time of redemption by taxes to two years, afterwards to a longer period, and finally to thirteen years. Up to 1702 there had been emissions of about £110,000.[1] "Bills of this period continued at the rate of six shillings, a heavy piece of eight, and were called Old-Charter bills, because they were issued before the second Charter of William and Mary."[2] In 1702, another emission of £10,000 was ordered by the court.[3] This was supplemented by other issues annually to be cancelled by the taxes until 1704. The issues in the next few years were as follows: 1706, £10,000; 1707, £22,000; 1708, £10,000; 1709, £60,000; 1710, £40,000; 1711, £65,000—a total of £207,000. Next year the province bills were made legal tender. After 1707 the volume of bills grew larger with every emission and now assumed the proportions of an inflation. Meanwhile the royal government limited the operations of the General Court and placed the period of redeeming tax bills to the year 1747. Further emissions were forbidden, except by acts subject to the king's approval before they should take effect, unless all outstanding bills should have been redeemed.
A rather rare pamphlet, published in Boston in 1749, reviews the subject of paper money in this language:[4]
"Which not being very considerable, and the bills having a preference in the Treasury to silver, kept up their credit until about the year 1711, when such large sums were issued that silver began to be hoarded by some, and exported by others in large quantities and the bills became the only means and instrument by which private trade and dealing were regulated and managed. And to confine the currency of the bills, and effectually to banish silver and gold, the Massachusetts Province, in the year 1712, made their bills a tender in the discharge of all debts unless there appeared a special agreement or contract otherwise."
This is the story of a legal tender inflation in operation.
- ↑ Massachusetts Province Records, Dec. 18, 1739.
- ↑ Paine's Council Report, American Antiquarian Society, April, 1866.
- ↑ Acts of Massachusetts.
- ↑ "A Brief Account of the Rise, Progress and Present State of the Paper Currency of New England." Boston, 1749.
