After the Restoration small steel rolling-mills were set up in the Tower driven by horse and water power, the cost of striking one year’s coinage being £1400. The new milled coinage was a great improvement on the old hammered coins. It was at this time that the great English medallist Simon’s “Petition Medal” was produced. This came from a competition, between him and Roetier; the latter won the competition, and consequently made the puncheons and dies for the new coinage. Simon was infuriated by his defeat and spoke some hasty words which, being repeated to Charles, caused his dismissal. Some twenty of Simon’s “petition medals” were struck, with the legend round their edges as follows:—“Thomas Simon most humbly prays your Majesty to compare this his tryall piece with the Dutch (Roetier’s), and if more truly drawn and embossed, more gracefully order’d and more accurately engraven, to relieve him.” For one of these medals as much as £500 has been given by a firm of London coin-dealers, so rare is the piece. The punishment meted out to coiners and clippers of coins in this reign was incredibly barbarous. In those so-called “good old times” in one day seven men were hanged and a woman burned for clipping and counterfeiting the current coin. A Coinage Act was passed by Parliament in 1696, and under its provisions all the old hammered money was called in, melted in furnaces near Whitehall, and sent in ingots to the Tower, to reappear in the new milled form. That wonderful man, Sir Isaac Newton, was made Master of the Tower Mint, and the number of mills being increased by his advice, in a few months, owing to his energy, a time of great commercial prosperity ensued. In 1810 the new Office of the Mint was opened on Little Tower Hill, where it still remains. [Illustration: _The Beauchamp Tower_] The following is taken from Mr Hocking’s article on the Tower Mint:—