During the Civil Wars there is a remarkable paucity of reference to the subject, doubtless owing to the supreme importance of the war itself. On the 26th August 1643, and on the 24th February 1643-4, the Long Parliament issued orders, on the petition of merchant strangers who were prevented from importing bullion by the rigours of the search of their vessels, for their due encouragement. The petitions would argue a tendency towards an importation of specie, but in 1649 this was again changed, and a heavy export became perceptible. There can be little doubt that the initial impulse came from the new coinage which was instituted by the Act of 17th July 1649, and by the table of weights for the Commonwealth coins which that Act adopted. For two years and more both Council and Parliament were exercised in mind with regard to this export of specie and the consequent decay of trade, and draft Acts to prevent the export, as well as many other propositions, were had under long consideration. No measures were adopted, and an Amsterdam correspondent of Sir Robert Stone, in May 1652, thus gave his opinion of the wisdom of the Mint officials and the Government in this process of drift: "Experience has taught me that when the State does not keep extraordinary watch, and the laws are not put into execution against culling and sorting out the heaviest coins to be transported, and the light and clipped left behind, it is a great debasing of the current value of coin. All your silver money (i.e. in England) is thus abused by goldsmiths and others. And when the State does not employ such as can discover those offenders, but puts persons into the Mint who have had no experience, great damage must follow. For there are bankers and exchangers in Holland who know the ignorance of all your present Mint men that have any place of trust, and laugh at them. They say when the Mint in the Tower flourished, old Andrew Palmer, Mr. Rogers, and one Cojan were there, who were all subtle Mint men, and held correspondence here (i.e. in Amsterdam), and knew what to do to advance the Mint, and would always find a way to bring grist to the mill. But now your Mint comes to be neglected and money adulterated. Many of our bankers here have a great trade with your goldsmiths and merchants in London for English gold and heavy English silver. Your Mint will never go until this be discovered, for these men are the sluices that drain all your money. I believe there is at this day forty times more gold and silver in the Low Countries than in England. About twelve years since the French were forced to call in all their money, it being so clipped that their commerce ran into confusion, and you have almost brought yourself to the same point, the coin in Ireland being 20 per cent. less value since the war. In England almost all your gold is transported, and the little that is left is in hucksters' hands, that go to an exchange in