crisis in Britain continued. In a letter to the Master of the Mint, Lord Hawkesbury (whose son would become Prime Minister as Earl of Liverpool) on 14 April 1789, Boulton wrote: In the course of my journeys, I observe that I receive upon an average two-thirds counterfeit halfpence for change at toll-gates, etc. and I believe the evil is daily increasing, as the spurious money is carried into circulation by the lowest class of manufacturers, who pay with it the principal part of the wages of the poor people they employ. They purchase from the subterraneous coiners 36 shillings'-worth of copper (in nominal value) for 20 shillings, so that the profit derived from the cheating is very large. Boulton offered to strike new coins at a cost "not exceeding half the expense which the common copper coin hath always cost at his Majesty's Mint". He wrote to his friend, Sir Joseph Banks, describing the advantages of his coinage presses: It will coin much faster, with greater ease, with fewer persons, for less expense, and more beautiful than any other machinery ever used for coining ... Can lay the pieces or blanks upon the die quite true and without care or practice and as fast as wanted. Can work night and day without fatigue by two setts of boys. The machine keeps an account of the number of pieces struck which cannot be altered from the truth by any of the persons employed. The apparatus strikes an inscription upon the edge with the same blow that strikes the two faces. It strikes the [back]ground of the pieces brighter than any other coining press can do. It strikes the pieces perfectly round, all of equal diameter, and exactly concentric with the edge, which cannot be done by any other machinery now in use. Boulton spent much time in London lobbying for a contract to strike British coins, but in June 1790 the Pitt Government postponed a decision on recoinage indefinitely. Meanwhile, the Soho Mint struck coins for the East India Company, Sierra Leone and Russia, while producing high-quality planchets, or blank coins, to be struck by national mints elsewhere. The firm sent over 20 million blanks to Philadelphia, to be struck into cents and half-cents by the United States Mint—Mint Director Elias Boudinot found them to be "perfect and beautifully polished". The high-technology Soho Mint gained increasing and somewhat unwelcome attention: rivals