²⁸ The Court of Directors were willing to permit the coinage and circulation of gold _unlinked_ to the rupee, for they had observed in their Despatch:— “16. Although we are fully satisfied of the propriety of the silver rupee being the principal measure of value and the money of account, yet we are by no means desirous of checking the circulation of gold, but of establishing a gold coin on a principle fitted for general use. This coin in our opinion should be called a gold rupee and be made of the same standard as the silver rupee.” ²⁹ Cf. Fort St. George Public Consultations of August 19, 1817, particularly the letter of the Accountant-General entered thereon. ³⁰ Cf. The Public Despatches to Madras dated March 6, 1810; July 10, 1811; and June 12, 1816. ³¹ Preamble to the Bengal Regulation XIV of 1818. ³² It, however, increased its weight from 190·895 to 204·710 troy grs. ³³ Bengal Regulation VII of 1833. ³⁴ It may be that this alteration was also intended to make the Sicca rupee eleven-twelfths fine. But in another direction the Government in India wanted to go further than the Court desired. The Court thought a uniform currency (i.e. a currency composed of like but independent units) was all that India needed. Indeed, they had given the Governments to understand that they did not wish for more in the matter of simplification of currency and were perfectly willing to allow the Sicca and the mohur to remain as they were, unassimilated.³⁵ A uniform currency was no doubt a great advance on the order of things such as was left by the successors of the Moghuls. But that was not enough, and the needs of the situation demanded a common currency based on a single unit in place of a uniform currency. Under the system of uniform currency each Presidency coined its own money, and the money coined at the Mints of the other Presidencies was not legal tender in its territories except at the Mint. This monetary independence would not have been very harmful if there had existed also financial independence between the three Presidencies. As a matter of fact, although each Presidency had its own fiscal system, yet they depended upon one another for the finance of their deficits. There was a regular system of “supply” between them, and the surplus in one was being constantly drawn upon to meet the deficits in others. In the absence of a common currency this resource operation was considerably hampered. The difficulties caused by the absence of a common currency in the way of the “supply” operation made themselves felt in two different ways. Not being able to use as legal tender the money of other Presidencies, each was [pg 21] obliged to lock up, to the disadvantage of commerce, large working balances in order to be self-sufficient.³⁶ The very system which imposed the necessity of large