owed money to him, partly for
rum, in part for loans.[32] The same was true of Peter Jacob Marius, a
rich merchant who died in 1706, leaving behind a host of debtors, "which
included about all the male population on Manhattan Island."[33] This
eminent counter-man was "buried like a gentleman." At his funeral large
sums were spent for wine, cookies, pipes and tobacco, beer, spice for
burnt wine and sugar--all according to approved and reverent Dutch
fashion. The actual currency left by some of these rich men was a
curious conglomeration of almost every stamp, showing the results of a
mixed assemblage of customers. There were Spanish pistoles, guineas,
Arabian coin, bank dollars, Dutch and French money--a motley assortment
all carefully heaped together. Without doubt, those enterprising pirate
captains, Kidd and Burgess, and their crews, were good customers of
these accommodating and undiscriminating merchants. It was a time when
money was triply valued, for little of it passed in circulation. To a
people who traded largely by barter and whose media of exchange, for a
long time, were wampum, peltries and other articles, the touch and clink
of gold and silver were extremely precious and fascinating. Buccaneers
Kidd and Burgess deserved the credit for introducing into New York much
of the variegated gold and silver coin, and it was believed that they
long had some of the leading merchants as their allies in disposing of
their plundered goods, in giving them information and affording them
protection.

THE TRADERS' METHODS.

By one means or another, some of the New York merchants of the period
attained a standing in point of wealth equal to not a few of the land
magnates. William Lawrence of Flushing, Long Island, was "a man of great
wealth and social standing." Like the rest of his class he affected to
despise the merchant class. After his death, an inventory showed his
estate to be worth L4,032, mostly in land and in slaves, of which he
left ten.[34] While the landed men often spent much of their time
carousing, hunting, gambling, and dispersing their money, the merchants
were hawk-eyed alert for every opportunity to gather in money. They
wasted no time in frivolous pursuits, had no use for sentiment or
scruples, saved money in infinitesimal ways and thought and dreamed of
nothing but business.

Throughout the colonies, not excepting Pennsylvania, it was the general
practice of the merchants and traders to take advanta