Note 210 — MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; CONTINUED, FROM THE TIME OF HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.
Reading edition
Paper-money was not so well managed in some of the other colonies, where it was issued in too large quantities, and its credit not established on funds sufficiently stable and secure;[210a] a circumstance which induced the parliament of Great-Britain to interdict, for a time, further emissions of that sort of money, called bills of credit, by the provincial legislatures.
Although the last emission of loan-office bills of credit, under the colonial government of Pennsylvania, was made in the beginning of the year 1773, the want of this succedaneum for gold and silver, as a circulating medium of commerce commensurate to the encreased population and trade of the country, was experienced some considerable time before. In a letter written by the Hon. Mr. T. Penn to the Rev. Mr. Barton, dated, London, June 17, 1767, the writer says:
“Your account of the increase of the growth of hemp, gives me great pleasure; and I think the demand there has been for wheat, since the date of your letter, must have made the country people rich, even those who were poor before: it will prevent people being under the necessity of parting with their lands, and going to Carolina. Their produce will always bring them money at Philadelphia, notwithstanding there may be some more need for paper-money; yet, when trade is brisk, it circulates faster, and a less quantity will carry on a greater trade: however, I hope, in the next session of parliament, we may get the law which prohibits our making any more, repealed.”
The parliamentary restriction was, in fact, afterwards taken off; and an effort was made, in the beginning of the year 1770, by the legislature of Pennsylvania, to enact a loan-office law, for the purpose of putting in circulation a further emission of paper-money: but the measure then miscarried, in consequence of some disagreement between the governor and the general assembly respecting the right they severally claimed, of appointing the trustees of the proposed loan-office.