The persons whom Mr. Montague had consulted about the recoinage were Newton, Locke, and Halley, and in consequence of Mr. Overton, the warden of the mint, having been appointed a commissioner of customs, he embraced the opportunity which was thus offered of serving his friend and his country by recommending Newton to that important office. The notice of this appointment was conveyed in the following letter to Newton. _London, 19th March, 1695._ “SIR, “I am very glad that, at last, I can give you a good proof of my friendship, and the esteem the king has of your merits. Mr. Overton, the warden of the mint, is made one of the commissioners of the customs, and the king has promised me to make Mr. Newton warden of the mint. The office is the most proper for you. ’Tis the chief office in the mint, ’tis worth five or six hundred pounds per annum, and has not too much business to require more attendance than you can spare. I desire that you will come up as soon as you can, and I will take care of your warrant in the mean time. Let me see you as soon as you come to town, that I may carry you to kiss the king’s hand. I believe you may have a lodging near me.—I am, &c. CHARLES MONTAGUE.” In this new situation the mathematical and chymical knowledge of our author was of great service to the nation, and he became eminently useful in carrying on the recoinage, which was completed in the short space of two years. In the year 1699, he was promoted to the mastership of the mint,—an office which was worth twelve or fifteen hundred pounds per annum, and which he held during the remainder of his life. In this situation he wrote an official report on the Coinage, which has been published; and he drew up a table of Assays of Foreign Coins, which is printed at the end of Dr. Arbuthnot’s Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, which appeared in 1727. While our author filled the inferior office of warden of the mint, he retained his professorship at Cambridge; but upon his promotion in 1699, he appointed Mr. Whiston to be his deputy, with all the emoluments of the office; and when he resigned the chair in 1703, he succeeded in getting him nominated his successor. The appointment of Newton to the mastership of the mint must have been peculiarly gratifying to the Royal Society, and it was probably from a feeling of gratitude to Mr. Montague, as much as from a regard for his talents, that this able statesman was elected president of that learned body on the 30th November, 1695. This office he held for three years, and on the 30th January, 1697, Newton had the satisfaction of addressing to him his solution of the celebrated problems proposed by John Bernouilli.