WEBVTT - Episode 3: Mint Condition 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:15.280 This is an I heart original in William Chaloner, now 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.520 the best counterfeiter in London, living in a fine house 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:23.280 in suburban Knightsbridge, wearing the clothes of a gentleman, inserted 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.240 himself into the debate around the coins. This was less 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.240 than two years before Parliament passed three Coinage Act and 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:35.960 Challenger's name appeared on a pamphlet entitled Proposals Humbly offered 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:42.040 for an Act to prevent clipping and counterfeiting money. Everybody's 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:53.599 always so humble mm hmm. Now England hath been more 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.600 grieved with clipped and counterfeit money than any other country, 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.600 for want of proper laws to prevent the same, and 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.720 by the abuse of the mintors of our money, who 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.800 have made the coin with so little art and ingenuity, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.080 that any may clip or counterfeit money without much difficulty, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.480 that it may be presumed the old money in this 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:24.160 kingdom is now worth two thirds of the intrinsic value. 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.679 But if there be not a stop put to clipping 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.560 of money, it will in a few years be so 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:35.080 diminished and counterfeited that it will not be worth half 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:41.280 the value it was coined for. Challoner was some forty 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:46.120 years later sounding a lot like Monsieur Blonde, And of 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.160 course he wasn't wrong about the coins, because not much 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.240 had changed since the sixteen fifties, despite the introduction of 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:57.440 the machines. Remember, the Treasury never recalled all the old coins. Now, 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.600 we know that Challoner was more qualified and most to 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.200 talk about clipping and counterfeiting, But why would he start 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.160 offering tips on how to put himself out of business? 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.520 Was chunder going legit using his ill gotten knowledge for 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.840 the betterment of the kingdom. Not quite. This was something 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:23.720 bigger than making fake coins and sneakier. Now, the money 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:29.359 being such bad workmanship every smith, clockmaker, brazier, goldsmith, et cetera, 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.880 and grave stamps, and the work being so flat and 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.720 irregular they can stamp money with a hammer of three 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.440 pound weight, which is a great grievance to the Kingdom 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.960 to have our money coins so disingenuously that it may 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:47.160 be counterfeited with so much ease. This was a good suggestion, 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.000 so good that the Mint was pretty much already in 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.760 possession of such a machine. However, Chaloner also added, like 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.040 everyone else, that the Treasury needed to recall all the 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.560 old coins, melt them down and re mint them. Chaloner 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:07.240 also made a few other suggestions, some practical and some 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.960 us so. For example, he proposed that the Mint go 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.359 on the road, travel from county to county, to allow 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.720 the rich and the poor like to trade in their 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:21.240 coins without fear of being robbed or missing out. Parliament 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.160 was not going to go for any of it, really, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.200 after all, who was this William Chaloner anyway is the 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.240 son of a Warwickshire weaver. But Chaloner didn't care whether 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.520 his suggestions were actually adopted. What Chaloner wanted was to 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:41.000 be noticed. It was just possible, or just becoming possible, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.680 for smart people with things to say to get attention 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.280 from powerful people through the new medium of the press. 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.080 Have you read the ideas of this chileon? Yes, I 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:57.440 am immensely interested in his proposals. Maybe we should put 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.720 them to the test. I would be going to speak 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.160 doing further on the subject. A moveablement would be too 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.840 great a charge to the King and treasure. But we 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:13.600 must do something about the counterfeits. Indeed, Mrs William Chaloner 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.960 speaks since and there's schools at the mint. Having the 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.880 merest idea of how they curved the clippup and coins 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:27.480 will sink us All Challenger and figured out that he 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.359 could use pamphlets as a way to manufacture himself a 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.480 reputation as an expert, to make a name for himself 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:39.479 not only among the criminal classes, and this he thought 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.440 could get him what he really wanted and in at 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.520 the Mint, a way to waltz through the front door 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.320 and get a close up look at its operations. Challoner 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.200 summed up his proposal by offering to show Parliament some 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.520 exemplary pieces of coin my own design, to demonstrate how 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.000 money can be coined so that it shall be impossible 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.320 wolf for any private person to counterfeit it. And he 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:08.440 offered to do it at the Mint for I Heart Radio. 