3. Proposals for Free Exportation of Gold and Silver, 1660 671 4. An Attack on the Navigation Act, _c._ 1663 672 5. Free Coinage at the Mint Proclaimed, 1666 674 6. The East India Company and the Interlopers, 1684 675 7. Foundation of the Bank of England, 1694 676 8. The Need for the Recoinage of 1696 677 9. Speech by Sir Robert Walpole on the Salt Duties, 1732 678 10. Pitt's Sinking Fund Act, 1786 679 11. The Suspension of Cash Payments, 1797 681 12. Pitt's Speech on the Income Tax, 1798 683 13. Foreign Trade in the early Nineteenth Century, 1812 689 14. Debate on the Corn Laws, 1815 692 15. The Corn Law of 1815 697 16. Free Trade Petition, 1820 698 17. The Foundation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, 1839 701 18. The Bank Charter Act, 1844 702 19. Debate on the Corn Laws, 1846 705 PART I: 1000-1485 SECTION I THE EARLY ENGLISH MANOR AND BOROUGH 1. Rights and Duties of All Persons [_Rectitudines singularum personarum_], _c._ 1000--2. The form of the Domesday Inquest, 1086--3. The borough of Dover, 1086--4. The borough of Norwich, 1086--5. The borough of Wallingford, 1086--6. The customs of Berkshire, 1086--7. Land of the Church of Worcester, 1086--8. The manor of Rockland, 1086--9. The manor of Halesowen, 1086--10. The manor of Havering, 1086. The task of reconstructing the economic life of Saxon England is not easy, and while the document translated below (No. 1) vividly analyses the obligations and rights of the various classes of tenants and officers on Saxon estates of the eleventh century, it raises many difficulties and is probably only true for the more settled parts of the country. It affords, however, clear proof of a high agricultural and social development; and though the exact significance of specific terms, and the status of different classes, may remain obscure, a comparison of the _Rectitudines_ and the _Gerefa_[2] with later extents and custumals, and with Domesday Book itself, establishes the essential continuity of English economic life and customs, notwithstanding the shock of the Norman Conquest.