400 pesos in 1720's

[Chagy]

How much was 400 pesos in 1720s compared to today’s money 40.00, 400.00, 4,000.00
What was a monthly salary for a sailor in 1720’s?

This is what I am trying to figure out:

The storm was pushing the ship against the rocks near the shore and it was breaking into pieces. All the passengers made it to shore. One passenger didn’t have the chance to get his personal belongings so he offered a sailor 400 pesos to swim to the sinking vessel and salvage his belongings.

Basically what I want to know is if 400 pesos was a normal amount of money for the task or if it was a big or substantial amount of money for the service requested.

Thank you in advance for any response,

Chagy......

[elle]

Hey Luis,

A normal sailor earned around 44 reals a month.
The captain general earned the highest salary in the fleet around 3,667 reals a month.
So if your man was offered 400 pesos, that would be 3,200 reals.
The answer is yes. That was a significant amount of money to go back into the sea to retrieve belongings.
The passenger must have had a large quanity of counterband in his suitcase, probably worth way more than 400 pesos.

Hope that helps.

[rgecy]

Well since were on the topic. So, how much would 400,000 pesos in gold from around 1600 be worth today?

Robert

[bronzecannons]

RGecy,

Here's a good web site that can be used to get a general idea of what something was worth way back then and what its worth today;

http://eh.net/hmit/

TW

[brethren of the coast]

A very helpful website. Thank you Tony.