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from Seignorage received from the Public at the Mint since its establishment in May last year had not reached $10,500 without making certain deductions for waste.
I may here state that I have found great difficulty in procuring brief and intelligible Returns from the Mint of the work done there, and I have had to call for many Returns before I could really comprehend the details.
3. Finally, I prepared the enclosed forms for four returns which I insisted on having filled up accurately and I now transmit them. They include the period from the 1st of May 1866 to the 31st July in the present year, a period of nearly fourteen months.
No 1 Return shows all the monies coined at the Mint for this Government with the gross profit and loss thereon, more imaginary than real. The profit, however small as it is, $12,600, has been real, consisting of the difference between the intrinsic worth of $119,000 in alloyed subsidiary coinage, which was unavailable for a long period, during part of which the colony was actually paying 8 per cent on borrowed money.
No 2 Return shews the amount of monies coined for the Public free of Seignorage for some months after the