I apprehend that the chief duty of the Colonial Government towards the Mint is to secure the services of an efficient Staff, fully competent to the rigid maintenance of the fineness Standard; and Weight of the several coins to be issued, and to supply effective machinery to turn out perfect coins with capacity to despatch to the extent of all probable demands on it - the financial success being a question apart, dependent on conditions on which the Government can have no control.
I am not competent to speak of the efficiency of the present Staff, but the English coining presses, with which the Mint was opened, were a total failure, both as to the character of the dollar stamped and rapidity of coinage. To that circumstance I attribute much of the despondency felt and expressed as to the success of the Mint, that is now, so generally felt and expressed by many of the island residents, including, I regret to say, many of the officials; for after the issue of the Governor Notification of the Mint being ready to coin dollars (free of seigniorage on Mexican dollars for one month) several millions of these coins were at once sent in, and had the machinery been equal to the call on it, a large number of the new dollars would quickly have been thrown into circulation, and backed by a proclamation of these being legal tender within the Colony and its dependencies, would have laid the foundation,