Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/514

 The only exception allowed by this regulation was when the debt to be paid in coin had been incurred in the purchase of horses, mares, and sheep. Only three years subsequent to the passage of this Act, the General Assembly, in the preamble of a new law bearing upon the problem of introducing money sterling, referred to the great wants and miseries which arose day after day from the general use of tobacco as currency. In their anxiety to promote the influx of Spanish money, which appears at this time to have been flowing in in small quantities, probably from the Spanish and English islands in the West Indies, they determined to establish an arbitrary rate at which it was to be received in payment of all forms of indebtedness; the result of their deliberations was that the piece of eight should pass as equal in value to six shillings, and all other coins of the same origin be estimated in proportion. In the event that Spanish money sterling could be drawn into Virginia, the General Assembly were apprehensive lest it might soon be drained away, and to provide against this possibility, they resolved to import ten thousand pounds avoirdupois of copper, to be purchased at eighteen pence a pound, and to be paid for in tobacco. To secure such a large quantity of the latter commodity, amounting to one hundred and twenty thousand pounds weight, a levy of twenty-four pounds a head was to be laid on the inhabitants of the Colony. It was decided that twenty shillings should be manufactured from each pound of copper, making, after a liberal deduction for the costs of mintage, a difference between the intrinsic value of the bullion and the face value of the coin amounting to eight thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling, an enormous sum in that age. This copper was to be moulded into two, three, six, and nine penny pieces. Two rings were to be