584 POP ULAR S CIENCE MONTHL Y. 



other restamped velldn is to be surrendered by May 15th, after 

 which it is to be no longer current, and disobedience of these 

 orders is visited with death and confiscation. The natural result 

 of this measure is seen in a decree of September 5th of the same 

 year, limiting the premium on specie to fifty per cent until the 

 arrival of the silver fleets. That this was below the market rate 

 is shown in the prohibition of all indirect ways of evasion and of 

 dealing in futures. How this condition affected all transactions, 

 large and small, and how business was conducted under the double 

 standard, are illustrated in some statements now before me of the 

 expenses of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition about this 

 time. After summing up the aggregate of the salaries and other 

 items, in one case twenty-eight per cent and in another fifty per 

 cent is added to show the total amount to be provided in vellon. 

 When governmental outlays were thus increased we can not won- 

 der at the struggle to keep down the premium on the one hand 

 while stimulating it on the other by constant dilutions of the 

 currency. The situation affords a singularly forcible illustration 

 of the power possessed by an inferior money to force, a superior 

 one out of circulation. The largest of the debased coinage was 

 only a piece of a quarter of a ryal, equivalent in our modern 

 American system to three cents, yet it had completely demone- 

 tized silver and gold, and had become the practical standard of 

 value. The Spanish possessions were the chief source from which 

 the civilized world obtained its supply of the precious metals, yet 

 Spain, in spite of the most arbitrary measures, could retain none 

 of them within her borders. So scarce had they become that for 

 twenty years, from 1623 to 1642, there had been repeated decrees 

 forbidding the use of gold and silver in the arts their melting 

 and fashioning by artisans, even their employment for plating 

 and gilding and in embroidery. In 1642 these laws were supple- 

 mented by others prohibiting the sale of silver plate except to be 

 broken up for coinage, and owners were tempted to bring it to 

 the mints with the promise of a bonus of five per cent in vellon, 

 in addition to the coin that it would yield. At the same time the 

 laws against exportation were rendered still more rigorous, sus- 

 pending even licenses to carry silver away for the royal service 

 in Flanders and Italy. 



The contractionist policy was now granted another trial, and 

 a comprehensive scheme was evolved to get rid of the intolerable 

 burden and bring all the various kinds of coinage to a parity. 

 The partial attempt of 1628 had proved a failure ; but if all the 

 base money in the land could be controlled, there was reasonable 

 prospect that another effort might be successful. To accomplish 

 this a pragmatica was signed August 31, 1642, and sent under seal 

 to the local authorities everywhere with instructions to open it on 



