A George Wilks stands at the centre of the Manx counterfeiting case of 1723.

The Deputy Governor sent men to search John Wilks's house on the day the information was laid. The searcher told George Wilks that he had authority to search him on suspicion touching the counterfeit pence, and Wilks replied that he was at liberty to do so. Watching him as he searched, the officer judged that Wilks had a counterfeit penny about him, and on a narrow search found it hidden in the back of his breeches. Wilks acknowledged that he had run or made it himself, both to the searcher at the time and openly in court afterwards, saying that he had done it to try his flasks and see how they would cast, and to try the metal. At the same house the searchers took up the pot for running metal, the flask or mould, and a piece of copper. He was ordered into close prison until further order.

The trial went the other way, and the court punished the jury for it. Three of John Wilks's apprentices, Thomas Taubman, David Curlett and John Wattleworth, swore that they knew nothing directly or indirectly of the making of the pence, and that although they usually worked with John Wilks and his father they had seen no cause for suspicion. On 21 May 1723 the jury of indictment acquitted the accused, giving their verdict according to their best judgements and signing with their marks. A second body of jurors, John Wattleworth and Thomas Stevenson among them, said they would rather impute the verdict to the misunderstanding of that jury than to wilful error, and recommended them to the Worshipful Court to be favourably used in their fine and punishment. At the Debt Court held on 10 October 1723 the court fined the Grand Jury twenty shillings apiece and declared them incapable of passing on any jury or inquest in future.