Letter to the Earl of Godolphin (Lord High Treasurer) concerning a proposal for recoining copper money
To the Rtthe interval between the end of the first Messenian war & the sixt year of Xerxes. Honble the Earl of Godolphin Lord High Treasurer of great Britain.
May it please your Lordp
In obedience to yor Lordps order of the Reference of May 6th (brought to us Iune 30th) upon the annexed Proposal of Mr Wm Morgan & others brought to us by the Proposer Iune 30th for taking in the old copper money & coyning a thousand Tunns of better copper money in its stead in within the term of seven years, provided the loss wch they may sustain by changing the old money for the new & the interest of forty thousand pounds dead stock may be allowed them over & above the price of the new metal & charges of coynage: We have considered the same & are humbly of the opinion that the loss wch the nation would be sustein by melting down the old copper money & the interest of the dead stock would amount to above eighty thousand pounds & are an unnecessary charge, & that the coynage of a thousand Tunns would make a very great clamour, six hundred Tunns being sufficient to stock the nation. And we further humbly represent that a constant coynage of about eight or ten Tunns per an̄ may be sufficient to supply the yearly wast of the present copper money, that such a small coynage is safest but not yet wanting, that it may be above ten or twelve years before the coynage of an hundred Tunns shall be wanting & that a greater coinage will not be advisable untill there be a great & general complaint of the want of copper money.
All wch is most humbly submitted to your Lordps great wisdome
Source
Ms. 361(2), f. 24r, New College Library, Oxford, UKMay 1708, c. 299 words.