DAVIS. 



MASSACHUSETTS CURRENCY. 



201 



It was stated by a contemporary writer that there was in circulation 

 in the four New England Colonies, when the first issues of Province 

 bills were made, about £200,000 in silver.* Douglass says that in 1713,t 

 one third in value of the circulating medium of the New England gov- 

 ernments was silver, and the other two thirds paper. The bills he esti- 

 mated at £175,000. Silver was then rated at 8s. per ounce. They 

 were therefore equivalent .to 437,500 ounces of silver. He called them 

 438,000 ounces, and thus got a total of 657,000 ounces. A comparison 

 of some of these estimates may be useful. 



If there is any rule to be deduced from the foregoing table it would 

 seem to be substantially the same as that laid down by Douglass : J '• The 

 more paper money we emit, our real value of currency or medium be- 

 comes less, and what we emit beyond the trading credit of the country 

 does not add to the real medium, but rather diminishes from it by creat- 

 ing an opinion against us, of bad economy and sinking credit." 



The apparent exception to the rule, in the excess in the purchasing 

 capacity of the circulation sliown in 1713, maybe capable of explana- 

 tion. When the Colony began the emission of public bills of credit there 

 was in circulation an amount of silver practically adequate for the trans- 

 actions of local business affairs. Until it had been totally displaced and 

 superseded by paper money, any estimate of the amount remaining iu 

 circulation at any given time must have been conjectural. Douglass's 

 estimate of one third in circulation in 1713 may have been too high, 

 and was indeed disputed by one of his contemporary controversialists. 

 Whether this be so or not, time was required for the emissions to pro- 

 duce their effects upon the discount of the bills and the displacement of 



* The Second Part of South Sea Stock, p. 22. 



t A Discourse, etc., p. 29. j: A Discourse, etc., pp. 29, 30. 



