Felt J.B. An historical account of Massachusetts currency

Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1839. — 242 p.The scarcity of money was a vexatious problem with the American colonists from the beginning. The tax-gatherers and tradesmen experienced much trouble and delay in making collections. Importations from England of implements of production were, at the outset, necessarily proportionate to the wealth of the community. Peltry and fish, which were marketed here in abundance, settled balances abroad for a time. But the demands, as in every new country, were in excess of those products available for export, hence there was a deficit in London payable in English bills or specie. The specie of the colony was for the most part absorbed by the tradesmen in the course of business and was promptly shipped to London where the accounts of the Massachusetts merchants were at that time constantly in arrears. The colonial treasury received very little coin, and the amount lessened every year proportionately to the assessed valuation. Live stock and produce were received by the Massachusetts treasury at an early date. Horses, cattle andsheep were turned over to the treasury. It was customary in the Plymouth Colony as early as 1628, when the surveyor ran the lines of a lot of land to compensate him with a peck of corn. There's evidence of the existence of paper currency in Massachusetts as early as 1646. These paper bills were very probably issued by individuals of first rate credit, merchants or traders. Of their form and worth we know nothing, other than that they "passed in payment of debts." This note currency — a credit paper currency payable doubtless on demand — aided the colonists in settling local balances until the establishment of the Massachusetts mint at Boston in 1652. Considerable trade was established with Spain and the West Indies by the year 1652.At this time, too, the piratical operations of buccaneers or privateers of the Atlantic brought Spanish coin to New England and New York. Great Britain was at this time laying the foundation of apolicy by which she eventually got control of the world's commerce, taking it out of the hands of the Dutch. A principle of her policy which undoubtedly effected the course of hard money in New England was the parliamentary decree that no specie should be exported from the kingdom. Frequently the tradesmen at Boston sent remittances of specie abroad. This outflow necessarily impoverished the medium of trade at home. The matter of establishing a mint at Boston was agitated and brought to the attention of the legislature June 10, 1652, and power was given John Hull and Robert Saunderson: "for the melting, refyning and cojning of silver." This mint continued operating until 1685, coining specie at about 22.5 per cent less than the standard value of old England. When the Massachusetts coin reached the London market the value was fixed as early as 1653 at a rate one quarter lower than theirs. The twelve penny piece was the famous pine-tree shilling; it was the one-twelfth of a pound of $3.33⅓, or three-quarters of the estimated pound sterling. The Boston financiers of the seventeenth century intended to make a coin which should be good bullion, but which should be, as the English pound sterling was forced by law to be, a coin that would stay in the country. The coins which came from this mint were "two pence in a shilling of less valew than the present English coyne, and the lesser peeces proportionably." Despite the efforts of the legislature to debase the currency, the precious coin found its way to foreign lands. The interests of trade and commerce, which had received an impetus for a time, very soon had to pay the cost of this novel experiment in finance. It was the beginning of a mischief which proved an almost constant source of annoyance to the government and people, and which was increased as new enactments of the legislature and private banks sought to relieve the pinching wants of a people with a scanty and bedraggled medium of exchange.