406 



THE CURRENCY. 



English residents, with some of whom we gradually 

 became acquainted. We had much trouble and 

 annoyance in pecuniary matters, from the disordered 

 and peculiar state of the currency. This was 

 silver, paper, and copper. The smallest coin is the 

 doit or duit, one hundred of which are called a 

 copper rupee, and one hundred and twenty a silver 

 rupee. The bank of Java had notes in circulation 

 of five, ten, twenty-five, &c. rupees. There were 

 notes of the smaller denomination, both in silver 

 and copper rupees ;* but the larger notes, those for 

 twenty-five or fifty rupees, or more, were 1 believe 

 always silver. The silver coinage was guilders, 

 half guilders, and quarters, as also three-guilder- 

 pieces. Spanish dollars also would pass. Origin- 

 ally, I believe, the silver guilder was worth a silver 

 rupee, or 120 doits; and the bank note for 25 

 silver rupees was worth 25 guilders, which indeed 

 arc always called rupees in Java. At so great a 

 discount, however, was now the bank paper, or 

 rather, at so high a premium was silver specie, that 

 it was rarely or never seen ; and the highest exchange 

 we could get in silver coin for a 25 silver rupee note 

 was 19^ rupees, and sometimes not so much. The 

 consequence was, there were now three kinds of 

 rupees, — copper rupees, silver-paper rupees, and 



* I have since been informed, that the copper paper-money 

 (recipissen) was not issued by the bank of Java, but by the 

 Government. It has, 1 believe, since been called in, and a new 

 issue made on a better footing. 



