Holograph queries on such presses
Several persons have been {illeg}taken up wth Presses sufficient to coin money & plead in excuse that they use them only in their trades of making metal-buttons bowes for watch keys, middles for Dial-plates of watches & pillars for watches.
Quære 1. Is this a sufficient excuse to free them from being prosecuted for high-treason.
Quære 2. May not the Presses be demolished by order of one or more Iustices of the Peasce without a Prosecution.
Quære 3. May not one or two Artificers be authorised to have Presses for doing this sort of work for Watch-makers & Bullion-makers & others, without leaving every man at liberty to have coining Presses who can pretend that he uses them in his Trade.
Source
MINT 19/1/460, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UKc. April 1699, c. 122 words.