Newton and the Scottish Mint

by Andrew McDiarmid

‘the Vnion has disconcerted our foundation intirely’: Isaac Newton and the Mint in Scotland, 1707-1727[1]

In 1707, the Treaty of Union, comprised of twenty-five articles covering matters of royal succession, law, representation, and coinage, brought England and Scotland together as one kingdom. The road to union was, however, a long and by no means certain one. Debate on the topic had ebbed and flowed over the preceding century, with Scottish and English parliamentarians as well as monarchs taking the lead at different times. Following the Union of the Crowns in 1603, James VI & I pushed the matter in his parliamentary speeches to largely uninterested English parliamentarians, while later in 1669-70, his grandson, Charles II, was unsuccessful in convincing anyone outside of his inner circle on the merits of the merger.[2] Later, in the aftermath of the revolution of 1688-89, Scottish parliamentarians discussed the matter, but to no avail. Then, shortly before his death in March 1702, William II & III urged English parliamentary representatives to consider the possibility of a more complete union between the two countries.

While William did not live to see the negotiations, his request was met, and talks commenced later in the year. This was as close as Scotland and England had come to a united kingdom, but when talks collapsed in early 1703 the fallout was significant, initiating a reciprocating legislative battle between the two countries. The Scots poked the bear by outlining the national objective of pursuing its own foreign policy in the ‘Act anent Peace and War’ in 1703, before intensifying poor relations with the 1704 ‘Act of Security’ and the rejection of the Hanoverian Succession in favour of someone from ‘the Royal Line of Scotland’.[3] England responded with the ‘Alien Act’ in 1705, a highly coercive piece of legislation which threatened to ban Scottish imports into England and to prevent Scots from holding English property, unless negotiations on a parliamentary union were reopened. This heavy-handed tactic worked, and by August of that year, prompted by a letter from Queen Anne, the Scottish parliament prepared to recommence talks. By the summer of 1706 the articles of union had been agreed, and on 1 May of the following year Scotland and England were united as Great Britain

Union created a new political framework in which the doors of Scottish parliament in Edinburgh were locked, and the country’s representatives were required to take their seats at the Palace of Westminster. In addition to the venue change, the number of representatives was cut drastically, with article twenty-two of the treaty stating that forty-five representatives and sixteen peers would henceforth speak for Scotland within the new British parliament; a significant reduction from the 225 men, drawn from the nobility down to those representing the burghs, who had sat in the last independent Scottish parliament of 1706.[4] In the upheaval of union, Scotland did, however, retain some of its institutions and independent bodies. The Scottish legal system remained distinct from that of England, as did its educational system; the Scottish Privy Council survived as an independent body, if only for a short time until its abolition in 1708; and the Scottish mint remained in existence, if not in the same autonomous form it had previously taken.

Article sixteen of the Treaty of Union stated that the ‘Mint shall be continued in Scotland, under the same Rules as the Mint in England’. This did however hinge heavily on the caveat that the Scottish mint would be ‘subject to such Regulations and Alterations as her Majesty, her Heirs or Successors, or the Parliament of Great-Britain, shall think fit’.[5] The mint, based in Edinburgh, therefore retained its own administration, a similar power structure to the Tower Mint in London, with a master, a warden, and a counterwarden (equivalent to the English mint’s comptroller), but with the addition of a general at the head of the Edinburgh Mint. Murray has pointed out that Scottish mint was to operate under rule ‘similar to, but not subordinate’ to the English mint. [6] The status of Edinburgh Mint as an independent institution was, however, terminated, and from May 1707 its administration was required to seek approval from its English counterpart before striking any coin. Just over a month prior to the union coming into force, master of Tower Mint, sir Isaac Newton, wrote a letter to Sidney Godolphin, first lord of the treasury, in which he quoted article sixteen of the treaty verbatim and recognised that the mint in Scotland was now under the same rules as that of England. He added, however, that the administration of the English mint was ‘humbly of opinion’ that English ‘rules for coynage be transmitted to the Mint in Scotland’.[7] This was a clear indication of where the power lay in the new relationship. It should be noted that collaboration between the two mints was not completely new, and some form of coordination had been in place since 1603. However, working in a coordinated manner, independent of one another was very different to where those at the Edinburgh Mint now found themselves.

