Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books, U. of I. Library Pliant MftV ~ ~ 19 flCTi^WK 2 * -m- v co V # 14685-S PHE COIN SHILLING OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. ■O »■ J. 'v A PAPER BY WILLIAM G. SUMNER. [From the Yale Review , November, 1898.] A— tM 'i THE COIN SHILLING OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. I. \ x z> r" 3 i) O S ILVER plate was first rated in 1640, at five shillings per ounce sterling, .925 fine. 1 The English mint price for silver, after 1601, was 5s. 2d. per ounce, but it seems to have been believed in Massachusetts that it was still five shillings. Strange as this error appears, it is supported by an incidental statement of Hutchinson 2 that he owned several shillings of the reign of Charles I, which weighed four pennyweights each. No mention of any such coins occurs in Ruding, but he says that, in 1631, “Many of [the money weights] which were in common use (although they were marked with the King’s ensign) were too heavy, and others too light, so that men bought and received by one weight, and sold and delivered by another.” 3 From the first year of the settlement rates were set at which commodities could be tendered in payment of taxes. In the following years the system of barter rates was extended to pri¬ vate transactions, so that there was a multiple currency, out of which that one thing was chosen, and became the money of account, which enabled a debtor to discharge his obligation with the least sacrifice. Hence arose a barter shilling, by the side of which was placed, by the law of 1640, a coin shilling, or bullion shilling of silver, which contained 96/88.8 grains, 4 while a shilling sterling was only 92.901/85.934 grains. In 1642 the Court ordered that ducatoons of three gilders should be current at six shillings, rix dollars of two and a half gil¬ ders and pieces of eight at five shillings. 5 What ducatoons were, in 1642, we do not know. Sir Isaac Newton found them, in 1703, if of Holland, worth 65.59 pence sterling, .937.5 fine; if of Flanders, 66.15 pence sterling, .943.75 fine. 6 The three gilder 1 Col. Rec ., 294. 2 Bost. Evg. Rost, Jan. 14, 1762. 3 / Ruding, 386. 4 The first number is the gross weight, the second, the fine contents. 5 See the Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations, 1740, in the Overstone Tracts : reprint edited by C. J. Bullock, 1897, who attributes it to Douglass. 6 23 Gent. Mag., 6. 248 Yale Review. [Nov pieces of Holland are not called ducatoons by him. They were worth 62.46 pence sterling, .916.66 fine. There was a great number and variety of rix dollars. The one referred to in the Massachusetts law was probably the “Patagon leg dollar or rix dollar of Holland, or piece of 50 sty vers” of Sir Isaac Newton’s table. This was worth, in 1703, 52.28 pence sterling. It was then only .866.66 fine. If it had been .925 fine it would have been worth 4s. 7d. 2.8f. A rix dollar current in London, in 1626, was worth, by weight and assay, 4s. 7d. 2f., but was cur¬ rent at two pence less, being mint charge and broker’s commis¬ sion, and the piece of eight, worth by mint test 4s. 6d. if., was current there at two pence less, for the same reason. 1 Of the three coins mentioned, the piece of eight was by far the most important for Massachusetts, being obtained already by trade with pirates and with Jamaica. It was also overrated relatively to the other two in the law of 1642, and therefore displaced them. Cotton found it to be 420 grains in weight, but of vary¬ ing fineness, .916.66 to .925. This coin being rated at five shil¬ lings, the shilling of Masachusetts was reduced to 84/77.7 grains. In fact, however, all the pieces of eight in circulation were more or less clipped and, although Cotton found them up to sterling standard in 1626, others disputed it then, and later in the 17th century they fell below it. 2 The presence of barter currency and of wampum by the side of silver, forced a constant exportation of the latter, or the clip¬ ping of such coins as remained. The barter currency was called “pay” or “country pay,” which meant that it was the money of account. “Country pay became the general measure throughout the government.” It was 30 or 40 per cent, below sterling in 1642. 3 This barter shilling then would correspond to a silver shilling of 65.03/60.15 or 55.74/51.55. It constantly and steadily depreciated. “Silver in New England,” said Cot¬ ton Mather, “is like the water of a swift running river; always coming and as fast going away.” 4 The accepted explanation of this phenomenon was the balance of trade and the colonial 1 Cotton, Posthuma , 296. 2 Sumner, The Spanish Dollar , Hist. Rev. July, 1898. 3 Hutchinson, l. c. 4 Trumbull in Am. Antiq. Soc. y 1884, 275. % 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 249 relation. The facts just stated, however, show that a \ 2]/ 2 pennyweight dollar could barely remain in circulation. “By the middle of the 17th century, clipping was rampant in the West Indies, and light Spanish silver coins became the general stand¬ ard of value in the British possessions of the new world. As far as can be learned, Jamaica and New England took the lead in these proceedings.” The current piece of eight was down to 336 grains. 1 Inasmuch, however, as the barter shilling was constantly depreciating, and the silver coins were being clipped to keep pace with it, this “standard of value” hardly deserved the name. While the barter currency was the money of account, the money of ultimate reference for it was uncertain, depreciating, and indefinable. It was of foreign manufacture. It was not made with accuracy or regularity. It was rated in a traditional English denomination to which it did not fit. It was not rated at its sterling value, but arbitrarily, so that the definition of a colonial shilling was derived, not from a sterling shilling, but from it, and the relation to sterling was a deduction. It was being clipped all the time. The inconveniences of this complicated set of relations led to the project of establishing a mint at Boston. Probably, how¬ ever, the hope of preventing exportation by recoining was the more immediate motive. This hope was vain. Recoinage could have no effect on the forces which caused exportation, but it could render the English colonists independent of the errors of the Spanish mints. In an address of Massachusetts to the King, 1684, a passage was inserted to apologize for the establishment of the mint, which passage was stricken out on final revision. The excuses alleged were that they had no exports but bulky corn and fish, “and therefor, for some years, paper bills passed for payment of debts, which are very subject to be lost, rent, or counterfeit, and other inconveniences. There comes in a considerable quantity of light base Spanish money, whereby many people were cozened, and the Colony in danger of being undone thereby, which put us upon the pro¬ ject of melting it down and stamping such pieces as aforesaid to pass in payment of debts amongst ourselves.” The Act for the 1 Chalmers, Colonial Currencies, 8. 250 Yale Review . [Nov. mint, as first drawn, also contained a preamble which was omitted on revision: “Forasmuch as the new order about money is not well resented by the people, and full of difficulties, and unlikely to take effect, in regard no persons are found willing to try and stamp the same.” 1 The reference here is to some order about money which is not in the record. It appears to mean that they intended at first to reduce the coins to bars which should be stamped. The first ordinance for the mint provided that the coins should be flat and square. 2 A Committee of the General Court was appointed, in 1652, to “ appoint the mint house.” They reported that it should be 16 feet square and 10 feet high; that the Colony should provide the plant, that a man should be impressed to build the house, and that he should be authorized to impress help. 3 In order to prevent washing and clipping, the law provided that each coin should have a double ring and “Massachusetts” on the margin, and a tree in the center, on one side, and New England and the year of Our Lord, on the other, a picture being drawn on the margin of the page to elucidate the enactment. 4 The provisions of the mint law are confused and contradictory, in fact they are unintelligible without information of a supple¬ mentary agreement between the Committee and Hull, the mint-master, which is not incorporated in the law. 5 Crosby 6 1 Hull's Diary , 3 Am. Antiq. Soc., 282 ; 1 Hutchinson, 164. X 2 Atkins (Corns of British Possessions) says that silver “ planchets ” were in circulation before 1651, which bore on one side “N. E.” and on the other XII, for twelve pence. They are depicted in Crosby. Stickney (2 Essex Inst., 99) says : “ Shillings have lately appeared dated 1650 ; these, if not the work of modern artists, must * * * have been patterns struck in England. They are of superior workmanship to those adopted in 1652, and might have been rejected on account of the expense attending their execution. That experiments were made with a view to copper coinage is evident, as I have one of Massachusetts, dated 1652, of pure copper, presenting no appearance of being a counterfeit, and is the only one that I ever saw.” [?] 3 3 Am. Antiq. Soc., 286. 4 IV. 1. Col. Rec., 104. An attempt has been made (I. 3 Hist. Mag., 197) to show that the two rings and the tree were occult symbols, based on Old Testa¬ ment texts, the significance of which to Puritans was: “God protecting New England,” and “ Independence.” 6 It is approved but not rehearsed, IV. 1. Col. Rec., 118. 6 Early Coins of America, 34. