37. Example of those mean valuations which become an ideal
expression for value.
There exists, in the commerce of every nation, many examples
of fictitious valuations of merchandize, which are, as we may
say, only a conventional language to express their value. Thus
the cooks of Paris, and the fishmongers who furnish great houses,
generally sell by the piece. A fat pullet is esteemed one piece,
a chicken half a piece, more or less, according to the season:
and so of the rest. In the negro trade in the American colonies,
they sell a cargo of negroes at the rate of so much per negro, an
Indian piece. The women and children are valued, so that, for
example, three children, or one woman and two children are
reckoned as one head of negro. They increase or diminish the
value on account of the strength or other quality of the slaves,
so that certain slaves are reckoned as two heads of negroes.
The Mandingo negroes, who carry on a trade for gold dust with
the Arabian merchants, bring all their commodities to a
fictitious scale, which both parties call macutes, so that they
tell the merchants they will give so many macutes in gold. They
value thus in macutes the merchandize they receive; and bargain
with the merchants upon that valuation. Thus in Holland they
reckon by bank florins, which is only a fictitious money, and
which in commerce is sometimes of a greater, sometimes of a less
value than the coin which is denominated a florin.
