Holograph draft report on the staff and equipment necessary for the Mint to take charge of storing and selling tin on behalf of the Crown

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To the Right Honourable the Lord High Treasurer of England.

May it please your Lordship

In obedience to your Lordships Order I have considered what may be requisite for lodging her Majesties Tin in the Mint & delivering it out at a certain price & paying the money into the Exchequer, and am humbly of opinion that I can do it with two Clerks added to my own to enter the number & weight of the Blocks of Tin received & delivered & compute the price keep an account of incidents, & with so many Porters as shall be necessary upon occasions, one of which may be constant if continual attendance shall be required; and with the use of the Master & Worker's Offices & Rooms so far as they may be wanted & spared from the coynage, & of the Cranes of the Office of Ordnance, & liberty of carrying the Tin between Tower Wharf & the Mint over the Draw-bridge, an Officer of the Customes being directed to attend the ships there.

Some things are also to be provided as Scales & Weights Sledges & Pulleys & Stamps for numbering the Blocks. And it may be convenient that their weight be stamped on them either in Cornwall or at their Receipt in the Tower.

And since the Tin is to be delivered out at a certain price I am humbly of opinion that the Blocks should be delivered as they come to hand without giving leave to the Merchant to pick & chuse, setting aside only unlawfull Blocks to be reexamined by your Lordships Order if any shall occurr, & remelted or otherwise disposed of. And that the Tin be delivered only for ready money, & the money be paid into the Exchequer as often as it rises to a certain summ to be named by your Lordship, & accounted for annually.

All which is most humbly submitted to your Lordships great wisdome

[1]

Is. Newton