Draft of MINT00287 (Mint 19/2/602-3)

<Mint 19/2/596r>

Proposals for encreasing the Coyn of this Kingdom

The use of Gold & Silver in Cloaths Coaches & Houshold Furniture was forbid in France last March. If such a law here should be thought too general it might suffice to forbid the use of gold & silver in laces & fringes & the guilding upon leather wood plaister or any other material except standard silver or silver finer then standard, & such pieces of work or any material as cost not above       a piece for guilding.

All persons going to sea are allowed without any restraint to carry on board what plate they please for their own use; by which means our money being run down into plate may be freely exported to the Indies & luxury is encouraged in the Royal Navy, it growing into fashion for the Officers to have great quantities of plate on board. The working Goldsmiths have been busy in making small vessels & Vtensils ever since the recoynage. Their material is the hammered money which still flows out of the country & is bought up by them & the Refiners, & tis suspected that a considerable part of their work has been exported. There wants a law to remedy these mischiefs.

In France the laws for a long time have forbidden certain Vessels & Vtensils to be made of gold or silver & others to be made of those metals of above certain weights. Particularly all Vessels of gold for the use of the Table are forbid & other Vessels of gold must not exceed an ounce in weight. Also Ballisters Cabinets, Tables, Bureaus, Looking-glasses, Andirons Grates, Ornaments of the fire or of Chimneys, Candlesticks with branches &c are forbidden to be made of silver. Basins of silver must not exceed the weight of 12 marks, Platters not 8, Trencher plates not 24 marks the douzen, &c.

The like limitations here for manufactured gold & silver would encrease our money for China earthen ware would encrease money & so would a prohibition of importing Cabinets &other laquered wooden ware from Iapan & other parts of the Indies

The increase of coyn is principally hindred by the East India Company's buying up the imported Bullion & sending it to the Indies without being obliged to export a proportionable quantity of English Commodities. The old Company are obliged by Patent to export 100'000li per annum in commodities but this Obligation is expiring & perhaps was never well observed & the Cargo in Gold & Silver is unlimited in proportion to the in goods. If the Companies were obliged to export one third part or rather half as much in commodities as in gold & silver it would conduce very much to the exportation of our own manufacture & nation product & cheque the exportation of gold & silver & thereby being down the high price of Bullion which occasions the melting down of our money. <Mint 19/2/596v> Such a law might put the East India Merchants to some difficulties for a while but in a short time would force their trade into better channels then those it now runs in For Merchants would soon find out new ways of vending their goods in China & other places.+ < insertion from lower down f 596v > + whereby their trade would become much more profitable to the nation. And tho it might not be so profitable to the Merchant as at present yet it would be more creditable & secure. For the vast exportation of silver to the Indies hath brought the Company into such an ill repute as may end in their ruin if it be not remedied < text from 596v resumes > I would therefore propose that in lading any East India ship no Gold or Silver should be put on board till she had her lading of other Commodities & then on a day appointed by the Commissioners of the Customes, twice as much gold & silver in value might be put on board as the Bill of lading in those other Commodities amounted unto. And if any ship wanted of her lading in Gold & Silver the defect or remainder might be carried on board the next ship or ships of the same Merchant or Company sailing to the Indies, provided it be done within         months after the lading of the former ship. But no ship should exceed her just lading in Gold & Silver except in making up the defect of a former ship.

The importing of stained Callicoes is prohibited in France & in England & the staining of them is prohibited in France but not yet in England.