When the minister acquired the independence he so longed and fought for, it was not all his fancy painted it. He found himself poor indeed,--practically penniless. He complained sadly that he was paid his salary in the worthless continental paper money, and he refused to take it. Often he cannily took merchandise of all kinds instead of the low-valued paper money, and he became a good and sharp trader, exchanging his various goods for whatever he needed--and could get. Merchandise was, indeed, far preferable to money. The petition of Rev. Mr. Barnes to his Willsborough people has been preserved, and he thus speaks of his salary: "In 1775 the war comenced & Paper money was emitted which soon began to depreciate and the depreciation was so rappid that in may 1777 your Pastor gave the whole of his years Salary for one sucking Calf, the next year he gave the whole for a small store pig. Your Pastor has not asked for any consideration being willing to try to Scrabble along with the people while they are in low circumstances." His neighbor, Rev. Mr. Sprague, of Dublin, formally petitioned his church not to increase his salary, "as I am plagued to death to get what is owing to me now," or to buy anything with it when he got it. The minister in Scarborough had to be paid £5,400 in paper money to make good his salary of £60 in gold which had been voted him. "Living low" and "scrabbling along" seems to have been the normal and universal condition of the New England minister for some time after the War of Independence. He was obliged to go without his pay, or to take it in whatever shape it might chance to be tendered. Indeed, from the earliest colonial days it was true that of whatever they had, the church-members gave; meal, maize, beans, cider, lumber, merchantable pork, apples, "English grains," pumpkins,--all were paid to the parson. Part of the stipend of a minister on Cape Cod was two hundred fish yearly from each parishioner, with which to fertilize his sandy corn-land. In Plymouth, in 1662, the following method of increasing the minister's income was suggested: "The Court Proposeth it as a thing that they judge would be very commendable and beneficiall to the townes where God's providence shall cast any whales, if they should agree to set aparte some p'te of every such fish or oyle for the Incouragement of an able and godly minister among them." In Sandwich, also, the parson had a part of every whale that came ashore. Various gifts, too, came to the preachers. In Newbury the first salmon caught each year in the weir was left by will to the parson. Judge Sewall records that he visited the minister and "carried him a Bushel of Turnips, cost me five shillings, and a Cabbage cost half a Crown." Such a high-priced cabbage!