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ON EARLY IMPORTED COINS AND THEIR VALUES.

It would be uninteresting and of no practical utility to treat in detail of coins thus imported for temporary and outside, as well as home, convenience and necessity, but I will now give notes and extracts which will, I believe, clearly indicate the nature of currency arrangements which obtained from the days of the early kings of England.

I am indebted to Le Quesne's "History of Jersey" for interesting information recorded of the coinages and currency of that island, and to the Rev. G. E. Lee for the Guernsey records. The original states documents from which these particulars were collated are still preserved. The denominations of coins officially in use at various periods appear thereby.

There were also similar grants in the two following years.

"Any change in the value or denomination of coins is attended with serious inconveniences, and it may, in some cases, be highly injurious to a large class of the community. This is more likely to be the case when the coins of two countries are adopted; when two different currencies are in circulation; when any variation in the value of the coins of one of these countries takes place, and the relative value, owing to that change, has to be ascertained and determined by a legislative or administrative body. Great caution is required in these matters; and, at a later period, the greatest discontent was caused in Jersey, and even a riot ensued, from an alteration in the value of the currency.

The following two interesting extracts are from "Charles the Second in the Channel Islands," by S. Elliott Hoskins.

"Charles the Second in the Channel Islands," by S. Elliott Hoskins, M.D., F.R.S. Published by Richard Bentley, London.

"The Prince of Wales, driven out of England without resources, having nevertheless, at his own cost, to maintain soldiers and sailors; to provide for a host of needy followers; to build fortifications for his protection; and to defray the travelling expenses of the numerous messengers going and coming from all parts, was reduced to great straits at this period. Jersey could supply him but inadequately, and from France he could obtain but slender and uncertain assistance. In order, therefore, to improve the state of his finances, and in some measure to provide for current expenses, it was resolved, at the recommendation of the council, that an establishment for coining bullion should at once be set up. A house was accordingly hired in Trinity parish, Jersey, from one Michael le Guerdain, which was speedily fitted up with furnaces for fusing the precious metals, and with presses and dies for striking and stamping coin, under the direction and superintendence of one Colonel Smith, who was appointed Master of the Mint.

NOTE 1.--"In the year 1684 Charles the Second is said to have issued tin coinage; had he made it a legal tender in 1646, when it was plentiful and precious as an article of barter, the speculation might have proved profitable."

"Our journalist reverts to the subject of the mint set up in Jersey some twelvemonths before, which at that time promised to become a profitable financial speculation. The manager, Colonel Smyth, he informs us, originally a landed proprietor, and a man of good family in England, had been, before the troubles, master of one of his Majesty's provincial mints, and by virtue of his office an honorary privy councillor. On the breaking out of the civil war he commanded a regiment in the king's service, but, at its termination, fled with hundreds of others into France, from whence he came to Jersey, with his wife and a large train of domestics, during the Prince of Wales's sojourn in that island. Being desirous of exercising his former profession, and, moreover, provided with dies and other coining implements, he succeeded in establishing a mint under his royal highness's sanction and the countenance of the governor, but not, as we shall see, under the patronage of the chancellor of the exchequer.

"In a few months the concern turned out to be an utter failure--partly owing to mismanagement, partly to an alleged scarcity of bullion. Smyth, a person of expensive habits, who kept up an extravagant private establishment, becoming deeply involved, was forced to dispose not only of his household goods, but of the greater part of his machinery, reserving merely the dies he had brought over with him. Towards the end of May he again sought refuge in France, intending, as he said, to send his wife into England to compound for his sequestered estates.

"Chevalier, although he admits that Colonel Smyth, '?tant ? Jersey, fit de la monnoie de quoi je ne dis rien,' is a firm believer in the actual existence of a mint from whence were issued coins of gold and silver of legal tender. Misled by his assertions--on all other subjects rigidly accurate--we confidently bestowed considerable time and industry in seeking to obtain specimens of the St. Georges, jacobuses, half-crowns, and shillings, so minutely described, and alleged to have been struck in Jersey. The perusal, however, of the subjoined letter dissipated the illusion--proved that the mint was a Mississippi Scheme, a South Sea Bubble on a small scale, and that the master thereof was little better than a swindling adventurer--thus accounting for the non-existence of the coinage in any numismatic collection:--

"SIR EDWARD HYDE TO SIR EDWARD NICHOLAS.

