Those beneficent trucks carried enough to buy in at a stroke nine tenths of
the old-tenor notes of the province,--nominally worth above two millions.
A stringent tax, laid on by the Assembly, paid the remaining tenth, and
Massachusetts was restored to financial health.
[Footnote: Palfrey, _New England_, V. 101-109; Shirley, _Report to
the Board of Trade. Bollan to Secretary Willard_, in _Coll. Mass.
Hist. Soc.,_ I. 53; Hutchinson, _Hist. Mass.,_ II. 391-395.
_Letters of Bollan_ in Massachusetts Archives.
It was through the exertions of the much-abused Thomas Hutchinson,
Speaker of the Assembly and historian of Massachusetts, that
the money was used for the laudable purpose of extinguishing the old debt.
Shirley did his utmost to support Bollan in his efforts to obtain
compensation, and after highly praising the zeal and loyalty of the people
of his province, he writes to Newcastle: "Justice, as well as the affection
which I bear to 'em, constrains me to beseech your Grace to recommend their
Case to his Majesty's paternal Care & Tenderness in the Strongest manner."
_Shirley to Newcastle, 6 Nov.
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