provincial act, 145 it was necessary to ascertain the value of these bills for conversion 
into silver. Upon exposition of the practice in the colonies by lngersoll, 
Mansfield declared that as a general rule the value of the bills of credit 
at the time set by the contract for payment should govern. But in the instant 
case, since the bond was so long outstanding, the loss by depreciation should 
be in part divided between the parties. Hence, instead of taking the silver 
equivalent at the time set for payment, 27 shillings for one ounce, the exchange 
was fixed at 37 shillings, and the debt was computed accordingly. 146 It was 
thereupon ordered that all the judgments appealed from should be reversed, 
except the judgment for the penal sum of the bond. But upon payment to 
respondent, within six months of entry of the Order in Council, of 1187 oz., 
14 dwt., 20 grs., of silver together with interest on the principal sum of 
_£ 1,349/11/5 to be computed in silver at the rate of 37 shillings per ounce, 
respondent was to be relieved against the judgment and penalty of the 
bond. 147 
It was not decided whether by "current lawfull money of New England" 
was meant sterling, proclamation money, or silver as valued by colonial fiat. 148 
It was unnecessary to pass on this point, for any of these alternatives would 
have exceeded the silver equivalent of Massachusetts bills of credit, and accordingly 
would have been rejected by the debtor under the liberty of the alternative 
in the bond. 
Two years later, the Committee heard the appeal of Trecothic\ v. Wentworth, 
in which it rejected an attempt to pay in depreciated New Hampshire 
currency a debt expressed in the withdrawn Massachusetts bills of credit old 
tenor. In this case, following a series of dealings, a balance was struck in 
June, 1749, which left respondent indebted to appellant, a British merchant 
located in Boston, in the sum of ,£5,770/16 Massachusetts bills of credit old 
tenor. When respondent failed to settle the account, an action was commenced 
in the New Hampshire Inferior Court of Common Pleas in 1755 to recover 
that sum, which was averred to be equal to ,£577/1/7 sterling. Although respondent 
proved only a ,£975/18/1-72 payment, leaving a balance of 
Massachusetts bills of credit old tenor, the court rendered 
145 3 Acts and Res. Prof. Mass. Bay, 430. 
146 lngersoll Papers, 241-42. The account of 
the hearing in 4 Dallas, U.S. Rep., Appen. 
xxiii, was probably taken from the lngersoll 
Papers which had not been as yet published in 
1807. 
147 PC 2/107/435, 443; 4 APC, Col., #407. 
148 In his discussion of this case Andrews 
(Current Lawful Money of New England, 24 
AHR, 76-77) misleadingly confuses the declararation 
as to the meaning of "current lawfull 
money of New England" and the commutation 
of the Massachusetts bills of credit into 
silver. By this commutation alone it was not 
"declared that the only 'lawful money' in New 
England was silver." Andrews fails to mention 
the interpretation of the Committee of the 
clause "current lawfull money of New England" 
(supra, n. 143).