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money, which was stamped with the value of silver, and made 
to pass for it. There was also plug-money which was made of 
a metal resembling tin, into which a plug of copper was inserted 
to show that the coin was meant to pass for copper. 
William III and Mary, their coins bear the heads of the 
King and Queen in profile, the faces both looking the same 
way; after the death of Mary, the head of the King alone 
appears on the coins. 
Queen Anne, in her reign there were 6 different coinages 
of Farthings, some of which are now very rare. There were 
also some small medals or counters struck, which are of very 
beautiful workmanship, and are sometimes mistaken for 
Farthings. 
George I, during his reign, in 1723, one William Wood, 
an Iron-Master of Bristol, procured a patent through the 
Duchess of Kendal, to coin £108,000 worth of half-pence for 
Treland. 
Sir Isaac Newton, the Master of the Mint assayed these 
coins, and proved them to be of good metal; but in 1724 
appeared the Drapier’s Letters, in which Dean Swift declared 
the half-pence to be of base metal, and set the Irish against the 
coins to such a degree that they refused to use them; and so 
they were withdrawn, and Wood was indemnified for his loss by 
a pension of £3,000 a year. 
There is nothing else very remarkable among English coins, 
till we come to those of George IV, in whose reign they reached 
the climax of perfection. Previous to 1826 they were designed 
by Pistrucci, after 1826 by Wyon. The King of English coins 
is the Crown of George 4th, by Pistrucci, bearing his glorious 
design of St. George and the Dragon. 
