Note 46 — Chapter II
N. I. (Nahum Isaac) Stone translation
The act of Maryland in 1723 by which tobacco was made the legal standard, but its value reduced to terms of English gold money, namely one penny equal to one pound of tobacco, reminds of the “leges barbarorum,” in which, inversely, certain sums of money were expressed in terms of oxen, cows, etc. In that case neither gold nor silver, but the ox and the cow were the actual material of the money of account.