reason for the passage of the act was, really, the low price of gold-dust, the merchants having the power to fix the rate of gold as well as of wheat, receiving it for goods at twelve dollars an ounce, the Hudson's Bay Company buying it at ten dollars and paying in coin procured for the purpose.[1]
The effect of the law was to prevent the circulation of gold-dust altogether, as it forbade weighing. No steps were taken toward building a mint, which would have been impossible had not the erection of a territorial government intervened. But as there was henceforth considerable coin coming into the country to exchange at high prices for every available product, there was no serious lack of money.[2] On the contrary there was a disadvantage in the readiness with which silver was introduced from California, barrels of Mexican and Peruvian dollars being thrown upon the market, which had been sent to California to pay for gold-dust. The Hudson's Bay Company allowed only fifty cents for a Peruvian dollar, while the American merchants took them at one hundred cents. Some of the Oregon miners were shrewd enough to buy up Mexican silver dollars, and even less valuable coins, with gold-dust at sixteen dollars an ounce, and take
- ↑ Barnes' Or. and Cal., MS., 9; Buck's Enterprises, MS., 8; Brown's Will. Vol., MS., 14. This condition of the currency caused a petition to be drawn up and numerously signed, setting forth that in consequence of the neglect of the United States government the colonists must combine against the greed of the merchants in this matter. There was gold-dust in the territory, they declared, to the value of two millions of dollars, and more arriving. Besides the losses they were forced to bear by the depreciation of gold-dust, there was the inconvenience of handling it in its original state, and also the loss attending its frequent division. These objections to a gold-dust currency being likely to exist for some time, or as long as mining was followed, they prayed the legislature to pass a coinage act, which was done as I have said. Or. Archives, MS., 188.
- ↑ Deady's Hist. Or., MS.
must have been the design on the territorial seal, as it was on the coins. All disbursements of the mint, together with the pay of officers, must be made in the stamped pieces authorized by the act; and whatever remained of profits, after deducting expenses, was to be applied to pay the Cayuse war expenses. Penalties were provided for the punishment of any private person who should coin gold or attempt to pass unstamped gold. The officers appointed were James Taylor, director; Truman P. Powers, treasurer; W. H. Willson, melter and coiner, and G. L. Curry, assayer. Or. Spectator, Feb. 22, 1849.
