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.
CHAPTER XXXV.
After travelling so far together, the reader will permit me to direct his attention to the geographical position and natural advantages of the Philippines, which are unequalled by any other islands in the whole eastern Archipelago. Their vicinity to the immensely populous empire of China is in itself enough to render them a most flourishing colony.
The Spanish and local governments are alive to the importance of this, and appear desirous to encourage trade to a limited extent, but are apparently anxious to hold the reins of it, and to regulate it as they deem best for themselves, or at any time to put a stop to it entirely.