The immense quantity of depreciated paper which was in circulation throughout New England, had no tendency to diminish the complaints of the scarcity of money. Massachusetts and New Hampshire were restrained from farther emissions by the instructions to their governors, who received their appointments from the crown. Connecticut, engaged chiefly in agricultural pursuits, suffered less from this depreciated medium than her neighbours, and was less disposed to increase its evils. Rhode Island, equally commercial with Massachusetts, and equally fond of paper, chose her own governor, and might therefore indulge, without restraint, her passion for a system alike unfavourable to morals and to industry. That colony now issued one hundred thousand pounds on loan, to its inhabitants, for twenty years. The merchants of Boston, apprehensive that this capital would transfer the stock of Massachusetts to Rhode Island, associated against receiving the new emission; and many of them formed a company which issued one hundred and ten thousand pounds, redeemable with specie, in ten years, a tenth part annually, at the then current value of paper. The association against receiving the new emission of Rhode Island was not long observed; and the bills of New Hampshire and Connecticut were also current. Silver immediately rose to twenty-seven shillings the ounce, and the notes issued by the merchants soon disappeared, leaving in circulation only the government paper. {1739} Great uneasiness prevailed through Massachusetts on this subject. The last instalment of the bills would become due in 1741, and no power existed to redeem them by new emissions. Serious consequences were apprehended from calling in the circulating medium without substituting another in its place, and the alarm was increased by the circumstance that the taxes had been so lightly apportioned on the first years, as to require the imposition of heavy burdens for the redemption of what remained in circulation. The discontents excited by these causes were manifested in the elections, and were directed against the governor, who was openly hostile to the paper system. [Sidenote: Land bank.] The projector of the bank again came forward; and, placing himself at the head of seven or eight hundred persons, some of whom possessed property, proposed to form a company which should issue one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in bills. By this scheme, every borrower of a sum larger than one hundred pounds, was to mortgage real estate to secure its re-payment. The borrowers of smaller sums might secure their re-payment either by mortgage, or by bond with two securities. Each subscriber, or partner was to pay, annually, three per centum interest on the sum he should take, and five per centum of the principal, either in the bills themselves, or in the produce and manufactures of the country, at such rates as the directors should, from time to time, establish. {1740} [Sidenote: Company dissolved.]