For the widowed King William III, the production of halfpennies continued under the contract granted during the previous reign. However it soon became apparent that the manufacturers were in breach of contract – to save costs, not only were some of the blanks being cast rather than struck, but some of the coins were themselves being cast in one operation. There were other ways in which the manufacturers were economising on expenses – cheap labour was being used, including foreigners some of whom could not spell or punctuate the words they were engraving on the dies. Towards the end of the reign both the workmanship and the design and production of the dies for the copper coinage had sunk to a nadir, which is curious as simultaneously the mint was producing the highest quality work in the five and two guinea pieces which were being produced. By 1698 there was a glut of copper coinage and an Act was passed to stop the coining for one year; this seems to have had little effect and the proliferation continued. There were further Parliamentary attempts to control the glut of coinage later.