46 



Notes on Indian Currencies. 



[NO. 1, NEW SERIES, 



With regard to the coins which have just been enumerated, it is 

 right to dfaw attention to the high standard of value the majority 

 of them reach. It almost leads one to suppose that native Princes 

 never debased their coinage, as the Romans did in the 1st Punic 

 war, when they reduced the As from 1 2 oz. to 2, and as Henry 

 VIII. and some of our Kings have done, and as James did in 

 Ireland in 1698 after the siege of Londonderry, to serve their own 

 or some political convenience, were it not that such a conclu- 

 sion is opposed to all we know of the origin and lives of many of 

 them — who being often mere adventurers, and succeeding to the 

 musnud by some happy stroke of luck or desperate villainy, 

 were not likely to neglect the mint, so powerful an engine to wipe off 

 a debt or replenish (for the moment) an empty treasury. In- 

 deed, we may feel certain that tampering with the fineness of the 

 metal was a \ery common practice with them, for we-know it was 

 customary with native Financiers in Bengal to demand " a Sherusteh 

 " Butta or per centage on the difference between the coin in which 

 u the lands were universally assessed and the coins in which the 

 " cultivators paid their taxes," and no doubt they made it a fruitful 

 source of income. 



Akbar's coinage however is admitted by all hands to have been 

 the true and ancient standard. Jervis speaking of it in his 

 Indian Metrology, (p. 63) says, "the coins of Bengal were origi- 

 " nally the same as those of Surat, as restored and established by 

 " the wise and virtuous Akbar. The true tola weight and the weight 

 " of the rupee was then fixed at 12 massas or 187.5 grains." 



A curious account of Akbar's treasures in coined money and 

 jewels is given in the " New History of the East Indies," translated 

 from Abbe de Guzon, (page 263. vol. i.) " Achobar for so that 

 " prince was called caused a certain species of money to be coined 

 " of the value of 25, 50 and 100 toles which were worth 2,012|, 

 " 4,025, 8,050 crowns, each piece, amounting to the sum of 

 " 6,970,000 massas which make 97,580,000 roupees or 48,790,000 

 " crowns, money of France. He had also besides a 100,000,000 

 " of roupees or 50,000,000 of crowns, in a certain species of money 

 " called after his name, roupees of Achobar. And 250,000,000 of 



