Draft of MINT00706 (Mint 19/3/487) with variant figures but to the same general effect
To the Right Honourable the Lord High Treasurer of great Britain.
May it please your Lordship,
In Obedience to your Lordships Order of reference of the 9th nstant upon the annexed representation of the Gentlemen Owners of Tin Lans in Cornwall to the Lord Warden of the Stannaries wherein they desire that a Convocation or Parliament or Tinners may be holden before the determination of the present contract, that proper measures may be taken to set another on foot at such price as that her Majesty may be no loser thereby, and by which such further quantity of Tin beyond the present stipulation be taken as may prevent the inconveniences they now labour under upon that account:
We humbly represent to your Lordship that by the course of the sale during this and the four last years there will remain at the end of the present contract a dead stock of Tin which at 3li 16s per cwt averdupois will be worth about 180000li. And that if her Majesty contracts for 1600 Tunns of Tin annually at 3li 10s per cwt stannary weight, without remitting the coinage duty & post groats & this quantity shall be sold off annually so that the dead stock of 180000li may more or less remain the same during all the next contract: And if 6 per cent (the interest now paid in Cornwall for moneys advanced to them by her Majesty) be allowed upon the dead stock: the state of the contract will be as follows.
| li | s | d | |
| For 1600 tuns of Tin at 3li 10s er cwt stannary weight | 112000. | ||
| Freight to London | 2142. | 16. | 3 |
| Salaries in London | 1350 | ||
| Incidents & Porters in London | 200 | ||
| Passing accounts | 94 | ||
| Salaries in Cornwall & 30li to Truro | 1540 | ||
| Incidents in Cornwall | 700 | ||
| Interest of 180000li at 6 per cent | 10800 | ||
| 128826. | 16. | 3 | |
| Insurance & other accidents & unforeseen charges | 1458. | 18. | 0 |
| Produced annually by the sale of Tin at 3li 16s per cwt averdupois | 130285. | 14. | 3 |
In this recconing if 10800li should be thought too great an interest upon dead stock, 1458li 18s is as much too little for insurance & other accidents & unforeseen charges.
In this & the four last years the sale of the Tin by our accounts hath at a medium amounted to about 1560 Tunns per annum stannary weight, which being deducted from 1600 Tunns received annually from Cornwall & about 44 Tunns received annually from Devonshire, leaves 84 Tunns stannary, or 90 Tunns averdupois, the value of which at 76li per Tunn is 6840li, to be annually added to the dead stock. And the interest of this addition, if the contract should continue seven years, amounts to 8618li. 8s, besides the loss by the fall of the price in the end of the contract, which would amount to 13860li or more if the Tin should then fall for 2li. 14s per cwt averdupois or less, the markets being then clogged by the joint sale of the dead stock & the Tin in Cornwall
Thus the Crown by contracting for 1600 Tunns of Tin per annum at 3li 10s per cwt would lose in the space of seven years 22478li 8s or above & this loss in four years more would be more then doubled
<568v>We have grownded this recconing upon a supposition that the sale of the Tin will continue uniform to the end of this & the next contract. How much it may increase or decrease by peace or wars or other causes, we do not know; & without a certainty can make no estimate of what may be got or lost.
All which is most humbly submitted to your Lordships
great wisdome
[1]Is. Newton
