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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

easy for a frugal industrious person to obtain silver, as it had been to obtain paper; and the prejudice in the town of Boston was so much abated, that when a large number of people from Abingdon [Abington], and other towns near to it, came to Boston, expecting to be joined by the like people there, they were hooted at, and insulted by the boys and servants, and obliged to return home disappointed.

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

had been the practice of government to issue bills for publick charges, and to make a tax for the payment of the sum issued, in future years, into the treasury again. The bills being all exchanged by the silver imported from England, and provision made by law, that no bills of credit should ever after pass as money, there was a difficulty in providing money for the immediate service of government, until it could be raised by a tax. Few people, at first, inclined to lend to the province, though they were assured of payment in a short time with interest. The treasurer, therefore, was ordered to make payment to the creditors of government in promissory notes, payable to the bearer in silver in two or three years, with lawful interest. This was really better than any private security; but the people, who had seen so much of the bad effects of their former paper money, from its depreciation, could not consider this as without danger, and the notes were sold for silver at discount, which continued until it was found that the promise made by government was punctually performed. From that time, the publick security was preferred to private, and the treasurer's notes were more sought for than those of any other person whomsoever. This was the era of public credit in Massachusetts Bay.