Section 9 of this chapter of the Act contains in official terms an allusion to the grave scandals that had shaken the commercial stability of the country for many years. “And whereas it might reasonably be suspected that part of the silver coins of the realm had been, by persons regarding their own private gain more than the public good, molten and converted into vessels of silver or other manufactured plate, which crime has been the more easily perpetrated by them, inasmuch as the goldsmiths or other workers of plate by the former laws and statutes of the realm were not obliged to make their plate of finer silver than the sterling or standard ordained for the monies of the realm,” it was enacted that from and after 25th March 1697 no silver plate should be made that was not of higher standard than the coin of the realm. It was laid down that the legal marks on all silver were to be the maker’s mark, expressed by the two first letters of his surname, and that the marks of the assay offices should be for this new plate the lion’s head erased and “the figure of a woman commonly called Britannia” in lieu of the former marks of the leopard’s head and the lion _passant_. In addition to this the date mark was to be stamped to show in what year the plate was made. In this Act of 1696 it will be observed that the mention of the leopard’s head and the lion _passant_ include London marks only. As the manufacture of silver plate of the old standard was illegal after the passing of this Act and the use of the old marks was equally illegal, it would appear that the provincial assay offices were precluded from stamping silver. That this appears to be the case is suggested by the reappointment of the provincial offices in 1700. York, Exeter, Bristol, Chester, and Norwich, at which cities mints had been opened for the coinage of the new silver, were reappointed by 12 William, _cap._ 4, to assay and mark silver plate as heretofore. The new standard was to be observed. The marks to be employed were the maker’s mark, the lion’s head erased, the figure of Britannia, the city mark, and the date letter, “a variable Roman letter,” which latter provision was not then, and has not since, been observed, as other types have been used. From 25th March, 1697, till 1700 no plate was therefore assayed at any of the provincial centres. In 1702 the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was appointed as an assay town with similar privileges and restrictions as in the above-mentioned cities. The old standard of silver was .925, that is in every thousand parts only 75 were to be of alloy. The new standard was .959, that is only 41 parts of alloy could be legally used. This raised the standard of silver plate above that of the coin of the realm.