Letter 0924

Thoresby discusses books on runic inscriptions and ‘an account of a curiosity that relates to the late King James’s Irish money, wch I am apt to think you never heard of’. The account was sent to him by Thomas Pusland, who found them in the treasury at Dublin. It reads: ‘That King James, having turned all the brass Guns of Ireland, & all the brass & coper vessels of Protestants yt he could seize into Coyne, vizt half Crowns somewhat bigger than an English halfpenny; shillings broader but not so thick as a farthing, & 6ds in proportion, it was ordered to passe currancy in all patmys, even in Bonds & discharge of Judgement & Statutes (in so much yt if ages to come knew not the reason, they would armire to be told that there was a time that men absconded to avoid receiving their debts, as many here did) but these Works of Metall being al spent (wch he begins to coyne in June 1689) and in circulation to bring them back into his Treasure, he cald in all that he had coyned, & the half crowns wch before were stamped with a face were restamped with his effigies on horsback, and then paid out to those who brought them in, as Crowns, and the smaller coyns were melted down & recomed under the same denominations, but with lesse metall, after the time was served by this strategm, he had not wherewithall to import Copper & brass, but for want of it fell foul on the Pewter dishes &c… and the peice I sent you of yt mettall was coyned for five shillings, & the proclamation to make it passable was as ready as the stamps, for it was prepared, but King William passing the Boyne prevented their proclaiming it, there was very little of it coyned, for our Government could meet with none of it, untill one day romaging all their tinkerley treasure that they left behind them in Dublin, when they were routed; by accident I met with one bagg of 150 of those peices, so yt the peice I sent you, altho its of no intrinsick value, its a rarity, and had I thot it would have been acceptable, I would have sent you a specimen of every sort yt he coyned & recoyned here” (from Thomas Pusland, 27 Nov. 1696)’. Thoresby was an antiquary and topographer. He expanded his fathers Musaeum Thoresbyanum impressively, and his collection brought him into discussion with many important political and scholarly figures (P. E. Kell, Thoresby, Ralph (16581725), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27334, accessed 27 June 2013]).