The new working relationship between the mints was tested immediately. In a newly joined united kingdom it was necessary that coinage was aligned across the territory. Since £12 Scots passed for £1 sterling in 1707, a recoinage had therefore been written into the Treaty of Union, with article sixteen stipulating that Scottish coin was to be brought to the same standard and value as that of England.[8] It quickly became apparent that officials at the Tower Mint were sceptical of Scottish minting practices, and were doubtful of the ability of staff at the Edinburgh Mint to get the job done. Newton was at the heart of a new chain of command that clearly provoked immense frustration in Edinburgh.

The Recoinage, 1707-1709:

Athol Murray has carried out excellent work on the Scottish Mint and Isaac Newton’s part in the Scottish recoinage.[9] Murray highlighted the usefulness of Newton’s papers whilst Master of the Mint, and concluded that he held ‘friendly relations’ with officers at the mint in Edinburgh.[10] While this reading may be true at a personal level, at an institutional level the relationship between the Scottish and English mints appeared to have been less amiable. The same papers that Murray cited as evidence of amity, also showed that the deference the Scottish mint was required to show to its English counterpart often led to a fractious relationship between the two institutions. Indeed, in 1718 Newton stated that he was of the opinion ‘that by the Act of Vnion the Mint in England is not altered & the Mint in Scotland ought to be conformable to that in England’, and in retrospection this belief can clearly be seen in how the mint in Edinburgh was operated from 1707 onwards.[11] Disputes arose over, among other things, operational practices, staffing issues, and financial matters at the Edinburgh mint, and more often than not it fell to Newton to resolve these.

Newton already had experience of the recoinage process. In 1696, as a result of the need for the so-called Great Recoinage, the English Mint had set up five subsidiary mints across the country to assist in the undertaking.[12] These mints were, however, outposts of the central London-based mint, and as Murray has pointed out, there was a significant difference between exerting control over these provincial English mints, and doing the same with the Edinburgh Mint, an institution with a long and distinct history.[13] For this reason, the experiences of Newton and his colleagues in London had not provided them with skills that were readily transferable to the situation in 1707.

Preparations for the Scottish recoinage had been underway before the 1 May commencement of the union. A report from officials at the English Mint to the treasury in late-March 1707 stated that new troy weights were being prepared for both mints (see also this letter from John Stanley, the warden of the Tower Mint, to Godolphin on the matter); that the coins produced in Scotland and England were to be identical with only a distinct mark applied to the Edinburgh coin to differentiate it (later decided on a the letter ‘E’); and that workers from the Scottish mint had been invited to attend at the English mint in order to learn the relevant practices there. The offer that a worker from the ‘English mint might be sent into Scotland to see the rules fully put into execution’, was also made.[14] The offers of training and supervision appeared to point to a lack of confidence in the abilities of those in Edinburgh to meet English standards. This is borne out in a letter from Newton to Godolphin, in which the former pointed out that the mint at Edinburgh had only one clerk for ‘rating & standarding’, and ‘that for want of more Clerks errors are sometimes committed & the silver not rightly standarded’. He was also concerned that the Scots ‘assaying & rating & standarding & way of book-keeping’ was different from the English method, and declared this ‘must be set right’, but ‘that none of their chief Officers have yet acquainted themselves with our practise.’[15] The decision was therefore taken in July 1707 to send a number of officials and workers north to Edinburgh. This included Newton’s clerk, Richard Morgan, as well as the Aberdeen-born mathematician, David Gregory,[16] who had been a central voice in calculating the Equivalent, the £398,085 10s. payment intended to compensate Scotland for taking on a proportion of the English national debt and to cover the associated costs of Union, one of which being the recoinage.[17]

