Draft of MINT00140 (Mint 19/1/325)

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To the Right Honourable the Lord Commissioners of his Majesties Treasury.

May it please your Lordships

The Act of Coinage being near expiring, We have thought it our Duty humbly to lay before your Lordships the annexed Abstract shewing what the Moneys leviable by that Act have amounted unto these three years last past, & what the charges of the Mints in the Tower & at Edinburgh have amounted unto during the same time. By this Abstract the Income has been about 9600li yearly at a medium & the Expence about 14380 yearly And this expence is to the Income as about 3 to 2.

The coynage has increased every year since the peace & if it continues to be so great as it has been the two last years the charge of the Mint will exceed the income by about five or six thousand pounds yearly. This charge has been supplied hitherto out of the stock which accrued to the Mint in the time of war when the coynage was small, & by the great coinage since the peace this stock is now reduced to less then one thousand pounds, which will scarce suffice to carry on the coinage above a month longer.

Wherefore We humbly propose to your Lordships that the House of Commons may be moved that the Act of Coinage may be renewed this session of Parliament with an augmentation of the Duty from ten shillings per Tun to fifteen shillings upon wines &c & from 20s to 30s per Tun upon Brandy, with such Restrictions or Applications of the money arising therefrom as the House shall think fitt.