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 251 gives a heliotype* reproduction of the manuscript law. It is a slovenly scrawl, with erasures, superposed corrections, inter¬ lineations, and amendments, resulting in one case in an illegible blur at a material point. The mint-master was “for value to stamp three [erased and two substituted] pence in a shilling of lesser value than the present English coin.” The upper House at first allowed for mint charge 18 pence in 20 shillings; this the Deputies reduced to one shilling, and so the law provided, as it was passed. It further provided that for silver brought in by anyone “the mint-master shall deliver him the like weight in current money, viz: every shilling to weigh three penny troy weight and lesser pieces proportionably, deducting allowance for coinage as before expressed.” It was strictly enjoined that the coins should be of sterling alloy. It is impossible to reconcile these prescriptions with each other. According to the usual slipshod colonial method of doing business, no fair copy having been made, inconsistencies which resulted from amendments stand in the document unad¬ justed. Analysis and comparison lead to the following conclu¬ sions. They supposed, as we have seen above, that the English mint price for silver was five shillings per ounce; i. e. 96 grains sterling for a shilling. They meant to make a shilling equal to nine pence sterling on that supposition, i. e. 72 grains or 3 pennyweights. Hull and his partner, Sanderson, would not agree to the reduced allowance for mint charge. The Com¬ mittee consented to raise it to 15 pence per 20 shillings, and to allow one penny per oz. for wastage. Inasmuch as 20 of the proposed shillings would weigh just 3 ounces, this carried the total mint allowance up to 18 pence per 20 shillings again. The Committee consented to this very reluctantly, and until the next session only, expressing the hope that the mint-master would find that he could afford to take less. He was to reduce all silver to standard, and to coin it, at the uniform price agreed on, for the Committee urge that “there is likelihood of several kinds of work in which he is to be employed where there is no refining and so less labor.” Specimens of the coins which have been tested weighed 61, 65, 67, 70, and 72 grains. An assay at the mint of the United 252 Yale Review. [Nov. States showed fineness .926. 1 Cuts of the coins are given in 3 Am. Antiq. Soc. Milling was not introduced in England until 1660. 2 No evidence has been found that it ever was introduced in Massachusetts. Consequently filing or clipping cannot be detected, and as the coins were all subject to it, very few perfect specimens exist. The deficiency of weight in those just men¬ tioned is no proof that they were not of full weight when issued. On the contrary, the one which shows the maximum weight no doubt shows the normal weight. It is true that the coins are said to have passed abroad at three-fourths of sterling, 3 and that a Board of English Commissioners, in 1655, stated that the metallic value of New England coins was 25 per cent, below sterling of the same denomination, 4 also that one of the com¬ plaints made, about 1661, against Massachusetts, was for recoining English coin at a reduction of one-fourth; 5 but Randolph, in 1676, said that the New England shilling weighed three pennyweights and was worth 9% [9-3] pence sterling, 6 and a Report of the English Mint, in 1684, stated that the alloy of the coin was correct and that it was 22 per cent, below the English shilling. 7 The intention was to put the New England standard 25 per cent, below the English, supposing that the latter was 96 grains for a shilling. In fact it was 92.9 grains, so that a shilling of 72 grains was 77.5 per cent, of it. There remains no doubt then, that the pine tree shilling, as it came from the mint, weighed 72 grains, .925 fine, pure contents 66.6 grains. Those prescriptions in the mint law which are incon¬ sistent with this are the ones which must be sacrificed. The mint selling price, and the basis of the silver currency (the pine tree rate), was 6s. 8d. per oz. The metallic par of exchange with sterling was 129 for 100. To get these coins, however, the individual who brought silver to the mint must pay 18 pence per 20s., that is 5.4 grains of standard silver per shilling, or yy 2 per cent, for mint charges; the cost to him, therefor, of a 72 grain shilling was 77.4 grains of silver, or the mint buying price 1 1 Essex Inst., 125 : 2 ditto, 100, 206. 2 2 Ruding, 7. 3 Felt, 32. 4 13th Rep. Hist. Mss. Comm., App., Pt. II, 94. 5 Cal. State Pps. Colon., 1661-8, 26. 6 Hutchinson Pps ., 480. 7 3 Amer. Antiq. Soc., 302. 1898] The Com Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 253 was 6s. 2.418d. per oz. The heavy mint charge depressed prices in the coins, and the law (probably in vain) prohibited the circulation of any other except English, which, however, could not legally be exported from England. No one would take bullion to the mint unless a 72 grain coin would buy as much as 77.4 grains of bullion in the market. The latter amount was therefore the effective shilling in the market. 1 It was also forbidden, in 1654, to export silver to a greater amount than 20 shillings, by one person, at one time, for personal expenses, the penalty being confiscation of all visible estate, one-third to the informer. 2 The amount of silver coined in the first years of the mint was large. 3 The coins spread all over the northern colonies, yet they never were the current ordinary money of account even in the towns; far less in the country. The Chisholm accounts of Harvard College, kept in detail from 1650 to 1659, show few payments in silver. 4 The coins were all dated 1652 as long as the mint lasted. The mint house was on land owned by Hull, but which was to be transferred to the Colony at a valuation upon the expiration of his contract. 5 The charter of Massachusetts Bay did not contain a grant of the power to coin, and there was some fear, after the Restora¬ tion, of the consequences of assuming it. The power to coin was granted in the letters patent of Virginia, 6 and this shows, although the power was not granted in the second charter, that power to coin was not considered inconsistent with the colonial relation. The Colonies paid little heed to the charters when those documents would have limited them in the exercise of power, although they insisted strenuously on the restrictions to w'hich, in the charters, the Crown had pledged itself in dealing with them, but the Sovereign had really no reason to object to the mint, except on account of the prestige of coining as a sovereign prerogative. It was one of the greatest mistakes in 1 It is noteworthy that this is just ten pence sterling. 2 It was, at this time, not allowed to export precious metals from England. The prohibition, except as to English coin, was revoked in 1663 (2 Ruding, 11). 3 1 Hutchinson, 78. 4 1 Weeden, 191. 5 Drake, Boston , 329. 6 Cal. State Bps. Colon., 1606, 33. 254 Yale Review . [Nov. the colonial policy of England that a colonial mint was not allowed. The demands of the King’s Commissioners in 1665 are all in the interest of civil liberty and the rights of the oppressed, except their demand for the abolition of the mint. 1 The people of Massachusetts Bay had shown a spirit of disre¬ gard of their relation to the mother country, and had far exceeded their powers as a chartered corporation. The mint was regarded as an overt act of usurpation, more important as a proof of temper and purpose than in itself. A legend of prob¬ ably only poetic value narrates that Sir Thos. Temple, apologiz¬ ing for New England, told the King that the pine tree was the royal oak, whereat the King laughed. 2 Temple narrated “merrily” the story of his interview with the King, whatever it was. 3 The Colony, in 1678, begged the King’s indulgence for the mint and asked him to prescribe such impress for the coins as he pleased. The complaints of the mint during the first thirty years do not refer so much to its constitutionality as to the standard of its work. In the King’s letters to the Colony, 1679 and 1680, he does not mention it. If the coins had been made in accordance with the English mint ordinances, and if, after the Restoration, the King’s effigy had been put on them, it appears that other objections would have been regarded as trivial. 4 When it became desirable for the Crown to vacate the charter, in view of the political system which had been created under it, contrary to its purport, the mint was a welcome addition to the specifications by which the legal proceedings could be supported. When the mint was established, the rating of the piece of eight was, as we have seen, five shillings. The maximum weight of the coin fresh from the mint was 420 grains, assumed to be of sterling alloy. The same rating was repeated in 1655. At that rating there was an advantage in taking the piece of eight to the mint to be recoined, under the new law for the provincial mint, for the mint charge on 420 grains was 31J4 1 IV. 2. Col. Rec., 213. t 2 The King was in the oak Sept. 6, 1652, and the mint law was passed Oct. 26 (3 Am. Antiq. Soc ., 293, Ed. note). 3 I Maine Hist. Soc., 398. 4 1 Hutchinson, 165. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 255 grains or 5*4 pence colonial. The full piece of eight would therefore produce at the mint 5s. 4d. 3L colonial. A lighter one, if it would pass at five shillings colonial, would not offer so much advantage. The point of indifference or equality was when the piece of eight weighed 389.18 grains of sterling alloy. Below that weight, if it would pass at five shillings, there would be a loss in having it recoined. The circulation of light clipped coins must have been stopped after the mint was established, probably by the hearty cooperation of the public with the policy under which the mint was set up, for otherwise there would have been no large recoinage in competition with the clipped coinage. The mint law therefore raised the coin shilling from what it had been under the clipped coins to 72/66.6 grains. The mint charge was not abolished in England until 1666. 