by Nathan Allen
At the same time that Jemmy was consumed with the Harvard application process, the entire province was consumed with the Land Bank scheme in which his uncle John had been involved. The Massachusetts Land Bank threatened the tear the province asunder, almost brought armed insurrection to Boston, and polarized New England to such a degree that it would be largely responsible for drawing the battle lines in the 1760s.
Up until the late 1730s, the province could issue paper money without approval of the Board of Trade in England provided that the money was issued to pay for government expenses. Such money was more equivalent to modern government bonds than to modern paper money. And just like modern government bonds, these colonial bills had expiration dates, at which point they were to be redeemed and their value cancelled, thereby paving the way for their replacement with new bills. But the colonial government had fallen into the habit of not redeeming the old bills and simply printing more. These bills could be bought from the government and then used to purchase anything in the province. Of course, the seller may refuse to accept colonial bills for payment, but hard currency – silver and gold – was fairly rare. Since a quickly growing and fluid economy requires a significant and growing money supply, the continual printing and lack of redemption of the bills provided this needed supply.
But in 1739, the royal government mandated that government bills of credit be redeemed on their actual redemption date. This meant that a significant number of bills of credit would be retired from circulation in the near future and all bills of credit in circulation in 1739 would be retired by 1741. There was widespread alarm, particularly in more rural areas where gold and silver were very rarely used in transactions. Making payments in commodities was common, chiefly for those outside of the Boston merchant elite who had access to gold and silver. Many even paid their taxes and other government expenses in commodities. But paper currency allowed for an elasticity that commodities didn’t, and many firmly believed that their economic well-being depended on having access to paper currency.
While the colonial government could only make a limited contribution to paper currency, mostly in the form of tradable bonds, there was nothing prohibiting privately printing currency. Privately printed currency, usually in the form of “receipts” for precious metals on deposit, was pioneered by the Italian city-states more than two centuries prior, and, while banned some areas in favor of government monopoly on issuing paper currency, had grown to be a widely accepted practice in many parts of Europe. In the New England colonies, those who desperately needed such currency tended to be farmers whose primary asset was land, so the currency would be backed by land rather than by precious metals. This currency would be issued by a “Land Bank.” Land would be used as collateral, and the value of the currency would be paid back in commodities – land and commodities was what the farmers of Massachusetts possessed.
Once the Land Bank’s currency was circulating, farmers could buy what they needed with it and sell their products for it. The idea of a colonial Land Bank had been circulating for a few decades. So in 1739, Robert Auchmuty, William Stoddard, Samuel Adams, Sr., Peter Chardon, Samuel Watts, John Choate, Thomas Cheever, George Leonard and Robert Hale – some Boston merchants but mostly merchants and farmers from the towns outside of Boston – devised a Land Bank. They petitioned to receive official approval from the colonial government, though it seemed clear that no approval was required. The governor, the governor’s council, and the elite Boston merchants aggressively opposed the Land Bank on the belief it would throw the province’s economy into fiscal anarchy. The lines were drawn.
The Boston merchant elite devised their own plan to address the impending need for paper currency: a Silver Bank wherein bills of credit would be backed by silver. One hundred and six Boston merchants, headed by Edward Hutchinson and including James Bowdoin, Samuel Sewall, Hugh Hall, Joshua Winslow, Andrew Oliver, and Edmund Quincy, backed the silver scheme. Their combined investments exceeded the amount proposed to be issued and were reduced to keep within the limits of the proposed plan. And they too applied to the General Court for approval. The backers of the Silver Bank also pledged exclusive fidelity to currency backed by silver or gold, “We the subscribers therefore agree and promise, that we will neither directly nor indirectly, by ourselves, nor any of us, receive any bills that shall be emitted hereafter by the neighboring governments unless redeemable by Silver and Gold as aforesaid … and that we will wholly refuse in all Trade and Business, and for all debts due, the notes that may be emitted by the subscribers to the bank commonly called the Land Bank. …” The Silver Bank investors agreed to refuse to trade in Land Bank currency. In itself, this may not seem so monumental, but Silver Bank investors included most of the elite Boston importers, exporters, wholesalers and government officials. Clearly such a group united in opposition, together with the Governor and the Council, could make life very difficult for those who participated in the Land Bank.
The House took up the matter and was favorable to the Land Bank. When it was clear that the House would approve the Land Bank, the Governor’s Council on June 12, 1740 referred both banks to a joint committee; the House agreed and appointed members to the committee, but the House committee members refused to meet with the Council committee members because they rightfully believed that the Council’s primary mission was to kill the Land Bank. The proponents of the Land Bank weren’t as opposed to the Silver Bank as they simply did not believe it would effectively alleviate the currency problems in the countryside; in contrast, the Silver Bank proponents aggressively opposed the Land Bank. As tension mounted and the currency crisis worsened, the debate became very public, and the publicity increased public support for the Land Bank and sympathy in the House. When the Land Bank held a meeting in Roxbury to select officers, 800 committed Land Bank investors attended. The directors agreed to move forward for although they hadn’t secured the approval of the House, they knew the House supported the bank and would not interfere with its operation. And the strong support for the Land Bank in the House was evident given that six of the leading members of the House were bank directors and many House members were Land Bank investors.
