Draft of MINT00044 (Mint 19/1/121)

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To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of his Majestys Treasury.

May it please your Lordships,

Amongst all the Petitioners for the place of Weigher & Teller, whose Petitions are referred to us I have most experience of the abilities of Mr Haynes. The allegations in his Petition are true & while he acted in the Mint he had there a general reputation for integrity, diligence, sobriety, good humour & readiness in business & have been about 14 years amongst us he is skilled in all the business of the Mint & in the time of recoyning the hammered money did great service. In these accounts the Officers of the Mint (Mr Neale, Mr Hall mentioned in the Petition & my self) then recommended him earnestly to the Lords Commissioners of his Majestys Treasury as a very fit person to execute the Office of Comptroller under the two late Comptrollers in that time of great business, & when the Comptrollers insisted on Mr Beresford a stranger, Mr Haynes was appointed to take care of the Comptroller's business till Mr Beresford could qualify himself. After the recoynage of the hammered money was over Mr Haynes was imployed in the Excise Office by Mr Hall above mentioned who is able to give a further character of his abilities & behaviour in both Officers. Yet Mr Neale till his death Decemb. 99 continued him his Clerk with a salary of 100℔ per annum in recompence of his services & examining & seeking the Acounts of the five Country Mints. On account of his abilities I have ever since wished for him back into the Mint & if he be not now brought back (as he has been once already at a time when we could not be without him) some person unskilled in our business will instead of him come amongst us to succeed either in the place of the late weigher & Teller or in the place which his successor shall leave If any of the Principal Officers or their Clerks or Deputies should at any time die or leave the Mint Mr Haynes is qualified to assist till the place can be supplied anew that the business of the Mint receive no stop. For we want men of skill.

If any other Competitor thinks himself equally qualified in Mint affairs I desire that his character may by any friend who best knows it be put into the hands of the Officers of the Mint that we may examin it by tryall & make a true report of his skill to your Lordships. But of the qualifications of such Petitioners as are not versed in Mint affairs we do not presume to judge.

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Herodotus represents Nitocris above mentioned to have been a woman of greater

Herodotus tells us that there were two famous Queens of Babylon, Seivanis & Nitocris & that the latter was more skilfull. + < insertion from lower down f 119v > + She observing that the kingdom of the Medes having subdued many enties & amongst others Nineve was become great & potent, intercepted & fortified the passages out of Media into Babylon, & the river which before was streight she made crooked with great windings < text from f 119v resumes > The river which was streght before made crooked with great windings that it might be less apt to overflow, & above Babylon dug a Lake Every way 40 miles broad to keep receive the water of the river in spring & keep it for watering the land. She built also a bridge over it in Babylon turning the stream into the Lake till the Bridge was built. Philostratus says that she made a {illeg} veta Apollo {illeg} bridge under the River two fathomes broad, meaning an arched cave over which the river flowed. He calls her Μηδεια that is a Mede. For Berosus tells us that Nebuchadnezzar built a pensil Garden upon arches because his wife was a Mede & delighted in mountanous prospects, such as abounded in Media but were wanting in Babylon. its probable that he was the sister of Astyages married Nebuchadnezzar upon a leage between their fathers against Nineva

& the many works of Seminarus were extant in Asia till the days of Syria