Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/608

592 he forbade any charge for exchanging the metals under the same penalties enjoined by the law of November 14, 1652—confiscation and loss of citizenship. It was in vain; the distinction between the coinages was too firmly established, and the tendency was even to increase the premium on the precious metals. In 1772 Charles III, in issuing a new gold coinage, prescribes that the gold crown shall be worth 37$1⁄2$ vellón ryals, and as it was equal only to 16 silver ryals, this shows a premium of over one hundred per cent.

The question of the premium on silver was further complicated by tampering with the silver coinage. In 1726 it was ordered that the peso or piece of eight should be counted for 9·5 ryals; the small silver coins of two ryals and less were worked 77 ryals to the marc, in place of the old weight of 67, and only 10 dineros fine in place of 11, thus lowering them to twenty per cent below the standard; and in 1728 the fineness was further reduced to 9 dineros (22 grains), or 0·798, increasing the deficiency to twenty-five per cent. The mintage of the Indies, principally in the larger pieces, was not reduced, and thus there came to be two kinds of silver coinage, known as the nacional or heavier, and the provincial or lighter. Between these there was a recognized difference of twenty per cent, the real de plata nacional being worth 2·5 vellón ryals, or 20 quartos, while the real de plata provincial was only worth 2 vellon ryals, or 16 quartos. There were thus three established currencies of different values, two of silver and one of copper, and for awhile there was a fourth, for we hear, in 1728, of a new coinage popularly known as Marias, which is ordered to be demonetized by July 1st next ensuing. The order, as usual, was disregarded, for in 1736 it was repeated, with a prohibition to draw bills of exchange in the forbidden currency.

The depreciation of the ryal has survived, to modern times, the revolution in the currency, which has become decimal, and is modeled on that of France. The peseta is the equivalent of the franc, worth approximately twenty cents in our money, and when ryals are quoted they are a fourth of the peseta, or five cents, thus being only two fifths of their nominal value in silver. Whether the vellón ryal has ceased to be the standard money of account I can not say, but I happen to have before me a draft drawn through the Bank of Spain, December 17, 1858, in Madrid on Jaen for "la suma de tres mil reales de vellón en plata ú oro," showing that accounts were still kept in vellón and that every transaction involved a conversion of this into specie.

There can be no exaggeration in attributing to these perpetual fluctuations in the standard of value a leading part in the industrial and commercial decadence of Spain. During the period we have