Holograph draft of MINT00677 (Mint 19/3/476)
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 it may be performed by any one or more of the Officers of the Mint under the Inspection of any others, with their Clerks to enter the Number & weight of the Blocks of Tin received & delivered & compute the price, & a Warehouse-keeper & one or more Porters as there shall be occasion and with the use of the Cranes of the Office of Ordnance, & that of the Master & Workers Offices & Rooms so far as they may be wanted & spared from the coynage, & 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 maybe convenient that their weight be stamped on them either in Cornwall or at their Receipt in the Tower.
And since the Blocks are to be delivered out at a certain price I am humbly of opinion that they should be delivered as they come to hand without giving leave to the Merchant to pick & chuse & without trusting for the money (setting aside only such Blocks as may happen to be unlawfull) & that the money received for them be paid into the Exchequer as often as it arises to a certain summ to be named by your Lordship, & accounted for annually.
Also a skilfull Pewterer who understands the sorts, qualities, goodness, mixtures, adulterations, refining & merchandize of Tinn may be allowed if at any time desired.
All which is most humbly submitted to
your Lordships great wisdome
Source
MINT 19/3/492, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK28 October 1703, c. 346 words.