The First Bank of the United States, Coinage.

The first United States Bank was chartered by Congress in 1791. Its capital was $10,000,000, to be paid, one-fourth in cash, the rest in bonds of the United States. The charter was to run for twenty years. It issued no bills under $10.

Other banks were now formed very rapidly. The following list is given by Gouge, though he says that it is not full:

In 1794 the first silver was actually coined, the dollar weighing 416 grs., 1485 parts pure to 179 parts alloy. Its pure contents were, there fore. 371.25 grs. Gold was first coined in 1795, the eagle weighing 270 grs., 11/12 fine, so that one dollar contained 24.75 grs. pure gold. It will be observed that where two metals are thus made legal tender, and there is both a silver “ dollar” and a gold “ dollar,” the question of relative value of the two metals is involved. It was assumed in the above rating that silver was to gold as 15 to 1. We have had one instance before us already when Massachusetts, in 1761, overrated gold in the coinage and drove out silver. If the rating should be correct at the time of passing the coinage law, yet the fluctuations which are continually taking place in the relative value of the two metals would in time disturb the relations, and only one metal would circulate, viz., the cheaper one. France has changed to a silver currency only, and then to a gold currency only, by these fluctuations since her mint law fixed the relation in the coinage. The ratio of 15 to I was, at this time, unjust to gold. The actual market value being 15¼ to 1. We shall have occasion to notice the operation in this case.