IOO 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



[vol. 50 



The value of the shilling as it was fixed for the New York bills 

 of credit was exactly the same as that of the Spanish real, namely, 

 i2}4 cents. That Spanish coin therefore received the English 

 name of shilling wherever the authority or uncontrolled influence of 

 New York extended. The Spanish medio, or 6% -cent piece, logi- 

 cally became the sixpence for that State ; and even the American 

 cent became the penny, although its value was a trifle less than one- 

 twelfth of the New York shilling. Thus the people of that great 

 commercial State used Spanish silver coins almost exclusively, but 

 gave them English names that pertained to an officially discarded 

 currency. Those New York monetary terms are still so often em- 

 ployed by the people of that State that few persons fail to under- 

 stand them whenever they are used. Still the} 7 are not now nearly 

 so commonly used as they formerly were, no doubt partly because 

 the Spanish coins which they represented are no longer in circula- 

 tion. 



The following table concisely shows the manner in which English 

 names were colloquially applied to Spanish coins in accordance with 

 the New York provision for the retirement of the bills of credit. It 

 should be compared with the next table, representing the New 

 England provision. 



New York Archaic Monetary Terms 



The States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey 

 having fixed the value of the shilling in their bills of credit at 13*4 

 cents, one cent more than New York gave it, the Spanish real was 

 valued in those States at only eleven pence, the fraction of a cent 

 being neglected in the estimate ; therefore that coin came to be 

 known there as the eleven-penny bit, which became abbreviated to 

 " levy." The Spanish medio, or 6^-cent piece, also neglecting the 

 fractions of a cent, in like manner became the five-penny bit, which 

 became abbreviated to " fipny bit," and still further abbreviated to 

 " fip. " The terms " levy" and " fip " seem not to have been cus- 



