1 6 THOMAS HUTCHINSON 



of his policy, and he was again chosen representa- 

 tive. 



In this year, 1 740, there was an outburst of excitement 

 in Boston not unlike those that ushered in the Revo- 

 lutionary War. Of the wildcat banking schemes, two 

 were especially prominent. The one known as the 

 " Specie Bank " undertook to issue i 10,000 in promis- 

 sory notes, to be redeemed at the end of fifteen years 

 in silver at 20 s. per ounce ; but it was not altogether 

 clear from what quarter this desirable silver was to 

 come. There is something pathetic about these per- 

 sistently recurring popular fancies, based on a still 

 surviving faith in that old Norse deity to which our 

 heathen forefathers did reverence as the god Wish! 

 The rival scheme, known as the " Land Bank," under- 

 took to issue ,150,000 in promissory notes, redeemable 

 at the end of twenty years in manufactures or produce. 

 There were about eight hundred stock-holders, or part- 

 ners. Each partner mortgaged his house or farm to 

 the company, and in return for this security borrowed 

 the company's notes at three per cent interest. He 

 was to pay each year not only the interest, but 

 one-twentieth part of the principal ; and payment 

 might be made either in the same notes or else in 

 merchandise at rates assigned by the directors of the 

 company. 1 The exploit of " basing " a currency on 

 nothing and " floating " it in the air was never more 

 boldly attempted. As a means of transacting business 

 in a commercial society, a note payable in another 

 note, or in whatever commodity might after twenty 

 years happen to be cheapest, must have been a device 

 of scarcely less efficiency than the far-famed philoso- 

 pher's stone. A man who sold one hundred bushels 



1 Palfrey, IV. 550; Sumner, "American Currency," 29. 



