Note 1336 — APPENDIX.
Reading edition
Under these perpetual changes it will be readily understood how difficult it is to estimate values at any special period. In a document of 1670 I find the doblon converted into reales de vellón at the rate of 1 to 81, although in this case the doblon was of 4 pesos or 32 reales de plata. Similar to this is the conversion in another item of 162 reales de plata into 405 reales de vellón, showing that vellón was at a discount of 60 per cent. or specie at a premium of 150.—Arch. de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1476, fol. 2, 61.
The unutterable confusion produced by these sudden and arbitrary changes in the legal value of the coinage is illustrated by a contention, in 1683, between the auditor-general and the receiver-general of the Suprema, respecting the accountability of the latter for funds on hand and receipts and payments at the time when the pragmática of February 10, 1680, went into effect, involving points of which the equities were not easy to determine.—Ibid., Leg. 1480, fol. 129.