In late eighteenth-century Yorkshire a powerful gang of counterfeiters held the local community in its spell. In a remote valley near Halifax called Cragg Vale, gold coins of the realm were clipped and filed, then returned to circulation, while the extra metal collected was melted down to produce new counterfeit currency. The crime was punishable by death, and violence and vengeance, even murder, was meted out against those who got in their way. The Cragg Vale Coiners were highly organised, enlisting the help of many in the local community, and local authorities were powerless to stop them. The threat posed by the gang was debated in Parliament and the government had to do something to prevent the Exchequer being defrauded of millions of pounds and the nation-s currency being debased, so it was forced to despatch high-ranking officials of the Royal Mint in an attempt to bring the gang to justice and the ringleaders to the gibbet. The ensuing hunt for the gang members was bitter and the
