Draft of MINT00858 (Mint 19/2/481)

<493r>

To the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer of England.

May it please your Lordship

In obedience to your Lordships Reference of 23 November last we have enquiredinto the Case of M^r Antony Redhead late Master & Worker of the Mint at Norwich & find it truly stated in the annexed paper on which the said Reference is endorsed. And particularly we the Day-books on that Mint & the Cashbooks of M^r Redhead & his Clerk & another book composed and signed by the Warden of that Mint we find that M^r Redhead upon the breaking up of that Mint was indebted 2497^li. 16^s. 3^d to M^r Leonard Blofeld for hammered money at 5^s per ounce.

In discharge of this debt M^r Redhead produces three Receipts for 2500^li paid to M^r Blofelds Order out of that Mint, the one dated Aug. 26 1697 for 500^li the other two dated Aug 30 & Sept. 1 1697 for 1000^li each. To which M^r Blofeld & his friends answer that whatever summs were paid to him or his Order out of that Mint upon such private Receipts were paid in course for silver imported & intended upon the next accounting to be brought to account & set off upon the printed Mint Tickets then payable in course & accordingly were all of them faithfully brought to account as he is ready to make oath: but the Receipts were not always taken up & cancelled as they should have been the endorsment on the printed Mint Tickets, as they conceived, implying according to the order & course of the Mint that all summs paid untill the day of the endorsment were then accounted for & set off upon the printed Tickets & thereby all private Receipts of such summs untill that day discharged and made voyd which made him & his Agents less carefull to take them up. They say also that about three weeks after the date of the said three Receipts viz^t on 22^th Sept 1697 M^r Blofeld accounted with M^r Redhead & endorsed 14922^li on two Mint Tickets including all summs paid to him untill that time & that in so short a time as three weeks so great a summ as 2500 could not be forgot, & that in December following he accounted again & endorsed 6443^li. 13^s. 9^d on two other Mint Tickets including all further summs untill that day: By which Accountings & endorsements the said three Receipts (if they be true ones) being looked upon as discharged they were not mentioned any further by M^r Redhead while that Mint stood nor for a long time after but lay neglected till he thought fitt to produce them, as he did also some other Receipts of the same kind which the Importers neglected to take up & cancel & which are now allowed to be voyd.

In examining this matter we find therefore that M^r Redhead did pay several summs of money to M^r Blofeld & some other Importers upon private Receipts without endorsing the summs upon the printed Mint Tickets untill they came to a general recconing upon the Ticket or Tickets next payable in course, & that the Importers did sometimes upon such a recconing neglect to take up their Receipts. That M^r Blofeld did endorse 14922^li <493v> on two Tickets 22 Sept 1697, & 6443^li. 13^s. 9^d more on two others in Decem{ber} following as he alledged & we humbly conceive those endorsements by the cou{rse} of the Mint to be in full of all moneys paid upon those Tickets so as to voyd the said three Receipts unless M^r Redhead can positively prove the payment of more money by 2500^li upon the two first of those Tickets then was Endorsed upon them, which proof is wanting & would infer the cri{me} of undue preference. The Officers of that Mint for preventing misrecconings took an account every two or three days & sometimes dayly of all the monies new coyned & paid away & of what remained in the Treasury, whereby a misrecconing of 2500^li might soon have been discovered: whereas those three Receipts lay neglected till about Michael{mas} 1699 which was two years after the endorsement, M^r Redhead representing that he then found the amongst his paper. About the same time he found also and produced a Receipt of 1858^li left in that Mint by M^r Dashwood another Importer of publick Hammered money; but by an Affidavit of M^r Tho Allen Clerk to the Warden of that Mint made before my Lord Chief Baron Ward the 3^d of Iuly 1701 & by other circumstances it appears to us that M^r Dashwood did account for that money & neglect to take up & cancel the Receipt & this is now acknowledged also by M^r Redhead. Add about the same time the said M^r Redhead produced also two other Receipts of the aforesa{id} M^r Blofeld besides the three above mentioned both dated in the same month of August 1697 the one for 500^li the other for 1000^li, but by the aforesaid Affidavit of M^r Allen these summs were accounted for upon the same 22^th of Sept. 1697 & M^r Redhead insists no further upon them. Seing therefore that M^r Blofeld upon accounting 22^th Sept 1697 did neglect to take up & cancel some of his Receipts then accounted for, it may be suspected that he neglected to take up the rest amongst which are the three now produced. For the said M^r Allen in the Affidavit above mentioned affirms further that he hath heard & believes that M^r Redhead hath another Note of M^r Blofeld for 1000^li & believes that M^r Blofeld forgot to take up that Note when he accompted for the money & signed the printed Receipt or Ticket: which Note we take to be one of the three Receipts now produced by M^r Redhead. And M^r Redhead himself affirms nothing further of the said three Receipts then that he found them amongst his papers sometime after that Mint broke up & believes them to be truely signed by M^r Crowne who was imployed by M^r Demee the Agent of M^r Blofeld. They are in the form of private Receipts so that without M^r Blofelds consent they cannot be allowed by an Auditor either in M^r Redheads Accompt or in that of M^r Blofeld which is now passing. All things being considered we are humbly of opinion that they have already been accompted for & ought not to be insisted upon a further. And M^r Redhead himself does not any longer insist peremptorily upon them but submits them to your Lordships wisdome.

We further lay before your Lordship that M^r Redhead at the conclusion of the Mint at Norwich was indebted to one M^r Chaplain a Receiver of the Land Tax for 2573^oz 5^dwt of hammered money at 5^s per ounce the summ of 643^li. 6^s. 3^d, & that in M^r Chaplains Accompt which is past & declared & <494r> a Quetes obteined, M^r Redhead is set insuper for this debt at 5^s 8^d per ounce, whereas M^r Neale should have been set insuper, & that only at 5^s per ounce.

M^r Redhead was also indebted to four other Receivers M^r Briggs M^r Fendal, M^r Clark & M^r Thorowgood in the respective summ{s} of 882. 7. 6 1277^li. 16^s. 3^d, 431^li. 2^s. 6^d & 40^li. 6^s. 3^d: for all which his Receipts stand out against him. And these & all other debts above mentioned for silver imported amount to 5772^li. 15^s. 0^d: part of which debt has arisen from the application of the Importers money to other services of the Mint for which he has allowance in his Accompt now ready to be laid before your Lordship, & for the Remainder M^r Neale is to be set insuper, & his Executive or Security to be charged with it, M^r Redhead seeming poor & unable too make satisfaction excepting the         for which his goods have been sold.