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NOVEMBER, 1882.] THE COINAGES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.
313
sums of money granted for his work by a liberal government will be thrown away. As a confirmation of the opinion here expressed
I may refer to the remarks of Professor Pischel in his review of Senart's Inscriptions de Piyadasi in the Göttingen Anzeige.
THE COINAGES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, AT BOMBAY, UNDER THE CHARTERS OF CHARLES II, WITH A NOTE ON THE INDIAN
EXCHANGES OF THE PERIOD.
BY EDWARD THOMAS, F.R.S., &c. We derive much indirect information on this silver, copper and tin ["estain" pewter P] subject from the contemporary testimony of But that money will not go at Surat, nor Tavernier, that adventurous traveller and in any part of the Great Mogal's dominions, experienced trader in "precious stones," who or in any of the territories of the Indian was in India during part of the reigns of Shah Kings; only it passes among the English in Jahan and Aurangzeb. He is said to have their Fort, and some 2 or 3 leagues up in the been born in 1605 A.D. and to have died, at country, and in the villages along the coast." Moscow, in 1689. He tells us in his preface," si As regards the first part of this quotation, la première education est comme une seconde it would seem that the Portuguese and Dutch naissance, je puis dire que je suis venu au had already introduced a system of imitating monde avec le désir de vdyager"--and further, the native currencies to meet the facilities of "ainsi j'ai vû avec loisir dans mes six voyages commerce, in which practice we naturally folet par differens chemins toute la Turquie, toute lowed them. As a general rule, the nations of la Perse, et toutes les Indes"." His memoirs the Peninsula were more inclined to accept were only written out from his notes, by others, the adjudication of the money-changer, than after his return to Europe, so that it is often to give credence to any royal stamp: in short, difficult to fix the precise date to which he they preferred the tests of scales and the cupel refers for any special incident. He was in to the impressed authentication of the Officers England in the time of James the 1st, and we of the King's Mint. Ferishtah has preserved a find him, after many wanderings, at Agra in curious record of how, on the conquest of the 1641 A.D. and again in 1665 A.D.
Dekhan, the Muhammadans were much put The following passages contain his leading out by the pertinacions local habit of passing remarks on the English coinages in India :- their new money through the crucible and
"Figure 1 and 2 is the money which the its immediate conversion into pagodas, &c. English coin in their Fort St. George or else The motive for this was supposed to have at Madraspatan, upon the coast of Coromandel. been due to the religious zeal of the Hindus, They call them Pagods, as those of the Kings who desired to perpetuate the sacred emblems and Rajas of the country are called. They of their creed in supersession of the pious are of the same weight, the same goodness and Jegends of Islâm, but it seems more reasonpass for the same value. Formerly the English able to suppose that these measures were simply never coined any silver or copper money; .. prompted by a desire to secure certainty of ... But since the present King of England value in the form usually accepted by the married the Princess of Portugal, who had masses and sanctioned by the ancient guilds of in part of her portion the famous port of the crafts of goldsmiths and Sarrafs. Bombeye, where the English are very hard at "The Portugals," in the time of Tavernier, work to build a strong Fort, they coin both had got beyond mere local issues, and coined
1 The shrliest edition of his works appeared in Paris in 1676, with reprints in 1677, and 1679, Amsterdam 1678, and "Made English by J. P." in London, 1678. Harris's Voyages, 1764, vol. I, p. 810, reproduces most of the text, and Pinkerton, 1811, vol. VIII, gives the chapter on Diamonds, &o.
Les Voyages de Tavernier, ont été rédiges d'après ses propres notes, en partie par Chapuzeau, son ami, et en partie par Daulior des Landes, qui l'a mooompagné dans
l'un de ses voyages.- Nouveau Dictionnaire Bibliographique. 8. V.
Tavernier, pp. 6, 141. The pagodas of the Hollanders were “better gold by 1 or 2 per cent." than those of the English ... Ferishtah, Bombay Persian text, Lithographed Edition, vol. I, p. 537; Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Dehli, by Edward Thomas, p. 343.
