Mahafi-y — The Post- Assaying on Dated Plate in T. CD. 11 



only £21 next quarter. This is the only effect I can find noted in the 

 records. 



There were in December, 1739, complaints that it was ineffectual, and a 

 messenger sent from the House of Commons to the Goldsmiths' Corporation 

 to ask what could be done. The adoption of a clause in 12 George II 

 (England) is suggested by the committee appointed in August, 1741 (p. 147), 

 Hence there was an agitation going on in the House of Commons 

 during 1739-41 on the reform or tightening of the law of 1730. 



In 23 George II, cap. v (1749), it is enacted that, as the Act of 1730 

 is about to run out, the same law and its duties are imposed for twenty-one 

 years more. 



But in 25 George II (1751), caps, xx and xxi, we hear a very different 

 story. The preamble is most instructive. " And whereas silver plate is 

 often sold without being assayed, touched, and marked, the buyers, to avoid 

 the payment of the duties imposed by the said Acts, relying on the credit 

 of the silversmith, that the same is conformable to the standard therein 

 mentioned, by means whereof great frauds have been committed by the 

 workers and sellers of plate, and the duties imposed thereon diminished : 

 for remedy whereof, and the better to secure the payment of the duties 

 imposed by the said Act, it is further enacted that from and after May 1, 

 1752, no person shall buy, take, or receive by ivay of purchase, barter, or 

 exchange any wrought or manufactured gold or silver plate, or manu- 

 facture of gold or silver, of or from any goldsmith, silversmith, or any 

 other person whatever working or trading in wrought or manufactured 

 gold or silver (unless under four pennyweight), not being assayed, 

 touched, and marked by the assay-master as prescribed in the Act of 

 George II, third year, at the time such gold or silver plate shall be delivered 

 to the buyer, upon pain of forfeiting the value thereof, to be sued for and 

 recovered in the manner prescribed for sellers of such plate in the former 

 Act, which said penalty, hereby laid upon the buyer, as well as the penalty 

 laid upon the seller by the former Act (George II, 3) sludl be to tin- sole 

 use and benefit of the informer!' And, subsecpuently (caps, x and xxii sub 

 Jin.), " and also the person who, for the time being, shall be empowered to 

 assay wrought and manufactured gold and silver according to 3 George II, 

 shall once a year, or oftener, if recpiired by the said corporation" (of gold- 

 smiths) " lay before them a true account of all such plate, and the number 

 of ounces thereof, as shall have been assayed by him within the interval, 

 together with the names of the owners or proprietors of such plate, or of the 

 persons who brought or sent such plate to be assayed, and the day.- and 

 times of the stamping thereof, and the duty received for the same." 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV., SECT. 0. [6 | 



