States showed fineness .926.1 Cuts of the coins are given in 3 Am. Antiq. Soc. Milling was not introduced in England until 1660.2 No evidence has been found that it ever was introduced in Massachusetts. Consequently filing or clipping cannot be detected, and as the coins were all subject to it, very few perfect specimens exist. The deficiency of weight in those just mentioned is no proof that they were not of full weight when issued. On the contrary, the one which shows the maximum weight no doubt shows the normal weight. It is true that the coins are said to have passed abroad at three-fourths of sterling, and that a Board of English Commissioners, in 1655, stated that the metallic value of New England coins was 25 per cent. below sterling of the same denomination, also that one of the complaints made, about 1661, against Massachusetts, was for recoining English coin at a reduction of one-fourth;5 but Randolph, in 1676, said that the New England shilling weighed three pennyweights and was worth 94 [9.3] pence sterling, and a Report of the English Mint, in 1684, stated that the alloy of the coin was correct and that it was 221⁄2 per cent. below the English shilling. The intention was to put the New England standard 25 per cent. below the English, supposing that the latter was 96 grains for a shilling. In fact it was 92.9 grains, so that a shilling of 72 grains was 77.5 per cent. of it. There remains no doubt then, that the pine tree shilling, as it came from the mint, weighed 72 grains, .925 fine, pure contents 66.6 grains. Those prescriptions in the mint law which are inconsistent with this are the ones which must be sacrificed. The mint selling price, and the basis of the silver currency (the pine tree rate), was 6s. 8d. per oz. The metallic par of exchange with sterling was 129 for 100. To get these coins, however, the individual who brought silver to the mint must pay 18 pence per 20s., that is 5.4 grains of standard silver per shilling, or 71⁄2 per cent. for mint charges; the cost to him, therefor, of a 72 grain shilling was 77.4 grains of silver, or the mint buying price 2 Ruding, 7. 3 Felt, 32.

11 Essex Inst., 125: 2 ditto, 100, 206.

I

4 13th Rep. Hist. Mss. Comm., App., Pt. II, 94.

5 Cal. State Pps. Colon., 1661-8, 26.

& Hutchinson Pps., 480.

73 Amer. Antiq. Soc., 302.

was 6s. 2.418d. per oz. The heavy mint charge depressed prices in the coins, and the law (probably in vain) prohibited the circulation of any other except English, which, however, could not legally be exported from England. No one would take bullion to the mint unless a 72 grain coin would buy as much as 77.4 grains of bullion in the market. The latter amount was therefore the effective shilling in the market.1 It was also forbidden, in 1654, to export silver to a greater amount than 20 shillings, by one person, at one time, for personal expenses, the penalty being confiscation of all visible estate, one-third to the informer.2

The amount of silver coined in the first years of the mint was large. The coins spread all over the northern colonies, yet they never were the current ordinary money of account even in the towns; far less in the country. The Chisholm accounts of Harvard College, kept in detail from 1650 to 1659, show few payments in silver. The coins were all dated 1652 as long as the mint lasted. The mint house was on land owned by Hull, but which was to be transferred to the Colony at a valuation upon the expiration of his contract."

The charter of Massachusetts Bay did not contain a grant of the power to coin, and there was some fear, after the Restoration, of the consequences of assuming it. The power to coin was granted in the letters patent of Virginia, and this shows, although the power was not granted in the second charter, that power to coin was not considered inconsistent with the colonial relation. The Colonies paid little heed to the charters when those documents would have limited them in the exercise of power, although they insisted strenuously on the restrictions to which, in the charters, the Crown had pledged itself in dealing with them, but the Sovereign had really no reason to object to the mint, except on account of the prestige of coining as a sovereign prerogative. It was one of the greatest mistakes in

1 It is noteworthy that this is just ten pence sterling.

It was, at this time, not allowed to export precious metals from England. The prohibition, except as to English coin, was revoked in 1663 (2 Ruding, 11). I Hutchinson, 78. Cal. State Pps. Colon., 1606, 33.

41 Weeden, 191.

5 Drake, Boston, 329.

the colonial policy of England that a colonial mint was not allowed. The demands of the King's Commissioners in 1665 are all in the interest of civil liberty and the rights of the oppressed, except their demand for the abolition of the mint.1 The people of Massachusetts Bay had shown a spirit of disregard of their relation to the mother country, and had far exceeded their powers as a chartered corporation. The mint was regarded as an overt act of usurpation, more important as a proof of temper and purpose than in itself. A legend of probably only poetic value narrates that Sir Thos. Temple, apologizing for New England, told the King that the pine tree was the royal oak, whereat the King laughed.2 Temple narrated "merrily" the story of his interview with the King, whatever it was.3 The Colony, in 1678, begged the King's indulgence for the mint and asked him to prescribe such impress for the coins as he pleased. The complaints of the mint during the first thirty years do not refer so much to its constitutionality as to the standard of its work. In the King's letters to the Colony, 1679 and 1680, he does not mention it. If the coins had been made in accordance with the English mint ordinances, and if, after the Restoration, the King's effigy had been put on them, it appears that other objections would have been regarded as trivial. When it became desirable for the Crown to vacate the charter, in view of the political system which had been created under it, contrary to its purport, the mint was a welcome addition to the specifications by which the legal proceedings could be supported.