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.600 I'm Linda Rodriguez mccrabbie and this is Newton's Law and 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:25.960 I Heart original podcast Episode three. Mint Condition you are 0:05:26.080 --> 0:06:03.480 making Act one. They're not so great re Coinage. William 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.719 Challoner's proposals didn't get him into the Mint yet, but 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.640 his recommendation to recall and recoin, now that was something 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:16.719 everyone knew had to be done, and by late Parliament 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.719 knew it too. The Great Recoinage, as it was later called, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:26.839 started on January and it was meant to be wrapped 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.880 up in a few months. Most of the time, the 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.440 mints were seasonal. If that the men who worked at 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:34.880 them tended to be farm laborers who were called up 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.560 for duty when the mint decided it needed new coins. This, however, 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.599 was an all hands on deck situation in order to 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.760 meet the demands of the incredibly ambitious, certainly foolish schedule 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.520 imposed by Parliament. Work at the mint started at four 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:57.839 am and didn't stop until midnight every day except Sunday. 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.040 But if you're a picture during a tidy assembly line 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.400 style operation, don't Yes, it's not a modern manufacturing process 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.960 as we understand it today, so don't think of a um, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.920 you know, production line process where you might start at 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.000 one end of the mint and neatly work your way around. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:18.000 That's Chris Barker, historian at the modern Royal Mint. It's 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.360 a very hiddle dey piddled arrangement. So you may well 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.960 have melting at one end and then you move your 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.360 casted strip down to another end of the mint, so 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.120 it's a little bit here, there and everywhere. And this 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.040 was on machines that were now more than thirty years old, 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.400 in a workshop that had been in use since the 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.280 thirteenth century, and all of that manufacturing took place in 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.800 the town. So if you can imagine the situation you 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:42.760 would you would have if you were a visit to, say, 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.320 walking into the raw Mint in the Tower of London, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.920 you'd walk into a very narrow, cramped, confined alley way 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.760 which is flanked on either side by wooden buildings, many 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.840 even sort of crazed with age, often falling to pieces, 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.160 and you've got to count them literally propped up with 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.400 timber and sort of bolted together with big eye bolts 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.160 and fall into parts. It's very ramshackle institution. Um by 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:09.600 this point in history, nearly three d workmen, nine presses, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.640 and ten million machines, as well as the three large 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.920 furnaces were crammed into this ramshackle institution, which was not 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.840 more than a hundred feet at its widest, and that's 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.840 not even counting the horses. Some of the rolling machines, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.400 which flattened the sheets of metal to the right thickness 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.600 to be punched into blanks, relied on horsepower to turn 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.600 their incredible weight. There could be as many as twelve 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.600 horses in the workshop at any given moment. Over the 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.160 roughly two years of the recoinage, the Mint spent nearly 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:43.480 seven hundred pounds as an actual money in hauling manure 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.720 away that's a hundred and thirty five thousand pounds in 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:52.559 today's money. That was at the Tower Mint, the maintment 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.000 in the country. But to facilitate bringing in old coins 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.160 in places far from London and to up production on 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:04.720 making new ones, the Mint had established temporary operations in Bristol, Chester, Exeter, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.120 Norwich and York, but none of it the long days. 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.280 The horse manure of the temporary mints was enough. Things 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:19.600 were not going well at all to begin with. The 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.040 man in charge of the recoinage was a guy called 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.040 Thomas Neil. He was known as Golden Neil after his 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.160 extremely advantageous match to England's richest widow, a woman with 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:34.120 an estate valued at a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:36.880 Neil was the Master of the Mint, one of the 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.319 three officers along with the warden and the Controller who 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.720 ran the Mint. But he was meant to be the 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.760 one making this huge undertaking happen, and Neil was, in 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:52.640 a word, useless. It's a recoinage is not doing well 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.800 at all. It must be somebody else's fault. Neil was 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.400 one of those rich guys who just kept failing upwards 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.440 with the help of his powerful contacts. He was the 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.040 groom of the bed chamber for Charles the Second, James 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.920 the Second, and William the Third, a role that basically 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.200 meant that he helped the king, whichever one it was, 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.280 get dressed and referee as card games. He'd been Master 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.280 of the Mint since six eighties six, but he was 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.800 a terrible administrator who had done very little to plan 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.480 for the recoinage. Neil was not a good Master of 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.200 the Mint. I mean he was not involved in in 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.360 then any you know, in a day to day basis. 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.840 He's the man who ran up ginormous debts and was 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.560 not really concerned generally from from the Mint point of view. 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.160 So it was his assistant, the Deputy Master, a French 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.120 Hugueno called Dr John Francis Faquier, who did the business 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.760 and stuff while Neil did other things. Ran the North 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.280 American Postal Service, or rather had a deputy who actually 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.239 lived in the colonies do it. Speculated on housing developments 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.880 Neil Street. That has a nice ring to it. Trying 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:05.559 to invent cheap proof dice, raised shipwrecks, stuff like that. