1865.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 217 



Theodosius it reached 18 to 1. Turning again to India, I find 

 that in the reign of Aurangzeb, about 1675, or little more than half 

 a century after the death of Akbar, silver exchanged against gold at 

 Madras at the rate of 16 to 1. And this is indisputable, because it is 

 given on the authority of Dr. Fryer, a member of the Royal Society, 

 and a most trustworthy ffnd honest writer, who travelled in India and 

 Persia from A. D. 1672 to 1681. He has devoted a whole chapter 

 to coins, weights and measures, giving apparently a most truthful 

 and accurate account of those he found in use when he visited each 

 place. Under the head of Fort St. George, and in speaking of the 

 E. I. Company's mint, he says : — 



The standard is 8 matts, and | matts fine : our English 20s. is 9 

 and more. Fanams is 4J matts fine. 



9 pagods weight make 1 ounce Troy, 16 joagods weight of silver is 

 1 pagod weight of gold. 



\pagod in 1000 is allowed for loss, in mint &c, &c. 



Sir James Stewart in his " Principles of Money," published exactly a 

 hundred years after Dr. Fryer left England, viz. in 1772, states the rela- 

 tive value of gold to silver asl to 13 J to 1 to 14 ; and adds that before the 

 discovery of America the proportion had never exceeded 1 to 10 or 11. 

 In the face of these ascertained facts, I am disinclined to assume that 

 the rate, generally, in India, was so high as 1 to 9.4, and I trust my 

 esteemed and valued friend, Mr. Thomas, will pardon me for advocating 

 my views so strongly. No one can be more sensible of the debt of 

 gratitude we owe to Mr. Thomas for his careful, patient, and accurate 

 enquiries into the coins, weights and measures of India, — enquiries 

 which have placed him in the first rank of numismatists of the 

 day. But though our objects may be in some respects similar, 

 they are in one particular distinct, He is desirous of elucidating an 

 interesting point in the currency and coinage of the kings of the 

 East. I am desirous of showing that the fluctuations in the price— 

 the market price, not the mint price — of gold are not, and have not 

 been, so great, so sudden, or so startling as to cause the unnecessary 

 alarm which many entertain regarding the proposal to change the 

 standard. It is not in the East alone, that vain attempts have been made 

 to perform the impossible feat of conferring the attributes of a standard 

 upon two metals at one and the same time ; and though silver and 



