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 the Officers of his Majestys Mint by Mr Lowndes, we have considered the Memorial of the Chancellour of Ireland about erecting a Mint in that Kingdom & also the Report of the late Warden & Master and the other Papers accompanying the said Memorial and finding upon enquiry into the state of the coyn of Ireland that the forreign coyns which make a great part of their silver monies are generally in great pieces which are inconvenient for change in marketing, & other small expences and that by the want of smaller silver monies the coyning of greater quantities of Copper monies for change hath been so much encouraged as to be complained of: we are humbly of opinion that this inconvenience may deserve to be remedied by recoyning the said forreign monies or some part thereof into smaller monies of the same weight and allay species & impression with the monies of England, adding only such a mark of distinction as his Majesty shall think fit. And we believe it cheapest & best for Ireland and 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) under the same Laws & Rules with this in the Tower but with less salaries & fewer Officers by lowering the value of the forreign moneys to bring them into the Mint & we are ready to promote such a designe & particularly to supply that Mint with standard weights & Tryal pieces & Dyes & Coyning Tools & to try their money.
If a lasting Mint be desired for coyning the Bullion of Merchants & others perpetually, we humbly beg leave to repeat a clause of a Memorial, which our Predecessors almost forty years ago, in opposing the erection of a Mint for 21 years in Ireland laid before your Honourable Board, & a Copy of which is now communicated to us by Mr Lowndes. {"}It hath been, say they, the Policy & caution of Kings & Queens of England to stock their Realm of Ireland with moneys (both for quantity & 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 monies 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{"}
The consequence of a standing Mint in Ireland in respect of the Government & Trade of England we are not able to foresee, but in this and every thing submitt our opinion to your Lordships great wisdome
