Draft of MINT00605 (Mint 19/2/306)
To the most Honourable the Earl of Oxford & Earl Mortimer, Lord High Treasurer of great Britain.
May it please your Lordship
In obedience to your Lordships Order of Reference upon the Petitions of John Pery & others for supplying the Mint with either Blancks or Plates of fine copper to be coined into half pence & farthings, We humbly represent that copper money is at present very little wanted, but if it shall be thought fit to put the coinage of such money into a standing method, We are humbly of opinion
That the whole coinage including the making of the blanks, be done in the Mint it being unsafe to have coining Tools & coinage abroad
That it be done of the cheapest fine copper which will hammer when red hot & is worth about 11d or 12d per pound weight. In finer & dearer copper we may deceived there being no certain test of the higher degrees of fineness, & the{e} great price will tempt fals coiners to counterfeit {the} money.
That it be done out of copper either hammered into plates at the copper mills or cast into barrs or fillets at the Mint with an addition of two or three ounces of Tinn to an hundred weight of copper in fusion to make the metal runn close. The last way is most conformable to the Coinage of Gold & Silver & is cheapest by 2d in the pound weight, & is therefore to be preferred. For there will be least got by counterfeiting that money whose workmanship is cheapest.
That this money be edged with such an edging as may be fittest to prevent counterfeiting by casting.
That the stamp for avoiding frequent trouble to the Queen & Council in altering it, remain one & the same as in the moneys of gold & silver unless it shall be thought fit at any time upon any extraordinary occasion by Order of Councill to alter it
That an Importer be appointed to buy & import the copper by weight & receive the new money back by weight & tale & put the same away. And that the Master & Worker for the time being, be charged & discharged by his Note as in the coinage of gold & silver, & be allowed a weigher & teller for weighing the copper & telling the money between him & the Importer & entring all receipts & payments. And that if the copper prove not good upon the assay the Master have power to refuse it. And that a person be appointed to survey the meltings & the whole coinage
That all the charge of copper, coining tools, coinage wages & incidents be paid out of the profits of the coinage, & that there be no perpetual salaries to increase the extrinsic value of the moneys. And that the either the Importer or the Master be Accounted & be allowed for the same.
That a coinage of about 20 or 30 Tunns once in three or four years or of 50 Tunns once in six or eight years is sufficient for supplying the dayly loss & wast of the moneys already coined, & may prove too much if the counterfeiting of this money encreases. And that a coinage of twenty or thirty or at the most 50 Tunns is abundantly sufficient at present.
That a coinage of such money from time to time may be performed by one & the same standing Commission, & that it be in the power of the Lord High Treasurer or Lords Commissioners of that Treasury for the time being to appoint by a particular warrant the quantity of copper mony to be coined at any time: which quantity should never be so great as to endanger any clamour.
All which, & whether a coinage shall be set on foot till there be a greater want of such money, is most humbly submitted to your Lordships great wisdome.
And that when a coinage of such money shall be resolved upon by her Majesty, the Petitioners & others who have copper works be treated with & his copper chosen which is best coloured & most malleable & cheapest of such sorts of copper as will hammer when red hot.
