nging it from London and laying it down in San
Francisco. These terms, being deemed exorbitant, were rejected,
and arrangements were immediately made to bring the capacity of
the mint at Philadelphia to its maximum, with a view to meet the
provisions of law, which required two millions of silver dollars
to be coined in each month, and the available supplies of silver
from domestic sources being entirely insufficient for the coinage
of this amount, the foreign market was indirectly resorted to and
an amount sufficient to meet the requirements of law secured.

In July, 1878, the principal holders of bullion on the Pacific
coast receded from their position and accepted the equivalent of
the London rate, at which price sufficient bullion was purchased
to employ the mints of San Francisco and Carson on the coinage of
the dollar.

At the date of my report, United States notes were practically at
par with gold. The public mind had settled into a conviction that
the parity of coin and currency was assured, and our people,
accustomed to the convenience of paper money, would not willingly
have received coin to any considerable amount in any business
transactions. The minor coins of silver, were received and paid
out without question at parity with gold coin, because the amount
was limited and they were coined by the government only as demanded
for the public convenience. The silver dollar was too weighty and
cumbersome and when offered in considerable sums was objected to,
though a legal tender for any sum, and coined only in limited
amounts for government account. Every effort was made by the
treasury department to give it the largest circulation, but the
highest amount that could be circulated was from fifty to sixty
millions, and much of this was in the southern states. All sums
in excess of that were returned to the treasury for silver
certificates. These were circulated as money, like United States
notes and bank bills. This was only possible by the guarantee of
the government that all forms of money would be maintained at parity
with each other. If this guarantee had been doubted, or if the
holder of silver bullion could have had it coined at his pleasure
and for his benefit at the ratio of sixteen to one, the silver
dollar would, as the cheaper coin, have excluded all other forms
of money, and the purchasing power of silver coin would have been
reduced to the market value of silver bullion.

On the 3rd of Dec