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and hollands, or other commodities, rise or fall, proportionably to the various accidents in commerce, or as summarily and commonly expressed according to the quantity and demand.

      I don’t blame any man for being concern’d in the trade of shipping money, it is allowable by the law of the land, but then the matter ought to have been generally known, that every one might have had a fair chance. A thing of this kind should not be made a secret of by a few people in government, of heavy purses and long heads. To have in favor of that trade but one species of money established here as a tender, and that the best to ship away, and after three hundred thousand pounds are contracted for in dollars in consequence of an act artfully drawn, perhaps to serve this very purpose; for the province to be told it shall not, nor the people in its jurisdiction, shall never pay but in silver, tho’ you had gold of us, and we have sent all the silver away looks a little tantalizing, and may be compared to the proceedings of the Aegyptian task master, who required bricks without straw. Let us have gold and silver both a tender at the rates of sterling money, and let the merchant do as he pleases with bullion or any other branch of trade, the legislature has no business with either: Tho’ I cant help saying, that I think more patriotick and reputable branches of business might be followed, than buying money to ship home. I say buying money, because our real traders and merchants are under a necessity, of sending home money, and can get hardly any thing

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      else. But those who do not owe in England are under no necessity of doing so; and, in short, their being able to do it to advantage, is partly owing to what is very ruinous to the trade of a young country, and that is the monied men with drawing their stocks out of business, and putting it at interest and turning stock jobbers. That this is a fact, is notorious. I could name persons worth £20000 sterl. raised by trade in this town, and born here, that have withdrawn it, and left the town, to avoid the taxes, which indeed are much too high here.

      I can’t say whether my ancestors traded in wampumpeag or beaver; but this is certain they did not trade to much advantage, or I should have been born perhaps with a silver spoon in my mouth.

      However that was, if my father had raised a million of money in trade, and should leave it all to me, I would spend every farthing of it before I would desert my native town in distress, only to avoid bearing my share of her burthens, and misfortunes.

      A series of oppressions and impositions upon trade, and in consequence great risque in it, with other evident causes, has taken great part of the Estate of the province out of trade, and little concern seems to take place about it, in those whose duty it is to cherish it most.

      I find in Mr. Fleets paper a very prolix performance signed Y.Z. I had once determined with myself not to enter into a controversy with any gentleman, under the rank of a Lieutenant Governor; especially if he concealed his true name: But there are two or three reasons which have caused an alteration in my opinion with regard to Mr. Y.Z. I shall not name them, it is enough at present to tell the reader, that a thought has been suggested to me, by the following lines of Horace.

       Alme Sol curru nitido, diem qui

      Promis & celas aliusque &c idem

       Nasceris; possis nihil urbe Roma

      Visere Majus.⁹

      If I am mistaken in my first conjecture, I have a right to say Mr. Y.Z. is a saucy, pert, impertinent upstart, and a busy body, to thrust his nose into a dispute between people of his honor’s rank & mine. Surely he is unacquainted with the first principles of delicacy and politeness, to think his honor can

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      stand in need of his elucidations or assistance. I have suspected more than once whether this Mr. Y.Z. by his unmannerly and vulgar insinuations of a lawyers wilfully misrepresenting facts, and dealing in quibbles, mayn’t be some leering assurance broker, piping hot from an unsuccessful counting house, who by his scurrility against the profession and divine science of the law, expects soon to be deemed a very fit candidate for preferment.

      However, I have nothing more to say to him at present. Make way for his Honor, young man. Vox sausibus haesit.¹⁰

      His Honor, among many things that I have not time to animadvert upon at present, has quoted a passage from Sir Isaac Newton’s famous representation, which it’s needless to repeat at large, these words “people are already backward to give silver for gold, and will, in a short time refuse to make payments in silver without a premium,” are sufficient at present. I should almost as soon believe the doctrine of transubstantiation, as that Sir Isaac Newton ever talked nonsense. Yet he certainly must have done so, if gold was not a legal tender in England as well as silver.

      I ask these plain questions, if gold was no tender in England, what could people pay their debts in but silver? if the law allowed payment in nothing else but silver, how then could they refuse paying them in silver?

      Whether the King’s coin of gold be a tender in England, at any fixed rate, has been a dispute here for three months; however this seems to be conceded at present, at least by Mr. Y.Z. so there is one point gained. The reader is desired to note with Mr. Locke once for all, that cavilling here and there at some expression, or little incident of a discourse, is no answer to it. That railing is no argumentation nor worth notice.

      Mr. Y.Z. says, it seems to be allowed that gold is set at too high a rate, compared with the price of bullion and other foreign coin in England.

      I have granted this, but say it is nothing in favour of lowering gold here, nor in England; and have proved that this concession is nothing to any purpose, but to prove that silver should be raised, which I dare say is not Y.Z.’s purpose. Mr. Y.Z. seems to triumph principally in three supposed errors of mine (1) In the calculation which is allowed to be just, if 60d. is the true value of an ounce of sterling silver money. (2) My sense of Sir Isaac Newton’s opinion. (3) In supposing a position of his Honor’s inconsistent.

      With regard to the first as it seems probable from Mr. Y.Z.’s concession of my quoting Sir Isaac Newton, that I had his representation before me, I could not be ignorant or unmindful that “a pound weight of silver (11 oz. 2 dwt fine, and 18dwt. alloy) is cut into 62 shillings,” and that this answers

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      to 62d. per ounce. Nor that “taking this for the standard, (as it really is) if a calculation were made agreable to the given form, the result would differ considerably from that of the calculation refer’d to.” I say, all this I knew as well as this notable detector of errors: My design was not so much to address my self to the rich, the great, and the sagacious: they are able to take care of themselves. My design was to express myself in such a manner, that the common people might have their eyes a little opened to their interest. In doing this, I followed not only his Honor’s clear manner of considering this subject, but the manner in which it was considered by the sum of all civil power in this province the assembly which made the act of the 23 of George IId.

      They considered an ounce of coined sterling silver, in relation to the currency to be established here, as 60d to 80d, and upon that supposition, a Guinea comes to 28s and the half Joannes to 48s. That calculation was made for the common people in town and in the country; for I am not ashamed, nor afraid to declare, I think they want their eyes opened, and I shall always be ready to contribute my mite thereto. It was therefore needless to trouble them with Sir Isaac’s representation at large most of them would not have understood it; and I care not a Button if Mr. Y.Z. directly, as well as indirectly, insinuates, that this was done not from hurry, but from a design to misrepresent facts. Since I am upon this, I desire my candid reader to take notice once for all, that I have many affairs to attend, besides my own immediate interests; if I had piles and bags of gold and silver heaped up in abundance, I might have had more leisure to study a subject which was in a sort new to me at the last session of the court and might have avoided any mistakes. My dear Friends, Fellow Citizens, and Countrymen, I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hands, and the sweat of my brows, as most of

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