In the eighteenth century, however, some coins from France, Spain, Portugal, Arabia, Mexico, and Peru did arrive and circulate in Virginia—pieces of eight, doubloons, pistoles, pistareens, crusadoes, and “dog dollars.” The last, thought to be Dutch in origin, were so called from the crude representation of a lion on one face. Curiously, there were few British crowns, half-crowns, or shillings.
Despite this variety, coined money was by no means plentiful in the colonies in the eighteenth century. The scarcity of specie, in fact, was one of the strongest colonial arguments against the stamp tax in 1765. Nevertheless, coins of known weight and fineness provided the colonial silversmith with a fairly reliable source of raw material.
The third possible source—plate to be melted down and reworked—was less certain as to quantity but of trustworthy quality. Customers who wanted articles of silver made in the newest fashion often had to provide the smith with raw material—usually an equal weight of plate in the older style. If the old pieces had been wrought in England the mark either of a lion passant or the seated figure of Britannia attested to the fineness of the metal used.
But this source was of little help to the smiths of Williamsburg. Although Virginia probably contained as much concentrated wealth and as much plate as any other colony, the Virginians who held most of it leaned toward England in heart and pocketbook. If they wanted their silver refashioned, where more logical to have it done than in London—where fashions were made and where the pieces had been wrought in the first place.
LEARNING TO BE A SILVERSMITH
No one earned the right to be a master craftsman in silver—or a master of any other craft—in the eighteenth century without serving a long and thorough apprenticeship.
A boy of the working class in England was usually launched on his life’s career by the time he was 14, and sometimes when he was only 10 or 12. The class of society into which he happened to be born and his father’s vocation usually determined the road he would take. The oldest son almost automatically followed the father’s trade and inherited his tools and shop, if he had one.
The same custom prevailed in the English colonies, including Virginia, but in modified form. Here the freedom of movement encouraged by the beckoning frontier of opportunity, and especially of cheap land, broke down many social and economic barriers. A man of one class could more easily climb into the class above or aspire to have his son do so. Even the long-standing apprenticeship system suffered. Not every man who arrived in the colony, or moved to its western reaches and set up shop as a master craftsman, had actually earned the ancient right to employ that title.
But by and large, colonial boys became colonial craftsmen only by completing an arduous apprenticeship period of seven years—more or less. During this time they learned the “art and mysterie” of the craft and gained skill in using its tools. At the age of 21 they became “journeymen” for an additional period until they acquired enough capital to set up in business for themselves.
Unlike the countries of Europe, the colonies in America did not have uniform laws regulating every aspect of the apprenticeship system. Some colonies had no legal regulations at all, some limited the effect of controls to specified trades or to certain aspects of apprenticeship, and some had laws that were honored in the breach more than in the observance. In sum, the colonies generally did not follow the European example of employing the authority of government to insure high standards of training and practice in the trades and crafts.