“The Boston men are busy getting rid of their Indians. It isn’t difficult. They just need one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Wampum.” The young man gave a wry smile. “The Boston men make the Indians pay tribute in wampum, according to how many men, women and children there are. But usually the Indians can’t manufacture the wampum quickly enough. So then they make them give us land instead. The Indian population shrinks, every year.”

“And if they do pay?”

“Then our English magistrates fine them, for their crimes.”

“What crimes?”

“It depends.” Tom shrugged. “Massachusetts can always think of something that’s a crime. The Indians there will all be gone one day.”

“I see.” Van Dyck looked at the young Englishman with disgust. He’d have liked to strike him. Until it occurred to him: Was the conduct of his own Dutch people any better? Every year the number of Algonquin in New Netherland diminished. The hunting grounds on Manhattan were already nearly gone. On the Bronck’s and Jonker’s estates, the Indians were being purchased and pushed off their grounds. It was the same out on Long Island. In due course, no doubt, up here across the great river, where so far the Dutch only had a few outposts, the Algonquin would also be forced back. Add to that the ravages of European diseases—measles, smallpox and the like. No, he thought sadly, it matters not from which quarter we come, the White Man destroys the Indian sooner or later.

If these reflections tempered his feelings, van Dyck felt a desire to put this young fellow in his place. And when Tom observed that although wampum was considered good enough for the Indians, all reckoning in Boston was nowadays done in English pounds, he saw his chance.

“The trouble with you English,” he said, “is that you talk of pounds, but you have nothing a man can put his hands on. At least the Indians have wampum. It seems to me,” he added coolly, “that the Indians are ahead of you in that regard.” He paused to watch the fellow take this in.

For it was absolutely true. Back in England, you could find the traditional pennies, shillings and gold florins. But the higher coinage was in short supply. And out in the colonies, the situation was downright primitive. In Virginia, for instance, the currency was still tobacco, and business was often done by barter. In New England, though merchants would keep the reckonings between them in pounds sterling, and write their own bills of credit, there was practically no English silver or gold coinage to be had.

But if he aimed to embarrass the young Englishman, it didn’t seem to work. Tom laughed.