By about August 1696, signs of prosperity began to be observed after a very trying time owing to the scarcity of silver.
Undoubtedly it was a very anxious period for the Government. Malcontents stirred up the populace and tumults occurred in various parts of the country. Jacobite tracts were published advocating violent measures. William had strained his private credit in Holland to procure bread for the Army. But the crisis was weathered and the coinage question was settled.
It hardly needs an apology from the author to bring these facts tersely together before the reader who is interested in old English silver. The figure of Britannia and the lion’s head erased belong to this troublous period. They come as a corollary to the coinage question, and they should provide the collector with food for thought whenever he sees them stamped upon silver in his possession. The standard of silver plate was raised as a further safeguard, in order that the clippers should have no incentive to melt down the new coinage.
From 1697 to 1720 the silver plate, being compulsorily by law of a higher standard than the coin of the realm, stood as a safeguard against the return to clipping.
The Britannia standard, therefore, to collectors should be something more than rare. It should induce reflective thought as to the successive stages the troublous disputations, the suggested remedies, and the awful punishments which came as a prelude to the establishment of this Higher Standard.
At a much later period the figure of Britannia was stamped upon silver plate, but the practice was not very extensive, and the Britannia stamp is used without the accompanying lion’s head erased. The date when this mark appears is at a period subsequent to 1784 and relates to the drawback or exemption from duty on silver plate exported. (See the “Duty Mark,” [p. 61].)
VI. THE DUTY MARK
In regard to duty on silver plate, it was first imposed in England and in Scotland in 1719, when the old silver standard was revived. The duty was fixed at 6d. per ounce. Later by 3 Geo. II, in 1730, the duty was imposed on silver plate assayed in Ireland, and at this date the figure of Hibernia was used to denote that duty had been paid to the king. In 1784, by 24 Geo. III, cap. 53, a duty of 6d. per ounce was levied. This applied to England and Scotland, and it was enacted that, in addition to the other marks formerly employed by the makers and assay offices, the new mark of the king’s head should be stamped on every piece of silver plate on which duty has been paid. By another section of this Act it was a felony punishable by death to use any counterfeit stamp contrary to law. By a later Act, 55 Geo. III, in 1815, the counterfeiting the king’s head duty mark was punishable by death; and this was only a hundred years ago. The duty on silver plate was now 1s. 6d. per ounce.