CURIOSITIES OF AMERICAN COINAGE. 599 



The Privy Council offered a reward of £300 for the discovery of the 

 author of the Drapier's Letters." 



The king then ordered the proposed issue to be reduced to 

 £40,000, but this did not assuage the excitement in the least, and it 

 finally became necessary, in order to restore peace, to buy back the 

 royal license from Mr. Wood, by the payment to him of a pension of 

 £3,000 a year for fourteen years. 



This failure did not, apparently, kill the project for coining 

 money for the American colonies, and the many pieces actually 

 struck for that purpose are creditable specimens of the art at that 

 period. On the obverse appears the head of the king and on the 

 reverse a full-blown rose, with the legend " Kosa Americana," and 

 the date " 1722." On the later issues the head of George II appears, 

 and the date 1733. 



There is preserved in the Massachusetts archives a letter of in- 

 structions, dated October 29, 1725, from the Duke of ISTew Castle 

 to the Governor of Massachusetts, saying: 



" Sir, His Majesty having been pleased to graiint to Mr. Wood his letters 

 patent for the coining of two pence and half pence pieces of the value of 

 money of Great Britain for His Majesty's dominions in America, which 

 said coin is to receive such additional value as shall be reasonable and 

 agreeable according to the customary allowance of exchange in the several 

 parts of His Majesty's dominions, as you will see more at large by the 

 patent which will be laid before you by the person that delivers this letter 

 to you, I am to signify to yovi His Majesty's pleasure that in pursuance of 

 a clause in said patent by which all His Majesty's officers are to be aiding 

 and assisting Mr. Wood in the due execution of what is therein directed 

 and in the legal exercise of the several powers and enjoyment of the privi- 

 leges and advantages thereby graunted to liim, you are to give him all due 

 encouragement and assistance, and that you and all such other of His 

 Majesty's officers there, whom it may concern, do i-eadily perform ail legal 

 acts that may be requisite for that purpose. This I am particularly to rec- 

 ommend to your care, and to desire your protection to Mr. Wood and to 

 those whom he shall employ to transact this affair in the Provinces under 

 your government. I am Sir, Yr Most Humble Servant, 



"New Castle."' 



If we may rely upon the statement of an English wi'iter of the 

 day, Mr. Wood's coin did not meet with a very cordial reception in 

 America, for the pamphlet says : 



" Wood obtained a patent for coining small money for the English 

 plantations in America, in which he had the conscience to make thirteen 

 shillings out of one pound of brass; this money they rejected in a manner 

 not so decent as that of Ireland.'' 



In the year 1830 Mr. Templeton Reid, of Georgia, established a 

 private mint, at which he coined $10, $5, and $2.50 gold pieces; 



