249 



lay dead very great sums of hammered money uncoined, by the 

 negligence of the officers of those mints, and that in these two 

 mints there were far greater deficiencies than in any of the other 

 mints, viz. in that at York by above £2800, and in that of 

 Norwich by above £500. The committee observe that the 

 same men have two offices in the same mint, and some of such 

 offices are or should be checks on the other, as melter and 

 comptroller, as in the York mint, by which the committee was 

 informed that the king lost in the melting down of the clipped 

 and hammered money 2040 lbs. in weight in the standardizing. 



In Mr. Haynes's pamphlet the mismanagement of the coun- 

 try mints is adverted to, and he mentions that in the case of 

 Mr. Barton, the deputy comptroller of the York mint, against 

 whom information was given of some abuses committed by him, 

 the matter was heard by the House on the 4th of March, [1696,] 

 and he had the good luck to have the accusation against him 

 declared groundless. He ascribes the origin of these abuses to 

 the circumstance of persons having been, upon the recommenda- 

 tion of great men, appointed to offices for which they were 

 utterly unqualified. Some who were appointed, having upon 

 being examined discovered their ignorance, had the honesty to 

 confess their incompetence and withdraw. " Well had it been 

 for the king," the writer adds, " if some who happened to be 

 employed had used the like ingenuity. Then we had not been 

 pestered with intricate and confused accounts, and the Redheads 

 and the Bartons had been potters and pewterers to this day."^ 



This " is the last mint which has been erected in the city of 

 York."* 



The York Archiepiscopal Mint. 



We possess no earlier evidence of the exercise of the privilege 



of coining by the Archbishops of York, than that which is 



afforded by the Sceatta of base silver attributed to Eadberht, 



who was king of Northumbria from the year 737 to the year 



758. The reverse^ of this coin displays a figure holding two 



» Haynes" MS. p. 182. ' Eboractim, Appendix p. cviii. 



' Hawkins, p. 38, pi. 8, No. 102. 