1 It was a preventive of exportation from America while it lasted, and assisted, by so much, the people of Massachusetts, in what they were trying to do. The more a man must lose on his piece of eight to make it effective in the English market, the more he was willing to lose to make it effective in the American market before exporting it. There was a constant tendency to bring into the circulation at five shillings each those pieces of eight which were just below the point at which there was neither gain nor loss in recoinage, that is, just at and below sixteen pennyweights. Such were by far the greatest number of the best to be met with. The heavier pieces were culled for export. After the first enthusiasm in favor of the Massachusetts coin had passed away, the motive of interest had its way unchecked to realize this tendency. “In sundry of our colonies were enacted laws against passing of light pieces of eight. These % laws not being put into execution, heavy and light pieces of eight passed promiscuously, and, as it always happens, a bad currency drove away the good currency. Heavy pieces of eight were shipped off. This current money growing daily lighter, a difference was made between heavy money which became merchandize, and light money, in which they paid their debts, gradually [during the latter half of the century] from 10, 15, 1 2 Ruding, 12. 256 Yale Review . [Nov. 20, to 25 per cent. . . . This was another and continued course of cheating their creditors and employers at home.” 1 A committee of the General Court was appointed, in 1660, to try to get from the mint-master a payment for the privilege he enjoyed, under a threat to contract with somebody else. 2 This committee reported that the gains of the minters were £62 on every £1,000. The total mint charge was £75 on £1,000. The wages of the minters are evidently here counted into their “gains.” The committee asked Hull to pay to the Colony one-twentieth of £62 per £1,000. He refused, probably because he saw no reason to surrender the advantage of a natural monopoly, but he offered a single gift of £10. This the com¬ mittee refused, but the General Court, more thrifty and less haughty, ordered them to take it. Hull made a great fortune for the time, 3 probably not altogether from the mint. Any man who understood the mysteries of coinage, money and bul¬ lion brokerage, and assaying, had a greater chance of gain than any other person in the Colonies who had to seek it by industrial effort. The democratic state was as much seduced by the “seigniorage” to be won from coining as any medieval prince ever was. It did not desire to abolish the excessive mint charge. The following year it repeated the attempt to get a share of it. It was hoped, at least, that rent might be obtained for the house and plant, but the attempt failed. 4 Two-penny pieces were added to the coins in 1662. For the first year £50 in these pieces were to be struck for every £100 coined, and for the six years following, £20 for every £ioo. 6 Silver was quoted in 1665 at 6s. 8d. per oz., and gold at £5 per oz. 6 The ratio would be 15.13 to 1, if account should be taken of the difference in fineness of the two medals (gold .916.66), but disregarding this, as the colonists seem always to have done, the ratio was 15 to 1, and gold was at two and a half silver pence per grain, silver being the money. 1 Overstone Tract of 1740. 2 IV. 1. Col. Tec., 434 ; 3 Am. Antiq. Soc., 291. 3 1 Hutchinson, 165. Probably he is the merchant referred to by Hutchinson (Bost. Evg. Post, Jan. 4, 1762) as having died possessed of a fortune of ^30,000. 4 IV. 2. Col. Tec., 13. * 5 Ibid., 51 ; see II. 2. Mass. Hist . Soc. Coll., 274. e 1 Weeden, 316. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 257 The abolition of the mint charge in England, in 1666, altered the conditions of the New England bullion market so that a less unfavorable rate of exchange was necessary to take silver away. If we may make use of Sir Robert Cotton’s statement of 1626, about the loss of value on a piece of eight in London, to assume that the cost of freight, insurance, mint charge, 1 and brokerage at this time would be two pence sterling per piece of eight sent from Massachusetts, then the effective shilling in London for such a shipper would be 96.34 grains. As we have seen above, the effective shilling in Massachusetts was 77.4 grains. The exchange rate between the two would be 125 colonial for 100 sterling. If then the mint charge in England was abolished and the effective shilling sterling for an American shipper of pieces of eight fell to 93*33 grains, the rate would be 120colonial for 100 sterling. Consequently exportation would increase, and the amount of metal taken to the Boston mint would diminish. We may believe that this effect made the mint men more amenable, for, in 1667, they agreed to pay £40 within six months, and after that £10 per annum, for seven years, the contract being renewed for that period. 2 The law against the exportation of coin was renewed in 1669, which is a proof that exportation was going on at a rate to renew the agitation against it. Until 1670 the Colony enjoyed prosperity under free trade. 3 Then attempts began to be made to enforce the Navigation Acts, and twenty years of strife with the Crown followed, producing hard times. These circumstances led to numerous projects about the currency. It was provided, in 1670, that specific contracts for coin or mer¬ chandize should be discharged according to their terms. 4 A proposition was first made in 1669 to repeal the law which forbade the circulation of all foreign coin except English, and to make pieces of eight of sterling alloy current at six shillings each. 5 It was not until 1672, however, that this action was 1 The mint charge was two shillings per pound, which would be 1% pence on a piece of eight of 420 grains. Of course the assumption here made is not true to the facts, which we have no means of ascertaining. It is only made in order to show the effect of abolishing the mint charge. 2 IV. 2. Col . Rec., 333, 347 ; 3 Amer. Antiq. Soc., 295. 3 1 Hutchinson, 269. 4 Felt, 41. 5 Felt, 41. 18 258 Yale Review. [Nov. taken. It was forced by the change in the adjustment with the English market. The preamble recites that “pieces of eight are of more value to carry out of the country than they will yield to mint into our coin.” Therefore, it was ordered that all such pieces which were of full weight and good silver, “that is six shillings of New England money of Mexico, Seville and Pillar” should pass for six shillings, provided that they were stamped “NE.” at the mint, to certify that they were of due weight and alloy. The mint charge for stamping was to be four pence on 20 shillings, one penny to the minter and three to the public treasury. 1 Pieces of eight which would equal six New England shillings would weigh 432 grains. No such pieces ever existed. Accordingly, later in the session, “foras¬ much as few or no pieces of eight are of that weight,” it was enacted that any pieces of eight should be stamped their weight, and should pass at the rate of 6s. 8d. per oz. Worn pieces stamped with NE and figures are to be seen in collections. 2 The charge for stamping was 1/60 of a grain per grain. A full weight dollar (420 grains) would therefore net the owner, when stamped, 5s. 8^d.; if minted, 5s. 4^4d. Any piece of eight could be stamped with its New England value, and be so rendered current, for per cent, of its value. It could be minted for y]/ 2 per cent, of its value. Evidently none would be taken to the mint. Stamped pieces plus the stamp expense made 73.2 grains the effective shilling instead of 77.4 grains. The new metallic par with sterling was 126.9. Crosby 3 does not believe that any pieces of eight ever were stamped under this law. He would refer the specimens seen in the collections to the period just before the mint was founded. The calcula¬ tion just made shows that he must be in error. It shows a motive which would be sure to cause coins to be stamped. A Peruvian piece of eight of 1652 has been described, 4 which is stamped. It was found in a buried hoard with other coins of which the latest date was 1688. This law of 1672 overthrew the mint. We hear more and more complaints that it does not or cannot work. Some have supposed that Andros stopped it. 1 IV. 2. Col. Rec., 533. 3 Early Coins of America, 81. 2 3 Am. Antiq. Soc., 296. 4 2 Essex Inst., 254. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 259 Crosby thinks that the contract was not renewed in 1675. When we find that the laws and conditions would cause a com¬ parative loss to anyone who brought silver to the mint, we may be sure that we have found the correct explanation of its stoppage. The contract of Hull and Sanderson expired in 1675. A com¬ mittee was appointed to treat with anybody for a new period, but the same men made a new contract for seven years more. The mint charge was reduced to fifteen pence per 20 shillings, and the contractors were to pay £20 per annum for their privi¬ lege. They bought the mint house. 1 The lowered mint charge was equal to 1/16 of a grain per grain, or P er cent. On a 420 grain dollar this would be 26Rj grains, and such a coin would produce at the mint 5s. 5%d. New Eng. The buying mint price was 6s. 3.28d. per oz. and the cost of a shilling (72 grains) was 76.5 grains. A stamped price of eight, however, would still pass current as before, and its cost was, as above, 73.2 grains per shilling of 72 grains. This combination, with¬ out bringing any metal to the mint more than before, ensured export or clipping of the New England shillings and importa¬ tion of base or clipped dollars. Very little attention was paid to the fineness of the Spanish coins, which now became uncer¬ tain. Especially the Peruvian dollars were a cause of fraud and annoyance. We must also not lose sight of the barter currency which constantly tended to degrade the coin. At the time which we have now reached, a conventional difference of one- third was recognized between money and “pay,” in the pay¬ ment of taxes, that is, one-third off barter rates gave money rates. This, however, in private transactions meant “pay as money.” It was necessary to substract twenty-five per cent, more to get coin rates. 