Charles II returned, by general solicitation, to the English throne in 1660. He had struck and issued coins of the "siege-piece" class after his father's death, and "F. D." (Fidei Defensor,) appears for the first time on the currency; but disappears till George I re-introduced it. Thomas Simon was ordered to prepare dies with the King's effigy. In the same year the unit, current at 22s., was declared to pass for 23s. 6d., and other gold coins in proportion. Soon afterwards the Commonwealth coins were forbidden to be current, and as the Cromwellian issue is not mentioned, Numismatists argue that they could never have been declared current. 1662. Blondeau was again called to the mint, and he undertook to shew his method of working the edges to the men. Simon and a foreigner, John Roetier of Antwerp, whose acquaintance the King had made during his exile, were ordered to make designs. Roetier's were accepted and Simon left the mint, whether chagrined at having his designs supplanted by a foreigner's or removed by order does not appear. 1663. Gold was brought from Guinea by the African Company, and, being sent to the Tower, was issued in pieces value twenty shillings and denominated "guineas." These coins bear an elephant under the profile, to mark that they were made of the above gold. This year Simon produced his celebrated petition crown, one of which, at a sale about two years ago, brought £260. It is considered a master-piece of engraving, and on the edge has the following petition : "Thomas Simon most humbly prays your Majesty to com"pare this his tryal piece with the Dutch, and if more truly "drawn and embossed, more gracefully ordered, and more "accurately engraved, to relieve him." This was rejected; and only three specimens of the crown are known now to exist. (Plate I, fig. 3.) The second issue of his Majesty's coinage appeared in this year. Now for the first time the armorial emblems appear in four different shields on the reverse, with the star of the order of the garter in the middle-which style was maintained till the new general issue in 1817; and again repeated in the Victoria Gothic crown and florin. The bust was, like Cromwell's, laureated and draped, and, as before mentioned, looking to the left, the reverse to the Protector's and Charles's own first issue. 1665. Patterns of the copper farthing were struck, and in 1672 they were current: from this year we may date the copper currency. James II succeeded his brother in 1685, and his coinage was the same as his predecessor's; but his laureated profile looks the reverse way-to the right. 1688. He abdicated, and we soon afterwards find him issuing, in Ireland, the peculiar currency styled "Gun-money." This issue is as curious and interesting as the "Siege-pieces." At first when he invaded Ireland, he took with him French coins, declaring at what value they should be current. He afterwards established mints at Dublin and Limerick. Kitchens were ransacked, guns, brass and copper, were melted down, and all issued as money; white and Prince's metal were also used. Crowns and half-crowns as well as the smaller coins were struck and current, and when James found his funds decreasing he called in his half-crowns, passed them through the press and they came out crowns. These interesting "proofs "of making money" have the half-crown impressions more or less distinctly to be traced amidst the impression of the larger value. Some idea of James's work may be gathered from the fact that £6,500 worth of these metals were struck and issued to represent nearly £2,200,000, but these figures do not include the sum involved in the calling in of the half-crowns and re-issuing of the same, as above mentioned, as crown pieces. William III and Mary II were declared King and Queen on the abdication of James II in 1688. The coins were ordered to be struck of the same value and denomination as those of their predecessor. Clipping had become so bad, notwithstanding the severity of the laws against offenders, that, after numerous discussions, resolutions and petitions, the King mentioned the grievance in his speech at the opening of Parliament in 1689, it having been previously estimated that it would require one million sterling to make up the difference between the intrinsic and current values of the clipped money. Objections were raised against going into the currency question, as the country was then engaged in a foreign war.* The guinea, which had already risen from 20s. to 23s. 6d., now rose to 30s. But Parliament, finding that this state of things interfered with the currency, causing gold to rise in the market and the exportation of good silver to buy foreign gold, exercised its power, and in 1696 declared the guinea to pass current first for 28s. and afterwards 26s. The bad state of the coinage was now bringing the cur rency to a definite point. In December, 1696, hammered money, that is, all money coined before Cromwell's time (when the mill and screw were first used) was declared to be unlawful, and to be received in taxes by weight, at the rate of 5s. 8d. per ounce, and taken to the nearest mint (of which there were several established for the quicker re-coining) before being taken into the Exchequer. 1699. When the new silver coinage, amounting to nearly £6,900,000, which it had occupied nearly three years to produce, was issued, it was calculated that the operation • War with France. involved a loss to the country of over £2,700,000, caused by taking in clipped and worn money by tale and re-coining it to weight. The mint charges were not quite £180,000. We may from this year date the disappearance of hammered coins. During the joint reign of William and Mary their profiles both appear on the coinage, and the legend is "Gul. et Maria" &c. Upon Mary's death her portrait disappears, and the legend is "Gulielmus III" or Tertius." The mints established for the greater rapidity of coining the new issue were at Bristol, Chester, Exeter, Norwich and York, and the money struck at these respective towns bear the initial letter; besides these mint marks, the "Elephant "and Castle" was issued on those coined of the African Co.'s metal, the "Rose" on the silver from the English mines, the "Plumes" on that from the Welsh. Queen Anne succeeded to the throne on the death of William III in 1702. Though the late Sovereign's coins were good, they appear meagre when compared with the elegant dies of this Queen. The impression seems as if it is meant to stand the wear and friction of the currency, and is considered by some as the point to divide the history of the coinage into two parts, though the authorities who favour this opinion admit that the impressions do not excel Simon's on the Protector's issue. The authorities then in power and others, among whom was Dean Swift, appear to have wished to make the coinage something more than mere pieces of metal of a money value. The question was raised whether they could not also be monuments or medals for recording great events. Accordingly, in 1702, war being declared against France and Spain, and the town of Vigo in the latter country having been taken, some of the silver and gold found among the spoil, which, on being brought to this country, was coined, bears "Vigo" on the obverse under the fall of the |