The numbers engaged in these nefarious practices were very great. In 1692 information was given of three hundred coiners and clippers dispersed in various parts of the city, for several of whom warrants were issued, some by the Treasury, others by the Lord Chief Justice. The profits were enormous. Of three clippers executed at Tyburn in 1696, one, John Moore, the tripeman, was said to have got a good estate by clipping, and to have offered £6000 for his pardon. Three other clippers arrested in St. James’ St., and committed to Newgate, were found to be in possession of £400 in clippings, with a pair of shears and other implements. The information of one Gregory, a butcher, who “discovered” near a hundred persons concerned in the trade, went to prove that they made as much as £6000 a month in counterfeit money. “All their utensils and moulds were shown in court, the latter being in very fine clay, which performed with great dexterity.” The extent of the practice is shown by the ingenuity of the machinery used. “All sort of material for coining was found in a house in Kentish town, with stamps for all coins from James I.” The work was performed “with that exactness no banker could detect the counterfeit.” So bold were the coiners, that the manufacture went forward even within the walls of Newgate. Three prisoners were taken in the very act of coining in that prison. One of the medals or tokens struck in Newgate as a monetary medium among the prisoners is still to be seen in the Beaufoy Collection at Guildhall. Upon the obverse of the coin the legend is inscribed: “Belonging to the cellar on the master’s side, 1669;” on the reverse side is a view of Newgate and the debtors’ prison. The heaviest penalties did not check this crime. The offence was high treason; men sentenced for it were handed, drawn, and quartered, and women were burnt. In 1683 Elizabeth Hare was burnt alive for coining in Bunhill Fields. Special legislation could not cope with this crime, and to hinder it the Lords of the Treasury petitioned the Queen (Mary in the absence of William III.) to grant no pardon to any sentenced for clipping unless before their conviction they discovered their accomplices.