Starlin as at Par pro Pari for those parts, howbeit that 42 shillings 6 pence Flemish payde there for the 5 Realls of 8 make 25 shillings 6 pence Starlin according to that Computation; howsoever wee see that this is grounded upon the exchange, which is the efficient Cause thereof, otherwise the 15 in the hundreth to be gotten in Holland more than in England: is altogether imaginary and not Reall. For example let five of these Realls of 8 be bought here for 22 shillings Starlin, and bee transported into Holland, and there buy commodities with the same, according as the price of them, is inhaunced there; no man maketh any doubt, but that the said Commodities are also raised in price, according to the money inhaunced. So that the gayne becommeth uncertaine, for the Commodities may be sold to losse. But the merchants trading in Spaine, which cause their Realls to be sent from Spaine thither, or doe transporte them from the Downes: Rely wholy upon the lowe exchange, whereby they are inabled to deliver their money there, by exchange at an undervalue, in giving there but 33 shillings 4 pence and under, to have 20 shillings Starlin payed by Bill of exchange in England, whereby the kingdome maketh good unto them the said 15 upon the hundreth. For this Reall of 8 was valued but at 42 Stivers, when the Par of exchange was made to be 33 shillings 4 pence, in the yeare 1586, when Robert Dudley, Earle of Leycester, went to take the government of those Countries; And shal we now receive in exchange the said price of 8 Reals for 51 Stivers, which is about five shillings and one peny Starlin, because they have inhaunced the same to their advantage, and continue the Par of exchange
Chapter One
The Causes of the Want of Moneys in England.
This Assertion we shall now bring to the hammer, the Anvel and the Touchstone, namely to firme Reason, by his owne first Argument of the immediate Cause of the want of money in England, alleaged by him to bee the undervaluation of his Majesties Coyne, where he saith by way of interrogation: Who will procure licence in Spaine to bring Realls into England, to sell them here at Tenne in the hundred Gaine, which is lesse then the exchange from thence will yeeld, when he may have for the same, five and twenty in the hundred in Holland? Here in an obscure manner, he observeth the exchange from Spayne to be Sixe pence the Reall, as value for value, or the Par in exchange, whereby it is less (as hee saith:) and hee doth account the price of 8. Reals at 51 Stivers in Holland, and the Rate of exchange at 22 shillings 4 pence Flemish to answer our 20 shillings Starlin as at Par pro Pari for those parts, howbeit that 42 shillings 6 pence Flemish payde there for the 5 Realls of 8 make 25 shillings 6 pence Starlin according to that Computation; howsoever wee see that this is grounded upon the exchange, which is the efficient Cause thereof, otherwise the 15 in the hundreth to be gotten in Holland more than in England: is altogether imaginary and not Reall. For example let five of these Realls of 8 be bought here for 22 shillings Starlin, and bee transported into Holland, and there buy commodities with the same, according as the price of them, is inhaunced there; no man maketh any doubt, but that the said Commodities are also raised in price, according to the money inhaunced. So that the gayne becommeth uncertaine, for the Commodities may be sold to losse. But the merchants trading in Spaine, which cause their Realls to be sent from Spaine thither, or doe transporte them from the Downes: Rely wholy upon the lowe exchange, whereby they are inabled to deliver their money there, by exchange at an undervalue, in giving there but 33 shillings 4 pence and under, to have 20 shillings Starlin payed by Bill of exchange in England, whereby the kingdome maketh good unto them the said 15 upon the hundreth. For this Reall of 8 was valued but at 42 Stivers, when the Par of exchange was made to be 33 shillings 4 pence, in the yeare 1586, when Robert Dudley, Earle of Leycester, went to take the government of those Countries; And shal we now receive in exchange the said price of 8 Reals for 51 Stivers, which is about five shillings and one peny Starlin, because they have inhaunced the same to their advantage, and continue the Par of exchange