ENGLISH GOLDSMITHS. in trust for the
pious uses."
Exchange,
maintenance of
Obiit.
June
2,
31
lectures, relief of the poor,
1621,
and was buried
at St.
and other
Bartholomew
aetatis seventy.
Henry Banister, goldsmith, bequeathed to the Company for the use of the poor, in money, i,"i6o. Richard Cheney, goldsmith, bequeathed \ annually to 1625. 1622.
four poor goldsmiths. Tho7nas Violet carried on the business of goldsmith in London. The practice, so ruinous to the coinage, of culling out the more weighty coins for the purpose of reducing them to bullion, was about this time (1627) carried to an alarming extent, so as not only to produce a scarcity of money, but also to render that which remained too feeble, and to raise the price of silver above that allowed by the mints. To check these abuses, the King issued a proclamation in this year that all persons were forbidden to exchange or buy any bullion in any part of His Majesty's dominions, or should give or receive for the exchanging of any current coins more than the said coins should be current for, and that no coin should be exported, and no goldsmith melt any current coins, or give more than the price allowed at the mint, under heavy penalties. In 1637, Violet was instrumental, with others, in melting down the heaviest coins of the King into bullion, and giving a higher price than was allowed by the mints for gold and silver, and exporting the same, for which complicity he was informed against in the Star Chamber, and imprisoned for above twenty weeks for refusing to answer interrogatories, but was pardoned on condition of discovering his accomplices and paying a fine of iJ"2,ooo in gold. The others were Henry Futter, Henry Sweeting, Peter Hern, John Terry, Arnold Brames, Isaac Gold, Timothy Eman, Randall Crew, Francis Brogden, Luke Lee, John Perryn. They were sentenced to be committed to the Fleet. Hern, Terry and Eman were fined ;^2,ooo each, Brames ;^i,ooo, Futter and Sweeting ^^500 each, and Perryn ;^ioo; the others were discharged. They were, doubtless, all goldsmiths in a considerable way of business. Futter, Perryn and Terry have been herein noticed. Perryn was one of the Jury in 1649 to make trial pieces for the
Commonwealth.
Violet boasts in one of his publications "A true Discovery how the Commons of England had been cheated of almost all the Gold and Silver Coin of this Nation," London, 1653 that the persons who were accused and convicted in the Star Chamber, were informed against by him. He afterwards wrote also "An Appeal to Caesar," endeavouring to inculpate the goldsmiths of Lombard Street, "who lay up gold and silver for the merchants to transport, some goldsmilths keeping great merchants of London's qashes and some noblemen's cash. By this credit of several men's moneys the goldsmiths in Lombard Street are in the nature of bankers, and have a great stock of treasure by them always of gold, foreign coins, and silver. The goldsmith is your merchants' jackall, as the jackall is to the lion, they hunt for the lion's prey," etc.
4