270 
Butler—The Codfish in American History. 
thal, or the dale of Joachim, so named in honor of an ancestor 
of St. Joseph. The richness of the mine led in the year 1518 to 
a coinage with little alloy, and which thus gained high repute 
and wide circulation. The name Joachim’s thaler, contracted 
as all long words must be if much used, became thaler , i. e., 
valley-piece, and a synonym of good money. Hence its good 
name was stolen by many inferior coins. “ There is no vice so 
simple but assumes some mark of virtue in its outward form.” 
Those pieces which were minted in Joachim’s thal, which was 
in the German empire or Reich, were called Reichsthaler — that 
is in English, Rix-dollars, in Dutch, Rijks-daalder, and in 
Danish with little change from the Dutch form. 
The earliest use of the word which I have observed was in 
1606. Shakespeare in Macbeth (I. 2. 62). then spoke of slain 
Norsemen denied burial till their king had disbursed ten thou¬ 
sand dollars. 
When the first dollars were stamped, Spain being a part of 
the German empire, it was natural that the imperial standard- 
piece, the Reichsthaler, or rix-dullar, should be adopted as the 
Spanish unit of value. It thus spread abroad wherever the 
money minted from American mines circulated. The name, or 
certainly the coin was quickly known in Egypt, for George 
Sandys, travelling there in 1611, says that he hired a boat for 
twelve dollars, (p. 117.) Sandys often uses the word dollar. 
He tells us (p. 205) that Dutch dollers (sic) throughout Jewry 
and Phenicia “ were equivalent with royals of eight, elsewhere 
less by ten aspers. ” He adds (p. 86) that “ Constantinople was 
well stored with pieces-of-eight which in no place lose (aught) 
of their value. ” He found the monastery on Mount Sinai to be 
receiving an annual revenue of 60,000 dollars from Christian 
princes, and thus able to keep open house for all comers, 
(p. 124.) 
On the western continent the name came into use not much 
more slowly than the coin. In 1642 it was ordained by Massa¬ 
chusetts authorities ‘‘considering the often occasions we have 
of trading with the Hollanders of the Dutch plantation and 
otherwise, that the Holland ducatour (sic) shall be current at 
six shillings, and the rix-dollar and Ryalls-of-eight shall be five 
