DORSET SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TOKENS. 47 



" The corporation farthings was returned in to the value of 



2 18s., and placed in the council house." 



This, no doubt, was the result of the Royal proclamation issued in 

 1672, whereby the further circulation of these tokens was put 

 an end to as before mentioned. 



The order for the Dorchester town-piece appears 

 DORCHESTER, in the following entry in the minutes contained 



in the municipal archives of the Borough : 

 "J. Seward maio Feb: ye 5, 1668" (old style) [and seven 

 others]. " It is ordered and desired yt Mr. Jasper Sam way es 

 " one of this Company doe speedily procuer Twenty pounds 

 "in copper farthings for ye beniffet of ye pore of this 

 "Borough, and that ye Towne armes be engraven on one 

 " side, and HD on ye other syde, and on ye side where ye 

 "Towne Armes are to be ingraven, Round ye armes of 

 "Dorchester, and on ye other side where HD be, Dor- 

 " Chester Farthing, and under HD ye date of ye Lord." 

 The initials H. D. may be intended, as Boyne observes, for 

 Alexander Haviland, who was Mayor of Ztorchester in 1669 when 

 the token was issued, as no one with such initials appears in the 

 municipal minutes at that time, but it is not a satisfactory con- 

 clusion to be obliged to come to, and I should feel grateful if any 

 better one can be suggested. 



We now come to Lyme Regis. From Roberts's 

 LYME REGIS. Social History of the Southern Counties (pp. 

 203-204) where are given engravings of the 

 three tokens belonging to Lyme Regis we learn that "the Cor- 

 poration of Lyme ordered a barrel of Town ffarthings in 1669, 

 "fourteen years after Amy ell Hart had issued his token, and a 

 "second barrel six months after. Both barrels of farthings cost 

 ".45 8s. 3d. A profit of .8 is acknowledged to have been 

 "realized, or 17 J per cent., in the Mayor's accounts." 



And Mr. Roberts goes on to say, quoting from Sydenham's 

 History of Poole, that the corporation of Poole "exceeded this 

 " rate of profit. They laid out IQl. and realized just cent, per cent." 