Gregory was appointed by royal warrant to ‘supervise the reorganisation at the Edinburgh Mint', and maintained regular contact with Newton.[18] He shared his observations on the mint in Scotland, and came to the conclusion that despite the best laid plans of English officials, the institution had its own way of doing things.[19] One of the differences which caused issue was the use of coal to fuel operations in Edinburgh, as opposed to the Tower Mint’s use of charcoal. This caused the furnace in Scotland to produce a more intense heat, which melted the silver too quickly and slowed the process of pouring the molten metal from the crucible into the moulds. The longer the crucible stood on the heat, the more oxidation occurred, causing the copper which had been added to the silver to be lost. More copper was added to the crucible when it was half full in order to maintain the fineness. Newton objected to this practice, and trials were undertaken at Edinburgh using the methods employed at the Tower Mint, but Gregory could not guarantee that the fineness of coin was maintained from the first to last pour.[20] Newton, whilst never in favour of the Scottish practice, did compromise on the matter, and assisted the master of the mint at Edinburgh, George Allardyce, to draft a memorial to Godolphin at the Treasury in November of 1707, which requested:

the officers of her Majestys Mint at Edinburgh may be still allowed if her Majesty pleases to use their ancient method of reducing the molten silver to standard untill the present recoinage of the moneys in Scotland shall be finished, it being otherwise impracticable to make the moneys of due standard fineness or to coyn with dispatch, & safety[21]

The Treasury passed this to the Tower Mint, and the response was positive, as long as the additional copper was ‘put in not by conjecture of in an arbitrary manner but according to such rule or rules as shall be grounded upon experience & agreed upon by the Officers of that Mint & allowed by her Majesty’.[22]

Despite the issues with the melting process at the Edinburgh Mint, the recoinage operation had commenced in earnest in late-August, when a proclamation was issued inviting ‘the in-bringing of ... coins to be reminted’.[23] Individuals were invited to bring Scottish or foreign coins in batches equivalent to £100 sterling or more, though as Murray has pointed out, the vast majority of the money appears to have been funnelled through the Bank of Scotland.[24] When the coin was melted down and restruck a deficit was produced, with the new coin worth less than the old. Murray provides an example from 17 October 1707, in which £2000 sterling was melted down and returned £1774 12s in new coin, a loss of £225 8s.[25] The deficiency on this day was approximately 11 per cent, and appears to generally correspond, if a little higher, to a sample taken from the middle of 1708, in which £3000 was melted on four separate days and the loss each day fell between approximately £257 and £273, providing a deficiency of between 8 and 9 per cent.[26] To cover the deficiencies the bank was issued with certificates to reclaim the loss from the Equivalent.[27] That the deliberation over the use of coal had slowed down the production of coin in Edinburgh is not in doubt. In September and October of 1707 2336 lb and 4337 lb was melted respectively, figures which rose substantially in November (7696 lb) and December (9404 lb) following the decision to allow the Edinburgh Mint to practice the old, established method.[28] Production of minted coins was also sluggish, with only 420 lb minted into new coin in September, by December this had, however, increased by more than 2,500 per cent to 10620 lb.[29]

With the matter over fuel now resolved, Newton found his time was taken up with other issues at the Scottish mint. In early 1708, by which time Gregory had left Edinburgh, concerns were raised in a letter to Newton from deputy-master, Patrick Stewart, about the number of defective coins being produced and then remelted, with suggestions as to how this might be corrected also provided. In the same letter, Stewart also very diplomatically mentioned that there was a lack of funds for tools and repairs at the Edinburgh Mint, and that Allardyce as master had not been compensated in line with the indenture.[30] Somewhat ironically, money was a delicate issue at the mint. Allardyce had written to Godolphin in December of the previous year to request payment for incidentals over and above his normal allowances.[31] Newton could undoubtedly sympathise with Allardyce, as he too had written to Godolphin to request a reimbursement totalling £532 for equipment supplied by the Tower Mint to Edinburgh.[32] Receiving payment proved to be difficult, however.