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.160 Who the fun I leave it to you? You consorted right. 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.400 Facua did his best, But there weren't enough men, and 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.520 the machines were all old, and there weren't enough of 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.920 them either. The mints were not producing coin quickly enough 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.480 to meet demand, and the country was in actual danger 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.360 of running out of legal physical money. This problem was 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.800 compounded by the fact that the mechanism of the government 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.199 put in place for allowing people to trade in their 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:36.280 old coins for new ones was not so good. They say, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.800 for a given period of time, we will take coins 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.640 at their face value, regardless of how badly worn or 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.640 degreat they are. So if you present something that you 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.280 can see is a shilling but has lost half its weight, 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.680 and it's you know, batted and barely legible, the official 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.360 will still take it a shillings value, even though there's 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.480 only half a shilling's worth of silver there. But this 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:02.400 system was somewhat narrow. Only people who paid direct taxes 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.920 or made loans to the government were allowed to trade 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.160 cliped or debased money in for face value. The trade 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.040 in also only lasted five months, and that means that 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:12.800 those are in the know, those in the urban areas 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.520 who can really get onto this can make a huge 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.560 profit because you can gather a selection of very battered 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.640 coins which only have minimal silver value, tender them in 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.200 and actually get the full face value for them. The 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.600 people that suffer are those in the isolated areas, those 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:34.520 who are more remote and more rural, who cannot get 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.439 all this old coinage that they might have available to 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.800 the exchange in time in order to benefit from this, 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.720 because after a certain time you don't get that full 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.959 face value. Instead you just left with the weight of 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.520 the coinage. Within six months people had to sell their 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.920 old coins at weight, meaning that their coins had suddenly 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.400 lost as much as half of their value. By this time, 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.600 there wasn't enough re legal coin in circulation to pay 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:10.679 for the expenses of daily life. Here's writer John Evelyn's 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:16.800 diary entry from May. Money still continuing exceeding scarce, so 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.160 the done was paid or received, but all was on trust, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.800 the mint not supplying for common necessities. Things were still 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.160 bad a month later. Want of current money to carry 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.400 on the smallest concerns even for daily provisions in the 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.840 markets guineas lowered to twenty two shillings and great sums 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.880 daily transported to Holland, where at yields more with other 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:45.080 treasures sent to pay the armies. And so imprudent was 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.120 the late Parliament to condemn the old though clipped and 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:53.840 corrupted till they had provided supplies to this at the 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.320 fraud of the bankers and goldsmiths, who, having gotten immense 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.040 riches by extortion, keep up their treasure in expectation of 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:05.920 enhancing its value. The mint, Underneil's very hands off leadership, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.640 was floundering. Nothing considerable coined of the new and now 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:15.160 only current stamp. Of course, such a scarcity that tumults 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.160 every day feed that there wasn't enough coin was bad 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.640 for wealthier people like John Evelyn, but again it was 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:28.040 much worse for the poor. Another contemporary observer wrote in 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:32.120 a private letter that the people are discontented to the utmost, 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:37.720 adding that many self murders were happening owing to the want, 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.000 and it was starting to look pretty bleak for the 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.840 government as well. For one thing, the want that drove 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.240 people to kill themselves might just as easily drive them 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.080 to rage and riot. These were and are the conditions 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.320 that lead to revolution, and in fact, at least one 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.000 town saw people arrested for rioting after attack. Collector refused 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.600 to take the old coins, but what else were they 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:08.280 going to pay with? And that's the other thing. When 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.880 the people can't pay rent or taxes, the government's coffers 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.960 start to empty. This government was already in trouble, so 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.960 the sudden lack of revenue made things that much worse. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.160 Soldiers in some parts of the country were being paid 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.800 in provisions because there wasn't enough coin to pay them 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:28.160 in real money. Mutinous grumblings added to the tumult, and 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:34.960 everyone started squinting at the King and Queen suspiciously. If 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.080 Isaac Newton had wanted an easy gig, he had become 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.960 Warden of the Royal Mint at exactly the wrong time 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.000 Act two. Out with the Old in with the Newton. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:06.400 To put it diccinctly, the Mint was a shambles, a 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.119 mess that was threatening to undermine the economy, the new monarchy, 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.800 the country's fragile financial institutions, everything. And when he was 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.920 confronted with this mess, Warden Isaac Newton didn't do what 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.040 Master Neil had done, and he didn't do what every 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.520 other warden had done, which was basically nothing. A Newson 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.560 could have done that. But Newson was not that sort 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:33.520 of puss. That's Dr Patricia Farah, Cambridge historian and Newton expert. