Moreover, Dr. D'Acunha states that in the "New Conquests," or provinces annexed to Goa only about 100 years ago, "the accounts were kept until lately in sanvoy and nixane pagodas, each of them being divided into 2 pratáps...." &c. (p. 46, note).
As regards the value of the pardao d'ouro, when adopted into the Goa currency by Alboquerque, Dr. D'Acunha tells us that it "was equivalent to 370 reis, or 1s. 6½d.[[212]] English." Yet he accepts the identity of this pardao d'ouro with the hūn current in Western India, of which the Madras pagoda was till 1818 a living and unchanged representative, a coin which was, at the time of its abolition, the recognised equivalent of 3½ rupees, or 7 shillings. And doubtless this, or a few pence more, was the intrinsic value of the pardao. Dr. D'Acunha in fact has made his calculation from the present value of the (imaginary) rei. Seeing that a milrei is now reckoned equal to a dollar, or 50d., we have a single rei = 1⁄20d., and 370 reis = 1s. 6½d. It seems not to have occurred to the author that the rei might have degenerated in value as well as every other denomination of money with which he has to do, every other in fact of which we can at this moment remember anything, except the pagoda, the Venetian sequin, and the dollar.[[213]] Yet the fact of this degeneration everywhere stares him in the face. Correa tells us that the cruzado which Alboquerque struck in 1510 was the just equivalent of 420 reis. It was indubitably the same as the cruzado of the mother country, and indeed A. Nunez (1554) gives the same 420 reis as the equivalent of the cruzado d'ouro de Portugal, and that amount also for the Venetian sequin, and for the sultani or Egyptian gold dīnār. Nunez adds that a gold coin of Cambaya, which he calls [Madrafaxao] (q.v.), was worth 1260 to 1440 reis, according to variations in weight and exchange. We have seen that this must have been the gold-mohr of Muzaffar-Shāh II. of Guzerat (1511-1526), the weight of which we learn from E. Thomas's book.
| From the Venetian sequin (content of pure gold 52.27 grs. value 111d.[[214]]) the value of the rei at 111⁄420d. will be | 0.264d. |
| From the Muzaffar Shāhi mohr (weight 185 grs. value, if pure gold, 392.52d.) value of rei at 1440 | 0.272d. |
| Mean value of rei in 1513 i.e. more than five times its present value. | 0.268d. |
Dr. D'Acunha himself informs us (p. 56) that at the beginning of the 17th century the Venetian was worth 690 to 720 reis (mean 705 reis), whilst the pagoda was worth 570 to 600 reis (mean 585 reis).
These statements, as we know the intrinsic value of the sequin, and the approximate value of the pagoda, enable us to calculate the value of the rei of about 1600 at ... 0.16d. Values of the milrei given in Milburn's Oriental Commerce, and in Kelly's Cambist, enable us to estimate it for the early years of the last century. We have then the progressive deterioration as follows:
| Value of rei in the beginning of the 16th century | 0.268d. |
| Value of rei in the beginning of the 17th century | 0.16d. |
| Value of rei in the beginning of the 19th century | 0.06 to 0.066d. |
| Value of rei at present | 0.06d. |
Yet Dr. D'Acunha has valued the coins of 1510, estimated in reis, at the rate of 1880. And Mr. Birch has done the same.[[215]]
The Portuguese themselves do not seem ever to have struck gold pardaos or pagodas. The gold coin of Alboquerque's coinage (1510) was, we have seen, a cruzado (or manuel), and the next coinage in gold was by Garcia de Sá in 1548-9, who issued coins called San Thomé, worth 1000 reis, say about £1, 2s. 4d.; with halves and quarters of the same. Neither, according to D'Acunha, was there silver money of any importance coined at Goa from 1510 to 1550, and the coins then issued were silver San Thomés, called also patacões (see [PATACA]). Nunez in his Tables (1554) does not mention these by either name, but mentions repeatedly pardaos, which represented 5 silver tangas, or 300 reis, and these D'Acunha speaks of as silver coins. Nunez, as far as I can make out, does not speak of them as coins, but rather implies that in account so many tangas of silver were reckoned as a pardao. Later in the century, however, we learn from Balbi (1580), Barrett[[216]] (1584), and Linschoten (1583-89), the principal currency of Goa consisted of a silver coin called xerafin (see [XERAFINE]) and pardao-xerafin, which was worth 5 tangas, each of 60 reis. (So these had been from the beginning, and so they continued, as is usual in such cases. The scale of sub-multiples remains the same, whilst the value of the divisible coin diminishes. Eventually the lower denominations become infinitesimal, like the maravedis and the reis, and either vanish from memory, or survive only as denominations of account). The data, such as they are, allow us to calculate the pardao or xerafin at this time as worth 4s. 2d. to 4s. 6d.
A century later, Fryer's statement of equivalents (1676) enables us to use the stability of the Venetian sequin as a gauge; we then find the tanga gone down to 6d. and the pardao or xerafin to 2s. 6d. Thirty years later Lockyer (1711) tells us that one rupee was reckoned equal to 1½ perdo. Calculating the Surat Rupee, which may have been probably his standard, still by help of the Venetian (p. 262) at about 2s. 3d., the pardao would at this time be worth 1s. 6d. It must have depreciated still further by 1728, when the Goa mint began to strike rupees, with the effigy of Dom João V., and the half-rupee appropriated the denomination of pardao. And the half-rupee, till our own time, has continued to be so styled. I have found no later valuation of the Goa Rupee than that in Prinsep's Tables (Thomas's ed. p. 55), the indications of which, taking the Company's Rupee at 2s., would make it 21d. The pardao therefore would represent a value of 10½d., and there we leave it.
[On this Mr. Whiteway writes: "Should it be intended to add a note to this, I would suggest that the remarks on coinage commencing at page 67 of my Rise of the Portuguese Power in India be examined, as although I have gone to Sir H. Yule for much, some papers are now accessible which he does not appear to have seen. There were two pardaos, the pardao d'ouro and the pardao de tanga, the former of 360 reals, the latter of 300. This is clear from the Foral of Goa of Dec. 18, 1758 (India Office MSS. Conselho Ultramarino), which passage is again quoted in a note to Fasc. 5 of the Archiv. Port. Orient. p. 326. Apparently patecoons were originally coined in value equal to the pardao d'ouro, though I say (p. 71) their value is not recorded. The patecoon was a silver coin, and when it was tampered with, it still remained of the nominal value of the pardao d'ouro, and this was the cause of the outcry and of the injury the people of Goa suffered. There were monies in Goa which I have not shown on p. 69. There was the tanga branca used in revenue accounts (see Nunez, p. 31), nearly but not quite double the ordinary tanga. This money of account was of 4 barganims (see [BARGANY]) each of 24 bazarucos (see [BUDGROOK]), that is rather over 111 reals. The whole question of coinage is difficult, because the coins were continually being tampered with. Every ruler, and they were numerous in those days, stamped a piece of metal at his pleasure, and the trader had to calculate its value, unless as a subject of the ruler he was under compulsion.">[