CO882-(1-2) — Page 317

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

1

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

doubloons, he valued in his proclamation at certain rates which he mostly borrowed from a Commissariat Circular, sent out by the Home Treasury to the Commissariat officers at the same time that the Secretary of State sent out the Order in Council to the Governors. Taxes and salaries, and all Govern- ment accounts, were immediately afterwards, viz., from the 1st January, 1826, converted at the 48. rate, from dollars into pounds, shillings, and pence, and they have been so kept ever since.

The Mauritius public did not follow the example of the Government in adopting sterling accounts, but adhered, as they do up to the present time, to the denomination of dollars and cents. They acquiesced, however, in the new table of rates. Doubts were occasionally raised whether it was the legal effect of the Order in Council and Procla mation to make the coins legal tender at the rates assigned to them, or whether these rates

were

merely obligatory in Government transactions; but the table was practically acted upon by Government and public alike.

The fact, however, was that the new ratings were inconsistent with each other, with the real values of

the coins, and with the long recognised standard of two Siccas to the dollar of account, and the conse- quence was that the scheme entirely failed of its

intended effect of introducing British money and the British standard, and only produced confusion in both the standard of value and the composition of the currency. The scheme failed similarly in other colonies.

The piece of 5 franes (344 grains pure) was rated by the Governor, following the Commissariat regu- lation, at 48., but single and double francs at 10d. and Is. 8d. The ordinary value of a franc in the

market was about 9fd. only. The Spanish dollar was valued by the Order in Council at 4z. 4d., but

its ordinary value in the market was only about 4s. 2d. The doubloon (362 grains of pure gold)

was rated equal to 16 Spanish: dollars, or 69s. 4d.,

but its ordinary value in the market did not exceed 15† such dollars, or 648. sterling. The Sicca rupee was rated at 24. Id., and the Madras and Bombay rupee (each 165 grains pure) at 1s. 11d.; ruten like-

9

wise in excess of their average market values at that time. It was thus cheaper, under this monetary tariff, to use rupees, Spanish dollars, and five-franc pieces than British money, and cheaper to use doubloons and single and double francs, than rupees, dollars, and five-franc pieces. British money, which

it was the whole object of the measure to introduce, had a less chance of circulating than any other description of coin, and could only do so in very peculiar states of the exchanges.

Such was the effect of the measure as regards the circulating power of the several coins. Its effect on the standard of value is at once seen by observing that the Sicca rupee being rated at 28. Id., the Madras and Bombay rupee at Is. 11d., and the dollar of account at 48., this dollar instead of being payable

aa before by 2 Siccas (352 grains pure, without seignorage), became payable, amongst other ways, by a Sicca and a Madras or Bombay rupee together (341 grains pure, without seignorage),

This joint use of the two kinds of rupee was the most common mode of discharging both dollar and sterling debts immediately following the measures of 182; but rupecs were soon anperseded in use by doubloons and francs (the single al double pieces), which were rated in greater excess of their mar- ket values than any of the other coins brought by

the course of trade to the island, and some furthes deterioration of the standard of the dollar and Government pound was the consequence. The dollar paift in francs at 10d. represented ➡ly 393 grains of pure silver, or, adding the brassage levind

at the French Mint, 4or 5-gwiers more. doubloons at 69s, 4d, # repraamitadaily 1

of pure silver;-reckuning,silver for gall as the (

of 5s, the outer stundird. · The rating of doubloons

was lowered-se-6ña. by local proolmonition when they forthwith: Jingpeurants

the france was langhai

to the same-nata

1886,