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1786-7] Effects of paper money. 313 not take it willingly should be compelled to take it unwillingly. A Forcing Act was therefore passed, imposing a fine of ^100 and the loss of civic rights on anyone refusing to take the bills in payment of a debt or discouraging their circulation. But the law only made matters worse than before. The merchants denounced it as iniquitous, and refused, almost to a man, to make any sales. The traders closed their shops, or disposed of their stock by barter. Business was at a standstill, and money almost ceased to circulate. Eventually the question of the constitutionality of the Force Act came before the courts. One John Trevett had purchased from a Newport butcher named Weeden a few pounds of beef, and tendered in payment some of the new money. Weeden refused to take paper shillings at their par value, whereupon Trevett lodged a complaint against him. When the case came on, each side was represented by able counsel, for the contest was in truth not between Trevett and Weeden but between the farmers and the merchants between those who, having mortgaged their lands for the paper issue, now struggled hard to keep it at par, and those who, recalling the disastrous times of 1779, did their best to keep the paper out of their own pockets. The court decided in favour of the latter, refused to execute the law, and declared the information not cognisable before them. In Massachusetts the advocates of paper money went to the verge of treason. There, as elsewhere, they formed the debtor part of the com- munity ; and there, as elsewhere, they were early infected by the rage for a paper medium. Taxes were high; trade and commerce languished; money was scarce ; and, as their creditors were pressing for settlements, they determined that the State should provide the means. One bill which they introduced into the Assembly made real and personal estate a legal tender; defeated in this, they brought in a paper money bill providing for a currency which should never be redeemed, but should depreciate at certain fixed rates till it had no value left, and so be extinguished. Again defeated, they resolved on violence, and began to stop the sittings of the courts in order that property should not be taken by distress. For a while the Governor submitted in patience. But, when the malcontents began to gather in force and threatened to march to Cambridge and stop the sitting of the Court of Common Pleas, warrants were issued, and two of the leaders were lodged in Boston gaol. This served but to make matters worse. Under the command of Daniel Shays, the "Regulators," as they called themselves, mustered in such numbers at Worcester that the Governor put Boston in a state of defence, raised an army of 4000 men, and sent it into the field under the command of General Lincoln. After fighting pitched battles at Spring- field and Pelham and many skirmishes elsewhere, the malcontents were at last driven over the line into New Hampshire and Vermont. In the midst of this widespread disorder and distress the Trade CH. IX.