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Mr. Huggles’ Speech, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 MEW YORK, JUME 22, 1868. 
 
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UNIFORMITY OF GOLD COINAGE. 
 
 On the 2‘2nd of .Tune, 1868, a Public Banquet was given at 
 New-York by its citizens, to the Hon. Anson Burlingame and his 
 associates in the Embassy from the Emperor of China to the “ Treaty 
 Powers” of Europe and America. His Excellency the Governor of 
 the State presided, with His Honor the Mayor of the City and other 
 distinguished officials in attendance. 
 
 Of the regular toasts, the thirteenth and the last, was the fol¬ 
 lowing : '•'■One Uniform Metallic Currency for the entire World,” to 
 which the Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles, the Delegate from the United 
 States to the International Monetary Conference, at Paris, in 1867, 
 was invited to respond. 
 
 Mr. Ruggles said in answer: Mr. President, we are here 
 to-night, in that hopeful spirit so peculiar to our country, to cele¬ 
 brate, by anticipation, the coming interfusion of the commerce, the 
 industry, the law, and last, not least, the money of the two hemis¬ 
 pheres of our globe. More especially are we here, to welcome with 
 proud and joyful emotions, the advent of the distinguished Embassy 
 now present, from the most ancient of the Empires of Asia, the 
 cradle of our race—and to express, in advance, our confidence in 
 
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 its varied and comprehensive ability, speedily to effect the great 
 conjunction so important to civilized man. 
 
 The formal expression, in due order, of our sentiments on this 
 occasion, has been commenced by appropriate toasts in honor of 
 the President of the United States, and of the Emperor of China; 
 pre-eminently the antipodal political personages of the globe. The 
 toast now proposed you have purposely reserved for the last, to 
 introduce to this assembly a potentate far more exalted, swaying a 
 power far more pervading and transcendent, than all the presidents 
 and all the emperors that ever trod this earth. 
 
 This august personage—this earthly “ king of kings,” is 
 money! the undisputed Monarch of the World—aye, of “theround 
 world and all that dwell therein,”—the potent mainspring of all 
 the machinery of human society, unceasingly and untiringly 
 regulating and guiding the movement of all the civilization on the 
 globe—and, above all, as the greatest of earthly Divinities, the object 
 of profoundest worship by a vast majority of the human race, especi¬ 
 ally in this, our goodly city. 
 
 By a singular dispersion, this great Power is almost infinitesim¬ 
 ally divided, and made visible in more than seven hundred millions 
 of circular bits of gold, with an aggregate pecuniary value of at 
 least three thousand millions of dollars—each bearing on its face the 
 head of the local sovereign within whose territories it has been issued 
 to the world. Throughout the broad expanse of our American Union, 
 now looking out upon the two great oceans and far away into the 
 Polar Basin, these golden tokens of power, bear the head of “ Liberty,” 
 our legitimate sovereign, with the classic Eagle coming down from 
 
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 antiquity, the historically established symbol of imperial sovereignty. 
 
 Of this great aggregate of three thousand millions of dollars, 
 nearly all is found in eighteen of the nations of Europe, and in the 
 United States. The transcendent importance of a uniformity of 
 weight and quality in a mass thus enormous, is so self-evident, that 
 the long neglect of the leading commercial nations fully to secure 
 it, and their singular acquiescence in the inconvenience and 
 injury hourly resulting from the wide diversity in the existing 
 coinages, have become a serious blot on modern civilization. 
 
 We should, however, remember, that the present nations of 
 Europe (excepting one or two of the most northern) being wholly 
 composed of the debris of the Roman Empire, slowly picked up and 
 put together, came into the world in a loose and fragmentary man¬ 
 ner,—whereas the American Union was regularly born according 
 to law, and that, too, by a written constitution which unified the 
 coinage, for all coming time, throughout the whole extent of the 
 Republic, in its area already equal to that of Europe. 
 
 It is due alike to historic truth and to public duty to state and 
 claim, now and here, that this great measure of international 
 monetary unity, is far more American than European in its origin. 
 It is true, that partial efforts had been made in some small assem¬ 
 blies representing portions of Continental Europe, to bring them into 
 monetary accord, but it was not until the International Congress at 
 Berlin in 1863,* that any distinct proposition was made in any 
 appropriate public assembly, to unify even the three discordant 
 coinages of the United States, Great Britain and France. 
 
 * Note by the publisher. Mr. Ruggles represented the Government of the United 
 States in the Congress at Berlin. 
 
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 The statistics of the subject are few and simple. Disregard- 
 mo- minute fractions, the half eagle, our gold five dollar piece, 
 weighs 129 grains, the British sovereign 126 grains, the new French 
 piece of 25 francs 125 grains. The half eagle is worth 13 cents 
 more than the sovereign, and 17* cents more than the 25 francs. 
 
 At the Berlin Congress, the British delegates proposed to reduce 
 the half eagle to the sovereign, to which the delegate from the 
 United States objected, but proposed to reduce both to the 25 francs. 
 The latter proposition is embraced in the plan adopted by the 
 Paris Monetary Conference of 1867, after careful consideration and 
 a nearly unanimous vote of the delegates of the nineteen nations 
 represented. 
 
 Its adoption by the United States and Great Britain, or by either, 
 would be followed, without delay, by the remaining nations of Eu¬ 
 rope, six of which have already unified their gold coinage with that 
 of France, and united in monetary accord a continental population 
 of one hundred and ten millions. 
 
