Form received by the Government is assayed and melted into bars of silver of the requisite standard bearing Government stamp before it is issued. Our dollars therefore (if assayed).
in common with the dollars of other countries would suffer this fate and it is of little use to obtain the privilege of having them accepted at the Custom-houses if their minting value is not intended to be retained.
It may be said that this statement appears quite inconsistent with the fact that Carolus and Mexican dollars at one time bore a high premium - but I believe these premiums to have arisen entirely from exceptional circumstances.
In former times Chinese tea-growers in the country knew but little of Foreigners and distrusted them and distrusted still more the Cantonese Compradores through whom all purchases were made. They therefore preferred accepting the Carolus Dollar, a coin which they knew, even at an exorbitant premium to the risk of being cheated. With Russian dollars something of the same sort also prevailed; but the high price realised by unclipped Mexicans was due almost entirely to the trade with Japan which at the commencement had to be conducted solely through these coins.
The better acquaintance that now exists between Chinese and Japanese,