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Select documents XLII : Peter French’s petition for an Irish mint, 1619

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Raymond Gillespie
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Extract

The interest of the document printed here lies in its description and explanation of one of the paradoxes of the early seventeenth-century Irish economy. The rapid increase in the labour supply and increased commercialisation brought a dramatic growth in exports of all kinds from Ireland. The expansion was such that for the greater part of the period between 1603 and 1641 Ireland appeared to have had a surplus in the balance of trade. Yet, as the author of this document points out, despite this dramatic growth, Ireland remained a poor country, even by the standards of other contemporary underdeveloped regions such as Scotland. The resolution of that paradox is provided here by Peter French, an alderman of Galway and a member of one of the most important Galway merchant families. The document is a petition by French to the English privy council which is preserved among the papers of Sir Julius Caesar, master of the rolls and chancellor of the exchequer under James I. It was acquired by the British Library in 1842. French’s explanation of the paradox of poverty at a time of rapid trade growth is one historians have not fully considered. It depends on looking at the flow of specie and bullion in and out of early seventeenth-century Ireland, a difficult exercise given the nature of the surviving sources.

Type
Select documents
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 100 , November 1987 , pp. 413 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1987

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References

1 Gillespie, Raymond, ‘Lords and commons in seventeenth-century Mayo’ in Gillespie, Raymond and Moran, Gerard (eds), ‘A various country’: essays in Mayo history, 1500–1900 (Westport, 1986), pp 44–7Google Scholar; Sir Francis Annesley to Sir Thomas Lake, 22 Feb. 1618 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1615–25, p. 184); Wentworth to Coke, 26 Jan. 1634 ( The earl of Strafforde’s letters and despatches, ed. Knowler, William (2 vols, London, 1739), 1, 366)Google Scholar; Customs on exports and imports 1632–3 (B.L., Harl. MS 2048, ff 26–51). This situation could rapidly be reversed in times of crisis. See customs of Ireland, 1641 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1633–47, p. 355).

2 On French, see Blake, M.J, ‘Sir Peter French’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., 4 (1905–6), pp 106–7Google Scholar; idem, ‘The origin of the family of French of Connaught’ in ibid., xi (1921), p. 148.

3 Dolley, Michael, ‘The Irish coinage, 1534–1691’ in New hist. Ire., 3, 410–18Google Scholar; Reasons for a mint in Ireland, 1622 (B.L., Cotton Titus Β XII, ff 499–50v).

4 ‘Causes of defective coin in this realm’, n.d. [c. 1630] (B.L., Add. MS 29975, f. 110); Advertisements for Ireland; being a description of Ireland in the reign of James I, ed. O’Brien, George (R.S.A.I., Dublin, 1923), pp 24–5, 29Google Scholar; for this in an English context, see Supple, Barry, Commercial crisis and economic change in England, 1600–42 (Cambridge, 1970), pp 92–3.Google Scholar

5 Advertisements for Ire., p. 45.

6 Hartwell to Rawdon, 3 Jan. 1636 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1633–47, p. 120); Orders of the committee of both houses, June 1646 (ibid., p. 459); Lords justice to Secretary Vane, 10 July 1641 (P.R.O., S.P 63/259/51 and enclosure). There had been an earlier suggestion to do this during a harvest crisis but no action was taken (Mandeville to Conway, 27 Feb. 1623, Cal. S.P Ire., 1615–25, p. 401). It was agreed by parliament in 1615 to make certain kinds of Spanish money current but no proclamation has been found (Steele, Tudor & Stuart proclam., ii, no. 219 b).

7 A project to make half pence and farthings, 1622 (B.L., Cotton Titus Β, V, f. 215; Advertisements for Ire., p. 25.

8 Lords justice to English privy council, 11 Feb. 1632 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1625–32, p. 645); Sir George Radcliffe’s answer to the commons, 9 Jan. 1641 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1633–47, p. 255).

9 James Ware ’s journal, 1623–47 (Dublin Public Library, Pearse Street, Gilbert MS 169, f. 120).

10 Steele, Tudor & Stuart proclam., ii, nos 189, 319. On the origin of the Irish currency, see McDowell, J Moore, ‘The devaluation of 1460 and the origins of the Irish pound’ in I.H.S., xvii, no. 97 (May 1986), pp 19–28.Google Scholar

11 A project for the relief of this miserable state of the kingdom of Ireland, n.d., [c. 1630] (B.L. Add. MS 29975, f. 111); State of the coinage of Ireland, 1609 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1608–10, p. 244); Chichester to Salisbury, 20 Dec. 1611 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1611–14, p. 180); Supple, Commercial crisis, pp 166’8, 192; Sir George Radcliffe’s answer (Cal. S.P Ire., 1633–47, p. 255).

12 Lord deputy to privy council, 9 June 1618 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1615–25, p. 198); Lord deputy and council to English privy council, 22 July 1622 (ibid., p. 423).

13 Chichester to Salisbury, 26 June 1607 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1606-8, p. 204); Chichester to Sir Julius Caesar, 7 Mar. 1612 (B.L., Lansd. MS 159, f. 205); Chichester to Caesar, 23 May 1612 (ibid., f. 199).

