DISINCLINATION TO TAKE CHAP. XV. 



therefore, embarrassed their transactions by passing 

 them even among themselves. The lesser traders 

 also were taught by their losses to avoid, as far as 

 they could, the English gold coin. This dis- 

 inclination towards that description of money con- 

 tinued strong till the reign of Elizabeth, when a 

 great and general improvement in the currency 

 of the kingdom took place. It had not, however, 

 wholly disappeared so late as 1774, when the 

 great recoinage under George III. was effected ; 

 for before that operation, when the guineas by 

 friction, by sweating, and by filing, had been 

 greatly reduced in weight, the moidores of Por- 

 tugal, which passed at twenty-seven shillings, 

 were as general and were more preferred in all the 

 western counties of England than the national 

 gold coin, which, though a legal tender, had been 

 generally very much diminished in weight. 



As the great dealers in money thus avoided 

 that coined in England, and rather chose to cir- 

 culate that of foreign fabrication, it does not appear 

 surprising that at a time like the reign of Henry 

 VII., when England had rapidly increased in 

 wealth, the amount of its own coin of gold and 

 silver should have been so small, as it must ne- 

 cessarily have been if all that had issued from its 

 mints in two preceding centuries had been then 

 actually in circulation. 



Notwithstanding the small amount of domestic 

 coin, there must have been money to a large 