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.160 He went in the very energetically and decided he was 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.920 going to overhaul the system and make it work properly. 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.640 And he was a very very dedicated, systematic, organized manager. 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:50.600 Newton rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He was, 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.400 as one biographer later said, a born administrator. Thomas Fowl, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.920 a clerk at the Mint, actually wrote to Newton to 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:00.800 tell him that he was the first wordens since at 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.520 least sixteen seventy two who didn't treat the post as 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.360 a signic cure. If I may be so bold to say, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.359 we shall find you fair to exceed the rest for 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.800 the gooden privileges of the Mint, more than all your predecessors. 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.120 Foul also spent the majority of this letter explaining all 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:23.159 the ways that the previous wardens had disappointed. Sir Anthonys 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.640 and Ledger, then warden of the Mint, came very seldom 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.359 to the place, and did not anything of service more 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.240 than to come and ask how the affairs of the 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.320 Mint were, And that was all, and so went his 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.640 way foul might have been trying to get on Newton's 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.760 good side, certainly, but Charles Montague, the Chancellor of the 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.960 Exchequer who gave Newton the job, later said that the 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:50.239 recoinage couldn't have happened without him. Nietzsan was absolutely meticulous 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.920 in everything that he did. He was a very thorough man. 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.359 It seems that all the energy he put into making 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.800 observations of the stars or holding the dates of ancient 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.840 events that happened thousands of years ago, he turned all 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.880 that energy into making sure that the mint was rung 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:14.240 as efficiently as the microscope had only really just been invented, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.720 but Newton was putting the mints operations under it. Metaphorically speaking. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.720 Newton researched the history of the mint going back two 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.440 hundred years. He went through decades of accounting books, making 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.920 notes in the margins. He was an obsessive copier. He 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.760 could have had his assistance copied down all the meeting notes, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.080 all his letters and correspondence with the Treasury and others, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.679 but he did it himself. Haines, bring the records. I 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.040 want all the receipts and accounting books and the warrants. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.960 This meant that Newton was aware of all the mints business, 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.600 so much so that he knew who was trying to 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.320 get one over on the Mint, as the Treasury already 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.240 paid the cop For example, he told the Treasury not 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:01.800 to pay the carpenters until the quality of their work 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.679 was checked. We are humbly off opinion that the work 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.800 done by the carpenter and the rest of the workman 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.840 ought to be surveyed and valued before their whole bills 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.960 are paid off. Another time, he kept the Mint from 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.560 signing a contract with some metal dealers who had offered 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.680 to take over the recoinage at a very steep markup. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:29.240 These goldsmiths want how much preposterous? From my observations, the 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:31.000 Mint can do for at least a third less than 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.560 these Charlatan's propose. Golden Neil has made a mess of 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.639 this mood that he was spending his wife's money and 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.000 not the Treasury. Is within a month and a half 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.399 on the job, Newton had shouldered useless Neil out of 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.879 the way and was basically doing his job too. We 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.400 are in the business of making money, not spending it needlessly. 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.240 Newton knew that in order for the Mint to meet 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.800 the demands of the Treasury. Some things, a lot of 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.640 things had to change. If you can keep reason above passion, 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:09.920 that and watchfulness will be your best defendants. Newton saw 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.400 that the machines were producing a maximum of fifteen thousand 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:18.800 pounds of coin a week. The treasury wanted thirty pounds 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:24.359 of coin a week. This was a mass problem. Newton 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.160 calculated that he'd need two new smelting furnaces, eight new 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:32.320 rolling mills, and five new coining presses. This sort of 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:37.240 empirical data collection, this was what Newton was really really 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.040 good at. For example, as Thomas Levinson noted in his 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.720 book Newton in the Counterfeiter, Newton realized that a new 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.800 melting pot could hold eight hundred pounds of silver metal, 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.280 but within six weeks that capacity was reduced to just 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.720 six and fifty pounds because the pot actually got smaller 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.000 as the silver codd it. This effected the output and 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.399 the number of coins that could be produced, so Newton 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:02.920 determined that a part was only good for about a 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.760 hundred and twenty meltings. Newton cast his eye around the 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:11.080 workshop looking for more inefficiencies. There is also a waste 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.119 in the milling by the dripping off off the sand 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.760 with some particles of silver, and by some blanks falling 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.560 out of the pan upon the half and shreds of 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.159 silver lost in the dust, or by sticking to the 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:29.760 workman's shoes. Then he turned to the men themselves. One 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.240 of the things that he did was to institute what 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.680 we would call time and motion studies, and he watched 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.720 all the people working, and he insisted that they should 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.320 work far, far faster to make the work more efficient. 