ion they bear to each other, and the standard dollar may be found
with the utmost facility. Indeed little else is wanted than the adding or
cutting off figures or ciphers: for instance, the public accounts being
kept in two columns, dollars, and cents; suppose in adding up the latter,
you find they amount to 27621, you have only to cut off the two right hand
figures, and their value stands thus; 276 dollars, 21 cents. To reduce
eagles to dollars, add a cipher, and vice versa. To reduce half, and
quarter eagles to dollars, you have only to divide by 2 or 4 previous to
adding the cipher.

But though the federal government has succeeded in establishing it's
coinage, the _people_ cannot be persuaded (the wholesale merchants, and a
few enlightened citizens excepted,) to come into this scheme; _they_
obstinately insist on buying, selling, and keeping their accounts in the
_good old way of their fathers!_ that is to say, in _currency_, by pounds,
shillings, and pence; and nothing can be more complex, as they have not a
single _coin_ in circulation of the _real_ or _nominal_ value of any of
them. If you are to pay the sum of three shillings and fourpence
halfpenny, (without having recourse to the federal scheme) you must
provide yourself with three silver divisions of the Spanish dollar, viz.
the fourth, eighth, and sixteenth, three english halfpence, two of George
the Second, and one of his present majesty[Footnote: Owing to the quantity
of counterfeit english halfpence of the present reign now in circulation
in these states, those of king George the Third, whether counterfeit or
not, are depreciated to the 360th part of a dollar.]; the nominal value of
which, added together, make that sum within a very trifling fraction.

I am informed the federal government means to fix the weights and measures
by a standard, which, like the coinage, will admit of the same _even_
division by decimals. I am often asked why the English, after having
proved the great utility of this scheme in their chain of one hundred
links for land measuring, do not extend it to their coin, &c.? If you can
think of a good solution to this question, pray let me have it in your
next to

Yours sincerely, &c.

* * * * *

_Philadelphia, August 18th, 1794._

DEAR SIR,

In a former letter I mentioned the relishes of salt fish usual at
breakfast and supper in this country; they are chiefly of shad, a name
given them by the first