Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/383

 daring offenders, whose example it is hoped will prevent acta of HO destructive a tendency." The Sifdnetf Gazette narrated that the mutineers ** were punished throu<ifh the Cove in different boats equipped for that purpose,*' The money question troubled the eoloniHts before the end of the eighteenth century- By proclamation (Nov. 1800) King notified that His Majesty had graciously sent a supply of copper coin, which was to pass current at the rate of twopence for each coin weighing one ounce, Britannia on the other/' At the same time a table of specie legally circulating in the colony was puhlished. A jobamm ... A half ditto A ducat A gold moluir K pagoda . . . i A Spanish dollar A rupett A Dutch guilder ,., All KagUsh shilling A cupper coin of one ouuct: God save the King. Exportation or importation of copper coin by the public as forbidden under severe penalties, and confiscation of the coin ; and the autliorized copper coin could not be egally tendered in sums exceeding five pounds sterling. lu 804, to check *' vexatious suits/' King tixed the rate of interest at B pm cent.; anyone receiving more than that rate was to forfeit *' treble the value, to be appropriated to such fund as the Governor may direct/' In 1803 a Government mmeralogist accompanied Collins to Port Phillip, But the golden treasiu'es of that part of the colony were not then to be unlocked. In 1805 the same mineralogist was at Sydney and it was ordered that he should *'pass uninterrupted and receive asBietance in his researches/' In 1801 the settlers at the Hawkesbury, alleging that they could not pay their debts *' owing to extortions practised upon them/' petitioned ** for one year's suspension of the Civil Courts of Judicature/' The Governor reminded them of ** the inconsiderate conduct of a great part of those whose names appear in the petition and the flagrant abuses they have made of the exertions used to extricate tbeni from the state they were in last year/' Tx<i^ Vx-^
 * stamped with the pro tile of His Majesty on one side and