193-4)

Author: Isaac Newton

Source: MINT 19/2/192, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK

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- Revision History
  - 1 January 2001
    - Catalogue information compiled by Rob Iliffe, Peter Spargo & John Young
  - 29 September 2011
    - Catalogue exported to teiHeader by Michael Hawkins
  - 10 May 2017
    - Transcribed by Will Scott
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<192r>

800000 pieces of 8 at 5 per cent comes to 40000 Piastres per annum. To be paid in the same species.

Eight or nine hundred thousand Mexico Dollars to be delivered at Port Mahon by tale & weight & an account to be taken by person deputed on both sides. The weight to be taken only of the whole. Interest to be allowed at the rate of five Dollars per cent, or 40000 Dollars per annum to be paid half yearly. And the principall money to be repaid at Genoa at the end of two years. The interest & principal to be paid in Mexico Dollars, of in so much other money or bullion which at Genoa shall be of the same intrinsic value or standard weight, recconing Mexico Dollars 1^{dw^t} worse in finenes then sterling money. And an Quære what allowanc{e}

8 or 9 hundred thousand Mexico Dollars to be borrowed for two years at 5 per cent per annum. The interest & principal to be paid back in like dollars or in other silver of the same value, & the interest to be paid half yearly.

These Dollars are valued in England & Holland as Bullion & pass among the merchants by weight, & are 1^{dw^t} worse then standard. If they can be weighed by Troy weights (as they may be here if they should come for England) they may be received by such weight as bullion 1^{dw^t} worse then our standard.

But if they cannot conveniently be weight they may be told & received as bullion by recconing every thousand Dollers to weigh 872 ounces Troy, provided they have not been culled since they came from the west-Indies. For they are found by Merchants to be of this weight within an ounce or two over or under when they first come to Europe.

NB. At this rate a piece of $\frac{8}{8}$ weighs 17^{dw^t}_∟44 or 17^{dw^t} 10^gr $\frac{14}{25}$

Mexico pieces of eight fresh out of the Mint are recconed by Refiners to weigh 17^{dw^t} $\frac{1}{2}$ one with another at a medium. And I have seen an account of seven or eight parcels each of which conteined 1200 Dollars & weight 87^{lw^t} 6^oz. At this rate a thousand Dollars will weigh 875 ounces Troy. And if the Dollars at Port Mahoa are all of them perfectly unworn they may be received by this weight. But if they are a mixture of Dollars worn & unworn (for Merchants receive them in America not of the Mint master but of the people with whom they trade) they may be received here at the weight of 872 ounces per thousand: three ounces in the weight of every thousand Dollars being abated for the wearing. For Merchants find this to be their weight as they come from the West Indies. Those that are unworn & fresh out of the Mint may be known by their glossy colour & the sharpness of their lines & edges.

Pillar pieces are finer then the Mexico but ` scarce so weighty. Refiners reccon them of about the same value with the Mexico by weight & fines together They are but few in number Sevil pieces are all worn there having {bee}n none of them coined since the year 1686. Peru pieces are still worse.