be presumed that the provisions of the law of 1644 for striking off a local metallic currency[1] had not been carried into effect.[2] We find at this time that the General Assembly petitioned the King for permission to enhance the value of all the coins imported into the Colony to an extent represented by one-fourth of their face value; in other words, that body desired to obtain authority to rate a coin equal, let us say, to one dollar in our modern currency, at one dollar and a quarter, and having by the mere stroke of the pen given this arbitrary value, to compel all persons to whom it was offered, to receive it under threat of severe punishment.[3]
Two years later, Lord Culpeper, for his own private profit, began to claim the right as the representative of the King to fix the value of money sterling by proclamation. He was accused of leaving obtained a great quantity of pieces of eight at a low figure and of then compelling the soldiers who still remained in the Colony after the suppression of Bacon’s Insurrection, to receive their wages in this coin, which he had raised to the value of six shillings apiece. The prescription worked both ways. Culpeper finding that he was losing heavily, inasmuch as his perquisites were settled in money sterling at this rate, issued a second proclamation restoring the former standard of five shillings.[4]
How small was the quantity of money sterling in the Colony as late as 1685 is shown in the memorable reply of the Burgesses in that year when called upon by Howard, who was acting under instructions from England, to
