Catalogue Entry: MINT00159

'Directions about the Triall of the monies of Gold & Silver in the Pix'

Author: Isaac Newton

Source: MINT 19/1/228-9, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK

[Normalized Text] [Diplomatic Text]

Contents

Detailed account of the formal procedure for initiating and conducting a pyx trial.

Notes

[Note on dating: NC, 4: 373, n.2 suggests Newton wrote this draft in preparation for his first pyx trial as master on 6 August 1701. NC, 7: 422, n. 1, however, suggests that it might equally well have been drawn up with reference to discussions in 1710 about Edinburgh pyx trials, or for the benefit of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, after he became Lord Treasurer in March 1711. Numerous references in the document to 'the King', however, make the latter two suggestions improbable, since the monarch at the time was Anne. See also Westfall, 608, who agrees with the 1701 dating.]

Printed in NC, 4: 371-3 and further discussed in NC7: 422.

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Professor Rob Iliffe
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