2 If a minister’s salary was £100, he was paid in grain which could have been bought in the market for £50 in silver. Randolph reported, in 1676, that there was a reasonable supply of silver in Massachusetts, but little gold. 3 Various projects were brought forward in 1678 to prevent the exportation of metal and to cause it to be brought to the mint, 1 3 Am. Antiq. Soc 297. 2 Judd, Hadley , 210. 3 Hutchinson Pps., 498. 26o Yale Review . [Nov. I testifying to the points in which contemporary experience was unsatisfactory. One proposition was to make the shilling nine or twelve grains lighter; another was to make the mint free. 1 If the shilling had been dropped ten grains, the mint charge on 62 grains, at the existing rate, would have been t> 7 A grains, making the effective shilling 65% grains. Six such shillings would be 395/4 grains; or, the effect would be the same as making a i6 l / 2 pennyweight dollar current for six shillings with¬ out stamp. Must we not suspect that pieces of eight of this description, or lighter, were becoming current, by the toleration of the market, for six shillings, without stamp, and that the first proposition was an attempt to offset them by a shilling which could bear the existing mint charge yet not cost more than they? The Deputies tried, in 1679, to put the piece of eight at six shillings without stamp. The Council refused. 2 In the follow¬ ing year the agitation for a free mint was renewed. 3 In a peti¬ tion to this end it is said that the loss at the mint is 6 % per cent., and that there is no gain by coinage, for “a Spanish cross is as good as a New England pine.” Those who can hoard or export have “something more than the mint will yield.” These statements from their experience ratify the deductions we have made as to the necessary effect of the existing laws and facts. The inference in favor of a free mint was the only sound conclu¬ sion, but it does not seem to have met with general acceptance. Hull said that the coins were exported because they were too heavy. He favored lowering the shilling twelve grains. A good piece of eight would then, he said, be worth 7 or 7J4 pence more. The calculation shows that by a “good piece” he meant one of 420 grains. He thought that this measure would keep the dollars in New England. He proposed to divide the loss on debts of more than six months standing between debtor and creditor, and to throw it on the creditor for more recent ones. *, 1 3 Amer. Antiq. Soc ., 2<^■ 2 Cf. 1 Weeden, 326. A Frenchman who was arrested at Boston, in 1679, had in his possession tools for clipping and clippings of Massachusetts coin (Drake, Boston , 437, n.). See Dankers & Sluyter, 340, 378. 3 Crosby, 109. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 261 Andros tried to have the mint allowed and he did obtain per¬ mission to rate foreign coins. 1 Pieces of eight were rated, in 1682, at 6s. 8d. per oz., if of sterling standard, 2 the object being, once more, “to keep money in the country.” This was the year in which the current con¬ tract with Hull and Sanderson ended. This law left the mint and the stamp out of view, and we hear no more about them. The first proposition was that dollars should go at their weight in New England coin, and this was afterwards explained to mean at 6s. 8d. per oz. 3 A full piece of eight (420 grains), of sterling alloy, would be worth at this rate 5s. iod., not six shil¬ lings; otherwise stated, if 420 grains were six shillings, silver was at 6s. io.28d. per oz. The law of 1682 would have estab¬ lished a standard by weight, not by tale, 72 grains being a shil¬ ling, but no effect of the law can be discovered, partly no doubt because of the inconvenience, and partly because current pieces of eight of 420 grains or less had probably become current money of account for silver debts at six shillings, so that this law would have enhanced debts. The officers of the English mint, in their report of 1684 on the New England coins, said that the mint charge was one-third greater than had ever been allowed in England. 4 They found the New England coins 22^ per cent, below sterling of the same denomination, and recommended that, if the mint was allowed to continue, if should be compelled to coin sterling coins. They added that pence, half-pence, and farthings might be made of tin and supplied to the Colonies to the profit of the royal treasury. An almost identical report was made on Sir 1 Chalmers, Polit. Annals , 421, 440. 2 V. Col. Rec., 573 ; see Crosby, 85. 3 Whitmore, Col. Laws , 292, a, 294. 4 The seigniorage in England, after 1601, was 2s. per pound of silver, except during the reign of James I, when it was 2s. 6d. (1 Ruding, 90.) Sir Robert Cotton (. Posthuma , 285), in 1626, said that it was 4s. per pound weight of silver, in England, while abroad (Holland) it was only 2s. His statement requires explanations which we do not possess. Two shillings and six pence sterling per pound weight would be 3.225 pence New England per oz. The New England charge was at first 6 pence N.E., afterwards 5 pence, per oz. Lowndes (Silver Coins , 127) speaks of a mint charge, in 1695, of is. 4>^d. per pound weight of silver as then existing in England. 262 Yale Review . [Nov. Wm. Phipps’s petition to the new government, and under the new charter, in 1692, for the grant to Massachusetts of the privi¬ lege of coining. 1 The reasons alleged by Pres. Dudley and the Council, in 1686 (although the true reasons were their own pecuniary interest), for permitting Blackwell’s bank to be established, were the decay of trade and especially the exportation of silver and the scarcity of money. Hence they argued that a bank was necessary to “provide a currency.” 2 When Dunton left Boston, 1686, he carried out £400 in silver in his trunk without apparent fear or concealment. 3 Randolph wrote, 1688, “Some would have all pieces of eight, tho of 15 pennyweights, go at six shillings New England, others at 17 [pennyweights], but they stand at 17^2. Our money goes all away.” This shows that there were dollars in circulation which were as light as fifteen pennyweights, and also some which were as heavy as seventeen, but that the standard was dollars of seventeen and a half. In the Proclamations given by Ruding, rating foreign coins for circulation in Ireland, during the last third of the 17th century, the piece of eight is always stated as 17 pennyweights. Queen Anne’s Proclamation of 1704 fixed the dollar of 17*4 pennyweights at six shillings as the standard, which caused great complaint in the Colonies, because it was said that scarcely one could be met with in the circulation which weighed over 17. It is of the first importance to observe that the piece of eight had now become, in Massachusetts as else¬ where, the standard coin, rated at six shillings, and that even if it weighed 173/2 pennyweights, the shilling had fallen to 70/64.75 grains. 4 It is one of the enigmas of the history that the Colonists treated this rate and 6s. 8d. per ounce as equiva¬ lent. The metallic par of the 70 grain shilling with sterling was 132.71. It cannot be doubted that pieces of eight of 17 pennyweights were the best actually current at six shillings, that is, the silver shilling of account was, before 1690, not better than 68/62.9 grains; par with sterling silver coins 136.6. 1 Cal. Treas. Pps., Ed. Redington, 214. 2 Felt, 46. 3 Letters from New Eng ., 303. 4 Wait Winthrop, 1699, speaks of the “difference between New England money and the current coin here” [Boston] (IV. 8. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 569). 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 263 A fierce law against clipping, filing, and rounding was passed in 1692, proving the activity of these operations. No unclipped New England coins could circulate under the circumstances just described. Such coin was to circulate “at the rate it was stamped for,” that is, if it had been coined originally as a shil¬ ling, it was to be a shilling; if as a sixpence, a sixpence. A piece of eight of 17 pennyweights was to be six shillings; that is, the law accepted and recognized the usage of the market, and puts it beyond a doubt what that usage was. This law was dis¬ allowed by the English authorities, because the penalties in it for clipping, etc., were not the same as those for the same officers in English law. Such was the interpretation put upon the provision that the laws of the Colony must conform to those of England. 1 The law, so far as concerned the rating of the piece of eight, was reenacted and approved in 1697. 2 The shilling under it was 68/62.9. This Act is one of the most important in the history. It set a definition, at last, by weight, for Massachusetts, of a shilling in the piece of eight; uncer- tanity remaining, nevertheless, as to the fineness, which was assumed to be sterling. It took up and made lawful a state of things which had existed, in all probability, by the custom of the market, since 1685. This law and this definition of a shil¬ ling were the point of departure for the following period (1690- 1736), during which clipping of silver and over-issues of paper produced inflation and confusion. As we shall see below, a concurrence of facts and legislation brought this definition once more into validity, as the standard of reference, and it remained such from 1737 through the rest of the colonial period. “Good and lawful money of this Province,” wrote Gov. Belcher to the Lords of Trade, in 1739, “is seventeen pennyweights for six shillings.” 