Elementary arithmetic, with brief notices of its history... by Robert Potts.

MSONEY,

35

his Majesty, and unto the Warden, Master, and Workers and Comptroller of the mint.
After the restoration of Charles II. in the year 1663, gold pieces
of twenty shillings value were first coined, instead of the hammered
broad pieces of gold which had been before in use of the same value.
The guineas took their name from the gold brought from Guinea on
the Western Coast of Africa by the African Company. As an encouragement to import gold for coinage, they were permitted to have
the stamp of an elephant upon the coins made of the African gold.
They were afterwards, by proclamation, made current as 21 shilling
pieces, and ever so continued. A pound Troy of gold was coined
into 44 guineas, each to pass for twenty shillings. Some of these
guineas have under the King's head the elephant with a castle upon
his back, others the elephant without the castle. There were likewise
coined by the same company, gold pieces of forty shillings value,
half-guineas, and pieces of five pounds, during the same reign.
In 1663, it was found expedient to modify the statutes which
prohibited the exportation of bullion. Among the reasons assigned
for this measure, there is one which observes, " It is found by experience, that money or bullion is carried in the greatest abundance
as to a common market, to such places as give free liberty for exporting the same, and all of them are such as might have taught
the legislature to see the absurdity of attempting to confine any kind
of commodity within the kingdom by pains and penalties (as had
been done hitherto); but it should seem that the last thing which
all statesmen are willingo to resign, is their weak and frequently
pernicious interference with commerce, and other subjects beyond the
province of parliamentary legislation."
In 1665, a coinage of copper farthings and halfpence was projected. They had on the obverse the king's bust laureat, with
CAROL-US A CAROLO; and on the reverse BRITANNIA, with QUATXUO1t
MARIA VINDICO. This was the first coinage of real copper money;
the regular coinage of copper for current coin of the realm takes its
date from 1672.1
New patterns for the coinage were adopted, and the coins were
struck by the improved process by machinery, and not by the hammer.
On the obverse is the king's bust to the right, the head laureat
with long hair, and his shoulders covered with a mantle of the
antique style, and the words CARoLus II. DEI GRA. or DEI GRATIA.
On the reverse, are the Royal arms upon four separate shields,
crowned and arranged in the form of a cross, with the star of the
order of the Garter in the centre. The inscription is composed of the
date and the King's titles.
The crowns and half-crowns have the edges inscribed with DEcus
1 The scarcity of money at this time formed one of the topics of Lord Lucas'
severe speech against the government on 22 Feb. 1670, on the second reading of
the Subsidy Bill, in the presence of his Majesty. "And it is evident," he said,
" there is a scarcity of money; for all the Parliament money, called breeches
money has wholly vanished; the king's proclamation and the Dutch have
swept it all away, and of his now majesty's coin, there appears but very
little; so that, in effect, we have none left for common use, but a little
lean-coined money of the late three former princes; and what supply is preparing for it, my Lord? I hear of none, unless it be of copper farthings, and
this is the metal that is to vindicate, according to the inscription on it, the dominion of the four seas."
D2