14 Deitz, F.C., English public finance, 1558–1641 (2nd ed., New York, 1964), 2, 434–6.Google Scholar

15 For contemporary links between low prices and a shortage of coin, see Massari, Monsignor Dionisio, ‘My Irish campaign’ in Catholic Bulletin, 7 (1917), p. 249 Google Scholar; Supple, , Commercial crisis, pp 177–8.Google Scholar

16 Coleman, D.C., ‘Labour in the English economy of the seventeenth century’ in Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., 7 (1955–6), pp 280–95.Google Scholar

17 A project to make halfpence and farthings (B.L., Cotton Titus B, V, f. 215).

18 Gillespie, Raymond, ‘Harvest crises in early seventeenth-century Ireland’ in Irish Economic and Social History, 11 (1984), pp 15–16.Google Scholar For the detail of the connexion, see idem, ‘Meal and money: the Irish economy and the harvest crisis of 1621–4’ in Crawford, E M. (ed.), Famine: the Irish experience, 900–1900 (Edinburgh, forthcoming).Google Scholar

19 There were continual complaints about usury in the early seventeenth century See Gillespie, Raymond, Colonial Ulster the settlement of east Ulster, 1600–1641 (Cork, 1985), pp 202–3Google Scholar; Bishop Bedell’s discourse on usury (B.L., MS Stowe 984); Steele, Tudor & Stuart proclam., ii, no. 225; 10 Chas I, c. 22; Hainsworth, D.R. (ed.), The commercial papers of Sir Christopher Lowther (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1977), pp 32,Google Scholar 234, MacCarthy-Morrogh, Michael, ‘Credit and remittance: monetary problems in early seventeenth-century Munster’ in Irish Economic and Social History, 14 (1987), pp 5–7 Google Scholar

20 A project for a royal mint in Ireland, 1602 (Cal. Carew MSS, 1603–24, pp 3–7); Edward Hayes to Carew, 7 Dec. 1611 (ibid., pp 138–40); Chichester to Salisbury, 4 July 1609 (Cal. S.P Ire. 1608–10, p. 242); Chichester to Salisbury, 17 Aug. 1609 (ibid., pp 272–3).

21 Jacob to earl of Northampton, 29 Oct. 1613 (Report on the manuscripts of the late Reginald Rawdon Hastings, esq., (H.M.C., 4 vols, London, 1928–47), iv, 8).

22 Proposals for a mint in Ireland, 1614 (B.L., Lansd. MS 165, f. 265); King to Chichester, 31 May 1614 (Cal S.P Ire., 1611–14, p. 481); Petition of James Acheson, 1624 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/239/79); for another draft of the same document, see P.R.O., S.P 63/268/2.

23 1622 survey (B.L., Add. MS 4756, ff 30-33v); Acts privy council, July 1621-May 1623, pp 155, 476, 481–2; Acts privy council, Mar 1625-May 1626, p. 72; Acts privy council, June 1626-Dec. 1626, p. 280; Acts privy council, Jan.-Aug. 1627, pp 153–4, H.M.C, rep. 4 (1874), app. p. 304; Opinion of the commissioners of Ireland for the increase of manufacture, 1623 (Cal. S.P , Ire., 1615–25, p. 426).

24 Simon, James, An essay towards an historical account of Irish coins (Dublin, 1749), pp 112–13Google Scholar; Notes by Secretary Windebank, 1635 (Cal. S.P dorn., 1635, p. 18). The various orders by the English privy council as to the setting up of an Irish mint in the 1630s are in B.L., Eg. MS 5233, ff 81–8; P.R.O., P.C. 2/48, pp 365–7; ibid., vol. 49, pp 55–7; Strafford, , Letters, 1, 366, 368Google Scholar; ii, 12, 133–4, 151. For comparative material on the working of other mints gathered to plan the Irish mint, see B.L., Harl. MS 2048, ff 95v-103; Reply of the committee of Ireland to objections and grievances, 13 May 1641 (P.R.O., S.P 63/259/9); Answer of the king in council to the Irish grievances, 16 July 1641 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1633-47, p. 322).

25 For Munster, see Pawlisch, Hans, Sir John Davies and the conquest of Ireland (Cambridge, 1985), pp 142–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simon, , Essay, pp 44–5, 111–12.Google ScholarPubMed

26 Other schemes include Sir Philip Perceval, ‘Reasons to confute the divers complaints of the Dutch foreigners in Dublin’, 1632 (B.L., Add. MS 46920/A, f. 37); Observations on the state and government of Ireland by Sir Charles Cornwallis, 1613 (B.L., Add. MS 39853, ff 12v-4); Opinion of the commissioners of Ireland for the increase of manufacture, 1623 (Cal. S.P Ire., 1615–25, p. 426). According to a later source, the Irish merchants were pressing in 1641 for legislation for retention of between 1/8 and 1/10 of bullion imported ( A collection of the state letters of the first earl of Orrery, ed. Thomas Morrice (2 vols, Dublin, 1743), 1, 124).Google Scholar

27 I am grateful to the keeper of western manuscripts, British Library, for permission to publish the document. The spelling has been modernised.