Excerpts from the Journal of Park Holland

The reason of hard moneys being so plenty especially in the
New England States & particularly Massachusetts was this after
the close of the War the French fleet came on our Coast in great
want of all kind of supplys espetially of the Provision King which
raised the price of all kinds of Provisions to an unusual
price which found a ready soil to the contracters for supplying
the Fleet where this money had circulated into the Country
the general opinion was that Money was growing verry plenty
& all kinds of good being scarce during the War and now being Varry
plenty the Money (espetially that in the Hands of the poorer sort
of People) was soon spent and many of them were in debt as
much as their credit would admit of and to add to this there
was a large Tax out & generally unpaid. These circumstance
with some others put together mad Money as extraordinary
scarce as it had ben plenty - sometime in the year 1786 the
scarcity of Money became quite alarming and those who
were the most distressed or otherways most in debt began to
hold Town & County convention & corresponded with each
so as to be as uniform in their proceedings as possible
and the amount of their deliberations seemed to be that it
was best to stop the setting of the Courts of Common Pleas
for there was a verry unusual number of sutes to be brought
before their Court which were now about Setting and when the Court
began to assemble at Northampton within & for the County of
Hamshere there assembled a large body of People & put themselves under the
Command of a certain Cap^t. Day & they refused to let the Court
go into the Court House to proceed to Business and the Sherrif of
the County tho a resolute Fellow did not deem it proper to
countermand their Orders however the final conclusion
was that the Court might enter the House and adjourn to
some future Day.