55 cents), had a value of 41 francs 66 cents (7500 reis). This law was repealed shortly afterwards, together with those passed in the Cortes of 1820, but was restored and ratified by another law of the 24th November 1823, and by a special charter of 5th June 1824.
The preamble of the law of 1822 had declared that the equivalence of 13.5 between gold and silver was very far from expressing the proportion of their mercantile value, and that gold did not practically come into circulation on account of the legal value of such money being below its corresponding value in bullion, the legal ratio was therefore raised to 16 in 1825.
In 1835 a new law, of the 24th April, gave the coined silver mark the value of 7500 reis (41 francs 66 cents), which brought the equivalence to about 15.5, a figure which was considered the average rate of exchange of money, whether national or foreign. Page 275
On the 3rd March 1847 a new law was passed raising the value of the gold mark to 128,000 reis (711 francs 11 cents), and the gold piece, whose value had been fixed in 1822 at 41 francs 66 cents (7500 reis), rose to 44 francs 44 cents (8000 reis). After this law other legal measures were taken which established the legal ratio of 16.5.
It was these incessant alterations of ratio which led Portugal to abandon bimetallism. The preamble of the law of 1854, which instituted the gold single standard, expresses this, attesting that the circulation felt the lack of harmony and the