3 The law of 1697 had other important consequences, partly political. The home authorities having allowed it to stand, the Attorney General 4 advised them that they were estopped from making any regulations in regard to colonial currencies inconsistent with it. Therefore, when discussing the policy to 1 A similar decision, i Penn. Coll. Rec., 418. 2 1 Prov. Laws , 70, 296. 3 IV. 7. Mass. Hist. Soc. Col., 225. 4 Chalmers, Currencies , 14. 264 Yale Review. [Nov. be adopted in the Proclamation of 1704, they considered that they were not free to introduce the sterling standard, which otherwise they would have done. 1 This exaggerated scruple, and the ridiculously wrong-headed policy to which it led, especially when compared with the reason for disallowing the law of 1692, illustrate well the faults of the colonial administra¬ tion. It could not have cost more effort to persuade Massa¬ chusetts to revise her law of 1697 than to accept the prescrip¬ tions of the Proclamation, which she never did! In fact the English authorities did violate the law of 1697, for they raised the standard to six shillings for seventeen and a half penny¬ weights. For reasons which will appear below, the sterling standard, with due provision for outstanding contracts, would have been clear and simple, and would have had far better chances of success than the measure which was adopted. The law against the exportation of silver was renewed, in 1697, for three years, 2 and energetic efforts were made to enforce it, but it did not put a stop to complaints of the scarcity of money. 3 In 1699 the pieces of eight in Rhode Island were clipped down to 13 or 14 pennyweights. 4 There was a proposition, in 1700-1, to rate gold at 3 pence per grain and silver at 7s. per oz. It failed. It would have introduced a gold currency (17.3 to 1), unless, as probably would have happened, the piece of eight, current at 6s., had run down to 15 pennyweights, i. e., silver at 8s. per oz. (15.137 to 1). In 1703, the penalty for clipping or counterfeiting the Queen’s coin was made death; for the same abuse of any coin current in the Colony, the pillory, ear-cropping, and flogging. The state of the coinage was so bad that, in 1704, a committee was appointed to report “what expedients they think will best remedy and reform the ill state of the coin.” Inasmuch as they never reported, it appears that they could find none. 1 1 Penn and Logan Corresp., 248. 2 1 Prov. Laws, 306. 3 IV. 8. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 569. 4 Rider’s Reprint Laws 1636-1705, p. 45. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 265 We must now turn our attention, for a moment, to the English currency of the latter part of the seventeenth century, since the relation of the colonial currency to it was of the first importance to the colonial. After 1660, the misrating of gold and silver in England led to the clipping and export of silver, and a gold currency for that country. By 1695, the current silver coin was clipped down nearly to one-half its due weight. 1 Hammered coins were still in circulation, and it took repeated acts of legislation in the following years to put an end to them. A recoinage took place, in 1696, but the misrating of the guinea (it was to be 22s. after April 10, 1696) 2 still caused exportation of the silver coins. This was a protection to the Colonies, to a certain extent, against an exportation of their silver. Guineas were worth about 20^4 shillings of legal weight and fineness each, but were rated at 22 shillings. Taking a piece of eight as equivalent to 4^2 s., 4 5 / 9 pieces were equal to a guinea, but it took 4 8 / 9 pieces to pay a guinea. Therefore they were clipped or melted. Copper coins were also issued to excess, 1699 to 1701. 3 Since, then, we find the silver coins of England down to 7s. per oz. just before the recoinage, and Massachusetts silver at 7s. per oz. by the law of 1697, the silver shillings of the two countries were, at that juncture, equal; the deprecia¬ tion of the silver currencies in the two countries was the same. But the money of account of England was guineas, rated, in 1696, at 22s. each. The ratio of the metals was probably 15 to 1 or 14^4 to 1, as Sir Isaac Newton found it in 1717. 4 Soetbeer’s figures for the Hamburg market are: 1696, 15 to 1; 1700, 14.81 to 1; 1701-10, average, 15.27 to 1. At 15 to 1, the guinea was worth 20.711s. Only gold was brought to the mint. In 1696, the mint was closed against gold for nine months in an effort to turn the tide. 5 The current shilling of account in England was, therefore, one twenty-second of a guinea, 5.88/5.39 grains. In the last years of the century the guinea was rated, by the usage of the market, at 21s. 6d. A 1 Lowndes, Silver Coins , 87, 107. 2 According to 7 and 8 Wm. Ill, c. xix. 3 Montagu, Copper , Tin arid Bronze Coinage , 76. 4 7 Pari. Hist., 526. 6 2 Ruding, 46. 266 Yale Review. [Nov. shilling was then 6.02/5.51 grains. In 1717, by royal Proc¬ lamation, the guinea was rated at 21s.; a shilling was 6.163/5.65. The guinea shilling, as it existed from 1700 to 1717, was equal, at 15 to 1, to 90.3 grains sterling silver; at I5l4 1° E to 91.8 grains. In all operations of exchange, American silver money had to be compared with English gold money, or with this silver shilling, which, at the market rate, was the equivalent of it. To this then, we must return below, but now we can see that it was the universal degradation of the silver coin, and its unequal degradation in different places, which led to the numerous projects of reform put forward in the first years of the century, most of which emanated from the Colonies, and were in their interest, but were received with serious attention in England, amongst which was a project for a colonial mint. This agitation led to the Queen’s Proc¬ lamation of 1704. Sir Isaac Newton attended the Board of Trade, May 26, 1704, to answer questions about the value of foreign coins. He said that the table of values 1 which he submitted was not intended to be published in the Proclamation, but was a guide for fixing ratings in the Plantations. He promised to compute the rat¬ ings of the different coins in proportion to the Seville piece of eight. On June 23d, he submitted such computations, but the Proclamation was dated June 18. 2 It was prescribed in the document that a 17B2 pennyweight piece of eight, worth 4s. 6d. sterling, should be six shillings colonial. This prescription admitted of three interpretations. (1) A 1734 pennyweight coin, if worth 4s. 6d. sterling, would not be .925 fine, but .920.833. It was assumed, however, in the colonies that “Spanish plate” was of sterling alloy. If 17^2 pennyweights, assumed sterling, was six shillings, one shilling colonial was 70 grains sterling, but there was no coin corre¬ sponding to that or its multiples. Weighing and assaying must have been constantly repeated. (2) A coin of sterling alloy worth 4s. 6d. sterling would weigh 418.06/386.7 grains, and a colonial shilling, if deduced from this stipulation, would be 1 This seems to be the table which is printed, 23 Gentleman's Mag., 6 (1753). 2 17 Board of Trade Journals, sub dates. 267 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. \ 69.676/64.45 grains. There was no coin corresponding to this. In calculations it could be conveniently employed, since it meant that colonial was three-fourths of sterling. (3) The easiest interpretation, and the one which became popular, was that a piece of eight was six shillings. This left the definition of a shilling at the mercy of the fidelity and accuracy of the Spanish mints. The Proclamation therefore simply added new elements of confusion and complication. On the first interpretation silver was 6s. io.28d. per ounce; sterling par 132.71. On the second, silver was 6s. 10.63d. per ounce; ster¬ ling par 1333/3. On the third, the values were changing from time to time. Queen Anne’s Proclamation of June 18, 1704, was received in Boston in November. Its leading motive was stated in the document itself to be to remedy the inconveniences arising from the different rating of coins in the Colonies “by the indirect practice of drawing the money from one Plantation to another.” 1 But few in Europe or America were then emanci¬ pated from the notion which here finds expression, that one state could draw coins from another by rating them at a greater number of shillings, livres, kreutzer, etc. 2 The Proclamation rated silver coins only. An attempt was made, in Massa¬ chusetts, to pass a law which should enforce it, yet not over¬ throw the existing system established by the law of 1697; but this was impossible. The Council wanted to comply with the Proclamation; the House wanted to maintain the Massachu¬ setts usage. Hence no act could be passed, but, March 3, 1704-5, a Resolution was adopted that the matter should be regulated by a Proclamation of the Governor. As to the terms of this, however, the same dispute arose. It was proposed that coins of full weight should circulate on the terms of the Queen’s Proclamation, and that all deficient coins should be rated by weight at 7s. per ounce. This would have made two incon¬ sistent rates in the same document, for the rates of the Queen’s • Proclamation were 6s. 10.63d. per ounce, and the clipped bits would have been the only currency, all the more seeing that they were not of sterling alloy. It was at last agreed that, until 1 Cf. Chalmers, Currency, 13. * Ibid., 7. 