But while the Lords of the Council talked of treaties the crisis came. By the end of the year there was no money in the country, and trade was at a standstill. In February 1622, Locke informs Carleton "money is very scarce. In the clothing counties the poor have assembled in troops of forty or fifty, and gone to houses of the rich and demanded meat and money, which has been given through fear. The Lords ordered the clothiers to keep their people at work, but as they complained that they cannot sell their cloth, usurers and monied men though not in the trade are ordered to buy it." In March the Justices write from Gloucestershire: "The people begin to steal, and many are starving; all trades are decayed; money very scarce." Stocks of cloth accumulated in the London "halls" or warehouses of the various districts, and notes of them were submitted to the Privy Council.
Gloucester, Worcester, Reading, Somerset, and Suffolk Hall, and Blackwell Hall, 433
Manchester Hall 853 ("Besides many in the country which are not sent off for want of a market.")
Storehouse for Gloucester, Worcester, Kent, Somerset 1163 (Mostly belonging to Kent.)
Leadenhall 3057 (Cloths from Suffolk and Essex.)
The merchant-adventurers were appealed to, to buy up these stocks, but they were unable. The ordinary taxes of the country could not be levied, or, when levied, proved only a fraction of the estimated amount, and invariably the commissioner attributed the deficiency to the want of money and the general decay of trade. "Wools and cloth are grown almost valueless," write the justices of Somerset, on the 15th of May 1622, "and the people desperate for want of work."
The expectations of outbreaks were great, and in Nottingham musters were held, and the trained bands ordered to be ready for instant service, to suppress riots, if any occurred (July 1622).
Meanwhile the Council was busy conferring with merchant delegates from every part of the country. A new proclamation against exporting coin was talked of (15th June 1622), and a declaration issued (same day), that the King purposed to establish a Royal Exchange, to regulate all exchanges.
"Treatises on Exchanges," "Statements of the Disadvantages of a Low Exchange," and similar documents crowd the State papers; and on the 28th July a proclamation was issued ordering nothing to be worn at funerals but English-made cloth, forbidding the export of raw wool or yarn, and declaring the establishing of a Standing Commission on matters of trade. On the 30th of August the Goldsmiths' Company returned their answers to the Council's queries with regard to the comparative weight and value of Spanish _reals_ and English shillings, and suggested that the pound of silver should be cut into 65s. instead of 62s. The officers of the Mint followed up this advice by confirmatory testimony. "The business is weighty," wrote Sir Robert Heath to Secretary Calvert, in enclosing him the above reports. "For we are drawn dry. Coin must be brought in from elsewhere [i.e. abroad], which can only be by assurance of gain to the merchants in equalling our coin to that of other States." As a corollary it was proposed on the following day, August 31, to encourage the bringing in of money by making the Spanish _real_ pass current at 4s. 8d., its true value in English coin. "The merchants will bring them in at this profit, though they can gain more for them in Holland, and they press for an immediate reply, as the Spanish fleet is coming in, and the money will be brought hither if the merchant can make a reasonable profit."