Towards the end of the seventeenth century the amount of coin in the country had very largely increased, but in the commercially backward Connecticut, barter was still common. As late as 1698, gold was very scarce, and taxes continued to be paid entirely in silver. The colonists firmly believed in the enriching powers of paper money, which in New England was issued in particularly large quantities by Rhode Island. The real disadvantage was intercolonial, and not internal, so that most of the colonists failed to understand the interference of the home authorities, either in 1740, when the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations forbade the governors to sanction the issue of bills of credit, or again in 1744, when an Act of Parliament was passed forbidding paper money altogether. The fact was that the settlers believed, like Governor Burnet, "that this manner of compulsive credit does in fact keep up its value here, and that it occasions much more trade and business than would be without it, and that more specie is exported to England by reason of these Paper Bills than could be if there was no circulation but of specie."[216] It is not surprising that the colonists should also labour under the economic delusion that it was necessary to regulate wages and prices. At first Massachusetts left them both free, but after three years, wages were found to have risen to what was then regarded as the monstrous rate of 3s. a day for carpenters and 2s. 6d. a day for common workmen. In 1633, therefore, a scale of wages was proposed by the General Court, and "they made an order that carpenters, masons, etc., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteenpence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England."[217] The enactment, however, proved fruitless, and was repealed two years later. The enormous rise in wages and the extortionate prices still exercised the minds of those in authority, and a committee was appointed in 1637. The outcome of their deliberations was that about 1643 the wages of farm labourers were fixed at 1s. 6d. a day. This remuneration appears to have been ample, and it has been calculated that a careful man could save enough in five years to become the tenant of a small farm. This was not so difficult as it might seem, for small holdings were common, and as succession was by gavelkind and not through primogeniture, holdings tended to be kept limited in extent. The accumulation of land was rather the exception than the rule, though there are occasional examples, as in Newhaven, where some estates contained as many as three thousand acres.