SPANISH EXPERIMENTS IN COINAGE. 591 



was raised to correspond, the single doubloon, or gold crown, being 

 declared worth nineteen silver ryals in place of fifteen, and a 

 month later it was further raised to twenty. In this reduction of 

 the standard the interests of the debtor class were tenderly 

 guarded by decreeing that outstanding obligations in gold or 

 silver could be settled on the new basis. Some concession, how- 

 ever, was made on this point where suits arose as to specie lying 

 on deposit or bills of exchange drawn in silver or gold prior to 

 the depreciation, for these were ordered to be paid at the old 

 standard. 



The War of Succession, which broke out in 1701, naturally 

 brought large quantities of French silver into Spain. The quart 

 d'ecu was held for a time to be equivalent to the two-ryal piece, 

 and came to be known as the peseta or little peso, but it was pro- 

 nounced to be inferior in value, and in 1709 its further introduc- 

 tion was prohibited. At the same time the silver standard was 

 reduced to eleven dineros or '91667 fine in place of the *925 at 

 which it had stood for centuries. This did not arrest the pro- 

 gressive depreciation of the vellon currency, which' in 1718 we 

 find legally recognized in the equivalence of a silver ryal to nearly 

 two ryals velldn, and not long afterward the regular exchange 

 was as one to two. This was allowed by law, and it doubtless was 

 frequently exceeded, for dealers kept the copper coin in bags 

 representing fixed amounts, and those who preferred gold or silver 

 were charged extra for it. This would have worked compara- 

 tively little evil if the inferior currency had been confined to the 

 petty traffic for which it was originally designed, but for more 

 than a century it had become the standard of value and the 

 precious metals had been rendered merely a commodity. Thus 

 in the regulations of the mints the salaries are all defined in reales 

 de vellon or escudos de vellon, and the treasurer has to give 

 security in twenty thousand ducados de vellon on unincumbered 

 real estate. It was always necessary, when mentioning a sum, to 

 specify whether it was in reales de vellon or reales de plata, and 

 with the complexities which crept into the silver coinage we even 

 sometimes find a further definition required, as in such expressions 

 as " un real de plata provincial, valor de 16 quartos de vellon" 

 The evils entailed by the system were freely admitted, but the 

 country had been plunged so long into this financial debauchery 

 that recovery seemed impossible. In 1718 Philip V acknowledged 

 the grave injuries which it inflicted on trade and commerce, but 

 the remedy which he proposed was futile. In 1743 he again de- 

 plored the manner in which greed and malice had used the in- 

 crease of copper money to drive silver from circulation and 

 reduce it to the condition of merchandise. To remedy this he 

 ordered that payments in velldn should not exceed 300 ryals, and 



