The terms of the report of the committee on the currency, which was communicated to the House of Representatives on the 2nd February 1821, must be contrasted with this statement. "The committee are of opinion that the value of American gold compared with silver ought to be somewhat higher than by law at present established. On inquiry they find that gold coins, both foreign and of the United States, have in a great measure disappeared, and from the best calculation that can be made there is reason to apprehend they will be wholly banished from circulation, and it ought not to be a matter of surprise, under our present regulations, that this should be the case.... There have been coined at the Mint of the United States 6 millions of dollars in gold. It is doubtful whether any considerable portion of it can at this time be found within the United States.... It is ascertained that the gold coin, in an office of discount and deposit of the Bank of the United States in November 1819, amounted to 165,000 dollars and the silver coin to 118,000; that since that time the silver coin has increased to 700,000 dollars, while the gold coin has diminished to 1200 dollars, 100 only of which is American."[20] The committee proposed a bill in the sense of their report, but for seven years--years of acute commercial crises and distress--no actual step was taken. In November of the following year the subject of the disappearance of gold from the currency was brought before the lower house of Congress by Mr. Lowndes. In December 1828, however, the Senate required the Secretary of the Treasury to ascertain the ratio and to state such alterations in the gold coins as might be necessary to conform those coins to the silver coins in their true relative value. In his report Secretary Ingham insisted on the advantage of a single standard, but, in case of a determination to maintain both gold and silver, he proposed to approximate as near as could be to the French system by establishing a ratio of 15.625. In case of no change of the ratio he proposed to discontinue the gold coinage, whenever the premium for gold should exceed 2 per cent. No action was taken on these reports, nor on the similar proceedings in the two following years, nor very little more on the report which in June 1832 the select committee on coins produced. Part of the instructions given to this committee were "to inquire into the expediency of making silver the only legal tender, and of coining and issuing gold coins of a fixed weight and fineness, which shall be received in payment of all debts to the United States, at such ratio as may be fixed from time to time but shall not otherwise be a legal tender." In the House of Representatives the converse proposition of a gold standard with a restricted legal tender had been made by M. Wilde, 26th March 1832, but when the report appeared it advocated a silver standard. [Sidenote: UNITED STATES: THE ACT OF 1834]