Payment for Allardyce and Newton alike was referred to the Scottish Treasury, and was to be administered by Daniel Stewart, the collector of bullion. Stewart had taken office in 1699, and between then and 1704 had collected over £101,000 sterling, and paid out just over £90,000.[33] Stewart was consequently left holding onto just under £11,000 at this time, it was therefore not unusual for the collector of bullion to have a surplus until more demands were made on the sum, but this would shortly become a problem. In 1705 Stewart’s office was renewed and he was appointed as ‘general receiver, collector and cash-keeper’ of the mint, and was responsible ‘for defraying the charges of a free coinage [and] paying the salaries of the mint’; the money being kept in a locked chest to which Stewart held the key.[34] This was therefore the situation in 1708 when Newton and the administration at the Edinburgh Mint were in need of payment. Unfortunately for Newton and the Scottish mint, but mostly for Stewart himself, the collector of bullion was close to death and unable to sign the required bills. His subsequent passing then severely delayed the payment of anything that was due.[35] As Murray has stated, ‘Stewart's death was an inconvenience to Newton; for the Edinburgh mint it was to be a source of problems throughout the rest of the recoinage and beyond’.[36]

While Stewart’s executors were working to settle his estate, they refused to release any of the money he had held at the time of his death to the mint. This prompted the warden of the Edinburgh mint, William Drummond, to write a desperate letter to Newton in July 1708 which implored him to assist in the matter.[37] The letter outlined the need for money if the mint was to carry on its business, and detailed how correspondence on the matter had already been sent to Godolphin from the general at the mint, John Maitland, the earl of Lauderdale. Drummond also indicated that the administration at the Scottish mint were finding it difficult to operate within a British framework. After advising Newton that the officers at the mint were depending on him to resolve the financial matters then plaguing the mint, Drummond wrote: “we doe want to have our Selvis put upon some establishment. for the truth is the Vnion has disconcerted our foundation intirely.”[38] This points to the difficulty the once autonomous institution was experiencing already by 1708 as a nominal outpost of the London mint. This was not an issue that would be resolved quickly.

Newton had been in contact with Godolphin about the Stewart situation since at least mid-April of 1708, when he had expressed the opinion that the role of collector of the bullion was ‘irregular’ and should not be renewed following Stewart’s death. Instead he suggested that ‘Bullion be henceforth paid by the Vnder Collectors into the hands of the Cashkeeper of North Britain’, and advised on a series of measures that might be applied to bring the two mints onto the same footing. In late-July Newton again wrote to Godolphin to update him on the situation. He advised the first lord of the treasury that the Edinburgh mint had approached Stewart’s executors to request that the money in his possession at the time of his death should be paid to the mint, to which the executors responded that that the cost of the recoinage should be defrayed from the Equivalent.[39] The uncertainty had slowed down production at the mint, but then in September 1708 Stewart’s executors relented and released a payment of £2,600 to the mint. Buoyed by this, coin production increased, hitting a high of 13,700lb minted in December.[40] In February 1709 Allardyce wrote to Newton to advise that ‘The Recoinage in Scotland [was] being now brought to an End’, and that the London moneyers could now be recalled from Edinburgh.[41] The process of minting carried on until 15 September, with a total 103,346 lb weight of silver was coined between 1707 and 1709, producing specie with a value of just over £100,000 sterling.[42] On 5 October Allardyce passed away, and the last batch of new Scottish coin was delivered to the bank, the recoinage was over.

