True, in those days spelling was typically pretty atrocious, mostly because people on the average were not highly educated, and few dictionaries were around so they were attempting to spell phonetically.
With that throw in thick accents, dialects etc.
As you say, you would think something as permanent as a stamp would have the proper or favored spelling....perhaps some people thought a misplaced letter where the sound overall was the same was too trivial to worry about.
The real kicker is, who the heck was I. Sargent (Sargant)?
All I could find was William, but nobody with name starting in 'J' or 'I'.
In those days the J was written with an 'I' and other such exchanges in the alphabet made pronunciation in modern parlance sound ridiculous.
These are the kinds of mysteries that for some reason have remained mostly unattended in scholarly study of the arms of these times, where there was a notable advance in commercial production and marking of wares by name became common. Marks or punzones are one thing, but names shouldn't have too much gray area.
Speaking of gray areas, the answer to the mysterious 'I' may be hiding in some of those obscure old references somewhere. If they can find the French 'pass' that would have exonerated Captain Kidd 200 years later!!! well?
