The rate, however, which obtained by common consent, was four of the strung and six of the loose beads for a stiver.[52] But in 1641, there came from foreign parts an inundation of "nasty, rough" sewan, which drove the better sort out of circulation, "nay," so runs the record, "threatened the ruin of the country," and legislation was imperatively demanded. This inferior article was therefore condemned to pass five for a stiver during the following month, and afterwards six, at which rate the loose, unstringed wampum, which served the community as change, subsequently circulated.[53] The importance of wampum during these years is well illustrated by the fact that the opulent West India Company in 1664, sought to negotiate a loan of five or six thousand guilders in it, wherewith to pay the laboring people, the obligation to be satisfied with _good negroes_ or other goods.[54] The Dutch succumbed to superior force, but wampum still held its own. It continued to be the chief currency not only in New York, but in the many settlements to the west and south, which were then under the control of the authorities at New York. In 1672, the inhabitants of Hoanskill and New Castle on the Delaware, having been plundered by Dutch privateers were permitted by the government at New York to lay an impost of four guilders, in wampum, upon each anker of strong rum imported or sold there.[55] A guilder, which was about six pence currency or four pence sterling, consisted of twenty stivers, and eight beads were reckoned equal to one stiver. As heretofore there was little or no certain coin in circulation and wampum passed for current payment in all cases. Indeed the country was so drained of even this currency by the Indian trade, that there was difficulty in obtaining a sufficiency. To remedy this state of affairs, the governor and council of New York were in 1673 constrained to issue their proclamation which was published at Albany, Esopus, Delaware, Long Island and the adjacent parts, commanding that "instead of eight white and four black (beads), six white and three black should pass for a stiver; and three times so much the value of silver."[56] The contributions in the churches were for many years made in wampum, and the first church on the Jersey shore was built with funds contributed in this way from Sabbath to Sabbath. As late as 1683, "the schoolmaster in Flatbush was paid his salary in wheat, wampum value: He was bound to provide a basin of water for the purpose of baptism, for which he received from the parents or sponsors twelve stivers in wampum."[57] Nor ten years later had the money of the aborigines become wholly supplanted by gold and silver, for we learn that "in 1693, the ferriage of each single person from New York to Brooklyn was eight stivers in wampum, or a silver two-pence."[58] Further than this we are unable to trace, though we have good reason to believe that it circulated, to a limited extent, for some time thereafter.