268 Yale Review . [Nov. It May, bits should pass at the rate of the Queen’s Proclamation, but the Governor’s Proclamation, as published, says that full weight coins shall circulate at “due weight according to Her Majesty’s Proclamation and the laws of this Province,” thus really embodying the contradiction. In the following June, a committee was appointed by the Council to “report what they shall think proper to be done by this Court [for the annexing of penalties on such as shall offer money by tale under due weight, and further for the reforming of the money].” The House amended by striking out the words in brackets and sub¬ stituting: “for the reforming of the money and rendering the law effectual to prevent the debasing thereof.” The commit¬ tee recommended that the Governor’s Proclamation should be approved and reiterated without limitation of time, “saving all past particular contracts,” and that skilled persons should be em¬ ployed to make a table of “proportion of coins and silver of ster¬ ling alloy by the oz. troy to the weight of a penny.” The Coun¬ cil added that, except for special contracts, if the debtor offered bills of credit, “all process in the law shall be stayed against every such debtor by the space of twelve months, and then pro¬ ceed.” 1 No action was taken, for it would have been necessary to agree on the weight of a penny, and the same old effort to say that the same quantity was at the same time both 3 and 4 would have been renewed. There the legislative action ended, and the Queen’s Proclamation never was enforced or obeyed. Gov¬ ernor Dudley, reporting to the Board of Trade, 1705, referred back to the law of 1697 which made 17 pennyweights to be 6 shillings, and said that it was “pretty well observed, so that I thought I had little to do, only, in obedience to Her Majesty’s Proclamation, to add the half-penny” [weight], i. e. to make the I7J4 pennyweight piece of eight to be 6 shillings instead of the 17 pennyweight piece. He called on the Court to enforce the Queen’s Proclamation, but “could not obtain so much as a committee upon that affair until I would leave out the word ‘penalties.’ ” The Court passed a tax at eight shillings per oz. [which is proof that the real current rate in 1705 was not higher.] He refused his assent, and there was a deadlock for 4 Crosby, 121 ; 8 Acts and Resolves , no, 118, 471. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 269 five weeks. Then they granted the tax at 17 pennyweights for six shillings, but would do nothing to enforce the Proclamation or to lay a penalty for the violation of it, “and thereby the country will be emboldened to use their late way of payment at 15 pennyweights [8s. per ounce], though I shall take care that the courts and officers of receipt keep steady and allow of no legal payment but by due weight.” 1 Here is explicit testimony that, by 1705, the current shilling of the market was down to 60 grains; metallic par with sterling silver coin, 155. The clipping had gone on with great rapidity since 1697. In eight years it had raised silver one shilling per ounce, i. e. the silver money of account had depreciated 12^2 per cent. In fact it had depreciated more than this. This was only the officially acknowledged depreciation. At Boston, as at New York (where it was worse), or at Philadelphia (where it was still worse), the circulating medium in the market was frag¬ ments of Spanish coin. In November, 1705, Keeling got judgment against Lillie for £294. Lillie tendered to him 5625 reals in a bag, being quarters and eighths of a dollar, by tale, at 8 pence per real; total, £187 is. [Even at 8 shillings per ounce, or a 15 pennyweight dollar for 6s., the real should have been 9d. Inasmuch as the defendant tendered reals at 8d. it is evident that the bits in the market were worn and clipped even below the rating of 8s. per oz., by at least 11 per cent. From other data given below we can deduce that a payment in them would render only 328 grains for a dollar, six shillings; or 54^ grains for a shilling; rate, 8s. g^$d. per oz.] Lillie tendered for the rest of the debt full coins at 6s. for 17 pennyweights, which were accepted, although 2.86 per cent, below Proclama¬ tion. The sheriff objected to the reals that some were Peru¬ vian and some clipped [so that they were even below the above calculation], and he took the order of the court, which was that the mass should be weighed and valued at 6s. for 17 penny¬ weights. It proved deficient £17 18s. 6d. or nearly ten per cent., which the defendant was compelled to pay. He appealed to the Legislature by petition, and the House resolved that “reals at 8d., qualified as the law directs [unclipped and ster- 1 1 Prov. Laws, 579 ; 4 Doc. Coll. Hist., N. ¥., 1131. 270 Yale Review. [Nov. ling], are a legal tender to pass by tale, which are to 1 be judged by the eye and not by the scale, the law assigning no weight to them.” [There was no law about them.] The House further desired, if in any way practicable, to undo the transac¬ tion dictated by the Court. The Council took no action. 1 We may now recapitulate the definitions of the coin shilling, including the interpretations of the Proclamation, of which the first rating of 1705 would fall under the third. Silver per oz. Shilling. Sterling par in silver. 1652. 6s. 8d. 72 grs. sterling. 129 1697. 7s. 68 136.6 1704.1) 6s. io.28d. 70 132.71 \ 1704 .2) 6s. io.65d. 69.677 133.33 [■ Proclamation 1705 .3) 8s. 60 155 ) Current dollars at 6s. 1705. 8s. q 3 / & d. 54% 170 “ bits. The reasons for the failure of the Proclamation are here evident. The actual money of account was at most the first rating under 1705. The Proclamation would have raised it one-sixth. Yet everything goes to show that, if the standard had been set at sterling, especially with a mint, and with a provision that 52 new shillings should pay 96 shillings of out¬ standing debts, the reform would have succeeded. Public feel¬ ing was favorable to a real or well-planned reform. As we saw, above, the English gold shilling in 1704 was equal, at 15 to 1, to 90.3 grains sterling; at 15J4 to 1, to 90.8 grains. Against the former of these the 60 grain Massachu¬ setts shilling gave a metallic par of 150J4; against the latter, of 153. Any depreciation of the bills of credit must be reckoned from this par as a base. Douglass 2 quotes exchange at 150 when silver was at 8s. per oz., that is, at eight of the then cur¬ rent silver shillings. The bills of credit read: “This bill shall be equal to money.” What was money? It was this coin shilling whose variations we have been studying. The bills showed no depreciation until 1712, because the metallic shil- 1 8 Acts and Resolves, 595. 2 1 Summary , 494. Cf. Davis, 33 Proc. Amer. Acad . of Arts and Sci ., 208. Dr. Belknap’s table of depreciation for New Hampshire gives, as the price of silver: 1700,10s.; 1704,7s.; 1705, 10s.; 1710, 8s.; 1711 8s. 4d.; 1712, 8s. 6d. (5 N. H. Hist. Soc. Coll., 258.) 1898] The Coin Shilling oj Massachusetts Bay. 271 ling was depreciating, between 1690 and 1712, from 68 grains to 60 grains. Then more of them were needed, so that paper could depreciate 12^4 per cent, from its point of departure before it showed any depreciation at all. The courts of Massachusetts, in 1708, “chancered” silver at 8s. per oz. in the settlement of debts. This rate was the standard of justice, truth and right in New England and New York behind the paper inflation of the next thirty years. 1 Under it a shilling was 60/55.5 grains. In the evolution of the paper-money system in Massachusetts, the point was reached, in 1736, at which bills of a “new tenor” were issued. A bill of so many shillings was not now declared on its face to be “equal in value to money,” but equal in value to such a weight of silver (at the rate of 20s. for 3 oz.), or to gold coin at the rate of £4 18s. per oz. The specification by tale having been abused until it was no longer available (no one knew what “money” was), recourse was had to a specification by weight, and the specification employed was the pine-tree rate, not proclamation, although the former was nearly three per cent, higher than the latter. The silver shilling was once more 72/66.6 grains. The gold shilling under the Act was 4.89/4.489 grains. The ratio is 14.84 to 1. Soetbeer gives the ratio for Hamburg, at this time, as 15 to 1 and silver rose for the next ten years. Probably silver was higher in America than in Western Europe, being preferred. The rate may have been taken from the market. In 1728 “milled” dollars began to be made at the Spanish mints in America. By law they should have weighed 417.65/382.5 grains each, fineness being now, by law, .916.66. A test, in 1765, 2 showed that they contained only 377.4 grains fine. It is not probable that they were as bad as that immedi¬ ately after 1728, but when they reached that point, each was equal to a sterling coin 408/377.4 grains. The intention in adopting the “new tenor” was to go back to “lawful money,” which would be proclamation. Why they revived the pine-tree rate, and so multiplied confusion, is inexplicable. In practice, proclamation, or lawful, money always meant a piece of eight for 1 4 Doc. Col. Hist., N. Y., 1134. 2 Chalmers, Colonial Currencies, 409. 272 Yale Review. [Nov six shillings. The new “milled” dollars came to be specified as the standard of this “lawful money,” at the same time that the pine-tree rate was specified also, although a shilling by the latter was 72/66.6 grains and by the former 68/62.9 grains, if we adopt the mint test as the true description of the dollars in circulation. Now appears, however, the interesting and important fact, of which anticipatory mention was made above, that, as a result of these illogical proceedings and the false work of the Spanish mints, the coin shilling had once more come to be, what it was by the law of 1697, 62.9 grains of pure silver. In 1744 the bills of credit were changed again by reducing by one-eighth the amount of silver and gold put for a given number of shillings. Against 20s. was set 2j^ ounces of sil¬ ver, or gold at the rate of £5 10s. 3d. This was 7s. 6d. per oz. for silver. The silver shilling was 64/59.2 grains, and the gold shilling 4.35/3.99 grains, ratio 14.837 to 1. This law left little trace upon the history, being swept away in the flood of depre¬ ciation which immediately followed. 