Meanwhile internal affairs were demanding the king’s attention, although they occupy less space in the extant State papers than the warlike preparations. On the 23rd August, while the mortality was raging in the north, a proclamation was issued to the sheriff of Northumberland against the migration of people to Scotland, with arms, victuals, goods and merchandise, the pestilence not being mentioned[338]. The first State paper which relates to the recent great mortality is the king’s proclamation of 1st December, 1349, to the mayor and bailiffs of Sandwich, and of forty-eight other English ports, including London[339]. The proclamation begins: “Forasmuch as no mean part of the people of our realm of England is dead in the present pestilence, and the treasure of the said realm is mostly exhausted, and (as we have learned) numbers of this our kingdom are daily passing, or proposing to pass, to parts over sea with money which they were able to have kept within the realm, Now we, taking heed that if passage after this manner be tolerated, the kingdom will in a short time be stripped both of men and of treasure, and so therefrom grave danger may easily arise to us and to the said realm, unless a fitting remedy be speedily appointed--do command the mayor and bailiffs of Sandwich (and of forty-eight other ports) to stop the passage beyond sea of them that have no mandate, especially if they be Englishmen, excepting merchants, notaries, or the king’s envoys.” The edict was probably directed more against the drain of treasure than against the emigration of people; but this not uninteresting question really belongs to other historians, who do not appear to have dealt with it[340].