Middlemen in Englis/i Business 387 



x\dventurers employed foreign exchange at the opening of that cen- 

 tury, and enacted strict regulations for its conduct. A stringent 

 ordinance enforced, under severe penalties, the due payment of bills 

 of exchange.^ All bills had to be drawn on the staple town and there 

 only.- A maximum rate of exchange was prescribed.^ In 1638 it 

 was observed that a specialized class^ was arising who "in many 

 places" found "the excellence" of "the art and mysterie" of exchange 

 "more profitable and beneficial" than "the art of Merchandizing it 

 selfe."-^ At that time the "Exchanges practised in England, and 

 principally in London" were "but as a Rivolet issuing out of the 

 great streame of those Exchanges that" were "used beyond the Seas," 

 and "limited but to some few places, as to Antwerpe for Flanders, to 

 Roven and Paris for France, to Amsterdam and Rotterdam for the 

 Netherlands, to Dansicke for the East Country, to Venice for Italie, 

 to Edenburgh for Scotland, to Dublin for Ireland," and all other 

 parts were reached by secondary exchanges from these centers. "^ Bv 

 1682 it was pronounced so necessary an appendix to commerce "that 

 without it Trade (could) scarcely subsist, . . . the soul and 

 Hfe . . . the very Essence of all Commerce."' 



The reasons for this rapid extension were (a) primarily its useful- 

 ness in transmitting money, (b) its facilitation of usurious contracts 

 and the evasion of the laws against usury, ^ (c) its being a readv means 

 of procuring credit and tiding accounts," (d) the favor of princes who 

 wanted to stay the outward flow of specie,'" and (e) its employment as 

 a Vv-ay of shifting the risks in shipping. ^'• 



Attention is called to the following pages which contain points illustrative of these 

 operations: XIII, 3, 15, 17, 18, 25, 34, 45. The letters are replete with such 

 data. 



' Lingelbach, ;Mer. Ad., 117. 



2 Ibid., 54, 109. 



3 Ibid., 109. 



'Cf. 2 Jas. T, Cap. 21. 



'" Roberts, Map. 47. 



^ Ibid., 256. See Scarlett, Stile, 364 et seq. lor a list of countries and cities 

 with which London did exchange business in 1682. 



" Scarlett, Stile, pref.; a like statement in Savary, Par. Neg., 127 (1679). 



* Beawes, Lex Mer. Red., 412; Scarlett, Stile, pref.; Robinson, Eng. Saf., 

 38-9. 



' See discussion of dry exchange in Beawes, Lex ^Vler. Red., 413-452, and Savary, 

 Par. Neg., 236-242; Ricard, I, 202, and "State of the Pub. Cr.," 7, contains special 

 instances of this means of raising credit. 



1" Beawes, Lex Mer. Red., 411; Savary, Par. Xeg., 127. 



'1 Scarlett, Stile, 251, 253. 



