The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay | ||
The aversion, in the common people, to a silver and gold currency, had occasioned several tumultuous assemblies in and near the town of Boston. The paper, they said, was not worth hoarding, but silver and gold would all fall to the share of men of wealth, and would either be exported or hoarded up, and no part of it would go to the labourer, or the lower class of people, who must take their pay in goods, or go without. In a short time experience taught them, that it was as
The assembly being then sitting, it was thought proper to pass an act for preventing riots, upon the plan of the act of parliament known by the name of the Riot Act, except that the penalty is changed from death, to other severe and infamous punishment.
From an aversion to a silver currency, the body of the people changed in a few months, and took an aversion to paper, though it had silver as a fund to secure the value of it. A sufficient quantity of small change could not be procured in England, when the grant made by parliament was sent to America. The assembly, therefore, ordered a deposit to remain in the treasury, of three thousand pounds in dollars, and issued small paper bills of different denominations, from one penny to eighteen pence; and every person, possessed of them to the amount of one dollar or any larger sum, might exchange the bills at the treasury for silver upon demand. The whole sum was prepared, but a small part only was issued, and scarcely any person would receive them in payment, choosing rather a base coin imported from Spain, called pistorines, at 20 per cent. more than the intrinsick value.
From the first introduction of paper money, it
The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay | ||