Reply to a Treasury enquiry about copper coinage techniques
To the Right the Lords Commissioners of his Majesties Treasury
May it please your Lordships
According to your Lordships Order signified to us by Mr Lowndes his Letter of 28 October last, We humbly lay before your Lordships the following method of coyning copper money, vizt
That it be made of fine English Copper malleable under the hammer without cracking when red hot. For such Copper is free from mixture & is of about the same degree of fineness with the Swedish copper money & with copper vessels made at the battering mills.
That such copper be made into Fillets or Barrs of a due breadth & thickness either at the battering mills or at the drawing Mills & be received at the Mint upon the Master & Workers Note expressing the weight thereof: & that the Master & Worker upon delivering back to the Importer the same weight {of} copper in Scissel & Money together be discharged of his Receipt; the Importer at the same time paying the Master a certain seigniorage for bearing the charges of the Mint & Coynage, & the Master & Worker being accountable for the Seigniorage alone.
The Fillets imported may be assayed by heating a few of them red hot at one end & trying if they will beare the hammer without cracking. The Assays may be made by the Kings Assay-master or his Clerk or by the Smith, & all persons concerned may be present if they please.
The moneys may be assayed before delivery in the following manner. Let a Tunn of copper money (more or less) be very well mixed together, & at each of the four sides of the heap let so much copper money be counted out for a trial as should make a pound weight. And if each of the parcells counted out, makes a pound weight without the error of the weight of an halfpenny, & one or two pieces taken out of each parcel endures the assay by the hammer, then the money to be deliverable; otherwise to be returned to the Moneyers.
If the said four parcells differ not in weight from one another, above the weight of a farthing, the tale of the whol{e} Tunn to be estimated in proportion to its weight, as the tale of all the four parcells is to their weight. And these four assays with the weight & tale of every Tunn of copper money to be entred in books. And if the money prove at any time too light or too heavy, the weight may be corrected in the coynage of the next copper imported, so as to make the whole tale of all the copper money beare a just proportion to the weight.
Two or more pieces of money may be taken out of every Tunn & put into a Pix & tried yearly by such person or persons as the Lord High Treasurer or Lords Commissioners of the Treasury shall appoint.
Mr Thomas Eyres a Refiner of Copper proposes to make & size the fillets by a drawing Mill for fifteen pence per pound weight of the blanks cut out of them, whenever the price of fine copper in the market is no higher then at present, vizt 100li per Tunn. And if a penny more be allowed to him for putting away the copper money, & four pence be added for seigniorag{e} the whole will be answered by cutting a pound weight of copper into twenty pence. If the price of fine copper in the market rises or falls, then the price of the fillets to rise or fall as much.
Out of the Seigniorage the Master & Worker may have for himself the Graver & Smith one penny per pound weight & for the Moneyers two pence, & the remaining penny may be for bearing the charges of weighing, assaying, entring in books, making a Controllment Roll repairing the building buying coyning tools & putting them into repairs & buying barrells boxes & baggs to put the money into, &c.
After the coyning tools are once put into repairs the Moneyers are to keep them in repairs.
Mr Eyres hath not yet erected a drawing Mill but proposes that he can do it & be ready to deliver Fillets of Copper within the space of two months
The charge of making the Fillets at the Battering Mills & sizing them will be more then at the drawing Mills by three half pence per pound weight of the blancks besides the charge of erecting sizing Mills: which charges make us prefer the other method.
The buildings in the Mint where the coynage is to be performed are out of repairs.
The Proposalls of Mr Eyres & the Moneyers are hereunto annexed. The Moneyers demand 1d per poundweight for coyining the Blancks, but in the reign of King Charles the 2d had only 1d per poundweight. Mr Eyres demands 7 per cent for putting off the copper money, but is willing to abate so{m}e thing; & we think 5 per cent, or 1d per poundweight sufficient.
All which is most humbly submitted to your Lordships great wisdome.
