A second method of paying debts by the use of captives was to direct the treasurer of the colony to dispose of a certain number of Indians, and turn the proceeds to the account of a certain individual in whose debt the colony stood; or to give a certain number of Indians to such a person, usually with the stipulation that the Indians be at once sold out of the colony. An instance of the first kind occurred in Plymouth, October 4, 1675, when the general court voted with “reference to such emergent charges that have fallen on our honored governor, the summer past, the court have settled and conferred on him, the price of ten Indians of those savages lately transported out of the government”.[513] The second method is illustrated by a later act of the Plymouth court, August 24, 1676, when, along with ten Indians ordered by the court to be delivered to Captain Benjamin Church and Captain Anthony Low for transportation out of the colony, one Indian was ordered “to be at the disposal of Henry Lilly, which he receives in full satisfaction for his attendance at this court.” This Indian, like the others, was to be transported.[514] How far the receipts from the sale of captives went toward meeting the expenses of the colony is not known. It must, however, have been but a short way, if one is to judge by the condition of the colonial exchequer at the time and the expedients adopted by the colonial government to obtain money to defend the frontiers and meet the other expenses of war.[515] Still a third way was to grant the captured Indians directly to those who took them prisoners, as a bounty for their capture. The Massachusetts act of 1695, which, along with the rewards for killing Indians,[516] conferred on the soldiers for their own use all plunder and provisions taken from the enemy, appears to have been the earliest relinquishment by the provincial government of its sovereign right to prisoners and captives.[517] In the later laws liberal premiums were continued for scalps, and volunteer captors of Indians were, by the law of 1706, granted the benefit of captives and plunder.[518] A law of 1703 provided that the governor and council, in the absence of the general assembly, possessed the power to pay for Indian captives under ten years old the sum of £3, and stated that they could use the Indians thus obtained, either for the redemption of English captives among the Indians, or else they could sell them across the sea.[519] Another law of the same year granted the regular forces the benefit of the sale of all Indian prisoners under the age of ten years taken by them to be transported out of the country, the profits of the sale to be shared among the officers and men of the company engaged, proportionally to their wages. All volunteers were, likewise, to have the benefit of all Indian prisoners under the age of ten years by them taken.[520] By such legal action Massachusetts was in reality putting a premium on slave catching.