s own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as
the business of the country required, but not enough for the eager
contention which the announcement of Government work to be done excites
among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between
Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight
ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had
celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision
the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,--who,
when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met
the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"--a scientific mechanic,--a leader
at the Tea-party,--a soldier of the old war,--prepared to serve in this
war, too, with sword, or graver, or science,--fitting carriages, at
Washington's command, to the cannon from which the retreating English
had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the
command of the Provincial Congress, and setting up the first powder-mill
ever built in Massachusetts.

No mere engraver's task for him, this engraving the first bill-plates of
Continental Currency! How he must have warmed over the design! how
carefully he must have chosen his copper! how buoyantly he must have
plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of
the double mission which those little plates were to perform,--the good
one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!--but resolved
and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from
cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in
the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! the enemy is coming!"

The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it
the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had
little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a
modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen
already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees
and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight
gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them,
receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand
bills.

Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily reaching the doors of
Congress. Everywhere money was wanted,--money to buy guns, money to buy
powder, money to buy provisions, money to send officers to their posts,
m