Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 114

110
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1919
statement was sufficiently accurate. A large lump, partly chipped, with hammer and chisel, just as procured from a village stall in the Mandalay district, is now in the British Museum.93
Yule says, Ava, p. 259, that in 1855, baskets of lead for exchange were prominent objects in markets.64 And so does Maloolm, Travels, Vol. I, p. 269, when writing of Lower Burma in 1835.
Flouest, writing of Pegu and Rangoon in 1786, says (Toung Pao, Vol. II, p. 41) the same thing -"La monnoye courante dans les bazards ou marchés est du plomb coupé par morcoaux de differentes grosseurs : ils ont des balanoes dans lesquelles ils mettent d'un côté ce qu'on achete, et de l'autre le plomb. La viande et le poisson se vendent quelquefois à poid égaux. C'est à dire que pour vingt cinque livres de viande on donne 25 livres de plomb. Les légumes et autres articles de peu de valeur se vendent à proportion. On se sert rarement de ce metal pour des fortes sommes."
The expression used by Hunter, Pegu, p. 86, writing in 1785, is "for the payment of smaller sums, they use money of lead, which is weighed in the same manner as the former ” (i.e., as silver).65
At p. 256 of his Embassy to Ava, Yule further shows how some of the many variations In the statements of writers as to exchange between silver and lead have come about.66 "Lead is brought from the country about Thein-ni, in the Shân States, some 70 or 80 miles East of Amarapoora. The mines, it is believed, are worked for the silver that is contained in the lead, which pays the expense of smelting and gives a profit. The king (Mindôn Min] last year (1854) purchased 800,000 viss of lead at five tikals for a hundred viss and sold it at twenty tikals." This means that he bought at an exchange of 2,000 to 1 and sold at an exchange of 500 to 1, making a profit of 400 per cent, i.e., if he dealt fairly in the quality of the silver paid out and in, which is doubtful. Yule in calculating his profits (same page) at 120,000 tickals on the transaction seems to assume that he did. But the inference of importance for our present purpose from the above quotation is that, in a statement of the relative values between silver and lead by a traveller, a great deal would depend on whether he got his information before or after the lead referred to reached the Royal Treasury, or whether he was writing as to places in or out of the reach of the Royal Monopoly. Thus, for 1786, we get quite a different ratio between lead and silver from any of those above given, out of a statement by Flouest (Toung Pao, Vol. II, p. 41, n. 1), who is writing of Pegu and Rangoon, and says :-"Le plomb veut 6 bizes (viss) ou 6 bizes et demie pour un tioal," i.e., the ratio is from 600 to 650 to l.
In Stevens' Guide to the East India Trade, ed. 1766, we read, p. 115, of Achoon, that ** their Money is in Mace and Cash; the Mace is a gold Coin, about the size of a Two-penny Piece, but thinner, weighing about nine Grains; the Cash is a small Plese of Lead, 2500 of which usually pass for a Mace." On the same page we read "8 Mace Acheen make 1 Pagoda Madras." So one mace must have been nearly half a tickal. This gives us a ratio roughly of 1,000 to 1 between silver and lead, or pretty nearly that of Burma. The trouble
& Or Oxford Museum, for I forget to which of the two I gave it. 64 See also Symes, pp. 326, 469; Alexander, Travels, p. 21; Phayre, Int. Num. Or., Vol. III, p. 381.
65 As to what commercial writers of Hunter's time meant by “bullion, coin and money," we have a very instructive note in Stevens, Guide to East India Trade, ed. 1775, p. 93, where he quotes Sir James Steuart's Principles of Money, 1772, to the following effect "By bullion, we understand silver or gold, the mass or weight of which is not determined, though the fineness may be known by a particular stamp .... By coin we understand piecus of gold or silver of determinate weights and fineness.... By money we understand nothing more than the denomination which determines a proportion of value,"
# For general remarks on exchange between silver and lead, see ante, Vol. XXVL, 310.