pressed on each coin, in one of which a motto was to be inscribed and to remain permanently. There was to be annually stamped on the other a new figure, and an officer to perform this duty was to be appointed in each county. Captain John Upton was named as the general master of the mint. The Assembly, in order to give this money a steady value, declared that if at any time it was called in, and in consequence ceased to have currency, the public treasury would pay to the holders, to each one in proportion to the amount in his possession, the sum of ten thousand pounds sterling, as represented in tobacco, this large quantity of the commodity in question to be obtained by a general levy. Death was to be the penalty for counterfeiting this copper coin.[1]
It is interesting to note the arbitrary means employed by the General Assembly not only to give a fixed value to the piece of eight, but also to compel the inhabitants of the Colony to accept this form of money at the rate prescribed. This, it is almost unnecessary to say, has been the logical consequence in all ages of all attempts to govern the value of money by an act of legislation, instead of leaving that value to be controlled by the preciousness of the metal as governed by the price in the market. As has been seen, the Assembly proclaimed that the piece of eight should pass current as equal in value to six shillings. This was in 1645. It is evident that in the opinion of the people the piece of eight was not intrinsically worth so many shillings, and they, therefore, declined to use this coin in exchange at this rate although fixed by law. The Assembly, in consequence, decided in 1655 to lower the legal value to five shillings, proclaiming that all who refused to accept a piece of eight as thus valued were to be summoned before the court of the county in which
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 308.
