The question of the Coinage, on which he was called into Council in September 1626, had caused no small measure of discussion whilst JAMES was still on the throne. [Sidenote: THE ADVICE GIVEN BY SIR R. COTTON ON MINT AFFAIRS.] Many merchants of London had raised the old and hacknied cry of complaint against an alleged ‘vast transportation of gold and silver from England’ to the Continent. Others said that the complaint, if not groundless, was misdirected. The following Minute of the Privy Council will shew how the question stood in that early stage. It was drawn up in November, 1618. [Sidenote: Council to the King, 30 Nov., 1618; James I, vol. iv, p. 45. (C. O.)] ‘Being by Your Majesty’s commandment to take into our consideration the state of the Mint and to advise of the way or means how to bring bullion more plentifully into the Kingdom, and to be coined there, as also how to stop the great exportation of treasure out of the Realm,—a matter of which the State hath been jealous: For our better information and Your Majesty’s satisfaction we thought it fit first to know from the Office of your Mint what quantity of gold and silver hath been there coined in the last seven years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the seven years last past of Your Majesty. And we find that in the said seven years of the Queen there was coined in gold and silver of all sorts £948,713 sterling, whereas in the seven late years of Your Majesty’s reign there hath been coined of all sorts, in gold and silver, £1,603,998. So as, comparing the one with the other, there hath been coined of both species in the said seven years of Your Majesty’s reign £655,285 sterling, more than in the seven years aforesaid of the Queen, the difference being almost three parts to one. Next we required a certificate from the Goldsmiths of London of the Plate that hath been made in those years within the City of London; and it appeareth that there was made and stamped in their hall the last seven years of Queen Elizabeth of silver plate the worth of £22,187 more than in the seven later years of Your Majesty’s reign. But upon the whole matter we cannot find and do humbly certify the same unto Your Majesty as our opinion that there hath been of late any such vast transportation of gold and silver into France and the Low Countries as was supposed; neither that there is any such notorious diminution of treasure generally in the Kingdom—at the least of gold—since it is apparent that there hath been a far greater quantity in the total coined within these seven years last past than in the last seven years of the late Queen. Besides Your Majesty may be pleased to observe that the making of so much silver plate cannot be the principal cause of the decay of the Mint since there was more plate made in London [in] those last seven years of the Queen,—when there came more silver to be coined in the Mint,—than there hath been used of late years, when