"Till the reign of Charles the Second our coin had been struck by a
process as old as the thirteenth century. Edward the First had invited
hither skilful artists from Florence, which, in his time, was to
London what London, in the time of William the Third, was to Moscow.
During many generations, the instruments which were then introduced
into our mint continued to be employed with little alteration. The
metal was divided with shears, and afterwards shaped and stamped by
the hammer. In these operations much was left to the hand and eye of
the workman. It necessarily happened that some pieces contained a
little more and some a little less than the just quantity of silver;
few pieces were exactly round; and the rims were not marked. It was
therefore in the course of years discovered that to clip the coin was
one of the easiest and most profitable kinds of fraud.
In the reign of Elizabeth it had been thought necessary to enact that
the clipper should be, as the coiner had long been, liable to the
penalties of high treason. The practice of paring down money, however,
was far too lucrative to be so checked; and, about the time of the
Restoration, people began to observe that a large proportion of the
crowns, halfcrowns and shillings which were passing from hand to hand
had undergone some slight mutilation.
[...]
A writer of that age mentions the case of a merchant who, in a sum of
thirty-five pounds, received only a single halfcrown in milled
silver.
Meanwhile the shears of the clippers were constantly at work. The
comers too multiplied and prospered; for the worse the current money
became the more easily it was imitated. During more than thirty years
this evil had gone on increasing. At first it had been disregarded;
but it had at length become an insupportable curse to the country.
It was to no purpose that the rigorous laws against coining and
clipping were rigorously executed. At every session that was held at
the Old Bailey terrible examples were made. Hurdles, with four, five,
six wretches convicted of counterfeiting or mutilating the money of
the realm, were dragged month after month up Holborn Hill. On one
morning seven men were hanged and a woman burned for clipping; But all
was vain.
The gains were such as to lawless spirits seemed more than
proportioned to the risks. Some clippers were said to have made great
fortunes. One in particular offered six thousand pounds for a
pardon. His bribe was indeed rejected; but the fame of his riches did
much to counteract the effect which the spectacle of his death was
designed to produce.
[...]
The evil proceeded with constantly accelerating velocity. [...] The
officers of the Exchequer weighed fifty-seven thousand two hundred
pounds of hammered money which had recently been paid in. The weight
ought to have been above two hundred and twenty thousand ounces. It
proved to be under one hundred and fourteen thousand ounces.
[...]
There were, indeed, some northern districts into which the clipped
money had only begun to find its way. An honest Quaker, who lived in
one of these districts, recorded, in some notes which are still
extant, the amazement with which, when he travelled southward,
shopkeepers and innkeepers stared at the broad and heavy halfcrowns
with which he paid his way. They asked whence he came, and where such
money was to be found."