Two Dollars a Year, in Advance. [Entered at Post Office, Boston, at Second Class Rates.] Single Copies, 50 Cts. 33 QUAI VOLTAIRE, PARIS, FRANCE. W. S. LINCOLN & SON, 462 NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON, ENGLAND. All Communications to be addressed to Jeremiah Colburn, 18 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass. THE above cut is reproduced from Vol. V. No. 2, of the Journal, by request. It seems to correspond, in form, at least, to some pieces mentioned in Mr. Brevoort's article as circulating among the Aztecs, and is the size and exact shape of a piece shown by Mr. Henry Davenport at a meeting of the Boston Numismatic Society in May, 1860. WHEN the Spaniards first reached the Antilles, no currency of any kind was in use there. The discoverers, as they settled the Islands, used as a currency the native gold (tepuzque) in the form of ingots and plates stamped with marks denoting their value. These contained much natural or added alloy, and circulated in Hispaniola at the rate of 44 maravedis to the real or dollar, while in Spain the official value of the real was 34 mars. Many complaints of the debased value of this St. Domingo currency are to be found in the documents of the time, even after the period when Don Antonio de Mendoza, Governor of Mexico, introduced a regular coinage of silver. Small importations of Spanish silver and copper were occasionally made, but did not supply the demand. No mention is made of Spanish gold pieces being much in use, and the large sums spoken of in early histories must be understood as represented by the stamped ingots or by rough gold. Herrera states that up to 1510 no gold (meaning coins) was current in Santo Domingo, the capital of the West Indies. He says that counterfeits of castellanos de oro and ducados were circulating. The chief coin was the real of silver, and other currency sent from Spain. In 1520, (Docs. Inéd. Am. y Oc. II. 1864, p. 370,) it is stated that much less gold was collected, owing to the mortality among the natives from the small-pox, and their being employed in sugar-making. In 1521, Herrera says that gold and silver coins were sent to Panama, and in 1523 to Mexico. In Panama, flat gold pieces called cut money had been in use. In 1528, a petition from Cuba recites that the gold in circulation varied in fineness from 19 carats down, but that it might be stamped as worth 450 maravedis to the Peso de oro and asks that 200 (blank on doc.) of money in reales and cuartos may be sent from Spain. Docs. Inéd. Am. y Oc. 1869, XII, 16. In Mexico and its dependencies, as also in Yucatan and Guatemala, the bean of several species of the cacao had been used as currency. The growing of this small tree was reserved as a prerogative of the chiefs. Columbus, on his fourth voyage, in 1502, met large trading canoes at the Guanasa (Roatan) Islands, north of Honduras, which had "many of those almonds that are used as money in New Spain." Fern. Colon. Vita. Cap. 89. Herrera. I. V. 5. In |