Note 321 — Chapter XIX · Boulton’s Application of the Steam-engine to Coining.

To Lord Hawkesbury he wrote (14th April, 1789),—“In the course of my journeys I observe that I receive upon an average two-thirds counterfeit halfpence for change at toll-gates, &c.; and I believe the evil is daily increasing, as the spurious money is carried into circulation by the lowest class of manufacturers, who pay with it the principal part of the wages of the poor people they employ. They purchase from the subterraneous coiners 36 shillings’-worth of copper (in nominal value) for 20 shillings, so that the profit derived from the cheating is very large. The trade is carried on to so great an extent that at a public meeting at Stockport in Cheshire, in January last, the magistrates and inhabitants came to a resolution to take no other halfpence in future than those of the Anglesey Company [also an illegal coinage, though of full weight and value of copper], and this resolution they have published in their newspapers.”