537)

Author: Isaac Newton

Source: MINT 19/2/513, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK

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- Revision History
  - 1 January 2001
    - Catalogue information compiled by Rob Iliffe, Peter Spargo & John Young
  - 29 September 2011
    - Catalogue exported to teiHeader by Michael Hawkins
  - 16 May 2017
    - Transcribed by Will Scott, with retrofitting of normalized MINT00559
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Related Texts
- This document is a version of:
  Holograph draft memorandum on disputes between Newton and the warden [Craven Peyton], particularly the warden's opposition to Newton's proposal to pay vendors of plate 5s. per ounce on account [see MINT00558 (Mint 19/2/539-40)] [MINT 19/2/537]

<513r>

By the Coinage Act & the Indenture & usage of the Mint the Master & Worker receives Gold & Silver only in the mass at the just value by weight & assay to be coined He may also buy bullion of an uncertain value but not knowingly to loss, & must account for the profit & loss if there be any. But this way of buying of Bullion is not in use.

When Plate or old moneys are imported in specie to be coined the Importer either causes the same to be melted into Ingots at his own charge before delivery or delivers them to a General Importer who causes them to be melted into Ingots, & then the Ingots are delivered to the Master of the Mint by weight & assay to be coined. Or if Plate or old moneys be delivered to the Master by weught alone, it must be by a proper Warrant for this purpose & then he either melts the same into Ingots in the presence of one or more persons appointed in behalf of her Majesty & the Importers to survey & controll the meltings, & keeps an account thereof, or else when they are to be melted the Master delivers them by weight to one or more persons entrusted to see them melted, & receives back the produced Ingots by weight & assay. For the Master alone is not to be trusted with the melting of Plate or Money into Ingots.

When the House of Commons voted an Address to her Majesty to give directions to the Officers of the Mint to receive Plate & give receipts for the same the Master of the Mint was perplexed thereat having for great reasons in the case of the Vigo plate {represents} it opposed the giving of receipts by his fellow Officers nothing more was to be understood by that Address then that her Majesty should give directions to the proper Officer or Officers & accordingly prepared a Warrant for himself alone with blanks for the names of his fellow Officers to be inserted by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury if they thought fit. But the Warden of the Mint fell into a passion at the blanks, & said he would not go into the Lords unless the blanks were first filled up, & desired to have them filled up & took the Warrant from the Master.

When the two million Act was published & the Master alone (after a stay of some days for the concurrence of his fellow Officers) acquainted his Lordship with the defect of that Act & in a second memorial laid the state of the Plate before his Lordship, & in order to a third memorial was informing himself whether 5^s per ounce would content the Importers till the Parliament should meet & told the Warden that he found that it would: the Warden declared against it unless the Importers would deliver up their Receipts upon payment of what the plate produced & take certificates for the remainder. Which the Importers being averse from, the Master desisted till the Warden told him that the Officers of the Mint would be summoned to attend the Treasury about this matter, & then the Master stated the case to the Attorney General & brought the Attorneys opinion thereupon to his Lordship with the form of a warrant for paying 5^s per ounce.

When the Master & Worker was first spoken to about receiving the plate, he represented that he was ready to receive it & give receipts for it by weight & that some person or persons {should} be appointed to carry it from him by weight to the melting pot when it was to be melted, & to see it melted & assayed & to return back to him by weight & assay the Ingots produced & keep an account of the meltings. This was the method of coining the Vigo plate. He spake also of other methods & suspects that he was not well understood.