1694. On Wensday the 12th instant 18 persons were executed at Tyburn; 7 men, and 1 woman burnt for clipping and coyning [this does not mean that the men were burnt, but the woman only], 8 highway men, and 2 for burglary (Luttrell, iii. 413).
1695. January 10. Several persons have malitiously spread abroad that Tyburn was hung in mourning, but upon examination it proves a mistake (Luttrell, iii. 424).
The Queen had died on December 28.
1695. At the Old Bailey Sessions:—
July 6. Mr. Moor, the rich tripeman of Westminster, was found guilty of clipping and coyning; and some others will be tried for the like offence (Luttrell, iii. 495).
July 13. Yesterday four men were executed at Tyburn, three of them for clipping, one of which was John Moore, the tripeman, said to have gott a good estate by clipping, and to have offered 6000 l. for his pardon (Luttrell, iii. 497).
July 16. Moor the tripeman being hang’d for clipping, the duke of Somerset has seized upon his house, worth 1000 l., being within his mannor of Isleworth.
This day a rich chandler of Lambeth and a housekeeper in Long Acre were seized for clipping (Luttrell, iii. 499).
1695. About this time Luttrell tells of the arrests of “nests” of coiners, among them an attorney in the Temple, and a merchant in Birchin Lane; at one time 105 coiners and clippers lay in Newgate awaiting trial. The condition of the coinage became a great question of State so pressing that after six Proclamations on the subject an Act 7 and 8 William III c. 1 (1695-6) was passed “An Act for remedying the Ill State of the Coin of the Kingdome.” The Act recites that “the Silver Coins of this Realm (as to a great part thereof) doe appeare to bee exceedingly diminished by such persons who (notwithstanding several good laws formerly provided and many examples of justice thereupon) have practised the wicked and pernicious crime of Clipping until att length the course of the Moneys within this Kingdom is become difficult and very much perplext, to the unspeakable wrong and prejudice of His Majestie and His good Subjects in their Affairs as well Publick as particular and noe sufficient Remedy can bee applied to the manifold Evils ariseing from the clipping of the Moneys without recoining the clipt pieces.”
Then follow very lengthy provisions for dealing with coins of “Sterling Silver or Silver of a courser Allay then the Standard” from which we may infer that the Government had played its part in the debasing of the coinage.