Traders' tokens fonned an illegal " money of necessity," and were issued in England, Wales, and Ireland in the seventeenth century.
They were the small change of the period,. and were extremely useful to the people who issued and used them. They would never have been issued but for the indifference of a Government to a public need, and their issue forms a remarkable instance of a people
supplying their own needs by an illegal issue of coinage, and in this way forcing a legislature to comply with demands and requests at once just and imperative.

Tokens are essentially democratic ; they were issued by the people, and it is of the people that they speak. They record, with
few exceptions, the names of no monarchs; they speak of no wars or events of great Parliamentary importance ; they were not issued by Governments or Cabinets, nor by Peers or Members of Parliament, but by the unknown and small traders of well-nigh every village and town in the country, and by officials such as Mayors, Portreeves, hamberlains, Overseers, and Churchwardens in boroughs, villages, and districts, as well as in larger towns, parishes, and hundreds. The reason of their issue was to supply a public need, and when that need had been recognised by the Government and steps taken to supply it, the issue of tokens ceased, and they passed from the exchange of the shop and the market into the cabinets of the numismatist. The issue commenced in 1648 and only extended to 1679, so that the entire series forms one very short chapter of thirty years in the history of that most troublous of times in our country's history, that immediately following the execution of King Charles I. The want of small change had, however, been seriously felt in England for a long time preceding their issue. It had been considered beneath the dignity of the sovereign to issue coins of any metal baser than silver, and owing to the increased value of silver the unit of currency had become more and more minute in size and consequently inconvenient for use. The counters struck at Niimberg became current for reckoning in England about 1328, but were forbidden currency by statute in 1335. In 1404 the first mention of tokens that is known occurred in a petition from the Commons to the King to make some remedy in the mischief among poor people occasioned by the want of small coinage and by their use of foreign money and tokens of lead. These lead tokens were issued in great abundance ; they are referred to by Erasmus as of common currency, but it is very seldom they bear the name of either issuer or place of issue. Elizabeth issued patterns for a regal coinage in copper, but the matter went no further, and no current coins appear ever to have been issued by the Queen in the baser metals. Her Majesty, however, did grant permission to the city of Bristol to strike tokens to be current in that city and ten miles around. The date of the license is not exactly known, but it must have been towards the close of the sixteenth century, for on May 12, 1594, the Mayor and Aldermen were required to call in all the private tokens (presumably of lead) that had been issued without authority, and it was ordered that none that had been issued without license from the Mayor should be current in the city. These Elizabethan tokens bear on the obverse C.B. (Ci vitas Bristol), and on the reverse the city arms, and are very rude in their execution. The license appears to have continued to apply to that city, as in the seventeenth century but one private person in Bristol issued his token ; the city continuing to issue tokens year by year of similar character and style and with similar device to those issued by license of the Queen.

A copper coinage was contemplated by the Commonwealth Government, and patterns were struck both in copper and pewter, but no authorized issue of them ever took place, and beyond the royal tokens, known as Harringtons, and referred to later on, no attempt was made to supply the great national want of the period. Extracts from the State papers of the time show us that the subject was often considered in the Councils of State, as, for instance :

1649, May 30. — Council of State. The business of farthing tokens is to be considered to-morrow.

1650, Aug, 9. — A decision arrived at. Farthings ought to be issued. They should be struck by the Mint and be of full value.

1651, Aug. 10. — A lengthy report was presented to the Council of State by Thomas Voilet, from which it may suffice here to make a few extracts. The report commences by stating that money is the public means to set a price upon all things between man and man, and experience hath sufficiently proved in all ages that small money is so needful to the poorer sort that all nations have endeavoured to have it It continues to recommend small pieces as ministering of frugality, whereupon men can have a farthing's worth and are not constrained to buy more of anything than they stand in need of, their feeding being from hand to mouth ; it recommends it on the ground of charity, saying that many are deprived of alms for want of farthings and half-farthings, for many would give a farthing who are not disposed to give a penny or twopence, or to lose time in staying to change money whereby they may contract a noisome smell or the disease of the poor.

It then refers to the imperial money of Rome constantly being ploughed up in men's grounds, arid to the copper money of the Con-
tinent, especially Sweden, and goes into some elaborate details of great interest as to the profit to be derived by the Government from making such farthings of tin and copper, and as to the appointment of special treasurers and officers to see to this new issue.

In 1652 a further discussion as to the engines for minting metal took place, and then constant references* occur as to the issue of
tradesmen's tokens and corporation pieces, complaints against the issues and proposals to stop the issue ; but nothing was finally done until 1672, when a Royal proclamation was issuedt for making current his Majesty's farthings and halfpence of copper, and forbidding of all others to be used. This proclamation was universally obeyed throughout England, Scotland, and Wales, except (as far as can be found out) in the city of Chester, which continued to issue its tokens until 1674.