580 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the maintenance of the religious wars in France, the conquest of 

 Portugal, the crusade which brought the triumph of Lepanto, 

 the collapse of the Armada, and other ceaseless efforts, prompted 

 by zeal for the faith and thirst of aggrandizement. Yet the 

 infiltration of the currency with these little debased coins was a 

 slow process, and its effects were correspondingly deferred, but 

 they manifested themselves at last, and the calderilla as this 

 coinage came to be popularly designated grew to be a load 

 which the ablest statesmen of Spain for a century vainly endeav- 

 ored to shake off. Apparently the process of manufacture be- 

 came too slow to supply the increasing wants of the treasury, 

 for we hear in 1602 of a restamping of the vell<5n coinage, 

 doubtless to give it an increased fictitious value. At the same 

 time Philip III made a new issue of pure copper, to the amount 

 of 2,448,000 ducats, working 280 maravedis to the marc, the cost 

 of metal and coinage being only 80 maravedis. Prices rose, and 

 there was general discontent, voiced by the learned historian 

 Mariana in a tract on the coinage written with so much vigor 

 that it cost him an imprisonment by the Inquisition. Thus the 

 reservoir became filled to overflowing, and the inevitable depre- 

 ciation commenced. To arrest it Philip III, in 1619, solemnly 

 decreed that there should be no more vel!6n money coined for 

 twenty years ; but financial promises of this nature are made to 

 be broken, as is witnessed by Philip IV, in 1632, renewing the 

 pledge conditionally for another twenty years. In spite of these 

 promises, the vellon fell to a discount. There was no formal 

 suspension of gold and silver payments; the silver fleet from 

 Mexico and the galleons from Tierra Firma yearly poured into 

 Spain the treasure won from the mines of the New World; but 

 all the power of an autocratic sovereign could not maintain the 

 parity of the currency. The inequality became so firmly estab- 

 lished that it had to be recognized, and Philip IV, in 1625, en- 

 deavored to regulate it by a decree permitting a difference of 

 ten per cent. Beyond this any transaction entailed on the re- 

 ceiver, for a first offense, the forfeiture of the principal with a 

 fourfold fine, applicable in thirds to the informer, the judge, and 

 the fisc ; for a second offense, the same, with the addition of six 

 years' exile. At the same time it was enacted that no one could 

 demand gold or silver who had not given them, and no obliga- 

 tion to pay in gold or silver was lawful unless gold or silver 

 was lent. These provisions show that already the vello*n coinage 

 had risen from its function as a token currency in petty deal- 

 ings, and was rapidly becoming the standard medium of ex- 

 change in all commercial transactions. It is as such that we 

 shall have henceforth to consider it, and it is to this that it owes 

 its importance. 



