having not one proper to wear with the coats
you have sent me, they being so valuable, and
fit me so well, it would be a pity to break them
for that. I have nothing to add but an expression
of the sincerest and most prevailing concern
for your real happiness, and am, dear Sir, what
I shall always be proud to call myself, and my
wife and boys with me, your highly benefited
and greatly obliged and humble Servants,

      JOHN & MARY, THOMAS & JOHN BUTT.

P.S. The hand, spelling, and composing, am
sensible, is wretched, time being short, matter
great, tackle bad, and obliged to write in haste.

As I have had my hair cut off, and at a loss
for a cap, if you have one to dispose of, either
silk or velvet, shall be very glad of it.

      TRADERS' MARKS AND TOKENS.

BRASS and copper coins were struck by the
Roman occupiers of Britain; and the Saxons
were afterwards busy makers of silver and
copper coins. The chief of these coins was
the penny, which fulfilled the principal duties
of a circulating medium far into the Anglo-
Norman period. Debased by needy and
fraudulent monarchs, and clipped by dishonest
traders, the coins were nevertheless national;
they were issued by the state, and no others
had the characteristics of legal tender. There
were frequent petitions presented by the
traders to the Commons, and addresses by the
Commons to the Crown, complaining of the
scarcity in copper coins of small value. It was
this scarcity that partly led, in later generations,
to the striking of pledges or tokens by
traders and tavern-keepers. In the fifteenth
century it was announced by the Commons to
the Crown that many blanks were in circulation,
sham silver coins of very little value; and the
House prayed for a remedy for this evil. A cry
for more halfpence and farthings again and again
arose. The poor traders, as the Commons said, if
they wanted to buy small quantities of commodities,
were forced to bisect "our sovereigne lordes
coigne, that is to wete, a peny in two peces, or
elles forego all the same peny, for the paiement
of an halfpeny; and also the pouere common
retaillours of vitailles, and of other nedeful
thyngs, for defaulte of such coigne of
halfpenyes and farthings, oftentymes mowe not sell
their seid vitailles and thyngs." Such matters
were more important in those days than at
present; for farthings, and even half-farthings,
played an active part in moneys of account.
A half-farthing appears as an item in the annual
rental of an estate held in Kent.

By slow degrees, this scarcity of small coin
led to the private making of tokens as representative
money. Traders, without any intention to
deceive, agreed to exchange small pieces of cheap
metal as the purchase-money for small quantities
of commodities; it was in itself quite a fair
commercial system of barter, provided the
issuers were always willing to take back the
small pieces of metal at the same value. Leaden
tokens of such kind became prevalent in London
during the reign of Henry the Eighth; and their
increase in number was considerable during the
next three reigns. Elizabeth had the credit of
restoring the purity of the much debased silver
coinage; but small coins were still too few.
As payments in these tokens could only be made
at the shops of the issuers, there were many
disadvantages to the poor buyers. The queen*
for a short time permitted the striking of
copper farthings and half-farthings by private
persons; but this permission was soon
withdrawn, as encroaching too nearly on the royal
prerogative; and the small dealers were placed in
the same difficulties as before. From time to time
the municipal authorities of various towns were,
by order in council, permitted to coin copper
pledges of small value. James the First
descended to the unworthy expedient of giving (or
selling) to one of his courtiers a patent for
issuing royal farthing tokens, the weight of
which was such as to yield a large profit to the
patentee, and the circulation of which was
rendered compulsory by order in council.
Charles the First imitated this scandalous
proceeding, giving some such patent to one of his
favourites. These debased farthings, really
tokens, were minted at a house in Lothbury,
close to a court ever since known as
Tokenhouse-yard. These unfair proceedings were not
without influence in increasing the bitter feeling
towards the ill-starred monarch. After his death,
the issue of tradesmen's tokens spread rapidly
and decidedly, each tradesman following his
own taste in the matter. Copper, brass, lead,
tin, latten, and even leather were employed;
and at different periods the designations turneys,
black-mail, dotkins, crockards, &c., were given
to the tokens. Evelyn speaks of "the tokens
which every tavern and tippling-house, in the
days of late anarchy among us, presumed to
stamp and utter for immediate exchange, as
they were passable through the neighbourhood,
which, though seldom reaching further than the
next street or two, may happily, in after times,
come to exercise and busie the learned critic
what they should signifie." During the
Protectorate, and after the Restoration, petitions
were frequently sent in to the Government,
praying for the issue of legal farthings; on
account of the losses which the public suffered
by reason of the tokens being of no value
except at the shops of the issuers—some of the
tokens not being intrinsically worth one-tenth of
their nominal value. Indeed, there is no doubt
that, as the patentee reaped an unfair profit
out of the patent farthings, so did the traders
out of their tokens. At length real honest

* Mr. Burn quotes a passage from an old writer,
illustrative of the superstitions even of Elizabeth's
reign. Germans brought over to melt down the
debased silver coin, complained of sickly odours, "and
were advised to drink out of a dead man's skull; a
warrant was thereupon issued for applying to this
purpose some of the trunkless heads on London
Bridge."