Current Coin in Columho. 139 
pean dominions on the island, consisted, on the arrival of the 
English, of rix-dollars, a nominal coin, like our pound sterling, 
valued at a certain quantity of copper money. There were 
besides several smaller copper coins, called pice or stivers, half- 
pice, and dudies. Four pice or two dudies, went to a fanam, 
and seven fanams to a rix-dollar. This proportional value of 
the coins has however been altered, and new regulations esta- 
blished since the island has come into our possession. There 
is now current a new coinage of double and single pice and 
half-pice, made by our East-India Company. A pice is about 
a halfpenny sterling ; four pice go to a fanam, and twelve fa- 
nams to a rix-dollar, or, as it is usually called by our peo- 
ple, a copper rupee. This latter coin goes for about two shil- 
lings sterling; and four of them are equivalent to a star pago- 
da, a Madras gold coin worth eight shillings sterling. Our 
troops are generally paid one third in gold, one in silver, and 
one in copper. This proportion varies however according to 
the state of the treasury. In issuing the copper money, go- 
vernment usually allows forty-five fanams to the pagoda, which 
is about the same proportion as is charged by the company 
at Madras. The troops however are rather sufferers by this 
rate, as the Dutch and English merchants insist upon forty- 
eight fanams to the pagoda, in their dealings with them. The 
fluctuation in the value of money in Ceylon is very great, and 
depends upon the immediate plenty or scarcity of gold and sil- 
ver there. I have frequently been obliged to give five rupees 
or ten shillings in copper for a pagoda in gold, and the same 
proportion between a silver and copper rupee. For three years 
before my departure, gold had been so scarce, on account of 
the little influx of it into the island, occasioned by the war 
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