Draft of MINT00493 (Mint 19/2/214-15)
To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of his Majestys Treasury.
May it please your Lordships
In obedience to your Lordships Order of Reference signified to us by Mr Lowndes we have considered the Memorial of the Chancellour of Ireland about erecting a Mint in that kingdom with the Report of the late Warden & Master & the other Papers accompanying them, and by those Papers we find that the Officers of the Mint have long been cautious in this matter. For in a Report made by them about 39 years ago they use these words. "It hath been, say they, the policy & caution of King's & Queens of England to stock their Realm of Ireland with monies (both for quantity and quality) coyned in their Mint in the Tower of London whereof one part yet retains the name of the Irish Mint; and King James (of happy memory) by his Indenture of the Mint caused his Moneys stampt for Ireland to be charged with an Harp crowned for distinctions sake whose Reasons and examples (as we submissively conceive) may well admit your Lordships first consideration.{"}
We understand also that the late Warden & Master in their Report were the more cautious by reason of a designe then on foot of perswading the people of Ireland that their Parliament & government ought not to be subordinate to that of England.
And we do not see but that the Government of England has ever been cautious in this matter For tho a Mint in Ireland may have been upon several occasions much desired yet it has either not been granted or not suffered to continue. Among the Papers above mentioned we find a Warrant for erecting such a mint soon after the restauration of King Charles the second but the designe is not yet put in execution.
Yet a Mint for coyning English money there may tend to encrease the species if care be first taken by due laws as in England to prevent the melting it down for the Indies or otherwise exporting it. For if his Majesty upon comparing the reasons on both sides (some of which are above our judgment) shall please that a Mint be erected in Ireland, we are humbly of opinion (for the reasons of our Predecessors in the Papers communicated to us) that the monies coyned there should be of the same weight allay species & stamp or impression with the monies of England, adding only such a mark of distinction as his Majesty shall think fit & that the mint be under the same rules & laws with this in the Tower but with such retrenchments of salaries & Officers as may conveniently be made; and that the same valuation of the moneys & same proportion of gold to silver be observed in both nations. And we are ready to promote the setting up of such a Mint after the best manner and particularly to supply them with standard weights, Trial pieces, Dyes & Coyning Tools & to try their money & instruct their Officers at their first setting out But if a standing Mint should be desired for coyning from time to time the Bullion of Merchants & others (as the words of the Memorial may import) we believe it may put Ireland to a greater charge then to coyn such Bullion in London, by means of an Exchange at Dublin.
Vpon enquiring into the state of the Coyn in Ireland we understand that the forreign coyns which make a great part of their silver moneys are generally in great pieces (as Ducatons & Pieces of eight) which are inconvenient for change & that the want of smaller silver monies has incouraged the coyning of so great quantities of copper monies for change as to be complained of: and if for remedying this inconvenience a Mint be desired to coyn those forreign monies or any part of them into small English money (shillings & sixpences) we believe it may be cheapest & best for Ireland & safest for England to have this coynage dispatcht at once by erecting a Mint in Ireland for some short time (as eighteen months or two years) & by lowering the value of the forreign monies to bring them into that Mint. But we humbly lay before your Lordships that the late Country Mints were in disorder & left their Accompts full of difficulties & that the breaking up of such a Mint may increase the number of false coyners. And we heare that the English money is now grown much more plentifull in Ireland in proportion to the forreign then it was a few years ago so that the want of change is in good measure vanishedg & is still decreasing, the forreign monies having lately found a good market in London for the East Indies.
If the Government of Ireland shall think fit to discourage the exportation of English money by setting a value something lower upon the forreign so that when Merchants or others have occasion to export gold or silver they may chuse rather to export the forreign monies then the English it will much promote the encrease of the English moneys in Ireland. A difference of one or two per cent in the value of the monies may be sufficient for this purpose, & will mend the exchange to the profit of Ireland without hindring the importation of the monies of Spain & Flanders into that Kingdome by trade. And if the exportation of the English money were prohibited by the same laws in Ireland as in England it would still conduce to the same end
Also if shillings & sixpences were for a while raised a farthing in the shilling without raising the greater money it would increase those smaller species of money at a less charge then by a new Mint. Or they may be increased by returns from England of small money for great.
But if a new Mint be judged the fittest expedient, we believe the directions in the Warrant of 14 Car. II amongst the Papers referred to us may be proper for such a purpose if applied & restrained to the present way of coyning by the Mill & Press without a seigniorage & without the penalty of Fine & Ransome upon two penny weight remedy in the single pieces & with the trial of their Pix by the Assaymaster & Weigher & Teller of his Majestys Mint in the Tower in the presence of the Warden, Master & Comptroller of the same Mint.
There are many Mints in France & have divers in England and if his Majesty should think fit to set up a new one any where for furnishing both Ireland and the Plantations with silver & brass money of the English standard without any dependence on the Mint in the Tower except for the trial of the monies & the stamps, it might put an end to the Projections which are dayly on foot for making great advantage by coyning money for the Plantations of other Standards then the English & without due intrinsic value.
All which is most humbly submitted to your Lordships
great Wisdome.