The Aftermath of the Recoinage:

The alignment of the coinage of England and Scotland, just like the bringing together of the two parliaments and the introduction of English weights and measures into Scotland, was intended to create structure within the new British state, introducing shared standards and facilitating trade between the two nations. However, the short-term impact of the recoinage was not felt positively in Scotland. As with the location of the British parliament in London, and with English weights and measures usurping Scottish weights and measures, the recoinage was also driven by English customs. This meant that new Scottish coin was struck in the same proportions as was normal in England; this being ten per cent of the total silver coined into sixpences, forty per cent into shillings, thirty per cent into half-crowns and twenty per cent into crowns.[43] By this apportionment no coin smaller than sixpence was minted at the recoinage. This was a decision which was to become a significant issue for a Scottish economy transacting low-value business.

When it was discovered that the Scottish mint did not intend to strike smaller denomination coin, those with commercial interests made representations to the Convention of the Royal Burghs in 1708. Here it was outlined that smaller denomination coin, such as ‘tou pence, three pence and four pence’ were required to be put into circulation in order to allow low-value domestic transactions to take place.[44] An application for a warrant to mint smaller coin was made to Newton on 3 December 1708, requesting permission to strike up to £8,000 sterling in 2d., 3d. and 4d. coins.[45] This was approved in the following May, but its implementation was delayed as the Scottish mint waited to receive formal authorisation in the form of a new indenture. Newton was asked to prepare this in late-July, and quickly did so.[46] Newton’s draft of the new indenture provided permission for the mint at Edinburgh to strike groats, half-six-pences, half-groats, and pennies; valued at 4d., 3d., 2d., and 1d. respectively. The new agreement was not, however, received until almost two years later, in April 1712.[47] In the meantime, the then general of the Scottish mint, John Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino, had pushed the matter with the Treasury in 1711, and whilst dies were made, no coins were struck.[48]

In addition to the absence of smaller denomination silver coins, the Scottish mint was also refused permission to produce new copper coins. This ruling was particularly felt by the country’s poor, with the scarcity of this low-value coinage having a profound effect on the business conducted at Scottish fairs and markets.[49] By the middle of the 1710s, Dutch ‘doits’, counterfeit Irish coin, and clipped coins circulated freely in the Scottish economy as a means of alleviating the need for coin.[50] Copper coin was essential in keeping the domestic economy of Scotland moving, so much so that Charles Maitland, general at the Scottish mint for twenty-two years before a special commission set up to investigate corruption at the institution removed him in 1682, had illegally struck an estimated £96,000 sterling in copper coins to aid currency circulation in the country.[51]

By the closing years of the 1720s the fallout from the recoinage was still being felt. Prominent nobleman, Archibald Campbell, Lord Ilay, weighed in on what had by then become a national crisis. He viewed the situation of ‘false coyning which is spread in a manner all over the country’ as being worse than the problematic shortage of coin that it sought to remedy. He suggested that halfpennies and turners (two pence Scots) be minted in Edinburgh or London in order to alleviate the need for coin. Ilay recognised, however, that there were potential problems associated with augmenting the coin stock of Scotland. He feared that if new coinage was forthcoming, then ‘the whole of the loss upon the false money must fall upon the lower sort of the people and the poor which will inevitably produce a great clamour’.[52] Despite a need for small denomination coin in Scotland, by 1732 still there had been no coinage in Scotland with John Conduitt, Newton’s successor at the English mint, stating that ‘there [was] no probability of any’.[53] Conduitt was right, and despite the Scottish mint retaining permanent officials until 1836, the coins produced during the recoinage of 1707-1709 were the last minted in Scotland.

