The petition was referred to a committee of the Lower House, which reported on the 8th May that great quantities of silver had been exported, of which seven-eighths had been shipped off by the Jews, who would do anything for their profit. The reason for the exportation, too, was plain, for the French king, of late finding his money very scarce, had raised his coin 10 per cent., which was an encouragement to send silver to fill his coffers, and therefore the Jews exported it daily in very great quantities. The melting down of £1000 of milled money for exportation was attended with a profit of £25 ready money and upwards, silver being coined at the Mint at 5s. 2d. per oz., but at the time of exportation sold generally at 5s. 3-1/2d. The remedies proposed to the committee were either a prohibition of export or the enhancing of the English monies. Not less than three measures were presented to the House for the prohibition of export--one of them by Sir Richard Temple--but were all lost; and, meanwhile, the exports to Holland and France continued. In November 1690 it was calculated that during the preceding sixteen months about 140,000 oz. had been exported. In addition to this actual drain of coinage, the processes of culling, clipping, and counterfeiting, which had been going on through the reigns of Charles II. and James II., had resulted in an unexampled depreciation of so much of the coinage as remained. A large portion of the currency consisted of iron, brass, or copper-pieces plated, and such coins as were of good silver were worth scarcely one-half their current value. This statement is more than borne out by quite reliable computations which were made in the process of the recoinage five years later. A medium lot of 5-1/2 bags, containing in tale £57,200 of the called-in currency, and which should have weighed 221,418 oz. 16 dwt. 8 grs., was found to weigh only 113,771 oz. 5 dwt. According to the accounts of Neale, then master and warden of the Mint, 4,695,303 dwt. 15 oz. 2 grs. of the clipped silver money produced only 790,860 lbs. 1 oz. 19 grs., implying a depreciation in weight alone of over 47.75 per cent. The process of stripping the country of currency was increased by the continual pouring out of money in aid of William's wars, and the loss in exchange on such large remittances made the evil only too apparent. The one or two millions yearly remitted to the Continent for the British armies were negotiated in Holland in a thousand ways to England's prejudice. Partisan statements were made that whereas in the beginning of the war the Dutch allowed 43 schillings for an English pound they gradually lowered the exchange to 28 schillings. Guineas, which were equal in value to 21s. 6d. in silver, rose to 30s.; and they would have risen to a still higher rate if the officers of the exchequer and the receivers of public revenue had not refused to receive them in payment at the increased value.