The statement of opinion of the succeeding and last witness is extremely valuable and interesting. Richard Aylesbury opined that, provided the merchandise exported from England was properly regulated,--that is, if no more of foreign commodities were allowed to be imported than the value of the native products which should be taken out,--the money then in England would remain, and great plenty would come from beyond the seas. He also conceived it to be expedient that the Pope's collector [of Peter's Pence] should be an Englishman, and that the Pope's money should be sent to him in merchandise and not in coin, and that the journeys of clerks should be entirely forbidden, on pain, etc. For the feebleness of the gold, which was occasioned by clipping, he conceived there was no other remedy but that it should be universally weighed by those who received it, and that the proclamation should be made accordingly. _The agreement of the gold with the silver he believed could not be effected unless the money were changed, but that he dared not to propose on account of the general damage which would ensue._ On account of the new money which had been made in Flanders and Scotland, he advised that all Scottish monies should be forbidden by proclamation, and also all other monies from beyond the sea, so that they should have no currency in England; and that no one should take them in payment, except at their value as bullion and for the King's coinage; that no one should export gold or silver, according to the statute in that case made, etc. And, further, he suggested, by way of information, that the pound of gold which was there made into the sum of 45 nobles (but which pound, by reason of clipping and otherwise impairing, was then valued at 41-1/2 nobles) should be made into 48 nobles, to be current at the same value as before. This last proposition would have reduced the ratio to a fraction over 11:1--something higher than the ratio prevalent in France. Instead of acting on evidence such as this, however, and so changing the ratio, Richard's Government contented itself with the perfectly useless prohibition of export of gold or silver (statute 5 Rich. II. cap. 1). Four years later, accordingly, the matter was again pressed upon the attention of Parliament, and even by the Chancellor of the realm, Michael de la Pole himself, in his opening speech. The English money, he said, was in greater estimation and of higher value in all other places than in England. It was therefore sought out and craftily withdrawn, and the chief or greatest remedy was to increase the value or price of the said money. In spite of such recommendation as this the measure was not adopted, and Richard fell back on his previous expedients, crying down by proclamation the value of the Scotch coins, 1387, and of the gold coins of Flanders and Brabant, 1393, and ordaining by enactment that exporters of goods should bring in 1 oz. of gold for every sack of wool which they sold.