Money issues at the Mint:

The financial issues which had begun with the death of Daniel Stewart in 1708 continued to plague the mint throughout the following decade and beyond. The fact that this caused tension between the Scottish and English institutions can best been seen during the tenure of Charles Maitland, sixth earl of Lauderdale, as general at the Scottish mint. Lauderdale took office in 1714 and was still there when Newton died in 1727, with the pair communicating often during this thirteen-year spell

The earls of Lauderdale had been closely involved with the mint in Scotland since 1660. John, the fifth earl of Lauderdale, was general at the time of the recoinage, and was the third member of his family to have held the position since the Restoration. His father Charles had held the office for twenty-two years before being removed under accusations of corruption in 1682.[54] Following this, Richard, Lord Maitland at the time, eldest son of the outgoing Charles, and John’s elder brother, took up the role. Richard was, however, an ardent Jacobite who fought at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and was soon after exiled to France. John took up office in 1695, until his death in 1710, following which role of general of the Scottish mint went, for a short time, to someone other than an earl of Lauderdale. Political manoeuvring on the part of the earl of Mar, John Erskine, who was attempting to influence the Scottish elections, saw the position conferred upon Lord Balmerino, John Elphinstone, in February of 1711, before he was succeeded in November 1712 by the earl of Home, Alexander Home, who subsequently lost the office in 1714 during the political upheaval at the ascension of George I.[55]

At this time, the office of general reverted back to a Lauderdale, who at this time was John’s twenty-six-year-old son Charles. The young Maitland had been jockeying for the position since his father’s death. In August 1710 he had written to lord Grange, James Erskine, reminding him that his recently deceased father ‘had all the respect for you imaginable: and would have serv’d you in any thing that lay in his power’.[56] Lauderdale hoped that Grange, who had recently been made lord justice clerk, would favour him to replace his father at the mint and convey such to his brother, the aforementioned earl of Mar, who, as Robert Harley's principal agent in Scotland, would decide who the next general at the mint would be.[57] Lauderdale’s mother also attempted to influence the decision, relaying her hope to Grange’s wife that her son might ‘sucsied his faither in the mint’.[58] While it had taken four years, Lauderdale finally got his wish, but his tenure as general was to prove difficult.

As already detailed, the Anglo-Scots Union had created challenges for the operation of the Scottish mint. Prior to the union, £1,200 sterling per annum had been paid net at Edinburgh to defray the cost of salaries and for maintaining the mint. This had been paid quarterly by the collector of the bullion. Following 1707, however, this figure was paid gross at Westminster, with deductions made for treasury and exchequer fees, as well as the fees involved in remitting the money itself, leaving £1,060 to reach Edinburgh.[59] The administration at Edinburgh appealed to the English Treasury for more funding after 1714. Included in the appeal was Gregory’s 1707 report on the Scottish mint and a list of the roles and associated salaries at Edinburgh.[60] Newton was informed of the request and replied directly to the Treasury, dismissing the claim by arguing that many of the posts cited were now redundant. He also took aim at the very top of the Scottish mint’s administration, attacking ‘the salary of the Generall of the Mint whose Office is useless’.[61] Newton did, however, revisit the figures over 1715-16, and suggested a compromise of £1,450 per annum to the Treasury, but this does not appear to have been put into practice.[62]

The chart below is based on a schedule of the offices and salaries of the Officers at the Mint at Edinburgh before and after the reorganisation of the Scottish Mint. After the Union between England and Scotland, David Gregory was apointed overseer of the Scottish Mint in Edinburgh and instructed to align its methods and procedures with those of the London Mint. This resulted in the appointment of additional Clerks for the Master, the Warden, and the Comptroller. Since there was no longer need for a collector of the bullion, the overall cost of personal increased only marginally.

Another issue when it came to funding the Scottish mint was that post-union coinage duty was shared between the two British mints, and the amount was enough to guarantee the salaries of permanent officers only. This was a problem for the Edinburgh mint, which after discussions with Gregory in 1707 had taken on three additional clerks to undertake the recoinage, and which could also not cover the salaries of other roles such as the Melter and the Smith’s workers.[63] This meant that while Lauderdale would later push for the mint to recommence operations, it could not do so without additional funding.