"I will tell you a tale, of which it may be you may know somewhat; if you do not, take no notice of it from me. When we were in Cornwall, Colonel Smyth , having obtained his liberty by J. Ashburnham's friendship upon such an exchange as would have redeemed the best man, came to us from the king at Hereford. To me he brought a short perfunctory letter from my lord Digby, but from J. A. to my lord Culpeper his dispatch was of weight; his business, to erect a mint at Truro, which should yield the king a vast profit; Mr. Browne, J. A.'s man ; the king's dues, by a special warrant , to be paid to Mr. Ashburnham.

"What he did in Cornwall I know not, for you perceive he was to have no relation or reference to me, which, if you had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, you would have taken unkindly. Shortly after the Prince came hither he came to us, having left Cornwall a fortnight before we did. You may imagine my lord Culpeper was forward to help him, and how he promised to set up his mint, and assured us that he had contracted with merchants at St. Malloe to bring in such a quantity of bullion as would make the revenue very considerable to the Prince. We wondered why the merchants of St. Malloe should desire to have English money coined. He gave us an answer that appeared very reasonable: that all the trade they drove with the west country for tin, fish, or wool, was driven with money; and therefore they sent over their pistoles and pieces-of-eight, in which they sustained so great a loss that their merchants had rather have this bullion coined into English money at 20 in the hundred than take the other way.

"After several debates, in which there was not the least suggestion of inconvenience, he pretending that he had all officers ready at St. Malloe, and such as belonged to the King's mint, and likewise his commission under the great seal , the Prince writ a letter to the Governor, Bailiff, and Jurats to give him countenance, and to assign him some convenient place to reside in. Shortly after the Prince went away, the Colonel proceeds, brings his wife hither and takes a little house remote from neighbours, but pretended that the Prince's remove and other accidents had hindered the advance of the service, but that he hoped hereafter to proceed in it. Here he lived soberly and reservedly; and after two or three months here was found much adulterated money--half-crown pieces which had been put off by people belonging to him. One only officer he hath, an old Catholic, one Vaughan, who is a good graver.

"The Governor was much perplexed, the civil magistrates here taking notice of it , and sent to him to speak with him; told him that he believed his education had not been to such artifices, and that he might be easily deceived by the man he trusted, who was not of credit enough to brave the burthen of such a trust; that if this island fell into suspicion of such craft, their trade would be undone; and therefore desired him by no means to proceed in that design, till satisfaction might be given by the view of such officers who were responsible for it. The Colonel denied some of the pieces to be of his coining, but confessed others, and said it was by mistake too light; but I had forgot to tell you that he had assured me, two or three days before, that he had yet coined none.

"To conclude , he promised the Governor not to proceed further in it. Then he came to me, and told me a long and untoward discourse of a great trust between the King, Mr. Ashburnham and himself, and one more, which he would not name, but led me to believe it was Mr. A.'s friend at Paris, and that the design was originally to coin dollars, by which he could gain a vast advantage to the King. He found me not so civil as he expected, and therefore easily withdrew, and the same day attempted the Governor, and offered him a strong weekly bribe to join with him and assist him. His reception was not much better there, so that he has since procured a good stout letter from the Prince to command the Governor, Bailiff, and Jurats to give him all countenance, and to advance the service. This will put an end to it, for the Governor will deal freely with the Prince, though upon the confidence we have still naughty new money. The reason of the Governor's exceeding tenderness is his duty to the King, to whom such a communion would draw much dishonour. Tell me if you know anything of this, and whether you think your friend so wise, and careful of his master's honour as he should be; beyond this say nothing of it, except to my lord Hopton, who can tell you how scurvy a thing it is.

"EDW. HYDE.

"Jersey, February 24th, 1647.