1 At the resumption of specie payments, in 1749, it was enacted that the money of account should be silver at 6s. 8d. per oz., “and all Spanish milled pieces of eight of full weight shall be accounted, taken and paid at the rate of six shillings per piece.” In order that these two stipulations should be equivalent, the piece of eight must have weighed 432 grains of sterling alloy. No dollar ever had weighed so much and no dollar then exist¬ ing was up to sterling standard. The first provision was there¬ fore nullified by the second, for the only money of account would be the piece of eight. What then was, by weight and assay, the piece of eight which was current at that time and which was in fact and practice the thing referred to? We have noticed above the Spanish mint law of 1728, by which the piece of eight should have been 417.65/382.5, and the mint test of 1765 by which it contained only 377.4 grains fine. In the whole contemporary literature of the Colonies only two statements are to be found which testify what the piece of eight 1 The new tenor of New Hampshire was then on a basis of 6s. 8d. per oz.; that of Mass. 7s. 6d.; that of R. I. 6s. gd.; that of Conn. 8s. 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. 273 * was in fact, 1750-60. 1 (1) In the controversy of 1762, 2 Hutchinson said that a piece of eight weighed 417 grains. (2) In a law of Connecticut, of 1755, 3 it is provided that bills of credit shall be redeemed at 58s. 8d. per oz. of silver or £42 per oz. of gold. The true ratio is 14.448 to 1; disregarding the difference in standard of the two metals, it is 14.318 to 1. After the bills were redeemed, this law ordained that a piece of eight should be six shillings and an ounce of gold £5. Using the ratio previously obtained, we can compute that the piece of eight they had in hand must have contained 381.427 grains of pure silver on the former ratio, or 377.995 on the latter. Inas¬ much as the latter coincides more nearly with our other infor¬ mation, we accept it as more probably correct, i. e., the Colo¬ nists disregarded the difference in fineness of the metals, and derived the ratio from the gross weights. The shilling which was one-sixth of a piece of eight containing 377.4 or 377.9 grains of pure silver would be 62.9 grains pure; 68 grains ster¬ ling; and the piece of eight corresponding to it would be just 17 pennyweights sterling alloy. Those which were current weighed 417 grains, but were of baser alloy. The investigation must be regarded as having reached a conclusive result. The silver shilling, derived from the piece of eight in the middle of the century, was 62.9 grains of fine silver, coinciding with the shilling which we have met with twice above. The next step was the very important Act of 1750, 4 the motive of which was the apprehension lest coins “might rise above their real value as proportionate to Spanish milled pieces of eight at six shillings.” All the current gold and silver coins were rated by taking up again the rule that proclamation means that colonial is three-quarters of sterling. This was applied, however, not to the true metallic value of the coins in sterling, but to the current rating in London, which was inaccurate, being affected by the wear of guineas, the errors in the English rating of gold to silver, and the inconvenience of minute frac¬ tions. These errors were all taken over and some of them exaggerated by the rule adopted in Massachusetts. The piece 1 Some were in circulation, in 1749, which weighed only 13^ pennyweights (i Douglass, Summary , 358). 8 See below. 3 10 Col. Rec ., 337. 4 3 Acts and Resolves , 494. Yale Review. [Nov* 2 74 of eight which would have been six shillings colonial on this rule must have had 386.64 grains pure contents; shilling 64.44 grains pure. But we have just seen that the actual pieces of eight, current at six shillings, contained from 377.4 to 377.9 pure; shilling 62.9 grains. If one man paid with a piece of eight and another with an English shilling,' the latter paid 16.392 pence for 16 pence by proportion. The shilling and crown must therefore “rise” to this rating and its multiple, or be clipped or exported. When the law rated them at i6d. and 6s. 8d. respectively, and tried to keep them down by a penalty for passing them at a higher rate, it only drove them out. The real motive of the law was apprehension that other coins would be raised, by the usage of the market, so that they would be proportionate to the piece of eight which was current at six shillings. In regard to gold coins the effect was different. In 1762, Thatcher said that it was only by an “oversight” that gold was not mentioned in the Resumption Act, and he claimed that all the coins enumerated in the Act of 1750 were thereby made legal tender at the rating there set upon them. A guinea, 129.438/118.625, was rated at 28s. colonial; a pistole, 104/94.792 [Newton], 1 at 22s.; a johannes, 221.3/202.9 [Noback], at 48s.; a moidore, 166.75/151.5 [“as they come into England,” Newton], at 36s. The colonial shilling in pure gold, derived from these coins, at the rating, would be, in guineas, 4.237 grains, in pistoles, 4.31 ; 2 in johannes, 4.226; in moidores, 4.209. These figures show why johannes and moidores are heard of as far more common in the circulation than guineas and pistoles. If the former two were worn or filed the advan¬ tage would be greater. The law was sooner or later imitated by the other New England Colonies, and the ratings established by it became customary throughout Anglo-America during the next twenty-five years. 1 Newton found the pistoles one-half of a carat grain worse [.911.46], and the moidores one-quarter of a carat grain worse [.914]. 2 A full pistole was worth 16s. g^d. sterling. Hence it was worth more than its rating compared with the others. For this reason when a sum was to be obtained , pistoles at the rating were sought, (i Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., 285.) They were melted. 2?5 1898] The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay. ‘'Dollars” were the money of account in treasury bonds of I 75°. 1 In those of 1752, the obligation was to pay in silver at 6s. 8d. per oz., or in gold at £5 is. 7d.; ratio 15.38 to 1. Soetbeer's Hamburg rate, at the time, is 14^ to 1. This law stands entirely by itself. The bonds would have been paid in gold, but they were no doubt paid in current pieces of eight, as above, at six shillings each. At £5 is. 7d. per oz. a shilling was 4.331 grains of pure gold, and this, against a silver shilling of 62.9 grains pure, would give a ratio of 14.52 to 1. In the treasury bonds of the following ten years the obligation was to pay at 6s. 8d. per oz. or in dollars at six shillings. After 1758 subsidies were received from England, part of which were sent over in coin, for the most part in Spanish and Portuguese gold, because this was the cheapest discharge by the exchequer of the sums voted by Parliament. When dollars were sent they were reckoned by the ounce. Spanish and Portuguese gold coins were delivered by tale, with a mini¬ mum weight, at the current rating in England. 2 These gold coins were paid to the creditors of the Colony at the rates in the Act of 1750. Express mention is made by the agents of the Colonies of the care taken, and expense incurred, by them, to select full weight coins. 3 As a consequence, it was stated, in 1762: ‘'Gold is now become by far the greatest part of the medium of trade of this Province.” 4 The exportation of dollars became a subject of complaint. In his message of 1761, the Governor called attention to the counterfeiting of treasury bonds, and also of coin, and he argued that these crimes flourished because the penalties were inadequate. By a legislative freak, the consideration of this subject led to the introduction of a bill to make gold a legal tender at the rates which had become customary since 1750. Inasmuch as the first proposition was to determine the mini¬ mum weight at which the coins might pass by tale at the rat¬ ing, it is evident that they had lost weight. A struggle ensued between the Council and the House on the old paper money 1 3 Acts and Resolves, 531. 2 1 Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., 286 ; 4 Acts and Resolves, A/ass., 347. Cf. 1 Conn. Hist. Soc., 285. 4 4 Acts and Resolves, 490. 1 276 Yale Review. [Nov. lines, the latter (the “country party”) trying to put the mini¬ mum low; the former (the “court party”) trying to put it at the legal standard of the respective coins, or at the minimum at which the coins had been paid to the Colony in the subsidies. 1 . The Act as passed, Feb. 8, 1762, limited the johannes to a minimum weight of 221 grains [202.59 pure], the half moidore to 83 grains [76 pure] ; the guinea to 129 grains [118.25 pure]. Each of these would give a shilling of 4.22 grains of pure gold. As to guineas, the Bank and the Excise office, in London, in 1753, published a rule that they would not receive them if they had lost more than six grains, 4per cent. Hence the best ones must have been down to this limit. 2 In 1773, a test of £3,500,000 in guineas, accepted just as they came by the Bank for the purpose of the test, showed a loss of nine per cent. 3 Selected guineas sent over in 1760 showed a loss of 1.08 per cent, by tale as compared with weight, which would bring the guinea down to 127.61 grains. 4 The silver coin of England had lost by clipping and wear one-sixth. 