and Holland, where it is worth more." One of the informants, who had been employed by the Government in the prosecutions of 1638, thus gave his testimony in a petition which he subsequently drew up: "Divers goldsmiths of London are become exchangers of bullion of gold and silver, and buy it of merchants and others, pretending to carry it to the Mint. But indeed they are the greatest instruments for transporting that are, and in a manner they are only those who furnish transporters with English and foreign gold, Spanish money, _rixdollars_, _pistolets_, _cardacues_, etc. Some of the goldsmiths make it their use and practice to buy light English gold of shopkeepers and others, which, by the laws of this kingdom, wanting beyond remedy, ought to be bought as bullion, and upon the sale ought to be defaced and new-coined in the Mint. But they take another way, for they sell all this gold to transport, though it want four, five, or six grains above the allowance, and that a 20s.-piece will not make 19s. to be coined in the Mint. Yet the goldsmiths will not abate above 2d. or 3d., and sometimes but 1d. in the piece, let the gold want what it will, by which means they outgive the Mint, and the gold which the goldsmiths buy of the subjects, thinking it is to carry to the Mint to be new-coined, to pass in current payment, they put it into a dead sea, never to be made coin of in our commonwealth. For, weekly, French and English have bought up this gold, let it be as light as it will, at 19s. 9d., 19s. 10d., 19s. 11d., and so after that rate for all other gold, to the value of many hundred thousand pounds. Many thousands of _dollars_ and Spanish money they furnish yearly to merchants that trade for Norway and Denmark, to transport silver for those parts." [Sidenote: ENGLAND: THE SITUATION IN 1638] The drain of coinage to France he distinctly attributes to the raising of the French coins. "At this present in France the native merchants there match us with such a point of policy that it would be hard for our merchants to be master of.... Since the raising of our 20s.-piece to 26s. there ... they have advanced the price of their commodities according to their advanced monies, to the full sum of 6s. in the pound more than they were before." [Sidenote: ENGLAND: SIR ROBERT STONE ON THE MINT]