1893.] E. Thurston — History of the East India Company Coinage. 77 
A draft proclamation was submitted by the Committee, announcing 
the alteration of the mint standard, the sanction of which by the 
Supreme Government is not recorded in the Records. 
1825. In 1825 various suggestions for a change of impression on 
General currency were made, and the following 
extract is from an able report by Lieutenant 
Forbes, who was superintending the construction of the new Calcutta 
mint, and who, before proceeding to England in 1820, had been in- 
structed by the Bengal Government to bi’ing the subject of the device 
for the coin to the notice of the Court of Directors. 
“ It is observed,” Lieutenant Foi’bes wrote, “ that the impression 
chosen by the king of Oudh for his new currency shows that in 
reality no prejudice exists against the repi-esentation of animals 
on coins. The common practice of putting Coats-of-Arms on coins 
having led to the adoption of those of the Hon. Company as a device 
for some of their copper coins executed in England, the propriety 
of employing them on the money to be struck for the genei’al cir- 
culation of India came first to be considered. From the minuteness 
of the scale to which they must be reduced on a coin, it was found that 
the Royal Arms situated in the upper left quarter of the Company’s 
shield became undecipherable, and that, as its plain was otherwise 
blank, the total effect of the piece was feeble and unmeaning. With 
the intention of enriching the design, two large lions (the supporters), 
and a little one (the crest), were introduced. The portion of sui’face oc- 
cupied by such a number of animals in the rampant and strange attitudes 
adopted in heraldry, now left so little space for the shield that the 
Royal Arms, diminished to a peg, became utterly undistinguishable. 
The unanimous opinion of ai’tists that such a device would appear 
inelegant and bai’barous was strikingly confirmed by the specimens 
produced on the money executed at Soho for transmission to Penang 
and the islands to the eastward. Although some of the dies were 
engraved by artists of considerable talent, no effort of skill or ingenuity 
could prevent the little odd lion of the crest from being mistaken for a 
monkey, nor obviate the misapprehension of common observers in con- 
ceiving the figures used as supporters to be ill-designed cats. A praise- 
worthy attempt to correct such serious defects by the introduction of 
lions modelled from life brought the question of the Arms to its final 
issue. It then appeared that the animals with which heraldry is con- 
versant under the denomination of lions ai’e not “ real lions,” and that 
coi’rect similitudes of the animal himself, placed in the splay-footed 
position, required as supporters, had a ludici’ous effect. 
“ I was induced to propose the simple emblem of the Company, a 