The reduced funding rankled the Edinburgh administration, but frustration boiled over when even this amount was not paid by the English treasury. Lauderdale’s father had petitioned Newton in 1709, stating: ‘the officers and other servants of her Majestie's Mint [were] straitned for want of their sallaries and fies especially those who have no other means of subsistance but the fruits of their Labour’. He told Newton that Scotland and England now had ‘the happiness to be of one Society’, and that as English master of the mint, Newton would ‘know the methods of payments made to the officers of their sallaries of her Majesties mint in the Tower, And I humbly Conceive that the same method will be followed [in Scotland]’. He reminded Newton that ‘it appears to me that both her Majesties Mints in South and North Britain are to be on one foot’, by the middle of the next decade, however, late payments continued to be a problem for his son. [64]

In the years immediately following the young Lauderdale taking office in 1714, no funds were paid to the Scottish mint. The Treasury apparently set aside £5415 in stages between 1714 and 1720 to defray the operating costs of the Scottish mint, but funding was not paid in the regular manner it had been pre-union. The administrative process behind unlocking payments appears to have been burdensome, requiring a formal application for an ‘imprest’ be made to the Treasury and then referred to the Tower Mint, with the aforementioned deductions being applied. It was not until 1718 that Lauderdale was authorized to pay the salaries of the staff at the Edinburgh Mint.[65] After this it does not, however, appear that payments were paid anymore regularly, with a 1721 letter from Lauderdale acknowledging payment for up to 1719 and requested that payment inclusive of 1721 be sent.[66] Issues with money at the Scottish mint continued for the rest of Newton’s tenure as master in London.

Throughout Lauderdale’s tenure of almost twenty years as General of the Scottish mint he pushed for new coinage in Scotland. Not long after taking office he complained that the mint was not in an operational condition and that Scots who had come forward with bullion in ‘considerable quantitys’ had been ‘oblidged to export it again to Forreign countrys’. The poor condition of the mint was then exacerbated by ‘the want of a fund for defraying the charge of a free coynage’, which in Lauderdale’s view had ‘incapacitate[d] this Mint for accomodating the subjects in Scotland with the small silver coyn of 4 pence and 3 pence peices, which is so necessary and so much wanted in this Country’.[67] Murray questions whether the mint in Edinburgh could have commenced operations without help from London, pointing out that by 1721 the staff in Edinburgh, other than a few officers, had changed wholesale since the time of the recoinage.[68] Regardless, Lauderdale pushed for new silver coin, and later for copper coin, with no success. He was dismissed from office in 1734

It is clear that post-union, the Scottish mint was treated with little deference. Newton viewed the position of general of the Scottish mint as redundant, recommending the office not be renewed at its next vacancy, as he had similarly done with the role of collector of the bullion. He had wanted to avoid the salaries at the Scottish mint becoming ‘an annuity without account'.[69] Due to the British policy of hindering the operation of the Scottish institution, this was, however, the eventual outcome.

Conclusion:

Of the Scottish institutions which survived the Act of Union, the mint played the most significant short-term role in aligning the economic frameworks of Scotland and England. Aligning the coinage of both countries had been an important step in cementing the parliamentary union. While the Scottish mint retained its staff, the real power which guided the recoinage was in London, and Isaac Newton was at the centre.

His role required him to manage relationships with (often disgruntled) Scottish staff, to organise training, to troubleshoot minting processes, and to negotiate when problems arose. Richard Westfall has stated that while Newton viewed the salaries of some offices at the Scottish mint to be a waste of money, ‘he showed his good sense in not wasting much time on a hopeless cause’.[70] This is correct in that Newton perhaps did not push this as far as he could have, but he certainly never failed to take an opportunity to criticise the administrative structure in Scotland, or to seize on a chance to suggest how this might have been streamlined.

From 1707 Newton, in all but name, oversaw the operations of the Scottish mint. Even in 1721, fourteen years after the union, he was still finding issues with the Scottish mint when he complained that coinage duty had not been collected properly in Scotland in during 1707-10, and had not been collected at all after then.[71] From problems with mint practices around smelting and administration, and on to issues with the payment of salaries, issues at the Scottish mint clearly kept Newton busy over the last two decades of his life.