Holland took the lead in this movement, and in July, 1850, demonetized the gold 10-florin piece and the Guillaume. Portugal has partially followed this example, by prohibiting any gold to have a current value, except English sovereigns. Belgium, which in order to increase its gold circulation, had given a legal value to our 20 and 40-franc pieces, and had struck, in 1847, a mixed coinage of gold and base alloy, has demonetized its gold circulation, both home and foreign. Russia, by a ukase of 29th December, 1850, wishing to maintain the former equilibrium, has prohibited the export of silver. The French Government itself, struck with the novelty, and the sudden change, issued a commission for the purpose, as the Minister of Finance stated in his minute of the 14th December, 1850, of examining the questions connected with the simultaneous use of the precious metals, gold and silver, as a circulating medium of value. From public authorities, alarm has spread to private interests, and the price of the precious metals has experienced in European markets a very sensible disturbance in value. In the space of only a few months, the premium of gold has given way to a reaction, only checked by the tariff. From 1st July to the 25th December, 1850, the price of English sovereigns in Paris has fallen about 2 per cent. On the Amsterdam Exchange, the fall in the price of gold, in the same year, amounted to 4 per cent.; at the same time silver rose in London almost as much (from 4s. 11½d. the ounce, to 5s. 1⅝d.); the relative value of gold to silver, which our laws had fixed at 15½ ounces of fine silver to one of pure gold, and which the constant premium on gold in Europe had raised in the Spanish tariff to 15¾, fell to 15¼ in Holland, Belgium, and Hamburg; in all places where gold, from having been demonetized, had become a mere article of merchandize; almost realizing, in fact, the tariff of Russia, a country where the abundance of gold and the scarcity of silver had induced a legal relative value of 15 to 1.