"A great improvement was effected in the organisation of the militia by Sir Thomas Morgan. He divided the militia into regiments, and remodelled the artillery. On his proposition, in order to compel the men to attend with regularity to their military duties, so essential for the preservation of the island, the States, on the 25th September, 1666, ordered that fines should be levied by the vingteniers for all defaults in the following proportions:--

The aggregate amount of these notes was fifty thousand livres.

"The scarcity of gold and silver continued; and the States, on the 21st of December, 1725, declared that the only metallic currency in circulation was liards or deniers. They had on previous occasions prohibited the exportation of this copper money; they now forbade its importation, under pain of confiscation. In the following year, perceiving no doubt the futility of their enactments, they allowed, by their act dated the 19th of September, 1726, a free trade in liards--the free importation and exportation of this coin. On the same day they appointed a committee from their body to prepare a representation to his Majesty in Council, on the subject of the relative value of the coins in circulation in the Island. This representation was adopted by the States on the 25th of November, 1726. The ulterior sanction by Council of the recommendation of the States was the occasion of serious commotions and discontent in the Island. The avowed object of the States in their request to the Crown was to prevent the exportation of gold and silver coin from the Island, and to encourage the exportation of liards to France, which they asserted passed in Jersey above their intrinsic value, and with which they were very much burdened--reasons among the very worst which could be given, or upon which a legislative enactment could be based.

"An Order in Council, dated the 22nd of May, 1729, was issued, approving of the proposed alterations in the currency by the States; and it was accordingly ordered:--

"That the French silver coins be current in the said Island only according to their intrinsic value, in proportion to the British crown-piece.

"That the British crown-piece do continue at seventy-one sols; the half-crown at thirty-five sols and a half; the shilling at fourteen sols; and the sixpence at seven sols.

"That the French liards be reduced to their old value of two deniers each; and that the British half-pence be current for seven deniers; and the farthing for three and a half. And his Majesty doth hereby further order that the said coins do pass in all manner of payments, according to the said rates; but that this order shall not take effect till the expiration of six calendar months from the date thereof; and to the end that no person may pretend ignorance hereof, the bailiff and jurats of his Majesty's said Island of Jersey are to cause this order to be forthwith published, and to take care that it be executed according to the tenor thereof."

"The States soon perceived that they had either committed a great mistake or that they must yield to public opinion, which was strongly and decidedly opposed to the change ordered. They accordingly, on the 20th of December, 1729, petitioned his Majesty in Council for the recall of the Order in Council, being apprehensive that the said regulations would not answer the ends they at first expected from them. The States, on the 24th of April, 1730, named a deputy in support of their petition. Counsel were heard by the committee of the Privy Council for the States, and also for several members of the States and others who opposed the petition of the States; but the opinion of the committee was, that the Order in Council regulating the currency ought not to be suspended or revoked, but carried into execution. His Majesty in Council, therefore, on the 9th of July, 1730, ordered that the said Order in Council of the 22nd of May, 1729, be carried into execution: but that during the term of six months from the date hereof all creditors in the said Island do receive their debts, if tendered to them at the rate at which the coins went current immediately before making the aforesaid Order in Council; and, in case of refusal, that such creditors do forfeit one-third of their debts to the benefit of the debtors."

"Established custom, and the relative value of coins, proved of greater force than the Orders in Council. Livres, and sous, and liards tournois continued, in fact, the currency of the Island at their old rate; and many of the native inhabitants of the Island still keep their accounts, or make their reckonings, in the livre tournois--the livre being estimated at twenty sous, and the sou at four liards or twelve deniers. When the English currency was, in the year 1835, adopted as the legal currency of the Island, it was done by declaring the relative value which it bore in circulation to the livre tournois. This was to meet the objections which were raised to the adoption of the English standard with regard to wheat rents, and other mortgages, which were estimated in the old currency tournois. Twenty-six livres tournois, or old French currency, were declared to be equivalent to one pound sterling, which was, and is now, the current rate.

