426)

Author: Isaac Newton

Source: MINT 19/3/425, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK

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  - 1 January 2001
    - Catalogue information compiled by Rob Iliffe, Peter Spargo & John Young
  - 29 September 2011
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  - 20 March 2017
    - Transcribed by Will Scott, with some retrofitting of MINT00828
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<425r>

To their Excellencies the Lord Iustices of England.

May it please your Excellencies

In the Indenture made between his Majesty & the Master & Worker of his Mint there is a clause in these words. 'And his said Majesty doth grant & confirm 'by these presents that the Officers of the Mint shall at all times have hold & peaceably enjoy all places houses & grownds as well builded as unbuilded within the said Mint which heretofore have been called reputed or taken for the Mint without the medling let or disturbance by the Chief Governour Constable Lieutenant or any other Officer or Minister of the Tower. This grant is of above 160 years standing as I find by copies of old Indentures. And no mention being made therein of any Officer of the Ordnance, it seems to have been made before that Office was erected.

About the year 1577 a Smiths shop in the Mint was put into repairs by the Office of Ordnance & has since being frequently repaired by them. And the same smith has usually been Smith of the Mint also & had a fourge at the end of the Mill rooms for making dyes & puncheons for the Mint.

When the coinage was set on foot by the mill & press which was in the year 1665, there was an order of Council for removing all strangers out of the Mint: but the Smith was not removed; whether because he was Smith to both Offices or for any other reason I do not know.

M^r Slingsby about about 80 years ago endeavoured to remove this Smith of the Office of Ordnance out of the Mint & a Committee of Council came to the Tower to view whether another place in the Tower might be found for the said Smith & about that time the further end of the Mint was put into the hands of the Office of Ordnance & a new Gate built for bounding the Mint at that end & there has been a tradition in the Mint that the Office of Ordnance was on that account to have quitted the smiths shop with the fourge over against it. But the writings relating to that matter being carried away by M^r Hoars Executrix.

In the year 1699 the Surveyor of the Ordnance to rebuilt the Smiths Shop, & I opposed it & he represented that the further end of the Mint was not sufficient for the business of their Smith. And the Board of the Ordnance sent the letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury who thereupon quashed the dispute without acquainting me with that Letter, or inquiring further into it.

On the 23^d Febr. last I received from the board of Ordnance a letter directed to the principal Officers of the Mint a copy of which is hereunto annexed. But we having no board to return an answer to it I waited upon Generall Wills & told him that no authority to treat with them about the contents thereof. They have since built a new house in the Mint for their Clerks & are turning the Smiths shop into another house for Clerks, & would have me agree with them about a partition wall between that house & one of ours: but I have no authority to meddle with it.

The gates at both ends of the Mint being in the custody of the Porter of the Mint, the Officers of the Ordnance can have no right to bring in Carts with bricks & Timber for building between the gates without leave.

It is represented that the Officers of the Mint let their houses to forreigners, & why may not the Clerks of the Ordnance as well as strangers live in the Mint. But disorders ought to be remedied & not drawn into president & made incurable. The Mint is under the government of a board, & at present we have no board, but this disorder is not to be drawn into president.