franc. It also flooded the Union with low-valued subsidiary silver coins worth less than the franc. For the rest of the 19th century the Italian lira traded at a fluctuating discount versus the standard gold franc. In 1883 the Spanish peseta went off the gold standard and traded below parity with the gold French franc. However, as the free minting of silver was suspended to the general public, the peseta had a floating exchange rate between the value of the gold franc and the silver franc. The Spanish government captured all profits from minting (5-peseta coins) out of silver bought for less than 5 ptas. While total issuance was limited to prevent the peseta from falling below the silver franc, the abundance of in circulation prevented the peseta from returning at par with the gold franc. Spain's system where the silver traded at a premium above its metallic value due to relative scarcity is called the fiduciary standard, and was similarly implemented in the Philippines and other Spanish colonies in the end of the 19th century. In the United States Inception John Hull was authorized by the Massachusetts legislature to make the earliest coinage of the colony, the willow, the oak, and the pine tree shilling in 1652, once again based on the silver standard. In the 1780s, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton recommended to Congress that a decimal currency system be adopted by the United States. The initial recommendation in 1785 was a silver standard based on the Spanish milled dollar (finalized at 371.25 grains or 24.0566 g fine silver), but in the final version of the Coinage Act of 1792 Hamilton's recommendation to include a $10 gold eagle was also approved, containing 247.5 grains (16.0377 g) fine gold. Hamilton therefore put the U.S. dollar on a bimetallic standard with a gold-silver ratio of 15.0. American-issued dollars and cents remained less common in circulation than Spanish dollars and reales (1/8th dollar) for the next six decades until foreign currency was demonetized in 1857. $10 gold eagles were exported to Europe where it could fetch over ten Spanish dollars due to their higher gold ratio of 15.5. American silver dollars also compared favorably with Spanish dollars and were easily used for overseas purchases. In 1806 President Jefferson suspended the minting of exportable gold coins and silver dollars in order to divert the United States Mint’s limited resources into