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question. It is no longer a doubt whether the people can adopt it with ease ; they have adopted it, and will have to be turned out of that, into another tract of calculation, if another Unit be assumed. They have now two Units, which they use with equal facility, viz. the Pound of their respective state, and the Dollar. The first of these is peculiar to each state: the second, happily, common to all. In each state, the people have an easy rule for converting the pound of their state into dollars, or dollars into pounds ; and this is enough for them, without knowing how this may be done in every state of the union. Such of them as live near enough the borders of their state to have dealings with their neighbors, learn also the rule of their neighbors: thus, in Virgmia and the Eastern States, where the dollar is 6s. or 3-10 of a pound, to turn pounds into dollars, they multiply by 10, and divide by 3. To turn dol- lars mto pounds, they muluply by 3, and divide by 10. Those in Virginia who live near to Carolma, where the dollar is 8s. or 4-10 of a pound, learn the operation of that state, which is a mul- tiplication by 4, and division by 10, et e converso. ‘Those who live near Maryland, where the dollar is 7s. 6d. or 3-8 of a pound, multiply by 3, and divide by 8, et € converso. All these opera- tions are easy, and have been found, by experience, not too much for the arithmetic of the people, when they have occasion to con- vert their old Unit into dollars, or the reverse.
2. As to the Unit of the Financier ; in the States where the dol- lar is 3-10 of a pound, this Unit will be 5-24. Its conversion into the pound then, will be by a multiplication by 5, and a divi- sion by 24. In the states where the dollar is 3-8 of a pound, this Unit will be 25-96 of a pound, and the operation must be to multiply by 25, and divide by 96, et e converso. Where the dollar is 4-10 of a pound, this Unit will be 5-18. ‘The simplicity of the fraction, and of course the facility of conversion and recon- version, is therefore against this Unit, and in favor of the dollar, in every instance. ‘The only advantage it has over the dollar, is, that it will in every case express our farthing without a remainder ; whereas, though the dollar and its decimals will do this in many cases, it will not in all. But, even in these, by extending your notation one figure farther, to wit, to thousands, you approximate to perfect accuracy within less than the two thousandth part of a dollar ; an atom in money which every one would neglect. Against this single inconvenience, the other advantages of the dollar are more than sufficient to preponderate. ‘This Unit will present to the people a new coin, and whether they endeavor to estimate its value by comparing it with a Pound, or with a Dollar, the Units they now possess, they will find the fraction very compound, and
