Complaint about encroachments on Mint jurisdiction

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To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury

May it please your Lordships

The Mint is a place not subject to any military power but is directly under the King & Council & the Lord Treasurer or Commissioners of the Treasury & its own Officers. And by the Indentures of the Mint no strangers can live or lodge in the Mint without leave of the Officers of the Mint, & by an Order of K. Charles II all strangers were turned out of the Mint & prohibited to live there any more without the leave of the Lord Treasurer & Chancellour of the Exchequer. But notwithstanding these Constitution General Compton the Leieutenant of the Tower has brought the Earle of Oxford into the House of the Comptroller of the Mint, & there put a guard upon him, as if that house & by consequence the whole Mint was under his jurisdiction.

My Lords, the safety of the Coynage depends upon keeping the Mint out of the hands of the Garrison, & the safety of Prisoners depends upon keeping them in a legal custody under the jurisdiction of their keepers And I am humbly of opinion not only that the Prisoner be removed into a legal custody but also that something be done which may hinder this invasion of the Mint from being drawn into president hereafter.

All which &

[1]

I. Newton

Wheras Moyder have upon the Assay in weight & fineness been found worth but one pound seven shillings & seven pence farthings & by reason of their being a forreign coyn & of the charge of recoining them, they have been brought down to one pound seven shillings & six pence: this is to give notice that