"Allusion is still made in some legal and official documents to order-money or, as it is called, argent d'ordre, or argent selon l'ordre du roi. But the question may reasonably be asked, 'What is order-money? What is the standard of order-money? Does order-money really exist, or has it ever existed?' The livre of order-money is considered worth fifty per cent. more than the livre-tournois; and the distinction is supposed to be derived from the Order in Council of the year 1729. But that Order in Council did not establish that difference: it did not change the relative value of the sou and the livre. There was, in fact, no such thing as order-money, except for liards, and thus it did not apply to sous or livres. The value of the liard, as compared to the sou, was, it is true, changed and regulated; but the relative value of the sol, compared with the livre, could not be changed or affected thereby; it remained the same as before. There were twenty sous to the livre: the coin, the sou in circulation, was not enlarged, or made of more intrinsic value. Such as it was before, such it remained still. There was no other sou or livre known or acknowledged in use than the tournois; and the Order in Council did not substitute any other. The Order in Council could not, with any degree of fairness or justice, be supposed to affect those persons who paid their accounts in sous or livres, or in gold or silver, and not in liards. This was not, however, the view taken of the Order; and hence the indignation felt; for the interpretation given, and the claim of fifty per cent. more than was in fact due, bore the semblance of great injustice.

THE COATS OF ARMS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.

Since the coats of arms for the islands of Guernsey and Jersey appear on the coins minted for these islands in England in the nineteenth century, the following notes may be of interest:--

From the impressions of the Bailiewick seals, at different periods, it appears that slight differences occur. The inscription on the seal for Jersey runs--"S. Ballivic Insule de Jerseye."

Alderney and Sark, being dependencies of Guernsey, have on legal or authoritative documents either the seal as granted for that island or else local seals, as will be specified.

The Rev. G. E. Lee, Rector of St. Peter's, Port Guernsey, communicates the following interesting and very full note on the above-named matter:--

It cannot, however, but be observed that if the sprig be intended to represent the slight, insignificant foliage of the Plantagenista , the design is very unlike and misleading.

As regards the official seals used locally for Alderney and Sark, under date, Alderney, 22nd February, 1895, the Procureur of Alderney informs me:--

This seal is a lion rampant, with a sprig in right paw, and above the legend JUGE D'AUREGNY. The heraldic tinctures are not indicated on the seal.

With reference to the seal used locally for Sark, W. F. Collings, Esquire, informs me, under date, Sark, 8th March, 1895:--

The Rev. G. E. Lee supplements the above as follows:--

The extract furnished by Mr. Le Brun, vicar of Alderney, with the impression of the seal of that island, is:--

Under date 27th March, 1895, the Rev. G. E. Lee supplements his previous information:--

"I have seen Sir Edgar MacCulloch, and he agrees with me that the Alderney seal is a creation. I have now seen two documents of Sark. The first, of 1818, is sealed with a large seal, two inches in diameter, in green wax, bearing the de Carteret arms and supporters. The seal is called "Le sceau de la Seigneurie de l'?le de Serk." On the reverse is a counterseal, with the arms of the then seigneur, P. Le Pelley.

"The other deed is of 1852, and sealed with the Le Pelley arms, which, on that occasion, are called 'Le sceaux de la Seigneurie de cette ?le'--the seigneur being P. C. Le Pelley.

THE JERSEY SILVER TOKENS OF 1813.

The Hon. Sir C. W. Freemantle, K.C.B., Master of the Royal Mint, has courteously favoured me with particulars of coinages as specially struck for the Channel Islands.

As regards the Jersey 3s. token of 1813, and the 1s. 6d. token of the same date, he says:--

"These were coined at the Royal Mint, under authority from the Committee of Council on Coins, dated 5th February, 1813.

"?10,000 worth of silver bullion was purchased and coined into tokens of 3s. and 1s. 6d., nominal value. The current value of these coins appears to have been ?11,473 17s. 6d., but there is no information as to the value of each of the two denominations of coins issued."

The Viscount of Jersey kindly supplements the above with the following local information:--

"On the 26th October, 1812, the States, having taken into consideration the want of specie and of small coin current in the island--a want which makes itself more and more felt, both amongst the inhabitants and the troops in garrison--decided to order, with the sanction of Government, the coinage of a certain quantity of small silver tokens for circulation in this island. A committee of nine members was named to consider the amount and value of the coins to be issued, and to enquire into the cost of such issue.

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