The counterfeit money made in imitation of shillings by this process, is generally cast so as to have a _crooked appearance_; and the deception is so admirable, that although intrinsically not worth _one halfpenny_, by exhibiting the appearance of a _thick crooked shilling_, they enter into circulation without suspicion, and are seldom refused while the surface exhibits no part of the copper; and even after this the itinerant Jews will purchase them at threepence each though six times their intrinsic value, well knowing that they can again be recoloured at the expence of half a farthing, so as to pass without difficulty for their nominal value of twelve pence.--A vast number of the sixpences now in circulation is of this species of coinage.
The profit in every view, whether to the original maker, or to the subsequent purchasers (after having lost their colour,) is _immense_.
In fabricating Cast Money, the workmen are always more secure than where presses and dies are used; because upon the least alarm, and before any officer of justice can have admission, the counterfeits are thrown into the crucible; the moulds are destroyed; and nothing is to be found that can convict, or even criminate the offender: on this account the present makers of cast money have reigned long, and were they careful and frugal, they might have become extremely rich; but prudence rarely falls to the lot of men who live by acts of criminality.
The _Fifth and last Species_ of base coin made in imitation of silver-money of the realm is called Figs or Fig Things. It is a very inferior sort of counterfeit money, of which composition, however, a great part of the sixpences now in circulation are made. The proportion of silver is not, generally speaking, of the value of one farthing in half a crown; although there are certainly some exceptions, as counterfeit sixpences have been lately discovered, some with a mixture, and some wholly silver; but even these did not yield the makers less than from 50 to 80 per cent. while the profit on the former is not less than from five hundred to one thousand per cent. and sometimes more.
It is impossible to estimate the amount of this base money which has entered into the circulation of the Country during the last twenty years; but it must be very great, since one of the principal Coiners of stamped money, who some time since left off business, and made some important discoveries, acknowledged to the Author, that he had coined to the extent of _two hundred thousand pounds_ sterling in counterfeit _half-crowns_, and other base silver money, in a period of seven years. This is the less surprising, as two persons can stamp and finish to the amount of from 200_l._ to 300_l._ a week.[44]