Coins In Lucknow Mus. Vol 01 [56 MB - IndianCoins.org

35On the 12th of August 1765, the Emperor Shah Alum grantedto the Company " the JDewanee of the provinces of Bengal, Beharand Orissa as a free gift and Ulturngau, without the associationof any other person, and with an exemption from the payment ofthe customs of the Dewanee, which used to be paid by the CourtIn 1765 pattern gold mohurs, half, and quarter mohurs, werestruck, bearing on the obverse a shield and the inscription ENG-LISH EAST INDIA COMPANY, and on the reverse the inscriptionBOMBAY 17t>5. These pattern pieces (pi. xx, 4) I have seen inthe collections of the British Museum and Mr. H. Montagu.In 1770 a pattern gold mohur was struck, bearing on the obversethe inscription BOMBAY 1770 15 RUPS, and on the reverse a Persianinscription, (pi. xx, 5.)In 1767 commenced the first of the Mysore wars, of which the 1767.last terminated with the capture of Seringapatam and death ofTippoo Sultan in 1799. The interesting fact is mentioned byLieutenant Moor l with reference to a Bombay half pice coinedin England for the use of the island, on which is the HonorableCompany's mark, that " this mark isput upon everything that theCompany send to India, and Tippoo, seeing it on their musquets,has imitated it on his ;and on the butt, lock, barrel, and bayonet,is the mark, in which, instead of V.E.I. c ,United East India Company,we see Hi/dr, Tippoo's father's name, in Persian. He put italso upon his cannon."In his work " The principles of money applied to the presentstate of the coin of Bengal," Sir James Steuart "says It has been:observed that this coin, called gold mohurs, had been formerlycoined at Delhi, of the same weight and fineness with the Siccarupee of Bengal and other countries of Hindustan but that ;theypassed conventionally, having no legal denomination. In 1766it was proposed as an expedient for augmenting the currency ofspecie to make a coinage of gold and the directors of this,operation, pitching upon fifteen Arcot rupees as the value of onegold mohur, instead of estimating the value of these fifteen Arcotrupees by the fine metal contained in them, estimated them bytheir current value, which was above the proportion of theirintrinsic worth. Not satisfied with this first deviation fromprinciples, they added to the mohur (already over-rated in itsproportion to the fifteen silver Arcot rupees) no less than 8per cent, extra denomination, entirely arbitrary. So when thisgold currency came abroad, itproved to be no less than 17 percent, worse in payments than silver rupees of Bengal, Madras,,Bombay, and " Surat.The people of that country (Bengal) had been so long accustomedto silver coin, that they never would, except when forcedto it, receive the mohurs in payment. So the Company wasobliged to make a new regulation in 1769, little better than theformer. At last the gold currency fell altogether to many percent, below its intrinsic value."1Narrative of Little's Detachment. App. p. 478, pi. ii, 14, 15.