The mode of coinage in early times in this country, was very rude ; the sole expedient employed being to fix one die firmly in a wooden block, and to hold the other in the hand as a puncheon; when, by striking the latter forcibly, and re peatedly, with a hammer, the impression required was at length worked up. That no improvement of any importance was made until the power of the screw was applied to coinage in the French mutt about the middle of the sixteenth century. (Le Blanc, Trailer Hist. de Monnoyes de France, p. 268.) The new invention was not however admitted into our mint before the year 1561, when it was used together with the old method of coining by the hammer, until the latter was wholly laid aside in the 14th Charles II., A.D. 1662. The coinage has been gra dually improved by giving the rim of the money a completely circular form, in stead of being, as it formerly was, ruder and unfinished, and by milling the edges.
From the money, when completely finished, two pieces are to be taken from every fifteen pounds weight of gold, and two, at least, from every sixty pounds weight or silver, one for the private assay within the mint, and the other for the trial of the Pm. No. 347 of the Par liamentary Papers (Session 1845) is a copy of the Report of the Pix jury which made the assays and trials of Her Ma jesty's coins in the Pix of the mint on the 17th of May, 1845. "The whole of the monies are weighed and tried in the aggregate, and from the heap a certain number of pieces, about a pound in weight, are taken promiscuously, and melted into an ingot, from which a por tion is cut for the assay. The computa tions and the result of these proceedings are shown in the verdict." The following is the process which at present takes place, from the time at which an ingot of gold is imported into the mint, to the period when it is issued from the mint in the shape of money, as stated in evidence to the committee on the royal mint, April 18, 1837, by .1. W. Morrison, Esq., the deputy-master.
"The bullion or ingots are brought to the mint, and it being ascertained that such ingot has been melted by approved refiners in the trade, and also an assay upon the purchase by the king's assayer, they are taken into the master's assay office, where pieces are cut out for him to assay ; the ingots are then locked up under the keys of the deputy-master, comptroller, and king's clerk, and as soon as the ingots are reported by the master assayer, they are weighed by the weigher and teller in the mint-office, in the pre sence of the importer and the mint officers and the clerks, who calculate the fineness of each ingot, and ascertain the standard value of the whole importation, when a mint bill and receipt is given to the importer, signed by the deputy-mas ter and witnessed by the comptroller and king's clerk ; the mint being bound to return an equal weight of standard coin.
The ingots are then made up into pots of a certain weight, and a portion of alloy or fine metal calculated, which is to be added in the melting to produce the standard; they are then cast into bars fit for the moneyer's operation; an assay being made by the king's assayer, with reference to the delivery of the bars, from a sample taken from each pot by the surveyor of melting for that assay, the moneyer rolls the bars to proper thickness, and cuts out the piece for the stamping of the intended coin ; and hav ing made that piece of the right weight, they are coined, and are put into bags of a given weight to be examined by the king's assayer. the onimmtmlle- tbo king's clerk, weigher ana teller, at the process called the pix. The money is then locked up till the assay is reported by the king's assayer, when it is delivered to the owner weight for weight, as ex pressed in the mint bill which had been given, and which bill and receipt are then returned." The largest amount of gold and silver coined in any one year between 1816 and 1845 was—gold, 1821, 9,520,7581.; silver, 1817, 2,436,2971. There is no seignomge or charge for coining gold. In 1843 the seignorage which accrued on the coinage of silver amounted to 26,6491., and on cop per to 21,9641. [Mom's, p. 350.1 Burke, in his speech on economical reform in 1780, proposed that the Mint should be abolished as a public esta blishment, and that the Bank of England should take charge of the business of coining. "The Mint," he said," is a nufacture, and it is nothing else ; and it ought to be undertaken upon the princi ples of a manufacture: that is, for the beat and cheapest execution, by a con tract upon proper securities and under proper regulations." There is a provision in the Act of Union for maintaining a mint in Scot land, and although every species of the money of Great Britain and Ireland was coined in London, the establishment of a mint was retained in Scotland for above a century after the union.
The reader may consult the Rqort from the Select Committee of the House of C01117110718, already referred to. in the Appendix to which he will also find a large collection of papers relating to the French mint, the mint of the United States of North America, and the Dutch mint.