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316
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1882.
he estimates these sums in English money at £37,724,615.
The next series of definitions of exchange rates consist, for the most part, of the contemporary testimony of Englishmen, who probably carried British shillings to India, and there practically ascertained what they would go for The first on the list is the eccentric Thomas Coryate, who defines the Mughal Revenues in 1615, as “ 40 millions of crowns of six shil- lings each." We need not here attempt to reconcile these totals, as in another place he allows us to infer that he places the rupee at 2s. in defining a lack at £10,000 sterling."10
Terry in 1616 speaks of the rupees as “of divers values, the meanest being worth 2 shillings, and the best about 2 shillings and mine pence"," an estimate which is accepted by De Lait in "Rupias. . que communiter valent duos solidos et "novem denarios Angl. interdum etiam tantum duos." Finally Sir Thomas Herbert, in his “Some yeares of Travaile, begunne in 1626,"" tells us & Mahmudi is 12 pence, & rupee 2 shillings and three pence."
But with all this, we must remember that our King's shilling was only a token, not a measure of value. Twelve pence in silver instead of being equal to one-twentieth (3) of the standard pound, had been very extensively reduced at this date, as will be seen from the accompanying Tables of English Silver Coins. But this difficulty of relative values may possibly be disposed of by the parallel definitions, in gold, which are so often to be met with."
On the other hand, the true measure of value in India was dependent upon, so to say, three different standards: (1) the copper, which had not yet lost its early status as an arbiter of values-seeing that the revenues of the State were still estimated in dáms; (2) the silver, which was fast taking the place of the lower metal; and (3) the gold, which in the increase of the material riches of the land, was beginning to have a fixed and recognised ratio as against silver.
And here it will be necessary to advert, briefly, to the English Monetary System. William the Norman brought over with him the method of dividing the Saxon pound of 5,400 grains into 20 shillings, and the shillings into 12 pence. This pound was called the moneyer's pound," and constituted the Mint standard, "until the reign of Henry VIII, in A.D. 1528, when the Troy pound was made the Mint weight in room of the moneyer's pound or the Tower pound, which was to less, or 5,400 grains."36
In process of time the 240 pennies of the old standard came to be 792 pence of 7-2727 grains each, in lieu of William the Conqueror's full 22-5 grains, and the 20 nominal shillings (or 21} of the pound Troy), expanded into 62 in
18th Charles the II, 1665, and into 66 in 1816 with parallel reductions in value in each case.
The subjoined Tables exhibit-No. I the absolute variations; No. II the working results. No. III the relative values of Gold and Silver in the English system. It has not been attempted to reconcile minor discrepancies: but the authority for No. I is distinctly avowed, and the materials for No. II are grounded on the actual weights of extant coins, which Mr. E. Hawkins, as head of the Medal Room in the British Museum had so many opportunities of verifying, while the data for No. III are sufficiently defined in the standard work of Ruding.
Table I.-"Showing at one vier how many pounds, shillings, and pennies, have been coined out of a pound of silver at different times in England.
PRELIMINARY NOTE. "Whatever the division of money may have been in England in the Anglo-Saxon times, there is no doubt that it has been the same ever since the reign of William the Conqueror as at present (1805], viz. 12 pennies in a shilling, which never was a real coin till the year 1504, and 20 shillings in a pound, which though not a real coin, was a real pound, containing 12 ounces of standard silver, till the reign of Edward I, from which period the weight of the nominal pound has gradually been diminished, till it is now about one-third of what it origin
Harris's Voyages, vol. I, p. 652; The Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire, by Edward Thomas, London, 1871, pp. 32, 49, and note p. 50.
10 Coryate's Crudities, edition of 1776, 3 vols. 8vo, and Purchas, vol. I, p. 591; Kerr, vol. IX, pp. 422, 428. # Purchas, London, 1625, vol. II, p. 1464 ; Kerr, vol.
De Imperio Magni Mogolie, sive India Ver. Lagd.
Bat. 1631; Caloutta Review, October 1870, Revenue Resources, pp. 19-22.
» London, 1634, p. 41. *Persian Travels, London, 1676; Sir T. Herbert, p. 41.
15 Ruding, vol. I, p. 18. The Tower pound consisted of 12 oz., each ounce of 20 dwts., ench dwt. of 24 grains, the whole was lighter than the Troy pound by of an ounce."
* Kelly's Universal Cambist, p. xxi.
IX. p. 292.
