RHODE ISLAND CURRENCY 61 ounce in silver, or £5 per ounce in gold.' Though at the same time it took twentyseven shillings in these bills to equal one ounce in silver,2 they soon became current at the rate of one for four of old tenor. Hence arose endless confusion. In 1751, a year after the first entries in the account book, the value of a Spanish milled dollar was declared by the General Assembly of June, 1763, to have been £2 16s. As this was a declaration of value twelve years after the fact, made for the use of courts in deciding the many difficult cases which arose from the depreciated currency, it was of no service as a basis of value to the struggling 1 Weeden, Economic and Social History of New Eng land, ch. xiii., The Period of Inflation. 2 R. I. Historical Tracts, No. 8, p. 55. accountant. Beside the Spanish dollars there are also mentioned in the book Johannes and half Johannes, gold pieces of the value of eight Spanish milled dollars, and pistareens, and half pistareens. Such were the difficulties of the currency that primitive methods of exchange had to be resorted to. In Massachusetts from 1720 to 1723 the treasury accepted beef, pork, Indian corn, hides, and other produce at fixed rates.1 In Rhode Island it does not appear to have come to such a pass, but in the neighborhood transactions of College Tom, he often balances his accounts in this way by barter, or simply enters the items. and leaves them unbalanced entirely. We have seen that the young man and his beautiful bride for the Robinsons are famous for their beauty-started their housekeeping on the forty-acre homestead, surrounded by the land of Robert Hazard, and that the break with his father did not come till after 1745. Nor could the breach between them have endured as long as tradition asserts. Thomas Hazard was a peacemaker on more than one occasion, and his friendly relations to his father are 1 Weeden, Economic and Social History of N. E., ch. xiii. A HORSE TRADE 63 testified to by various entries of borrowing and lending. "Father Hazard brought eleven cows to keep" at pasture in 1754. In 1750 College Tom buys a yoke of oxen at £140,- though the pounds sterling mark is out of place, and it should read current money of New England. Most of his horses were probably raised, for few were bought. A three-year-old in 1753 cost a hundred and fifty pounds; a "thirteenyear-old Bay mare with a White nofe" in '54 cost seventy pounds, and an "old black Troting mare," a year later, only fifty-five pounds. A few others were bought, one in 1763, a black mare, at two hundred and fortyfour pounds; but the money was just twice as bad as in 1753, the £3 10s. of that date being equal to £7 in 1763, and both only having the actual value of one Spanish milled dollar. In 1766 comes a curious transaction in horseflesh, which shows very plainly the trouble of the inflated currency. Silver had risen still further, so that a dollar was now equal to eight pounds. 1766, 18th 6 mo. George Irejsh To one Dark Coloured Natural pacing Horse with some White in his Face, at fifty-five Silver Spanish Mill Dollers. I am to take hoggshead of Molafses, I barrell of Sugar at £70, old Tenor per Hundred, the Molaffes at the value of 36/old Tenor, a Doller being confidered at the Value of Eight Pounds old Tenor the Remainder in Tea at ye Rate of Eight Pounds old Ten' and in Indigo at the Rate of Twelve Pounds, old Tenor; to have onehalf of y° remainder in Tea, & the other in Indigo. This was evidently a Narragansett pacer. The fame of these horses is perpetuated by Updike, and all the writers upon early Narragansett. They were in great demand for export, and were annually sent to the West Indies, and to Virginia. So great was their value that finally all the good mares were sold from out the country, and the old fable of killing the goose that laid the golden egg was repeated in Narragansett. The races on Little Neck beach, now called Narragansett Pier beach, are enthusiastically described by the old writers. Dr. McSparran says he "saw some of them [the horses] pace a mile in little more than two minutes, a good deal less than three," a wide margin on a race nowadays, when fractions of 1 America Dissected, Updike, p. 514. SUPPLIES HIS NEIGHBORS 65 a second are reckoned. They had great endurance, and were capable of carrying heavy burdens in addition to their rider, and many a journey to Boston, or into Connecticut, did they make. This was a valuable animal, for which sugar, molasses, tea, and indigo were exchanged. Tea is first mentioned in the account book in 1750, when it cost £3 4s. per pound, and is now mentioned in 1766 at £8 in the highly inflated currency. In this year the accounts begin to be kept in lawful money, as well as old tenor, but the habit of old tenor prices seems to have been so strongly fixed that often both are given, and the lawful money, on a specie basis, is changed first into old tenor. In 1767 "One old Horse" was sold to Rowland Robinson, for £3 15s. lawful money, for which one hundred pounds, old tenor, were paid. The same year William Congdon, son of Joseph, is debtor To one Bay Horse five years old @ 500 lbs. & one-half Hundred w. of sugar, such sugar as was Set at 8 Dollers the Hundred, clean & of a bright colour. Getting his supplies in these large amounts, College Tom seems to have in turn supplied his neighbors in smaller quantities. |