Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/193

] as were possessed of real estates, but had little or no ready money at command, or men of no substance at all; and we may well enough suppose the party to be very numerous.

A third party, though opposed to the plan just stated, yet were no enemies to bills of credit. They were in favor of a loan of bills from the government to any of the inhabitants who would mortgage their estates as a security for the repayment of the bills with interest, in a term of years, the interest to be paid annually, and applied to the support of government. The principal men of the Council were in favor of it, and it being thought by the first party the less of the two evils, they fell in with the scheme, and, after that, the question was between a public or a private bank. The legislature was nearly equally divided, but rather favored a private bank, from the great influence of the Boston members in the House, and a great number of persons of the town, out of it. The controversy spread widely, and divided towns, parishes, and private families.

In 17144, after an exhausting struggle, the public bank gained the majority, "and £50,000 in provincial bills credit were issued on that scheme, and distributed among the counties in the ratio of their taxes, to be put into the hands of trustees, and lent out in sums from £50, to £500, on mortgages, reimbursable in five annual installments."

Queen Anne's death, August 1, 1714, led to a change in the governorship. A certain Colonel Burgess was appointed, but being in rather needy circumstances he was bought off for about $5,000, and Colonel Shute, who had served under Marlborough, was made governor. Shute arrived in Massachusetts in October 1716, and immediately took the side of the party in favor of the public bank. Of course the other party opposed his measures, Elisha Cooke acting as their leader. Cooke was elected speaker by the House in 1720; but the governor vetoed the choice and dissolved the Court. Embittered feeling on both sides was the consequence; and Shute, disgusted with his post, suddenly left the province in 1722, Dummer, the lieutenant governor, taking the guidance of affairs for the next six years.

Piracy having again become troublesome in the American waters, it was determined to make a vigorous effort effectually to suppress it. Bellamy, one of the most noted of the pirates, was wrecked on Cape Cod, where he perished with a hundred of his men. A few who escaped were seized and hung at Boston. The famous "Blackbeard," or John Theach, who used to lurk about Pamlico River, was taken after a desperate resistance; and Steed Bonnet, the chief of a band of pirates who sought refuge on the coast about Cape Fear, was taken, and with forty or more of his men, was executed. In 1723, a commission of admiralty in session at Newport condemned to death nearly thirty more of these lawless depredators. Thus, by the vigor of the colonists, piracy soon lost its terror to those honestly engaged in the pursuits of commerce.