We divide this chapter into four sections. The first section outlines the taxonomy of commodity-based monetary regimes in Europe and their advantages and costs. The second section describes the main international monetary flows in the early modern period and relates them to East-West balance-of-trade adjustments and monetary systems in Asia (1700–1800). In the third section, we turn to the development of the foreign exchange market, which was mostly based on bills of exchange in this period. We explain the expansion of the bills-of-exchange market from the European to the intercontinental network in the mid-nineteenth century. The final section then investigates how nominal exchange rates and relative prices contributed to the global current account adjustments in the near pre-gold standard period (1820s–1870s).