158 CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASTATIC SOCIETY, 



the same time destitute of all fixed laws and of all settled po- 

 litical institutions ; and in regard to the Singhalese of the coast, 

 in endeavouring to imitate their conquerors, they lost at once 

 their honesty, their principle, and their manners, without ac- 

 quiring better in their place. Generally also, all trade was 

 carried on by barter, and taxes were paid in kind ; so that, 

 says the French Editor of Ribeyro " there is not much money 

 in the country. " The Portuguese had however it would, seem, 

 introduced the use of pagodas, pardaons, * larins. The king of 

 Kandy had also allowed his subjects to make use of a kind 

 of money which every body was permitted to fabricate. He 

 describes it as of very pure silver, and made in the shape of a 

 fish hook. It must have been the ridi. The king also struck, 

 he says, a kind of money called panan or fanam, which it was 

 forbidden to imitate under pain of death. But, adds he, all 

 kinds of money are very scarce ; if and says Bertolacci ** what- 

 ever was the currency of Ceylon during the government of the 

 Portuguese, no vestige now remains of it. " J This last ob? 

 servation, which must in strictness be limited to the currency 

 of the island, would show how immediately on the departure 

 of the Portuguese, their power — that power by which the cuj> 

 rency is influenced, — ceased. 



Under the Dutch, the coins that were used in Holland were 

 also current in Ceylon; but besides them there were copper 

 coins in stivers or pices as they were called, and challies. The 

 standing value of the pice or stiver was dependent on a regu- 

 lation of government, which made 80 of them equal to one silver 

 ducatoon,. Thirty-six of them weighed a Dutch pound, of the 

 besjf copper. This coin however, as says Bertolacci § must not 

 be confounded with the Dutch stiver, 66 || of which (3 florins 



* The par do or pardao at Goa is a silver coin worth four good 

 tangas, equal to two shillings and six pence sterling. 



t Lee's R.bejro p, 43. $ Bertolacci, View of Ceylon, p. 77, 

 j View of Ceykm, p. 78. |f This seems a misprint for 46. 



