But by far the greater part of the silver consisted of bullion from the mines of South America, which the English buccaneers--who were little better than pirates--had taken from the Spaniards and brought to Massachusetts.
All this old and new silver being melted down and coined, the result was an immense amount of splendid shillings, sixpences, and threepences.
Each had the date, 1652, on the one side, and the figure of a pine-tree on the other.

Hence they were called pine-tree shillings.

And for every twenty shillings that he coined, you will remember, Captain John Hull was entitled to put one shilling into his own pocket.
The magistrates soon began to suspect that the mint master would have the best of the bargain.

They offered him a large sum of money if he would but give up that twentieth shilling which he was continually dropping into his own pocket.

But Captain Hull declared himself perfectly satisfied with the shilling.