Distress.

Meantime silver prices had, of course, fallen enormously. Now came other circumstances to prostrate the colony. The emigrants ceased to come, on account of the prospect of a new state of things favorable to them at home. Merchants came, but no longer found a market. The project of moving away was broached and earnestly debated in the colony. This tended to still further depress the price of all fixed improvements and stock. Cows were valued in taxation, in 1646, at £5; horses four years old, £6.

In the first years, 1630–1640, 22,000 people came over. For some time after 1640 more went back than came. The settlers had gained by sales of stock, etc., to successive new arrivals. A farmer had clothed his family on one cow sold annually from his stock. £192,000 had been spent on the colony, “ a dear purchase, if they had paid nothing to the Council of Plymouth and nothing afterwards to the sachems of the country.”