The natives of the country are extremely inexpert
in judging of the quality of gold. They know
no means of separating the metals which alloy the
ore, being wholly unacquainted with the chemical
menstrua, and other means, which Europeans employ
for that purpose. They are even unaware of
the presence of foreign metals at all, and imagine
that gold, more or less alloyed, is but the same
metal, differing intrinsically, as it is, in a state of
less or higher maturity. Some of the native dealers
in gold have, however, acquired the practice of
assaying the metal, by the touch-stone, from the
natives of Telinga. The scale of these last people,
instead of being divided, as among us, into twenty-
four parts,^contains only ten degrees. The resident
Telingas themselves are the most expert as-
sayers of gold. Native merchants have, indeed,
been in the habit of employing the Jdindus of the
little colony of this; people, residing at Malacca, to
assay their gold for them, which was done:for a
trifling per centage. The packages were sealed
with their signet, and often passed current for the
quantity and value .they were said, to contain, without
examination. From the unskilfulness of the
natives an assaying gold, and-their consequent fear
of imposition, they seldom or ever cast gold into
bars, and we do not therefore meet it in this.form
in the markets of the Archipelago. It may be
strongly recommended to any of the European go-
12
vernments, when they have acquired the confidence
of the natives, to institute a mint or assay-office,
for the purpose of melting gold into ingots, to
bear a stamp, declaring the assay of the metal.
This is peculiarly called for in a country which
contains some of the most productive gold mines in
the world; and I know no measure of mere regulation
which would tend so eminently to the benefit
and facility of commercial intercourse. The
stamp, expressing the quality of the metal, ought
to be impressed in one or two native characters, as
well as in the Chinese and in the European character.
The coining of gold as money is a measure
which cannot be recommended in a country
where it is more exclusively an article of commerce
than in any other, and where, consequently,
its price must fluctuate more. Silver, besides,
is in more estimation as money, always regulating
the price of gold, except where governments
arbitrarily interpose to reverse this order. If
gold coin expressed only its intrinsic value, it would
be immediately exported on every trifling rise in
its price, and if it expressed more, it would be of
no value beyond the limits of the authority under
which it was coined, and would banish silver from
circulation. No other result would attend this
measure than subjecting the state to the expence
of supporting a coinage, an expence at present inquired
for them by foreigners.
With respect to the absolute amount of the gold
y o L , 111. ' h h