me by my friends, full of expectation of favours and employments. Who can think that they who imprison them would employ me, or suffer me to live

that such pieces were onely made for curiosity, with very long time and great expence, and that it was impossible that that way might bee used about the ordinary coyn, which is thin. They desired that the said Blondeau might be commanded to make a tryal of his skill, by making some other pieces, and that they would do as much as the said Blondeau. Therefore the said committee ordered, both the said Blondeau and the said workmen, to make their patterns and propositions respectively; and that hee that would make it with most advantage to the state should have the employment.

At the time appointed, the workmen brought to the committee some pieces made after the old way which is known to them, and some big pieces of silver stuffed within with copper; but they had drawn no propositions.

Likewise the said Blondeau brought in about 300 pieces, some half-crowns of theo rdinary weight and bigness, some shillings, six-pences, and some gold pieces, and presented his proposition; which having been reformed according to the pleasure of the said committee, it was received and accepted of by the whole committee, who ordered it to be reported to the council of state, according to the order of the said council.

The said committee having then taken into consideration the big pieces of silver at the outside and stuffed within with copper, made with the engines at the tower; and well understood, that the said pieces, becaus they are made of several pieces at the top one of another, will give no sound, so that a blinde man can easily discern that they are false; and having weighed the long time and great cost required for coyning of each piece, because they are made of four pieces, namely, one of copper and one of silver at the top, and another underneath and one about, which ought to be adjusted and sodered together, besides several other fashions, which cost more than the price of the lawful pieces; having also considered the great and heavie

when they are put to death? If I might live and be employed, can it be expected that I should serve a government that seeks such detestable ways of estab

engines and great number of tools and men required for making of one piece, the great charges for the engines and tools, and several other things required for making of those counterfeited pieces; they acknowledged, that it would be enough to disswade any one from undertaking it, the rich not being willing, and the poor being unable, and that though they should undertake it they could not do it without being discovered. Besides that the mony coyned after the way of the said Blondeau was so thin that it cannot be so counterfeited.

Whereupon it is observable, that the said workmen of the mint, although they made use of the great and heavie engines that are in the tower; yet for making of some tools they had need of, and for the other charges of coining about a dozen of pieces they made then for a pattern, have spent a hundred pound sterling, as hee that pretends to have laid out the money hath said before witnesses.

Afterwards, another order was given by the said committee, and some time limited to the said workmen, to draw and present their proposition for coyning the monie marked upon the thickness or edge, as that of the said Blondeau is. But after the expiration of the long time demanded by them, they brought such a proposition, the said committee having read it over and over, could not understand it nor the sense of it; and even those that brought it could not explain it: whereby it was apparent to the said committee, that they were not able to make their proposition good, much less to coyn the mony after that way, which they avowed themselves before the said committee.... Yet they intreated the committee to allow them the time of some months more, to finde, if possible, the new invention; and that the said Blondeau's proposition should be communicated unto them, upon which they might frame their own. They further demanded, that the said Blondeau and the graver (Thomas VOL. I.

lishing itself? Ah! no; I have not learnt to make my own peace, by persecuting and betraying my brethren, more innocent and worthy than myself. I

Simon, the celebrated T. Simon) should have order to bring in all the pieces made by the said Blondeau for a tryal, with the stamps or dices used for making them; all which was granted them upon that condition, that if within the time allowed them, they coulde finde out the means to coyn the monie after the said Blondeau's way, and thereupon he should be sent back, he should be indemnified: which was agreed by all. But they coulde never finde out the said new invention for coyning the thin and weak pieces after that way with expedition requisite. Yet for all that, they made their propositions, which are in the hands of the chairman of the committee; as are also the said Blondeau's propositions and patterns, about a year and a half since, to be reported by him to the Council of State, etc. etc. A most humble memorandum from Peter Blondeau. Concerning the offers by him made to this commonwealth, for the coyning of monie, by a new invention not yet practised in any state of the world; the which will prevent counterfeiting, casting, washing and clipping the Which coin shall be marked on both the flat sides and about the thickness or the edge, of a like bigness and largeness as the ordinarie coyn is; and will cost no more than the ordinarie unequal coyn which is used

same.

now.

