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Show Beads Made "Coin of the Realm" by Massachusetts Order in Year 1637 complained that they were having difliciilties making collections for, goods sold and delivered because of; the variable currency. The English.: then yielded and sent over a quan-; tity of silver and bronze, and put the colonies on a sound metallic basis. ba-sis. So it stood when tne Boston!-' ans gave their famous tea party. Wars are financed in three ways:, by taxing, borrowing or inflating.' Taxation was not available to the American revolutionists because the precipitating cause of the war was the objection of the colonists to taxation. tax-ation. Borrowing was impossible,' except to a slight extent with France, because the new country had not established es-tablished its credit. The only feasible feas-ible means of financing the war, therefore, was by inflation, by issuing issu-ing irredeemable paper currency. And that is precisely what was done. The earliest American money was wampum, that being a string of shells an Indian wore around his neck when he dressed up. The redskin's red-skin's necktie was not merely something some-thing which the New England colonist colo-nist used to trick a native out of some choice skins. The beads were actually recognized in the Colonies as the coin of the realm. A Massachusetts Massa-chusetts order in council of 1637 made wampum full legal tender up to a shilling, at the rate of six black beads or three white beads to a penny. And. a Connecticut settler was authorized by law to pay taxes in wampum up to ten pounds sterling. ster-ling. In an identical way, tobacco was established as the money of Virginia, Vir-ginia, rice of South Carolina, wool of Rhode Island and rum in many places. The value of each of this miscellany of trinkets and vegetables was always reckoned in terms of pennies, shillings and pounds of the English monetary system. The colonists colo-nists brought along small amounts of metallic money when they came across. And as this accumulated, it circulated freely among the people. Traffic with the Spanish colonies brought in. some of their coins, but trade as a whole was handicapped because of the lack of an adequate currency. The demand for money was so persistent that a mint was set up, in New England, but opposition opposi-tion by the home government soon put a stop to that. Due to the lack of metallic money, the Colonial governments fell into the practice of printing paper money. As there wasn't any other circulating circulat-ing medium, the paper passed for a time as if it were the real article. However, since the issuing governments govern-ments could maintain no adequate reserves for redeeming the notes as they fell due, and- as the colonies found the device so easy that there was a constant temptation to put out more, the notes fell in value. When depreciation went so far as 10 appall the authorities, a new set 3f bills would be put out, with the jfficials swearing that this time it would be different and the issue would be confined to what could be redeemed. But the promises, even when backed by good Intentions, were never kept. At length, the English merchants |