than a half joe,' and one-fifteenth more than a double guinea. 2. The silver dollar, or Unit of (about) 365 grains of silver, was a known coin, the most familiar of all. "It is already adopted from South to North; has identified our currency, and therefore happily offers itself as a Unit already introduced. Our public debt, our requisitions, and their apportionments, have given it actual and long possession of the place of Unit." As a Unit the pound was the dollar's only competitor, but the pound varied in value in different states. In Georgia it contained 1,547 grains of fine silver. In Virginia and New England 1,289 grains; in New York 966 grains, and so on; while the pound sterling then contained 1,718 grains of pure silver. Happily the dollar was familiar in all the States and was used to measure values no less than the provincial pounds. 3. Jefferson's third coin, the tenth of a dollar, was also familiar, being in fact the Spanish 'bit,' or half pistareen. 4. The hundredth or cent, a copper coin, would differ little in value from the penny of New York, Pennsylvania, and other states. In Virginia copper coins had never been used; but Jefferson favoured their introduction because, as he observed acutely, "small change is useful in a State and tends to reduce the price of small articles." It might be well also, he thought, to coin silver half dollars, a bit, and a half bit. Coming to the interesting question of the ratio between gold and silver Jefferson noted that the Spanish ratio was then sixteen to one, the English ratio, fifteen and a half to one, and the French fifteen to one, the result being that there was more gold coin in Spain and England and less in France. Jefferson's view was, the 1 Joe is short for 'Johannes,' a Portuguese and Brazilian gold coin. right one, that in fixing a bimetallic ratio they should take an average of the market price of gold in various countries, though "perhaps we might with safety lean to a proportion somewhat above par for gold." He inclined to favour fifteen to one. In deciding the quantum of alloy Jefferson selected the French ratio of one ounce to the pound for silver coin and the British ratio of one ounce to the pound for gold coin. Subject to an examination by experts of the various Spanish and Mexican dollars then in circulation he assumed that the dollar unit would be fixed at 365 grains of pure silver, that the ratio to gold would be fifteen to one, that the alloy in both gold and silver coins would be one-twelfth. On these assumptions he fixed the weight of all the gold and silver coins in his plan. Such are the main features of the scheme on which the American monetary system was founded by the scientific genius of Jefferson. BOOK III AMERICAN MINISTER IN FRANCE CHAPTER I DIPLOMAT AND TRAVELLER "Surely travel fulleth the man; he hath lived but locked up in a larger chest, which hath never seen but one land." Ο FELTHAM N May 7, 1784, Congress decided to appoint a Minister Plenipotentiary to assist Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in negotiating Treaties of Commerce with foreign nations. The mission was offered to Jefferson. He accepted it, and on the 11th left Annapolis for Philadelphia, where his eldest daughter Martha was at school. The two younger ones he left in the care of their maternal aunt, Mrs. Eppes; Martha he took with him. Travelling by slow stages through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island he informed himself of commercial conditions in those States, then passed through Massachusetts to New Hampshire and Vermont, and returning to Boston set sail for Europe on July 5 in the Ceres, a merchant ship bound to Cowes in the Isle of Wight, then a favourite English port. Their voyage, wrote Martha at a later date, was as pleasant as fine weather, a fine ship, good company, and an excellent table could make it. Colonel Tracy, the owner of the vessel, who was one of the six passengers, doubtless looked after their creature |