6s. 8d., and so on for other European coins.
In accordance with this system the earliest financial steps of the Continental Congress in 1775—its issues of bills of credit—were based upon, and the bills were declared payable in, the Spanish dollar or piece of eight, to which, on the report of a special commission, appointed on 19th April 1776, the various gold and silver coins circulating by different standards in different colonies were rated by a tariff. According to this tariff the guinea weighing 5 dwts. 8 grs. was to be equivalent to 4 2⁄3 dollars, and the English crown equal to 1 1⁄9 dollar.
Gold bullion was rated 17 dollars per oz. Troy weight; sterling silver at 1 1⁄9 dollar per oz.
Assuming the coins to be of full weight, the ratio here established is nearly the English ratio of 15.21. The ratio for bullion is slightly different, but hardly materially.
Six years later, at the request of a committee of Congress, the superintendent of finance, Robert Morris, submitted a scheme for a national coinage (15th January 1782). This scheme is remarkable for Page 248 its clear-sightedness and grasp, as well as the testimony it bore to the European monetary system of the time. After deciding on silver as a necessary unit, the report thus proceeds:—
"The various coins which have circulated in America have undergone different changes in their value, so that there is hardly any which can be considered as a general standard unless it be Spanish dollars. These pass in Georgia at 5s., in North Carolina and New York