No money drafts are to be passed here on behalf of private persons, whether Company's servants or otherwise, in any of the outstations, but in case any person wishes to remit money to Batavia, this may be done only after permission and consent obtained from His Excellency the Governor at Colombo. When this is obtained, the draft is prepared at Colombo and only signed here by the Treasurer on receipt of the amount. This is specially mentioned here in order that Your Honours may also remember in such cases the Instructions sent by the Honourable the Government of India in the letters of May 3, 1695, and June 3, 1696, in the former of which it is stated that no copper coin, and in the latter that Pagodas are to be received here on behalf of the Company for such drafts, each Pagoda being counted at Rds. 2 in Batavia.[47] The golden Pagoda is a coin which was never or seldom known to be forged, at least so long as the King of Golconda or the King of the Carnatic was sovereign in Coromandel. But the present war, which has raged for the last ten years in that country, seems to have taken away to some extent the fear of evil and the disgrace which follows it, and to have given opportunity to some to employ cunning in the pursuit of gain. It has thus happened that on the coast beyond Porto Novo, in the domain of these lords of the woods (Boschheeren) or Paligares, Pagodas have been made which, although not forged, are yet inferior in quality; while the King of Sinsi Rama Ragie is so much occupied with the present war against the Mogul, that he has no time to pay attention to the doings of these Paligares. According to a statement made by His Excellency the Governor Laurens Pyl and the Council of Negapatam in their letter of November 4, 1695, five different kinds of such inferior Pagodas have been received, valued at 7 3/8, 7 1/8, 7 5/8, 7 7/8, and 8 3/4 of unwrought gold. A notice was published therefore on November 18, following, to warn the people against the acceptance of such Pagodas, and prohibiting their introduction into this country. When the Company's Treasury was verified by a Committee, 1,042 of these Pagodas were found. Intimation was sent to Colombo on December 31, 1695. The Treasurer informed me when I was in Colombo that he had sent them to Trincomalee, and as no complaints have been received, it seems that the Sinhalese in that quarter did not know how to distinguish them from the current Pagodas. As I heard that the inferior Pagodas had been already introduced here, while it was impossible to get rid of them, as many of the people of Jaffnapatam and the merchants made a profit on them by obtaining them at a lower rate in Coromandel and passing them here to ignorant people at the full value, a banker from Negapatam able to distinguish the good from the inferior coins has been asked to test all Pagodas, so that the Company may not suffer a loss. But in spite of this I receive daily