FYI - the following post from Mr. Adams is actually the pasted text
from the Thomas Jefferson Wiki at Monticello:
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Currency
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Robin
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Philip Adams
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 10:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] question about money
Per the web site about currency in the colonies and the early beginnings
of the US.
Thanks to Thomas Jefferson.
The gold and silver of many kingdoms filled the gap created by a chronic
scarcity of British coins in the American colonies. Jefferson's
Memorandum Books reveal that he loaded friends bound for England with
precious metal of all shapes and nationalities. In 1769 he handed
Matthew Maury, seeking books for Jefferson and ordination for himself in
London, three gold Portuguese half johannes (joes), two gold German
ducats, and a silver coffeepot, weighing twenty-two ounces.[2] A year
later, one of Jefferson's most troublesome legal clients finally paid
him in a motley mixture of silver and gold -- half joes and moidores
from Portugal, doubloons and pistoles from Spain, and 308 English half
crowns.[3]
Jefferson's pocket coin scale, coins, and glasses. Photograph courtesy
United States MintTo compound the disorder of the situation, each colony
had its own rates of exchange. On crossing the border from Virginia to
Maryland in 1775, Jefferson had to note in his Memorandum Book the new
values of Spanish dollars and pistareens and Portuguese half joes, as
well as English guineas and shillings.[4] But for Jefferson, even a
purely British system would have been an ordeal. He described the
mysteries of arithmetic for an American school boy, "puzzled with adding
the farthings, taking out the fours and carrying them on; adding the
pence, taking out the twelves and carrying them on; adding the
shillings, taking out the twenties and carrying them on."
"But when he came to the pounds," Jefferson continued, "where he had
only tens to carry forward, it was easy and free from error." Jefferson
began advocating decimal reckoning as an orderly alternative to the
currency chaos in 1776. In 1784, after his "Notes on the establishment
of a Money Unit,"[5] he recommended a system with the advantages of
convenience, simplicity, and familiarity. The Spanish dollar was
convenient in size, its decimal division would make computation simple,
and its multiples and subdivisions would accord with already well-known
coins. "Even mathematical heads," he admitted, "feel the relief of an
easier substituted for a more difficult process." Jefferson's lucid
arguments overwhelmed rival plans and the United States soon became the
first nation in history to adopt a decimal coinage system.
Jefferson was one of the earliest Americans to consider a decimal
currency.
He gave it, in 1784, its most articulate and persuasive expression in
his "Notes on Coinage." Congress, convinced by these arguments, adopted
it with little dissent. It was eventually implemented because of the
agreement of major figures in the U.S. government with the basic
principles of Jefferson's argument. Jefferson also became part of the
realization of the system through his involvement with the establishment
and first years of the U.S. Mint.
John Philip Adams
Texas
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