With such support in the House, the governor and the Council were powerless to stop the Land Bank with legislation. When the Land Bank first approached the General Court for approval, there were fewer than 400 investors, but by the time it commenced operation on September 19, 1740, there were almost 1,000 investors. Powerless to act through legislation, the Governor resorted to the blunt force of his executive power. On November 5, the governor threatened to remove from office any appointed official who supported the Land Bank. The next day, he expanded the threat to include military officers.
Illustrating that the governor and his advisors were ignorant of the need for currency reform and arrogant, a wave of appointed officials pro-actively resigned after the early November threats. On November 10, William Stoddard, Samuel Adams Sr., John Choate, and Robert Hale resigned their positions as justices of the peace. Many more resigned and still more refused to disassociate themselves from the Land Bank. By November 19, 1740, the Governor realized that he was powerless to stop the wave of support that the Land Bank commanded. He wrote to the provincial lobbyist in London, “I believe nothing less than an Act of Parliament will put an end to it, the undertakers are so needy and violent in the pursuit of it.” And so began the intense effort to persuade Parliament to outlaw the Land Bank.
But the political bloodbath would continue until Parliament acted. The governor had not acted on the November resignations, but on December 5, the same day the Land Bank formally requested that the Council consent to the Bank’s existence, the Governor formally began dismissing all Land Bank supporters who held appointed government positions. Samuel Adams, Sr., William Stoddard, Samuel Watts, Robert Hale, and John Choate were dismissed as justices of the peace. In the following two weeks, justice of the peace and judge George Leonard was removed from office, justice Joe Blanchard was dismissed, and ni
ne military officers tendered their resignations. And in the first week of January, justices John Burleigh, John Fisher, Elkanah Leonard,and Ammi Ruhamah Wise all lost their jobs.
The purge continued into the first few months of 1741, during which Isaac Little of Plymouth County, John Metcalf and Samuel White of Suffolk, Samuel Dudley of Worcester, Colonel Estes Hatch, Captain Adams and Captain Watts of Chelsea, eight lieutenants and one ensign were all dismissed from their positions. Colonels of regiments were instructed to investigate the officers subordinate to them for any Land Bank related activity. Justices of the peace were required to use their power both in court and as individuals to prevent circulation of Land Bank bills, and they were required to take into consideration whether the merchant would accept Land Bank bills as payment when granting merchant licenses. The register of deeds provided the Governor’s Council with a list of Land Bank subscribers who took loans using their land as collateral, and a blank form of summons was prepared for use by the Governor’s Council in cases where they wished to bring before it persons accused of passing Land Bank bills. The bills were entirely legal, but the council could still issue a summons and launch inquisitions.
The purge and inquisition intimidated a few, but it inspired anger and contempt among many. As Captain Kidd’s crew saluted the Royal Navy with their derrières, several Land Bank supporters wrote to the Governor and the Council to openly express their scorn. Justice Henry Lee of Worcester wrote that his rights as an Englishmen were all he needed to justify his interest in the Land Bank, and that “As I act to my conscience, I regard being punished any way for differing in my opinion from the Council, to be civil persecution, and to be deprived of my office until I be proved unfaithful in it, or have violated the laws of the land, I look on as an invasion of my native rights.” Justice Lee was removed from office.
Then on January 27, the Council leveled the most severe punishment it could by enacting a rule “That no person shall be admitted to appear and plead before this Board as an attorney and counsellor at law, on any pretence whatever, who shall pass, receive, or give encouragement to the bills called Land Bank or Manufactory Bills, but that notice he given hereof in the public prints.” The Council acted as a probate and appeals court, and this vote meant that no attorney who even gave “encouragement” to the Land Bank, as gauged by the Council, could work on cases that came before it.
While the Governor, Council and elite merchants were attempting to drive the Land Bank out of business, several towns – in acts of overt defiance – were voting to accept Land Bank bills as official payment. On the same day that the Council refused to permit Land Bank encouragers in the chamber, Middletown voted unanimously to accept Land Bank bills for tax payments. The towns of Abington and Braintree soon followed with similar votes. Meanwhile, several groups in towns across the province were arranging their own Land Banks. Not only could the governor not terminate the Land Bank, but it now appeared that he couldn’t even limit the problem to one land bank. At least three more land banks were being organized in the province.
