Sir Isaac Newton. 351 



For a long series of years the elucidator of the law of 

 gravitation held high office in the Royal Mint of Great Britain, 

 and it is matter of tradition that the establishment in question 

 never had a more assiduous or energetic officer. He was 

 appointed Warden of the money manufactory then existing 

 within the Tower of London, in the year 1695, and in the 

 reign of King William III. This happened to be a remarkable 

 period in the annals of that establishment, for the whole of the 

 monies current in England were then called in and re-coined. 

 In order to defray the expense of the operations, and to cover 

 the loss arising from an immense quantity of counterfeit coin 

 being at the same time taken out of circulation, the device of 

 a window-tax was first employed in this country. Mr. 

 Newton was so successful in his conduct of the important task 

 of remodelling the coinage, that the work was completely 

 effected in the course of four years, and it was admitted that 

 he had, by the introduction of improved mechanical appliances, 

 and of other economical arrangements, saved the country, 

 during that period, no less a sum than £80,000. 



His services were duly recognized by the government, and 

 in 1699 Mr. Isaac Newton was gazetted as Master and Worker 

 of the Royal Mint. In the post of Warden his salary and fees 

 amounted to £600 per annum, but as Master they were aug- 

 mented to about £1,500. From this period forward to the 

 year 1727, when his death took place, Newton continued to 

 fulfil the duties of this latter office. Those duties were com- 

 plicated to a very considerable extent by the existence of- a 

 body of men within the mint, known as the Corporation of 

 Moneyers, and who assumed to themselves, and actually 

 exercised the power, of controlling the executive department 

 of the Mint, independently of the Master. This kind of im- 

 jperium in imperio, as may be imagined, gave great trouble to 

 the supreme governing authority of the establishment. It 

 constituted a state within a state, and it made laws which 

 frequently clashed with those framed by the Master. The 

 Moneyers claimed to be descendants of the oldest officers on 

 record in the Mint, namely, those of Ethelbert, first King of 

 Kent, and who flourished a.d. 561. They stated that the first 

 coin on which the name of a Moneyer appeared was that 

 known as the sceatta of Egbert. They traced their pedigree, 

 or their succession, through the Moneyers of the kings of the 

 West Saxons, those of the monarchs of the East Angles, of 

 the kingdom of Mercia, and so on, to the time of William the 

 Conqueror. It was asserted by them that their progenitors 

 were the sole persons mentioned as connected with the Mint, 

 either in the Doomsday-book, or in any of the laws of the 

 Anglo-Saxons. Further, they adduced evidence that the 



