W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

530 The Coins of Eiirope
Guinea, and Mozambique were comprised in the general term
Africa Portugueza. In 1755 there seems to have been
a project for issuing a separate coinage for Mozambique of
pieces of 800, 400, 200, and 100 reis ;
but (if
it was carried
out) no examples are known to be extant. At a more
recent date (1840-52), however, a copper series of 80, 40,
20, 10, and 5 reis, and 2 reaes (=2 reis),
and I real was
struck at Lisbon for this purpose.
The copper currency yields, perhaps, to no other region
in its early origin, its volume, and its excellence, and it
payment
may
be treated as a remarkable circumstance that
in 1699 an ordinance made it illegal to tender
of accounts in this metal above a tostao or 100
reis. The intimate alliance between Portugal and countries
where copper was in general vogue tended, no doubt, to
as we have seen that it became a
bring it into use, just
favourite medium in Sicily, or rather preserved an unbroken
continuity there from Roman and Byzantine times. From
the reign of Duarte I.
(1433-38) when the copper dinheiro
appeared, to that of John III. (1521-57) there was a constant
tendency to improve and extend this branch of the
circulating medium, and down to the present moment the
Portuguese bronze money maintains its character and
standard, even if, by comparison, it may appear barely equal
to the fine early productions of the sixteenth century, when
the kingdom was a field of greater commercial activity and
:ou or 40 reis of 1813.
industrial enterprise. The common reading on the patacons
of the nineteenth century Publicce Utilitati displayed a