Aug 20, 2026 · 30 min · 8 segments
In September 1786, a Newport butcher named John Weeden refused to take paper money for a joint of meat, and demanded silver. Under Rhode Island law, that was a crime — punishable by a fine, the loss…
In the public market at Newport, Rhode Island, in September of 1786, a man named John Trevette walked up to a butcher's stall and asked for a joint of meat.
The butcher, John Whedon, looked at the paper and said he would have silver.
What Whedon had just done was a crime.
The penalty was a fine of £100 sterling.
On a second conviction, a man lost the same sum again and with it his right to vote to hold any office in the state.
and the law provided that a man charged under it would be tried in a special court before judges only, no jury, no appeal.
So Trevette went to the Chief Justice of Rhode Island and filed a complaint against the butcher.
He was not obligated to, nobody had been hurt.
Trevette could have walked to another stall or come back with silver, or gone without his dinner.
What he did instead was inform on a tradesman for a crime of preferring hard money, and the law he informed under had been written deliberately to make this possible.
Three years after the end of a war fought over the rights of Englishmen, two Rhode Islanders faced each other in a courtroom over a cut of beef.
There was no money in America, not in the sense of money a farmer could put his hand on.
The specie, gold and silver, had drained out to Britain to pay for the flood of goods that came in after the war and had not come back.
Prices had collapsed.
Debts contracted in easy years came due in hard ones, payable in a coin that had all but vanished from the countryside.
The farmer had a barn full of grain he could not sell for silver, a tax bill payable only in silver, a mortgage payable only in silver, and no silver.
The sheriff came anyways.
The farms went at auction for a fraction of their worth, and the men who had lost them often still owed money afterwards.
These were not idle men.
Many of them were veterans of the war.
They had marched.
They had been paid in paper that turned to nothing.
They had come home to find a tax collector on the road and courts full of their debts.
In the public market at Newport, Rhode Island, in September of 1786, a man named John Trevette walked up to a butcher's stall and asked for a joint of meat.
The butcher, John Whedon, looked at the paper and said he would have silver.
What Whedon had just done was a crime.
The penalty was a fine of £100 sterling.
On a second conviction, a man lost the same sum again and with it his right to vote to hold any office in the state.
and the law provided that a man charged under it would be tried in a special court before judges only, no jury, no appeal.
So Trevette went to the Chief Justice of Rhode Island and filed a complaint against the butcher.
He was not obligated to, nobody had been hurt.
Trevette could have walked to another stall or come back with silver, or gone without his dinner.
What he did instead was inform on a tradesman for a crime of preferring hard money, and the law he informed under had been written deliberately to make this possible.
Three years after the end of a war fought over the rights of Englishmen, two Rhode Islanders faced each other in a courtroom over a cut of beef.
There was no money in America, not in the sense of money a farmer could put his hand on.
The specie, gold and silver, had drained out to Britain to pay for the flood of goods that came in after the war and had not come back.
Prices had collapsed.
Debts contracted in easy years came due in hard ones, payable in a coin that had all but vanished from the countryside.
The farmer had a barn full of grain he could not sell for silver, a tax bill payable only in silver, a mortgage payable only in silver, and no silver.
The sheriff came anyways.
The farms went at auction for a fraction of their worth, and the men who had lost them often still owed money afterwards.
These were not idle men.
Many of them were veterans of the war.
They had marched.
They had been paid in paper that turned to nothing.
They had come home to find a tax collector on the road and courts full of their debts.
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