198 CURRENCF. 



was under the impression, as William the Third's was, nearly 

 a century and a half later, that the reform of the currency 

 could be carried out without interruption to business, even 

 though the smaller coins were allowed to be current at fixed 

 rates. But as we might anticipate, great inconvenience was 

 experienced in 1561, for want of small coins ; which coins the 

 mint was ordered to immediately issue. 



These proclamations were illustrated by facsimiles of the 

 coins, with a view to assisting the knowledge of the public, 

 and were sent to all the authorities of the several counties and 

 towns. 



It has been suggested from the above figures that the queen 

 made a profit on the re-coinage. If she did she did not con- 

 template such an advantage. In the proclamation of Sept. 27, 

 1560, she says of the basest coins, that she agrees to take them 

 at this estimate (as proclaimed) at the mint in good money, 

 and if they be found to contain more good silver, to pay the 

 same, and over and above on every pound of the same, $d. in 

 good silver. The queen herself declares the new coinage to 

 be a loss to her, and Elizabeth never told falsehoods in case 

 she was likely to be found out. Her contemporaries believed 

 that she had done a good public service and had done it with 

 the best motives. While she instructed her subjects in the 

 value of foreign coins which were circulating in England, and 

 published the figures of the coin which she so valued, she 

 offered to give at the mint the full value of these foreign coins 

 in gold and silver of standard purity. 



I have already referred to the remarkable intention she had 

 of making her coins current at the weight at which the coins 

 were struck in the 6th of Edward the Fourth. The MS. 

 of this proclamation reducing the coins to two-thirds of their 

 nominal value, with a view of bringing back in some degree 

 the prices which prevailed, in place of those which were 

 consequent upon the altered state of this, is contained in the 

 great volume of Elizabeth's proclamations, which almost cer- 

 tainly belonged to Burleigh and Cecil, and is the choicest 



