10 - The Mint

Summary

CRISES RACKED THE INSTITUTION to which Newton moved in the spring of 1696. Indeed, the Mint was an institution within an institution within an institution, all three of which faced crises. The recoinage engaged every pinch of energy at the Mint. The Treasury, of which the Mint was a relatively minor department, devoted equal energy to devising temporary expedients and new machinery to cope with overwhelming financial needs caused by war with France. The English state and the revolutionary settlement it embodied balanced precariously on the outcome of the Treasury's efforts. In 1696, it was not clear that the financial demands of the war would be met. If they were not, if national bankruptcy ensued, the revolutionary settlement would undoubtedly collapse before a second Stuart restoration. In the larger crises of the government and its finances Newton was not involved beyond his concern as an Englishman committed to the revolution.

The narrower monetary crisis, which bedeviled the financial crisis by reaching a climax when it could least be tolerated, occupied him almost completely for more than two years. As the debasement of silver coinage reached disastrous proportions, the government under the leadership of Newton's friend Charles Montague, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, began to consider a recoinage as the only effective remedy.