Despite all this, however, and the issuing of proclamation after proclamation to enforce this Royal swindle, private tokens continued to be issued as much as ever and could not be put down. The office for the issue of the Royal tokens was in Lothbury, London, and the place is still known as “Token-House Yard.” After the annulling of this office, copper farthing tokens of a more honest value were issued, but traders still struck their own to such an extent that they became more than ever general throughout the country. In 1649 an attempt was made to establish a national farthing, and pattern pieces were prepared. Nothing, however, was done until 1671, when Traders’ Tokens having increased to a prodigious extent, and being issued by one or other in almost every town and village in the kingdom, the government announced the intended issue of halfpence and farthings to supersede them; and in 1672 a proclamation prohibiting the making or use of any such private tokens was issued, and stringent measures taken for their suppression. From that time their use rapidly declined, and they were soon utterly put down. From that time (1672) until 1787 no Traders’ Tokens whatever were struck or issued in this kingdom. In the latter year (1787) the government having for a long time neglected to issue a sufficient quantity of copper coins for the purposes of trade, and the copper coinage having been forged to so great an extent that not one-fourth of what was in circulation was of Royal mint coining, the Anglesey Copper Mines Company issued tokens of their own, and to such an extent that they put into circulation three hundred tons of copper pennies and halfpennies. The example thus set was followed by other companies, corporations, and private traders, and tokens soon became so general that the matter attracted the attention of government, and resulted in orders being issued for the preparation of a new national coinage. To that end in June, 1797, George the Third issued his warrant empowering Matthew Boulton, of the Soho Works, Birmingham, to manufacture a considerable quantity of penny and twopenny pieces. The extent to which this contract was carried may be gathered from the fact that between June, 1797, and 1805, Matthew Boulton “coined under contract for the British Government upwards of 4,000 tons weight of copper coin, amounting at its nominal value to nearly £800,000.” These coins were strictly and unequivocally _honest_, as were also those of the Anglesey and other works. The Soho twopenny pieces weighed exactly two ounces each, and eight of them laid side by side measured one foot; the pennies weighed one ounce each, and seventeen in like manner measured two feet; the halfpennies weighed half an ounce each, and twelve of them measured one foot. The effect of this issue was the stoppage of private tokens, only one or two examples being known of so late a date as 1802, when they finally ceased.