The money current in the Philippines consists of Spanish and South
American dollar pieces principally, although no two of them have
precisely the same weight in silver. Thus the Chilian dollar of 1833
had 456·24 grains of pure metal, while that of the Rio de la Plata
has only 441·24 grains of silver.
Nearly all the Mexican dollars differ in their quantity of pure silver;
for example, that of the coinage of 1832 had only 442·80, while that
of 1833 had 451·20 grains of pure metal. The old Spanish dollar has
445·08 grains of pure silver, and the half dollar 222·48 grains;
while the Bolivian half dollar has only 168·60 grains of pure silver;
and the Bolivian quarter-dollar piece has only 84·84 grains of pure
silver; while the standard Spanish quarter-piece contains 111·24
grains of unalloyed silver.
The golden doubloon, weighing an ounce, is worth sixteen dollars in
Manilla, although it usually sells for considerably less in China.
Both of these coins are subdivided into halves and quarter-pieces,
and the dollar is divided into eight reals, one of which is
equal to two and a half reals of the vellon money current in the
Peninsula; and the Manilla real is represented by a copper currency
of seventeen cuartos. In calculations, however, the real is divided
into twelve parts by an imaginary coin called grains; so that by
$3. 2. 6. would be understood three dollars, two reals, and a half
real, or three dollars and five-sixteenth parts of a dollar.
The copper money in circulation is so scanty, as to be perfectly
inadequate for the purpose; and at the time of my leaving Manilla,
the usual charge for exchanging a dollar for copper money was a
quartillo, or the quarter of a real, worth about a penny halfpenny
of English money.
In consequence of this scarcity, the natives are in the habit of
employing cigars as money, to represent the smaller coins; and all
over the Philippines a cigar is actually the most important circulating
medium, each representing a cuarto.
At various times the scarcity of copper coins has given rise to
extensive forgeries of them, and caused a considerable depreciation
in their actual value, the false coinage being all of spurious metal.
The gold which is found at Pictas, in Misamis, and at Mambalao,
Paracala, and Surigao, is consumed in the country in ornaments, &c.,
and some of it is sent also to China. The amount annually produced
at these places is very uncertain; and the quantity exported to China
is probably a good deal more than the amount set down in the tabular
statement, it being a thing of so very easy export, that I should
suppose at least an equal number of taels are sent there privately,
to what appears in the table to have passed the Custom-house.
Its value in Manilla varies, according to quality, at from twenty
dollars a tael down to fourteen for the inferior sorts.