[410] P. O. Hutchinson’s Thomas Hutchinson, p. 51. A Dissertation on the Currencies of the British plantations in North America, and Observations on a paper currency (Boston, 1740), is ascribed to Hutchinson.
[411] An Account of the Rise, Progress, and Consequences of the two late Schemes commonly call’d the Land-bank or Manufactory Scheme and the Silver Scheme in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, wherein the Conduct of the late and present G——r during their Ad——ns is occasionally consider’d and compar’d. In a letter [Apr. 9, 1744] from a gentleman in Boston to his friend in London. 1744. The reader of the life of Sam. Adams remembers how the closing days of his father’s life and the early years of his own were harassed by prosecutions on account of the father’s personal responsibility as a director of the Land-bank Company. (Cf. Wells’ Life of Sam. Adams, vol. i. pp. 9, 26; N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1860, p. 262.) The names of the “undertakers” of the Land-bank are given in Drake’s Boston, p. 613.
[412] Historical MSS. Commission’s Report, v. 229.
[413] Sabin, v. no. 20,725; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 589; Boston Pub. Lib. Bull., 1884, p. 138.
[414] Sabin, v. 20,723.
[415] It was reprinted in Boston in 1740; again in London, 1751, with a postscript; and once more, London, 1757. Sabin, v. no. 20,721; Carter-Brown, iii. 608, 660; Brinley, i. no. 1,450; Harvard Col. lib’y, 10352.3. Douglass reiterated his views with not a little feeling in various notes, sometimes uncalled for, through his Summary, etc., in 1747. Two rejoinders to Douglass’s views appeared, entitled as follows: An inquiry into the nature and uses of money, more especially of the bills of public credit, old tenor.... To which is added a Reply to a former Essay on Silver and Paper Currencies. As also a Postscript containing remarks on a late Discourse concerning the Currencies, Boston, 1740. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 659; Boston Pub. Liby. H. 94.53; Brinley, i. 1,451.) Observations occasioned by reading a pamphlet intituled, A discourse concerning the currencies, etc., London, 1741. (Brinley, i. no. 1,453.)
Other tracts in the controversy were these: A letter to —— ——, a merchant in London concerning a late combination in the Province of Massachusetts Bay to impose or force a private currency called Land-bank money. [Boston] 1741. (Brinley, i. no. 1,454.) A letter to a merchant in London to whom is directed the printed letter [as above] dated Feb. 21, 1740. [Boston] 1741. (Boston Pub. Liby. Bull., 1884, p. 138.) These and other titles can be found in Haven’s Bibliography in Thomas, ii. pp. 444-508; in Carter-Catal., Brown, vol. iii.; in the Prince Catalogue, under “Land-bank” and “Letter,” pp. 34, 35; in the Brinley i. pp. 191-192. The general histories like Bancroft (last revision, ii. 263), Hildreth (ii. 380), Palfrey (iv. 547), Williamson (ii. 203), Barry (ii. 132), take but a broad view of the subject. Hutchinson (ii. 352) is an authoritative guide, and W. G. Sumner in his Hist. of Amer. Currency, and J. J. Knox in U. S. Notes (1884), have summarized the matter. Cf. a paper on the Land-bank and Silver Scheme read before the Amer. Statistical Association in 1874 by E. H. Derby; and one by Francis Brinley in the Boston Daily Advertiser, Sept. 4, 1856. There is a fac-simile of a Mass. three-shillings bill of 1741 and a sixpence of 1744 in Gay’s Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. pp. 131, 134.
[416] In 1749 Douglass said (Summary, i. 535), “The parties in Massachusetts Bay at present are not the Loyal and Jacobite, the Governor and Country, Whig and Tory, but the debtors and creditors. The debtor side has had the ascendant ever since 1741, to the almost utter ruin of the country.”
[417] P. O. Hutchinson (Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, p. 53) gives a table of depreciation which the governor made:—
Rates of Silver in