Master David Ramadge,

Whitehall, June 14, 1651.

These are to authorise you, to make some patterns as broad as a shilling, a half crown, a twenty shilling piece of gold, in a mill; and if you can do it, with letters about the edges, or otherwayes, according to Queen Elizabeth's patterns of millmoney or any other modells or pieces you are to make; that so the committee of the mint may see your several pieces, and thereupon consider what is fittest to present to the council of

live by just means, and serve to just ends, or not at all. After such a manifestation of the ways by which it is intended the King shall govern, I should

state, for the more handsome making of the monies for the honor of this commonwealth.

JAMES HARRINGTON.
THO. CHALONER.

At the desire of Sir James Harrington, Mr. Thomas Chaloner, and others of the honourable committee for the mint, I (Thomas Violet) did write to Holland for all the principal coynes in Christendom; and did deliver many of them to the officers of the mint to make an assay of them: which several pieces of forrain gold and silver were assayed in the presence of the committee of the mint, they being there at the tower several dayes to make these tryals, where I attended them. And I sent into Holland, France and Flanders for all their several placarts; and did procure the lawes and ordinances for regulating their respective mints, with the several standards and weights for their coyns, gold or silver, to be translated. And thereupon the committee of the mint caused the principal of these forrain coynes to be ingraven, with the weight and fineness of every piece, according to the standard of each mint, both gold and silver, what it ought to weigh; with a just calculation of the value what all the several species would make in the tower of London, and the penny-weight and graines that everie such forrain species or coin would make in the tower of London, and what proportion our gold and silver held with the mint of Flanders, France and Holland. And this was exactly calculated by the officers of the mint and myself, in the year 1651 and 1652; and all the proceedings thereupon, after many months time, and the several coynes graven on copper plates, was delivered into the custody of Sir James Harrington, chairman of that committee, to report them unto the house. But the Parliament being dissolved April 20, 1653, the act against the transporters of gold, and all the proceedings concerning the regulation of the mint were stopped for that time.

have renounced any place of favour, into which the kindness and industry of my friends might have advanced me, when I found those, that were better than

The above notes relating to the coin, have been taken from Thomas Violet's publications. More of this matter, with specimens of some of the elegant and very scarce pattern-pieces before mentioned, may be seen in "the works of Thomas Simon," published, London, 1753, in quarto, by that ingenious, diligent, faithful English antiquarie, the late Mr. George Vertue.

Cromwell having thrust out the Parliament, his masters, patrons, by his soldiers, as see a singular account of it in Whitelocke, p. 554; he thought proper, in the suite of his ambition, to coin monies, following exactly the rules which had been instituted by the committee of Parliament in their wisdom, and employing the workmen which they had formed, but stamping on those monies impudently his own effigies and arms.

Further, concerning the intended regulation of the law, the universities, commerce, and the general scheme of civil gov ernment and views of this Master Parliament; the curious reader will consult "Husband's collections," 1643, in quarto, 1646, in folio; "Scobell's collections," in folio, and the other state papers of those times.

(* Where Vane, Lambert, Haselrigge cannot live in safety,) Aug. 21, 1660, the act of indemnity was sent from the lords to the commons with several alterations, to which the commons were very unwilling to agree; for they had subjected twenty that were not the king's judges to be liable to such pains and penalties, not extending to life, as should be inflicted by another act to be passed in this Parliament: whereas the lords, finding the king's inclinations to tend towards the pardoning of all but such as were his father's judges or otherwise actors in his murder, they disagreed to that part of the act as to all those named by the commons, except Sir Arthur Haselrigge, Sir Henry Vane, Colonel John Lambert, who were esteemed to be