Conquista
The design is based on the ‘Rum Corps’ and the Holey Dollar. In 1808, the New South Wales Corps, renamed the 102d Regiment of Foot, arrived in the colony in December 1809.
Due to the lack of currency, Governor Lachlan Macquarie was still forced to pay for public works in rum. The construction of Sydney Hospital was entirely funded by granting a monopoly on the import of rum to the contractors, who were the merchants Alexander Riley and Garnham Blaxcell. The colonial surgeon D'Arcy Wentworth, and troops were used to prohibit the landing of rum anywhere but at the hospital dock.
The Holey Dollar was created to address a shortage of coins in the new colony. Governor Lachlan Macquarie imported 40,000 Spanish reales in 1812 and had convicted forger William Henshall cut the centre out of each, to double the number of available coins. The coins were counter stamped and the outer ring became known as the holey dollar, with the centre renamed the dump.
Macquarie set the value of the holey dollar at five shillings, with 15 pence for the dump. These coins went into circulation in 1814 and were replaced with sterling coinage from 1822.
