Toward the middle of the century wampum reached its highest value in New-England. Thereafter the increasing prosperity of the colonies, the domestic coinage of silver, and perhaps the too extensive manufacture of the shell money, gradually diminishing its value, drove it from circulation. In 1650, it was refused in payment of country rates in Massachusetts.[45] This action of the government naturally created distrust among the people, to counteract which it was ordered that "peage" should still "remagne pawable from man to man, according to the law in force." Close upon this followed another decree, limiting it as a legal tender to 40 shillings.[46] These laws continued in force till 1661, when wampum was declared to be no longer a legal tender in Massachusetts.[47] Rhode Island passed a similar decree the next year[48] and Connecticut, probably, soon afterwards. But though wampum now ceased to be legally current, it lingered among the people for years and constituted in great part the small change of the community. As late as 1704, it was a common mode of payment in country places.[49] Shell money was used extensively and for a long time in the Dutch colonies. Here for a while absolutely no coin was in circulation, and wampum being the feasible substitute was universally adopted. So great was the popular demand, that even the unstrung wampum, prohibited in the eastern colonies, passed at but a trifling discount.[50] For many years the easy-going government at New Amsterdam does not seem to have regulated the currency by law, as did its more thorough neighbors, and the amount of wampum requisite to make a stiver, was left to be determined by the parties concerned. Such a course was fraught with inconvenience to the public, and frequent petitions were made for the establishment of some uniform rate.[51]