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.
The populace clamored for more currency. It mattered little to them whether the coin or paper money with the escutcheon of the government stamped thereon asked for was real value or some percentage of a unit of value. The coinage at the mint did not meet every demand. "Country pay" still continued to settle the accounts of the rural districts. In 1687 the public demand on Hingham was partly paid in milk pails.[1] For a long time the government received in payment of taxes whatever the colonist had to offer.[2] A discount from the usual rates was made to those who paid in coin. After 1680 the discount for specie was one-third. The authorities recognized the defects of the country pay system too well not to know that it was policy for them to give a liberal discount in favor of coin. Eventually the legislature of Massachusetts repealed the law which had occasioned so much loss to the colonial treasury.[3] Through the influence of the members of the general court, indulgencies were granted very generally to their constituents throughout the colony. The effect of this negligent policy upon the treasury was in every way disastrous.[4] From the time the taxpayer deposited his grain and other products in the care of the local constable until the treasury actually received the cash realized from the sale of what was designated "specie, " there was nothing but a succession
- ↑ Massachusetts Archives—"Usurpation," Vol. i.
- ↑ Massachusetts Colonial Records, May, 1658, say that no man should attempt to discharge his rates with lank cattle. Boards were accepted for taxes by the constable of Salisbury in 1657.
- ↑ Massachusetts Colonial Records, Vol. iv, pp. 2, 463.
- ↑ "Financial History of Massachusetts," by Charles H. J. Douglas, Ph. D. This treatment by Dr. Douglas is especially good on the means and methods of taxation previous to 1789, and its application and relation to the "currency." The scope of his treatise includes banking and currency. A scholarly work, indispensable to students of New England finance and early currencies.