 It is now known from good authority, that Canada, and also the 
 South American States, and in all probability Mexico, will be ready 
 at once to adopt the plan of the Conference, so that it would only 
 need the accession of the civilized nations of Eastern Asia,—for 
 which, under the happy auspices of this evening, we may confi¬ 
 dently look,—fully to gratify the comprehensive wish of the toast 
 now proposed, for “ One Uniform Metallic Currency,” (meaning 
 money,) “for the entire world.” By such a consummation, the 
 
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 American eagle and its subdivisions would have precisely the same 
 value and the same currency at New-York and Pekin—at London 
 and Paris—at Valparaiso and Archangel—on the Alps and the 
 Andes—on all the lands and all the seas of our terraqueous globe. 
 
 If the members of the Paris Conference did any thing whatever 
 deserving the approval of their fellow men, it was their prompt 
 and unanimous resolution in favor of a single standard of money to 
 consist exclusively of gold, thereby condemning and cutting up by 
 the roots, all attempts by mere legislation to fix the comparative 
 values of gold and silver,—in their very nature incessantly fluctuating 
 and governed only by the inexorable law of demand and supply. 
 If this be so, and who can deny it, legal money may consist either of 
 gold or silver, but practically cannot consist of both. One or the 
 other, whether coined or uncoined, will fluctuate as merchandize, 
 and be sold as such. Let us, therefore, fully comprehend the signifi¬ 
 cance of the little word “ One,” wisely inserted in the toast, as having 
 peculiar force and value. 
 
 This superfluous weight of 3i per cent, in our gold coinage, is 
 the pernicious result of these vain attempts to fix by law the 
 comparative value of gold and silver. As long ago as 1834, 
 the idea was abandoned by Congress, Avho then reduced the weight 
 of our gold nearly 5 per cent. No good reason can now be given 
 why the present excess of 3i per cent, should not be discarded at 
 once. As soon as it shall be extracted from our eagles, thereby 
 equalizing their weight with the corresponding coins in France and 
 Great Britain, all will freely circulate, side by side, around the 
 world, unobstructed by brokerage, recoinage or other impediment. 
 
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 The yearly loss to the world, by the present needless recoinages 
 and brokerages, amounts to several millions of dollars. 
 
 It is a singular fact, that the American Union, which yields the 
 greatest part of the annual product of gold in the world, and is 
 soon to produce a still greater portion—constantly coins it into 
 eagles by tens of millions, and sends them out to Europe, only to 
 be instantly recoined, on their arrival. It is indeed 44 a sorry sight” 
 to see the imperial bird, the very type of the great Republic, crossing 
 the ocean, and touching the continent only to descend into the melting 
 pots of the mints of Paris and London. For one, Mr. President, I 
 confess that 1 do not relish the performances of these transatlantic 
 crucibles, transmuting his noble plumage into the grim moustache of 
 the Third Napoleon, or the waving tresses of Queen Victoria. On 
 the contrary, I shall unceasingly labor to break them up, by light¬ 
 ening his needless load, so that he may cross the European Conti¬ 
 nent, free from further molestation, to visit his kindred eagles in 
 Prussia, Austria, and Russia, not forgetting on his way to look in upon 
 the intelligent and trusty friends in 1 urkey of a world-wide coinage, 
 one of whom, the accomplished Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
 Sultan, now honors this assembly with his presence. 
 
 We have listened this evening, with the highest satisfaction and 
 instruction, to the glowing and noble words of the Chief of the Em¬ 
 bassy now before us ; inculcating the sacred principles of equal jus¬ 
 tice and full reciprocity, as the very foundation stone, laid in remote 
 antiquity, of the public policy of China,-embodied in their maxim 
 older than the coming of Christ, “ do not unto others what you 
 would not have them do unto you.” (iuided by this truly golden rule, 
 
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 may not our government at Washington—amid the many commingling 
 elements of a common and advancing civilization,—now well ask 
 the government at Pekin, to receive the metallic money of the United 
 States, especially when unified with that of Europe, and to coin for 
 us, in return, the money of the Empire bearing its peculiar emblems 
 but of equal weight and value \ Mr. President, if I can read aright 
 the animated and expressive features of our long-valued friend and 
 compatriot at your side, the head of this honorable Embassy, he 
 will certainly be ready at the proper time, respectfully to consider 
 this suggestion. His government surely will not fail to perceive, 
 that the completed monetary unity of our “ Occidental” World, in¬ 
 cluding Great Britain and Russia, necessarily drawing after them 
 their wide-spread territories in Hindustan and Australia, and along 
 the upper Pacific, will carry the uniform coin to the very Wall of 
 China. Is it credible, that with the high enlightenment of such an 
 Embassy, the statesmen of China will consent thereafter to remain 
 for a moment in solitary and selfish isolation, the only exile from the 
 great family of nations \ 
 
 Last July, a paragraph appeared in one of the Paris news¬ 
 papers, stating that a company in China had undertaken the work 
 of striking silver coins, of European fashion, of one franc, ten 
 francs, and twenty francs,—bearing on their face the head of the 
 Chinese Emperor, and on their reverse the flying dragon, the 
 long established emblem of the Empire. I certainly do regard the 
 creature as tolerably fitted to “ break the ice” in our monetary way, 
 
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 especially in Asia. T am also comforted and flattered, Mr. President, 
 by the assurance of an eminent geologist, that this grotesque and 
 ancient monster is the huge pre-adamite prototype, or ancestor of the 
 modest and unpretending eagle of our happy land. 
 
 From the bottom of my heart I rejoice in beholding him, as I 
 now do, emblazoned on the Imperial flag, of golden yellow, of the 
 Celestial Empire, so closely entwined with the imperishable ensign 
 of the American Union—but I shall rejoice with a far deeper joy, 
 to see him emblazoned on the uniform coinage of gold, so long 
 desired, forming part of that majestic monetary belt which must, 
 sooner or later, in God’s great providence, encircle the globe.