And,if the Reader,that with attention and care shall have made his way through this intricate Discourse,shall in the end complain that after all his pains,he finds himself as little resolved what is fit to be done in this subject as before,considering the variety and contrariety of the consideration incident unto it,I must apeal whether I did not from the beginning profess to set down nothing but problematically,and that my Scope was not to render the Reader able to find out the fittest course to govern this matter of Money and coin,but able to judge of what should be propounded by others:a point of so great Importance,that for want of that ability the wisest States and the greatest Councils of Christendom,for many Ages,have been abused by misterious names,and perplexed subtities of Mint men,gold smiths,and Exchangers;who,as they had the whole knowledge of this subject in themselves,so they had their several Interests,and I conceive that I have performed all the points that I have undertaken in this discourse;save on,which is that speaking of the several means of raising of Money,I said that the Occasions thereof had been two,The one for the drawing of Money from the neighbouring Countries,or preserving of their own.
The other,when the States without any such pretence,but forced only by the violence of Necessity to raise means of Subsistence for themselves,have doubled and trebled,nay sometimes sextupled the values of their Moneys,of which Ipromised to speak further:and for this purpose,I intend to set down,--The history of the most memorable Raisings that have been in this kind,both in our Age and heretofore,of what nature they were,and how these States did draw their Benefit and Subsistence out of them.
Secondly,What other Extremities and Confusions,those Raisings did draw the said States,and the People thereof.
Thirdly,What Remedies these States have applyed to reduce and settle those Extremities and Confusions whereinto they were fallen,in which History I shall come to touch some Examples very modern,as that which of late years was made by the Emperour which now reigns,especially in the higher parts of Germany,a raising so high and excessive as it equals any of the antient Examples,even of those mentioned by Pliny,to be practised by the Romans in their great extremities in the Punick Wars,whether you respect the excess of the Multiplication,or the Strangeness of the effects which it produced;the most famous Occasions,which I purpose to examine were,First,Those Raisings,mentioned by Pliny to be,by the Romans in the first Punick Wars,which was to make every piece of Coin current at six times the value of what it was before,since which time,although there were sundry raisings made by the Romans,yet none of them was neer this Proportion.
In the Kingdom of France,I cannot find any extraordinary raisings made of the Money,until the time of Phillip le Bell and Charles le Bell,and then the Kings of France,did raise an ordinary tribute by coining Moneys of a base value,and when they were dispersed in the Peoples hands,suddenly calling them back again,and making them uncurrent,by which they got extreamly both by the coinage and recalling them;for that none might exchange or melt these Moneys so recalled,but the Officers appointed by the King,which was a Gain of a most unjust and grievous condition that ever was practised in any Kingdom,and did accordingly produce great Tumults and Seditions there;yet his practice did remain until the time of Charles the fifth,otherwise called the wise,whereof (besides the Records of the Mint in that Kingdom which do shew the perpetual alterations of the Moneys in these times)I do remember two memorable Evidences out of Histories,of which one is,That at what time the State of France,during the desolation of that Countrey by the English Wars,did grant unto the King the Gabel of Salt,and the Impost upon Wine,they did particularly Covenant,That for such a space the King should not alter the standards of his Coin.
