CHAPTER III

New York, and passed after an animated contest in which the chief question was as to the true relative value of the two metals, varied by some into a preference for National Bank paper; 15 5⁄8 was the ratio of nearly all who seemed best calculated from their pursuits to understand the subject. The thick array of speakers was on that side, and the eighteen banks of the city of Page 258 New York, with Mr. Gallatin at their head, favoured that proportion. The difficulty of adjusting this value, so that neither metal should expel the other had been the stumblingblock for a great many years, and now this seemed to be as formidable as ever. Refined calculations were gone into, scientific light was sought, history was rummaged back to the times of the Roman Empire; and there seemed to be no way of getting to a concord of opinion either from the light of science, the voice of history, or the result of calculations. The author of this View had, in his speeches on the subject, taken up the question in a practical point of view, regardless of history and calculations and the opinions of bank officers; and looking to the actual and equal circulation of the two metals in different countries he saw that this equality and actuality of circulation had existed for above three hundred years in the Spanish dominions of Mexico and South America, where the proportion was 16:1. Taking his stand upon this single fact, as the practical test which solved the question, all the real friends of the gold