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.480 Newton calculated the rate at which mint workers could turn 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:53.680 out coins. Two mills with four millers, twelve horses, two horsekeepers, 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:58.120 three cutters, two flatters, eight sizes, one kneeler, three blanches, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.600 too markers to press his with fourteen laborers to pull 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:06.080 at them, can coin three thousand pounds up money per diam. 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.959 Newton said, the men operating the press needed to produce 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.159 fifty to fifty five coins a minute in order to 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:16.159 make three thou pounds of coin a day. That's almost 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:21.200 a coin every second. That's fast. It is physically demanding. 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.439 And the four gentlemen who are pulling on the on 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.000 the ropes as part of the screw press, and there's 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:28.200 the demands as such that they can only operate in 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:31.080 shifts of fifteen minutes before they're exhausted. So they're doing 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.840 fifteen minutes on they'll swap out. Four more people come 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.560 in fifteen minutes, and so they're constantly swapping in and out. 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.720 This does not make Newton popular with his new staff. Unsurprisingly, 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.399 all the staff disliked him because he made the work 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.080 at a far higher rate, since he got rid of 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:56.720 all the little private practices where people were making money 0:22:56.800 --> 0:22:59.720 on the site. So he was a very very efficient manager. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.800 He was also a ruthless manage I don't think Newton 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:04.720 was particularly well liked at all, if I'm honest. I 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:06.360 mean there are there are accounts of people who get 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:08.199 on with him. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't. He 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:10.919 was not disliked by everybody, but there was also a 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:12.760 lot of people he rubbed up the wrong way. I 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.520 think he's probably one of those individuals where if he 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:18.840 took a disliking to you, that was it. No matter 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:21.320 what you did, no matter what you could do, you've 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:26.280 had it. Newton's efforts and indifference to the opinions of 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:31.000 his staff paid off. Between sixteen ninety six and seventeen hundred, 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:33.960 The value of the silver struck by the Mint was 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.760 more than five point one million pounds. That was about 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.679 two million pounds more than had been made in the 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:46.520 previous thirty five years put together, and more importantly, by 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:50.800 September sixteen ninety six, silver coin was again flowing through 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:54.040 the veins of the country's economy. There were no major riots, 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:58.359 no revolution, and both the King and Queen kept their heads. 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.800 Newton thought he deserved a raise, or at least as 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:06.680 much as Neil was getting, for being master. The salary 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:09.560 of the warden of his Majesty's Mint is only four 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.560 pound per annum, with a house where forty pound per annum, 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.479 and his purposes are only three pound twelve shillings per 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:21.720 annum for call, all which taxes being deducted. Is so 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:24.960 small in respect of the salaries and purposes of the 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.800 other officers of the Mint, as suffices not to support 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:32.480 the authority of his office. It seems that Newton got 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:35.960 that raise, But there was still another problem facing the Mint, 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:39.719 and this one wasn't something Newton could solve through a 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:44.000 time and motion study. This was a problem that would, 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:48.040 at least for a while, consume the majority of Newton's 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:53.840 time as warden bringing clippers and counterfeiters to justice, and 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:56.000 it was a part of Newton's job that he was 0:24:56.280 --> 0:25:02.399 not happy about at all. Nor is there any reward 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:06.239 or encouragement appointing for my service in these matters? Nor 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:09.240 am I provided with any competent assistance to enable me 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:13.960 to grapple with an undertaking soul vac sastious and dangerous? 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:18.840 Is this coming up on Newton's Law? We know by 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:23.359 now that this most vexatious counterfeiter, William Chaloner, is no 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:26.639 run of the mill coiner, So how will his play 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:30.840 for the mint itself turn out? The Mint is either 0:25:31.040 --> 0:25:39.960 incompetent or corrupt or both. Newton's Law is a production 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:42.760 of I Heart Radio. It's written and hosted by Me 0:25:42.960 --> 0:25:47.240 Linda Rodriguez McRobie. Our senior producer is Ryan Murdoch. Our 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:51.840 producer is Emily Marina. Our executive producer is Jason English. 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:56.119 Original music by Alice McCoy with editing help from Mary Do, 0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:00.360 Sound design and mixing by Jeremy Thal, Research in fact 0:26:00.480 --> 0:26:04.560 checking by me and Jocelyn Sears. Voice acting by Keith Fleming, 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:08.560 Mark McDonald and Robert Jack. Special thanks to Chris Barker 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:12.720 and Dr Patricia Farrell. Special thanks to Mangesh Hatikudur and 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:18.600 Fineflex Sound Studios. Our show logo is designed by Lucy Continia. 0:26:18.960 --> 0:26:27.120 Thanks for listening, Bloodio