t, 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]

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, consiste