Draft of MINT00625 (Mint 19/2/363)
May it please your Lordships
According to yoer Lordships Order signified to us by Mr Lowndes his Letter of 28 of October last: We humbly lay before us yoer Lordships the method of coyning copper money which we take to be the best, vizt
That it be made of fine English Copper malleable under the hammer without cracking when made red hot. For such Copper is free from mixture & is of about the same degree of fineness with the Swedish Copper money.
That such Copper be made into Fillets of a due breadth & thickness at the battering Mills or drawing mills & received at the Mint by weight & assay upon the the Master & Worker's Note, & that the Master & Worker upon delivering back to the Importer the same weight of Copper in money & Scissel together be discharged of his Receipt, the importer at the same time paying the Master a certain seigniorage for bearing the Charges of the Mint & Coynage, & that the Master & Worker be accountable for the Seigniorage.
Mr Eyres a Refiner of Copper proposes to make & size the Fillets by a drawing Mill for 15d per lwt of the blanks out of them & if a penny more be allowed to him for putting away the money & 4 pence for seigniorage, the whole will amount unto 20d pr lwt. And for defraying this charge We humbly propose that a pound weight be cut into 20.
The charge of making the fillets at the battering Mills & sizing them will amount unto 17d per lwt besides the charges of erecting sizing Mills. And this great charge makes us prefer the way if making the fillets by the drawing Mills.
The Fillets imported may be assayed by heating a few of them red hot at one end & trying if they will beare the hammer without cracking.
The money may be assayed before delivery in the following manner Let a Tunn of Copper money be well mixed together & at each of the four sides of the heap let so much copper money be counted for a tryal as should make a pound weight. And if each of the parcells counted out makes a pound wt without the error of of the weight of a half penny & one two peices taken out of each parcell endures the assay by the hammer, the money to be deliverable.
If the said four parcels differ not in weight from one another above the weight of a farthing, the tale of the whole Tunn may be estimated by putting it in the same proportion to the tale of the four parcells (vizt to 80d) as the weight of a Tunn is to the weight of the four parcells And these four Assays with the weight & take of every Tunn of Copper so assaye{d} may be entered in books. And if the money at any time prove too light or too heavy, the weight may be corrected in the coynage of the next copper imported.
The Assays may be made by the Kings Assaymaster or his Clerk, & the Importer may be present if he desires it.
1 Two or more pieces may be taken out of every Tun & put into a Pix & tried every year by two or three such persons as the Lord Treasurer or Lords Commissioners of the Treasury shall appoint.
Out of the Seigniorage the Master may detain 1d for himself the Graver Smith, & 2d for the Moneyers half a farthing for the Assayer Auditor & two Clerks one for the king the other for himself, & for paying for stationary war{es} & incidents in the Assay office & for Barrells Boxes & Baggs to put the money into. And the rest of the seigniorage may be applied to repairs of buildings, & to purchasing coyning Tools & putting them into repair in the beginning. For after they are put into repairs the moneyers are to keep them in repairs.
The Warden & Comptroller or may hav kings Clerk may make a Controllment Roll of all the money coyned annually & the Master may insert the account of the Copper coynage into his annuall account of the coynage of Gold & Silver.
The Warden & Comptroller may have authority to inspect the Copper coynage & the Controller or kings Clerk may make a Controllment Roll annually & the annual account of the Copper Coynage be inserted into that of the gold & Silver. And for making this Account
In the School of Mr Stones foundation,
1 Algebra & the Conick sections should not be taught.
2 Navigation should be taught only to so many boys as are intended for the Sea.
4 Mensuration of Timber, Boards, Wainscot, B{r}ickwork, Glass work &c should be taught only to such boys as may have use of mensuration in the rades they are to be bound out unto
5 The five mechanical powers should be taught only to such boys as are designed for trades in which motion force & weight are to be considered.
3 Gunnery, fortification, & Ingineering should be taught only to such boys as are desig{ned} for those imployments.
Mensuration, may be taught in two or three month{s} & so may the doctrine of the five powers or that of Gunnery & Fortification And any two of them may be taught in five months, & all three in six or eight months. And for teaching these it is not requisite to teach all the six first Books of Euclide. So much as concerns the mensuration of areas & solids & the similitude of Triangles, reduced into a few Propositions, is sufficient.
When any boys have learnt what may be usefull in the Trades to which they are to be bound out they may leave the School & be succeeded by new boys: by which means a great number will be taught.
A Table of the Trades in which the learning of Every class may be usefull may be hung up in the School.
Hydrostaticks reduced into a few Propositions may be taught in a week or a fortnight so far as it may be usefull to those that go to sea or to such trades as have any thing to do with Waterworks.
