EXCHANGE. 
Reduce 175/. sterling into dollars and 
cents, at par. Multiply by 40, and divide 
by 9 ; the quotient is the answer. 
£ 175 
40 dot. els. 
' 9)7000(777 77 
65 
70, &c. 
When the exchange is either above or 
below par, the rule is still the same: the 
amount in dollars and cents is first found at 
par, and the premium or discount is de- 
ducted from, or added to that amount. 
It is still common to transact business and 
keep accounts in current money in most 
of the American provinces, although these 
currencies are not recognized by law. In 
New Englaraband Virginia a dollar is worth 
6 shillings currency, and 1001. sterling is 
therefore equal to 133^1. currency. 
In Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, 
and Pennsylvania, a dollar is worth 7s. 6d. 
currency, and 100/. is equal to 166/. 2s. 3d. 
currency. 
Finally, in New York and North Caro- 
lina a dollar is worth 8s. currency; there- 
fore 100/. sterling is equal to 177/. 7s. 9 d. 
currency. 
The shortest modes of reducing these 
currencies into sterling money are the fol- 
lowing. 
When the dollar is worth 6s. curtency, 
multiply the sum in current money by 3, 
and divide by 4; the quotient is sterling. 
When the dollar is worth 7s. 6d. currency, 
multiply by 3 and divide by 5 ; and when it 
is worth 8s. currency, multiply by 9 and 
divide by 16. 
West Indies. The difference between 
sterling money and Jamaica currency is 40 
per cent. ; 140/. currency being the par to 
100/. sterling. To reduce Jamaica cur- 
rency into sterling, multiply the currency 
by 5 and divide by 7. 
In most of the Windward and Lee- 
ward islands 175/. currency is the par to 
100/. sterling. The rule in this case is to 
multiply the current sum by 4, and divide 
it by 7. 
Exclusive of these, permanent differences 
between sterling and currency, there is also 
an exchange between the West Indies and 
the mother country, varying, as already 
mentioned, from 5 to 15 per cent. It is 
frequ«nt in the Windward Islands to consi- 
der in small payments one shilling sterling 
as equal to two shillings currency, which 
supposes an exchange in favour of Britain 
of 121, per cent. 
It very often happens that bill payments 
take place by indirect channels. A Bristol 
merchant purchasing grain in Holland makes 
the Dutch merchant reimburse himself by 
drawing on a mercantile house in Lon- 
don or Amsterdam, or if the Dutch mer- 
chant draw on the Bristol merchant him- 
self, he makes it a condition that the bill 
shall be accepted payable in London. The 
object of this is to give an easy currency in 
negotiation to the bill. The Dutch mer- 
chant sells his bill on the Amsterdam ex- 
change ; w'here, for one man who wishes to 
buy a bill on Bristol, he will find twenty 
who wish to purchase on London. Hence 
the tendency of all exchange transactions to 
certain central points. That point is always 
the principal trading city in the country. 
Throughout Great Britain a bill on London 
is preferred to a bill on any other place ; 
and what London is to this country, Am- 
sterdam, in its better days; was to Europe. 
Every country town is said to have its par 
of exchange on London. By this is meant 
the term or number of days at which the 
country bank will give a bill on London in 
exchange for cash. This term is greater or 
less, according to the distance from Lon- 
don. In Bristol it is twenty-five days, in 
Liverpool thirty, in Glasgow forty-five, and 
in the more remote parts of Scotland fifty 
days. 
It is important to know, that a very small 
matter will amount to an acceptance. If 
the acceptor write his name on the bill, he 
must pay it ; if he even prefix to his signa- 
ture a notice that he will not pay it, this 
very writing binds him to pay it ; in short, 
if the person on whom a bill is drawn, means 
to decline acceptance, he is not safe in 
putting the least mark on it, except the 
number denoting its entry in his bill book. 
Table of the Course of Exchange for Sep- 
tember 23, 1807. 
Amsterdam.... 
35 5 2 U. 
Ditto sight 
Rotterdam 
Hamburgh 
Altona 
Paris 
Ditto 
