While Congress was thus delaying over a vital question the New York bankers, May 1834, pressed for the regulation of the gold coins, so as to retain them in the country. Two months later, 31st July 1834, the long-sought measure passed, but in an extraordinary form. At a blow the ratio was changed from 1:15 to 1:16 (15.988), by the reduction of the weight of the fine gold in the gold coins to 23.20 Troy grains, soon afterwards, by an Act of 18th July 1837, changed to 23.22 grains, the standard being changed at the same time from 11/12 to 9/10 fine. The motives and amount of wisdom which underlay this sudden close of a long period of agitation can be measured from Benton's own words, in his _Thirty Years' View_:-- "A measure of relief was now at hand, before which the machinery of distress was to balk and cease its long and cruel labours--it was the passage of the bill for equalising the value of gold and silver and legalising the tender of foreign coins of both metals. The bills were brought forward in the House by Mr. Campbell H. White of New York, and passed after an animated contest in which the chief question was as to the true relative value of the two metals, varied by some into a preference for National Bank paper; 15-5/8 was the ratio of nearly all who seemed best calculated from their pursuits to understand the subject. The thick array of speakers was on that side, and the eighteen banks of the city of New York, with Mr. Gallatin at their head, favoured that proportion. The difficulty of adjusting this value, so that neither metal should expel the other had been the stumblingblock for a great many years, and now this seemed to be as formidable as ever. Refined calculations were gone into, scientific light was sought, history was rummaged back to the times of the Roman Empire; and there seemed to be no way of getting to a concord of opinion either from the light of science, the voice of history, or the result of calculations. The author of this _View_ had, in his speeches on the subject, taken up the question in a practical point of view, regardless of history and calculations and the opinions of bank officers; and looking to the actual and equal circulation of the two metals in different countries he saw that this equality and actuality of circulation had existed for above three hundred years in the Spanish dominions of Mexico and South America, where the proportion was 16:1. Taking his stand upon this single fact, as the practical test which solved the question, all the real friends of the gold currency soon rallied to it. Mr. White gave up the bill which he had first introduced, and adopted the Spanish ratio. Mr. Clowney of South Carolina, Mr. Gillet, and Mr. Cambreleng of New York, Mr. Ewing of Indiana, Mr. McKim of Maryland, and other speakers gave it a warm support. Mr. John Quincy Adams would vote for it, though he thought the gold was overvalued, but if found to be so the difference could be corrected hereafter.