5388. MONEY, Standard.—[continued].
Now this is exactly the effect of the late change in the quantity of
gold contained in your louis. Your marc
d'argent fin is cut into 53.45 livres ( fifty-three
livres and nine sous), the marc de l'or
fin was cut, heretofore, by law, into 784.6
livres (seven hundred and eighty-four livres
and twelve sous); gold was to silver then as
14.63 to 1. And if this was different from
the proportion at the markets of Europe, the
true value of your livre stood half way between
the two standards. By the ordinance
of October the 30th, 1785, the marc of pure
gold has been cut into 828.6 livres. If your
standard had been in gold alone, this would
have reduced the value of your livre in the
proportion of 828.6 to 784.6. But as you
had a standard of silver as well as gold, the
true standard is the medium between the
two; consequently the value of the livre is
reduced only one-half the difference, that is
as 806.6 to 784.6, which is very nearly three
per cent. Commerce, however, has made a
difference of four per cent., the average value
of the pound sterling, formerly twenty-four
livres, being now twenty-five livres. Perhaps
some other circumstance has occasioned an
addition of one per cent. to the change of
your standard.—
To J. Sarsfield. Washington ed. iii, 19.
(P.
April. 1789)
