To the Weymouth of that day these eighteen men were the equivalent of about one hundred and thirty now; and they were raised to take part in the unfortunate Canada campaign under Arnold and Montgomery. How many of them ever returned we cannot tell, but the weary sons of Weymouth in 1776 doubtless found final resting-places in the wilds of Maine or beneath the snows of Canada, as more recently they found them in the swamps of the Chickahominy or beneath the torrid sun of Louisiana. By December of that year twenty-two more men went into the continental service, under Lieutenant Kingman; and now the bounty was three pounds per month for three months.[95] It was shortly before this time that a Weymouth-born woman, writing from the next town of Braintree, thus described the aspect of affairs: “I am sorry to see a spirit so venal prevailing everywhere. When our men were drawn out for Canada a very large bounty was given them; and now another call is made upon us, no one will go without a large bounty, though only for two months, and each town seems to think its honor engaged out-bidding the others. The province pay is forty shillings. In addition to that this town voted to make it up six pounds. They then draw out the persons most unlikely to go, and they are obliged to give three pounds to hire a man. Some pay the whole fine, ten pounds. Forty men are now drafted from this town. More than one-half, from sixteen to fifty, are now in the service. This method of conducting will create a general uneasiness in the Continental army. I hardly think you can be sensible how much we are thinned in this province.”[96] And now a new difficulty, with which our generation has been sadly familiar, was added to the heavy load under which the unfledged nationality was compelled to stagger. The value of its paper currency had hitherto been sustained; but at last, in the face of ever-increasing new issues, it began to depreciate, and by the close of the year 1776 it had fallen one-sixth in value. In vain does Congress enact that whoever pays or receives the currency at a rate less than its nominal value shall not only be accounted a public enemy, but shall forfeit the amount involved in such unpatriotic transaction. In defiance of law prices steadily rise. In January, 1777, the Legislature of Massachusetts went even further, and passed a measure entitled “An Act to prevent Monopoly and Oppression.” Under this the selectmen of Weymouth, aided by a committee of their townsmen, proceeded to fix a tariff of prices at which articles were to be sold. It is a sad record. The effort was, of course, a futile one, but it was made; and there it stands “as a perpetual memorial,” beginning with Indian corn and ending with cedar-posts, a monument of the wretched expedients to which sensible men will resort in troublous and unsettled times.