5 The price of silver in 1761 was 5s. 9d., which shows a loss of 16 per cent. The Massa¬ chusetts Act of 1762 provided that, if any coin was below the minimum legal weight, it should nevertheless be a good tender at a reduction of two and a half pence for each grain which it had lost. There was a struggle between the two Houses over the attempt of the Council to insert the words, “express con¬ tracts to the contrary excepted.” “As [these] words do not appear in the Act, and as the clause, omitted in the bill, relating to the entering up of judgments, appears in the Act, as well as the clause fixing the rate of gold, it would seem that the bill, after it had passed to be enacted, had been, in some manner, reconsidered and amended, sometime after its passage to be enacted in both Houses, and before it had been signed by the Governor, or received the seal, though no further record of this irregular proceeding has been preserved.” 6 While this bill was pending, a controversy arose between Oxenbridge Thatcher and Hutchinson about its justice and its i I 1 4 Acts and Resolves, 552, 556. 2 2 Ruding, 79. 3 34 Jo. Ho. Comm., 734. 4 4 Acts and Resolves, 541. 5 Lord Liverpool to the King, ad init. 6 4 Acts and Resolves, 556, Ed. note. 1 189SJ The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay , 277 effect. 1 Hutchinson proposed to rate the johannes at 46s. instead of 48s. He said that there had been no scarcity of silver after resumption, until the exchange with England turned against the Province; that then, “upon comparing the prices of the two metals here with their prices in England, it appeared that silver might be shipped to much greater advantage than gold”; that during the following twelve years, “by means of a variety of favorable circumstances,” exchange had not been above par, little metal had been shipped, the divergence of the ratings in England and America had not been great, and no mischief had been experienced; that now abundance of money had led to luxury and large importations, silver was being exported, and so the question was raised again. 2 Both disputants agreed that the latest quotations in London were, for gold (Portuguese), £4 os. 8d., and for silver 5s. 9d. [ratio 14.158 to 1]; that the par of exchange was at 120 although it had been formerly 133; that the standard in Massa¬ chusetts was 6s. iod. per oz., or a milled piece of eight for six shillings; and Hutchinson said that the piece of eight weighed 417 grains. The last two statements are irreconcilable. The piece of eight would have to be .934.9 fine. Soetbeer’s ratio for 1761 is 14.54 to 1; for 1762, 15.27 to 1. The arbitrary impor¬ tation of gold into Massachusetts had no doubt lowered its value there relatively to silver, compared with former times. Without undertaking to judge what it may have been, we may be confident that the ratio 14.905 to 1, which resulted from a silver shilling of 62.9 grains fine, and a gold shilling of 4.22 grains fine, was unjust to silver in 1761, and would force its exportation when the exchange was adverse. It was impossible to make use of the small gold shilling and to keep silver too, when the supply of gold was ample. In practice, the form in which the question always presented itself was: How can a debt of a shilling sterling in England be most easily discharged? At £4 os. 8d. per oz. for Portuguese gold, a johannes of 221 1 Considerations on Lowering the Value of Gold Coins , etc., and letters in the Bost. Evg. Post , Dec. 1761 and Jan. 1762. * Cf. 4 Acts and Resolves, 559. 278 Yale Review . [Nov. grains was the equivalent of 37.14s. sterling. 1 Exchange being taken at par, 120, this was worth 44s. 6.8d. col.; but the coin was rated at 48s. col. Eight dollars were also 48s. col. If each contained 377.4 grains pure, according to the result of our investigation above, they would sell at the quotation (5s. 9d. per oz.) for 39s. sterling, equivalent, with exchange at 120, to 46s. 9.6d. col. The dollars were therefore worth 4.77 per cent, more in exchange than the gold johannes, although the two were rated equal in Massachusetts. The latter would remain there; the former would be exported. Inasmuch as the dollars had been the money, a change to the johannes would drop the standard 4^ per cent., as Hutchinson said, or would be like raising the rating of the dollar to 6s. 3d. or 6s. 4d., or silver to 7s. 4d. per oz. To bring the two metals to a point of indif¬ ference on the same ratio as in England, the johannes should have been rated at 45s. io.68d. col.; hence Hutchinson pro¬ posed to rate it at 46s. But dollars at 6s. and other coins as in the law of 1750 had become customary. Taxes were made payable by the Act under discussion in the coins at those rates. On account of changes in the market for the metals which took place immediately afterwards, it appears that the effect of the law of 1762 was not so great as had been expected; in fact, not very important. The above calculation all depends on the quotations then last received from England, and they were affected by the badness of the English coinage. “Y. Z.” thought it a “flurry,” after which the rates would return to the former customary rates, 5s. 4d. for silver and £3 17s. 6d. for gold. This was a ratio of 14.66 to i. 2 Connecticut, in March, 1761, “considering the extraordinary price that foreign coins now bear in England,” rescinded a vote to order a subsidy payable to her to be sent over in specie, and ordered it deposited on interest that bills might be sold against it later. 3 If silver fell, as Soetbeer’s figures indicate, the case would be entirely 1 Y. Z., in the Post of Jan. n, 1762, reckons a johannes of 220 grains worth 44s. 4%d. [4^] col. This shows that the current coins were below 221 grains. 2 (Post, Jan. 11, 1762.) There must have been a loss of interest by delay at the mint. 3 11 Conn. Col. Rec 489. i S98] The Com Shilling of Massachusetts Bay . 279 changed. Hutchinson feared that pistareens would, at the next stage, be made legal tender at their current rate, 14 pence, although not worth probably over 8 pence. A quantity of them had been sent with the reimbursements, and they served the purpose of subsidiary coins by the side of the gold coins upon the modern single standard system. The minimum weights for gold coins in the Act of 1762 were reasonably correct, and would have kept up the standard of the money of account, but the provision that deficiency should be allowed for at 2]/ 2 pence per grain was incorrect and mischie¬ vous. It encouraged filing and clipping. At 4.22 grains of fine gold for one shilling, a grain of standard gold was worth 2.61 pence. Hence a deficient coin was legally rated higher in proportion than a perfect one. For instance: a johannes of 221 grains was equal to 35s. io.2d. sterling and was rated at 36s. for current use in London. By the rule of the law of 1750, that colonial was three-fourths of sterling, this coin should have been 47s. 9.6d. col. It was rated at 48s. If it had lost 20 grains, it would pass for 43s. iod. At the rate of the full coin, 201 grains would be worth 43s. 7.8d. Attempts to find any quotations of commercial exchange on London at Boston in the middle of the 18th century have thus far proved fruitless. Gov. Belcher wrote, in 1734, “It is the .hardest thing to be done in the New England world to procure bills for England.” 1 There were no quotations in the modern sense. In the laws which were passed for selling bills to draw the subsidies from England, the minimum rates for 30-day bills were set as follows: 1761, 136; 1762, 138; 1763, 136; 1764, 1 3.5; 1765, 135. The par rate above cited, 120 at the end of 1761, was no doubt a commercial rate and also at 30 days sight. The divergence of the quotations is very remarkable. Freight and insurance on specie remittances we find reckoned at 4^2 per cent., in 1760. 2 Insurance rates, in 1756, were 2j4 to 3J4 per cent. 3 If we had quotations of sterling exchange and of the London prices of the metals for the period, they would be of the greatest value to us, as enabling us to make a final test 1 VI. 7. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 57. 2 4 Acts and Resolves, 541. 3 1 Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., 285. 28 o Yale Review . [Nov. of the results of our investigation. The best verification we can make is as follows: In regard to commercial bills, (i) when silver was at 5gold shillings per oz., 62.9 grains of pure sil¬ ver would be worth .755 of an English shilling and the exchange would be 132.3, metallic par. (2) When silver was at 5^4 gold shillings per oz. (the “rise” being due in part, at least, to deterioration of guineas), 62.9 grains of pure silver would be worth .814 of an English shilling, and the metallic par would be 122.8. We should expect the par rate for 30-day bills to be two or three points below these figures, and the ordinary extreme range of exchange would be about five points above and below that. As to public bills, we note that the rate was a minimum only, set in advance by law, and was not a market rate. We may be sure that bills sold in Massachusetts would be paid for in gold coins at the rating; one shilling not over 4.22 grains fine. If the bills were paid promptly and in full weight guineas, the exchange would be, at metallic par, 133.8. The data are so inadequate and uncertain that these calculations cannot be presented with confidence. During the remainder of the time that the Province of Massa¬ chusetts Bay^existed, the shilling was 4.22 grains of fine gold, subject to deterioration by the wear and abuse of the gold coins, or 62.9 grains of fine silver, subject to the deteroriation of the Spanish dollar. The dollars coined after 1772 should have been 4i7-75/377- I 3 grains. William G. Sumner. Yale University. L - •• 4 - , r % ■ „ i> . ■* . •“ , .» >• -• M'fr' ■ ^ ■* *' > ' :/■ t>; ’ - >• •. - ■ *" «i.- -V • ■ - ■ ■ *•/ * “ . •, t. - mr ' » ■ # - v« . V . . . * v 5 '’ r £iSz >\ •••../:' , - ► i