582 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was becoming more and more desperate. Recourse was again 

 had to a forced loan under the device of another inflation of the 

 currency. A royal cedula of March 12, 1636, called in all the re- 

 stamped vellon ; from the day of publication of the edict no one 

 was to pass it, or spend it, or pay it out, but was to convey it to 

 the nearest mint, where he would receive its current value ; and 

 whoever, after eighty days, was found in possession of any of it 

 incurred the severe penalties decreed against the holders of un- 

 lawful money. Having thus provided for obtaining possession 

 of all the coinage, the mints were set to work restamping it with 

 a valuation threefold that which it had borne : the quarto, thus 

 far current for four maravedis, was raised to twelve, and the 

 other coins in proportion, while death and confiscation were 

 threatened for any violation of the coinage laws. The result of 

 this arbitrary creation of value is seen in the edict of April 30th of 

 the same year, permitting a premium on gold and silver of twenty- 

 five per cent until the arrival of the galleons, after which it was 

 to be reduced to twenty ; and that this was below the ruling mar- 

 ket rate is assumable from a sharpening of the penalties provided 

 for those who should demand or accept a higher premium. Six 

 months later an effort was made to bring the precious metals to 

 par by suspending the permission to exchange them .at a pre- 

 mium, but the distress caused by this suspension was so severe 

 that a decree of March 20, 1637, renewed the recognition of twenty- 

 five per cent premium, and added that in the larger cities casas 

 de diputacion, or exchanges, could be established, where trans- 

 actions could be negotiated at twenty-eight per cent, with a bro- 

 kerage of one quarter or one half. The extreme importance 

 attached to regulating the premium is visible in the punitive 

 clauses of the edict. Any deviation from the established rate was 

 classed with treason, irrevocably punishable with confiscation, 

 disability for office, and personal infamy. In prosecutions all 

 reasonable means of defense were withdrawn from the accused ; 

 the names of witnesses were kept secret, and judicial forms were 

 not to be observed. Even ambassadorial immunity was set aside ; 

 the foreign ministers resident in Madrid were liable to accusa- 

 tion, when the king would determine as to their imprisonment 

 and punishment. 



This was speedily followed by a reaction. Of course, there 

 were two parties in Spain, as elsewhere inflationists and contrac- 

 tionists and the policy of the state fluctuated as one or the other 

 obtained preponderance with the king, or rather with his all- 

 powerful minister, the Count-Duke Olivares. The contractionists 

 now had control, and their views were expressed in a pragmatica, 

 of January 29, 1638, which lamented the misfortunes brought 

 upon the land by the superabundance of vellon money which had 



