Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/107

( 82 ) flesh and blood, returned it to the holy Father unexamined.

The King's tenth of the gold is taken from the ore at the smelting-house, where it is cast into ingots, which are stamped, and then become a legal tender in payments; if the owner wishes to have it coined, it pays two and a half per cent at the mint. The colonial gold currency is in pieces of four millres, or twenty-five shillings sterling; these are greatly alloyed, to prevent their exportation from the Colony. Most of the gold sent to Portugal is coined into half joes (2l.); and the exportation of uncoined gold is forbidden, upon pain of transportation for life to the coast of Guinea. The