All the accounts of the Republic are carried on in American money, which is legal tender and is current in all parts of the country. For about fifty years after the declaration of independence, coins of many countries, principally Mexican silver and Spanish gold, were in circulation, with the rate of exchange constantly fluctuating. In 1890 the Republic joined the Latin convention and in the following year through the then existing Banque Nationale de Saint Domingue issued silver and copper coin to the value of about $200,000. The fall in the value of silver caused depreciation and a few of the silver coins of this issue which are still in circulation are valued at forty cents gold for five francs; the copper coins at a little less. In 1894 the gold standard was adopted and though no actual coinage took place all official financial transactions were thereafter based upon gold values. In 1895 and 1897 President Heureaux issued more silver coins or, rather, coins washed over with silver, to the nominal amount of $2,250,000, but the seigniorage was so enormous that the issue was a case of a government counterfeiting its own money. The rate of exchange fell to five pesos for one dollar gold and this is the rate legalized by the law of June 19, 1905, which made the American gold dollar the standard of the Dominican Republic. For a while the ordinary smaller business transactions continued to be based on silver values. On a trip to Santo Domingo in 1904 a friend and myself were driven from the wharf to the hotel and the coachman asked for two dollars. It seemed an outrageous charge, but we considered ourselves in the hands of the Philistines, and handed over an American two-dollar bill. "Excuse me until I can get change," said the coachman to our surprise, and ran into the hotel; in a moment he reappeared with a double handful of coins: "Here is your change," he said, "eight dollars." The charge had been only forty cents in gold. At the present time American money is the basis and Dominican silver and copper is regarded merely as fractional currency, one peso Dominican being equivalent to twenty cents American.