256 Mr. Davis's Ei'lractsfrum Peking Gazettes. 



of the current Tcheii • (base-metal coin) in comparison with silver, to the 

 great loss of the provincial treasury ; requesting the Imperial assent to a 

 temporary suspension of the coinage, with a view to prevent needless waste, 

 and equalize or bring to a par the market prices of gold and silver. 



In the mint of Fuh-keen province, named Paon-fuh-keu, the average 

 coinage of ten days has been 1,'200 strings of Tchent (each string containing 

 1,000, or ten divisions of 100 each), and therefore the total coinage of one 

 year has averaged 13,2001: strings (or 43,200,000 Tchen), the use of which 

 has been to pay the militia of the province. In order to procure the copper 

 and lead required for coinage, officers have been regularly deputed to 

 Yun-nan and Hoopih provinces; and it has been calculated that the 

 expences of transmission and coinage togetlier with other charges, added to 



T m c c 



the cost of the metal, have amounted, on an average, to 1,261^ in every 

 1,000 Tchen. The present market value of standard silver in exchange for 

 coin at the capital, is 1 Tael weight for l,2l'0 or 1,250 Tchen : and it is 

 the same throughout the province. This being added to the above, the 



m c c 



total disadvantage amounts to more than 500 in each Tael, and the annual 

 loss to more than 20,000 Taels value. 



The province of Fiih-kcen being on the borders of the sea, its distance 

 from some other provinces is great ; and the merchants, who resort hither 

 with their goods, finding it inconvenient to carry back such a weight of 

 Tchen, exchange it for silver, as a more portable remittance, by which 

 means silver and coin have become very disproportioned in their relative 

 values, the former rising, and the latter falling, to an unusual degree. 



It has always been the rule to pay the militia in Tchen, at the rate of 

 1,000 for a Tael of silver : but now a Tael of silver in the market being 

 worth 1,240 or 1,250 Tchen, they experience serious loss from this when 

 they exchange their Tchen for silver, with a view to the more ready trans- 

 mission of their pay to a distance." 



After some other details of less interest, the Viceroy and his colleagues 



* Tseen, pronounced Tchen, to the northward, and called by Europeans at Canton, cash. 



t See Plate III, No. 8. 



% Taking the Tchen at their proper value, the annual addition to the circulation in this 

 province would be about £14',4'00, and of the whole empire, taking it 2X fifteen provinces, 

 £216,000. It was probably the great hidk of the coin, in proportion to its value, which induced 

 the necessity of provincial mints. 



