Note 1 — 1704, June 18.

The attention of the Council of Trade had been frequently called to the disorder in the currency in the Plantations (see Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1700, pp. 108, 393; and Chalmers' History of Currency in the British Colonies, pp. 11-15). On November 18, 1703, the Privy Council referred to the Lord Treasurer a representation from the Board of Trade for settling the rates of foreign coins in America, upon which the Lord Treasurer, May 18, 1704, submitted a report from the Officers of the Mint with a table of the weights and values of foreign coins then current in the Plantations (Acts of Privy Council, ii, 452). The proclamation which followed was little observed, however, and after several reports on the subject had been rendered, an Act of Parliament was passed April 1, 1708, entitled "An Act for ascertaining the Rates of Foreign Coins in Her Majesty's Plantations in America." (Statutes of the Realm, viii, 792. See also Lords Journals, xviii, 486, 566; Commons Journals, xv, 635; Acts of Privy Council, ii, 452). For the action of Massachusetts upon this proclamation, see Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, viii, 471.