When the mint was established, the rating of the piece of eight was, as we have seen, five shillings. The maximum weight of the coin fresh from the mint was 420 grains, assumed to be of sterling alloy. The same rating was repeated in 1655. At that rating there was an advantage in taking the piece of eight to the mint to be recoined, under the new law for the provincial mint, for the mint charge on 420 grains was 311⁄2

1 IV. 2. Col. Rec., 213.

The King was in the oak Sept. 6, 1652, and the mint law was passed Oct. 26 (3 Am. Antiq. Soc., 293, Ed. note).

31 Maine Hist. Soc., 398.

41 Hutchinson, 165.

grains or 54 pence colonial. The full piece of eight would therefore produce at the mint 5s. 4d. 3f. colonial. A lighter one, if it would pass at five shillings colonial, would not offer so much advantage. The point of indifference or equality was when the piece of eight weighed 389.18 grains of sterling alloy. Below that weight, if it would pass at five shillings, there would be a loss in having it recoined. The circulation of light clipped coins must have been stopped after the mint was established, probably by the hearty coöperation of the public with the policy under which the mint was set up, for otherwise there would have been no large recoinage in competition with the clipped coinage. The mint law therefore raised the coin shilling from what it had been under the clipped coins to 72/66.6 grains.

The mint charge was not abolished in England until 1666.1 It was a preventive of exportation from America while it lasted, and assisted, by so much, the people of Massachusetts, in what they were trying to do. The more a man must lose on his piece of eight to make it effective in the English market, the more he was willing to lose to make it effective in the American market before exporting it. There was a constant tendency to bring into the circulation at five shillings each those pieces of eight which were just below the point at which there was neither gain nor loss in recoinage, that is, just at and below sixteen pennyweights. Such were by far the greatest number of the best to be met with. The heavier pieces were culled for export. After the first enthusiasm in favor of the Massachusetts coin had passed away, the motive of interest had its way unchecked to realize this tendency. "In sundry of our colonies were enacted laws against passing of light pieces of eight. These laws not being put into execution, heavy and light pieces of eight passed promiscuously, and, as it always happens, a bad currency drove away the good currency. Heavy pieces of eight were shipped off. This current money growing daily lighter, a difference was made between heavy money which became merchandize, and light money, in which they paid their debts, gradually [during the latter half of the century] from 10, 15,

1 2 Ruding, 12.

20, to 25 per cent. . course of cheating their creditors and employers at home." A committee of the General Court was appointed, in 1660, to try to get from the mint-master a payment for the privilege he enjoyed, under a threat to contract with somebody else.2 This committee reported that the gains of the minters were £62 on every £1,000. The total mint charge was £75 on £1,000. The wages of the minters are evidently here counted into their "gains." The committee asked Hull to pay to the Colony one-twentieth of £62 per £1,000. He refused, probably because he saw no reason to surrender the advantage of a natural monopoly, but he offered a single gift of £10. This the committee refused, but the General Court, more thrifty and less haughty, ordered them to take it. Hull made a great fortune for the time, probably not altogether from the mint. Any man who understood the mysteries of coinage, money and bullion brokerage, and assaying, had a greater chance of gain than any other person in the Colonies who had to seek it by industrial effort. The democratic state was as much seduced by the "seigniorage" to be won from coining as any medieval prince ever was. It did not desire to abolish the excessive mint charge. The following year it repeated the attempt to get a share of it. It was hoped, at least, that rent might be obtained for the house and plant, but the attempt failed.*

This was another and continued

Two-penny pieces were added to the coins in 1662. For the first year £50 in these pieces were to be struck for every £100 coined, and for the six years following, £20 for every £100.5 Silver was quoted in 1665 at 6s. 8d. per oz., and gold at £5 per oz. The ratio would be 15.13 to 1, if account should be taken of the difference in fineness of the two medals (gold .916.66), but disregarding this, as the colonists seem always to have done, the ratio was 15 to 1, and gold was at two and a half silver pence per grain, silver being the money.

1 Overstone Tract of 1740.

3

2 IV. 1. Col. Rec., 434; 3 Am. Antiq. Soc., 291.

I Hutchinson, 165. Probably he is the merchant referred to by Hutchinson (Bost. Evg. Post, Jan. 4, 1762) as having died possessed of a fortune of £30,000. 4 IV. 2. Col. Rec., 13. I Weeden, 316.

5 Ibid., 51; see II. 2. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 274.