While the province was engulfed in the Land Bank inferno, Jemmy was somewhat insulated at Harvard. Jemmy’s exposure to the world was primarily through the faculty, which consisted of the president, two professors, four tutors, and two instructors. The four tutors taught most of the lessons, with each tutor assigned to a class with which he remained throughout the four year course. The two instructors taught Hebrew and French. Hebrew was required, and French was optional. Harvard President Holyoke was starting his third year in office in 1739, but his broadminded outlook was already making itself felt. President Holyoke’s laissez-faire approach coincided effectively as the Enlightenment invaded Harvard. The philosopher’s reverence for the classics was already well established at Harvard, and their preoccupation with the future – the idea of progress, scientific inquiry, critical examination – now flourished. Formal education would no longer be fixated on the past.
One example of the enlightenment flowering at Harvard is illustrated in Professor John Winthrop, a brilliant scientist who had assumed the professorship of Natural Philosophy in 1738. Winthrop, the great-great-grandson of the founder of the Massachusetts Bay colony, was a force in science from his appointment at Harvard in 1738 until his death in 1779. He used Newton’s Principia as a guide and aggressively upgraded the mathematics and astronomy courses. He observed the transit of Mercury in 1740 and 1761 and led an expedition to Nova Scotia in 1761 to view the transit of Venus. He published extensively on the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, using computations rather than religion to explain the quakes, and is sometimes credited with being the father of seismology. Winthrop was the kind of academic who was teaching at the Harvard of the 1740s, and by 1742, the revamped curriculum had the students studying the latest ideas in geography, astronomy, and philosophy, including a considerable dose of John Locke. Of course, the core of the Harvard education was still Latin, Greek, Logic and Rhetoric.
The class of 1743 was large – forty students. When they entered Harvard there were about a hundred undergraduates in residence, plus a scattering of graduates who had chosen to stay at Cambridge to complete their studies for their Master’s degrees, which were normally granted three years after earning an undergraduate diploma. The great majority of students took a second degree, but most completed their studies away from Cambridge. The student body during Otis’s years included names that were to reappear frequently during his later career. Benjamin Prat, one of the later leaders of the Boston bar, was in the class of 1737 and served as college librarian. Oxenbridge Thacher of the class of 1738 was to ally with Otis in arguing some of the province’s most famous legal cases. Samuel Adams graduated in 1740. Otis’s own class included Samuel Cooper, the passionate minister of Boston’s Brattle Street Church, and Royall Tyler, Otis’s mentor in the application of pragmatic politics. Thomas Cushing and Jonathan Mayhew graduated a year after Otis. Mayhew would become minister of Boston’s West Church and one of the elect in both John Adams’s list of great patriots and Peter Oliver’s “black regiment.” The class of 1745 included James Bowdoin, at first Otis’s political foe and later ally, and James Warren, a future brother-in-law.
Each February, the solemn feudal custom of importance was the “placing” of the class in “order.” The president and tutors listed the members of the class according to a somewhat arbitrary view of the social and political standing of the students’ families, and this ranking remained in effect until graduation regardless of any academic considerations. A governor’s son would, for example, be ranked first without question, but when the faculty had descended to the level of country justices of the peace and minister’s sons, the problem of ranking became complex. The president and tutors ranked Otis thirteenth in his class, just below William Bourne and Lothrop Russell, a clear indication that while James Otis, Sr. had certainly established his financial preeminence in Barnstable Country, he had yet to establish social supremacy.
Foster Hutchinson led the class; he was the younger brother of Thomas Hutchinson and heralded from perhaps the most powerful family in Massachusetts. The official ordering of the class doubtless made Jemmy truly aware of the expanse that separated the son of a Barnstable justice of the peace from Boston oligarchs such as the Hutchinsons. In 1741 and 1742, Otis roomed with Lothrop Russell in Stoughton 5 and Massachusetts 15, but there is no record of his residency during his first two years. The logical conclusion is that he resided alone. The faculty disciplinary records for Otis are blank for these first two years.
The most remarkable artifact of this period is the earliest known letter written by Otis, which he sent to his father at the beginning of his sophomore year:
Cambridge September the 5th 1740
Honoured Sir after my duty to you this comes to inform you that through the good providence of God I am in good health at presant pleast to give my love to brother and sister my duty to mother (which might have been first) and let Joseph write to me by every opertunyty I have got aunt Ru
ssels chocolate and have been at every shop in to Boston to get her bowls but cant as yet but I am going down to Boston tomorrow and will try again and if I cant get them I shall be glad to keep the money If you are willing if not I will return it I have also sent you recepte for all the money that I have paid away since I have been at colledge except the first payment, to Mrs Angier which the receipts for the last will clear and as for the last payment at the stewards
which is in the receipt for part is because there was twelve shillings more then eight pounds but I could not very well spare the mony or else I would have paid it and I hope this is sufficient account of the matter if not please to send me word and I will corret it. Uncle Allen is looked for from Wethersfield every day and then he will come to Barnstable with Aunt of if not shall myself Aunt remembers abunans of love to yourself and mother I have nothin else whorth a sendind so remain your obediend son