ing to the adoption of any remedy. For the enemy to overrun the country was a mere waste of time and means, unless it could be filled with troops, for which all that England could have put into the field would by no means have sufficed. The Home Government wholly misconceived the nature of the struggle in which it engaged, and the extent of the natural obstacles opposed to its arms, which were more formidable than any which could be opposed by the hand of man. The financial position becoming daily more and more critical, Congress resolved to reduce the amount of its notes, in order to raise the credit of those outstanding. On the 1st of January, 1779, it passed a resolution calling upon the States to pay in $15,000,000 in notes for the current year, and $6,000,000 a year for the next eighteen years. It also declared, that if any were issued in the year ensuing, they should, in the manner and within the period prescribed for the other notes, be taken in, to be first applied to the payment of interest; next, to that of the principal of the loans outstanding, and made prior to Jan. 1, 1780; and that all not necessary for the above purposes were to be destroyed. It was hoped that such measures would prevent any further decline. All such expedients proved unavailing, for the reason that no one supposed the requisitions would be complied with. The notes could not be got in; and Congress was compelled to make further issues, which it did to the amount of $10,000,000 in the following month. Matters continued to go rapidly from bad to worse. Early in May, 1779, the President of the Council for Pennsylvania and others were admitted upon the floor of Congress, to state the dilemma in which they were placed, and solicit its interposition to avert a popular movement which was apprehended. A meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia was to be held, and violence was feared from an excited and suffering populace. Congress could only issue one of its manifestoes, that the country had been forced into a cruel war, that it had resorted to notes as its only resource, that ultimate success was certain, that all its obligations would be faithfully respected, that the great cause of high prices was the conduct of forestallers and monopolizers, and that these must be looked after and severely punished; all to end, however, with a further issue of notes. The Philadelphia meeting was held, and resolved: : "That, whereas prices of goods and provisions have, within the last six months, risen to an enormous height, far beyond what they ought to be in proportion to the quantity of money; and, whereas the prices of rum, sugar, flour, coffee, and tea have greatly risen within the past week, without any real or apparent cause: and, as it is our determination not to be eaten up by monopolizers and forestallers, therefore we unconditionally insist and demand that the advanced or monopolized price of the present month be instantly taken off, and that prices be immediately reduced to what they were on the first day of May, instant." 1 Committees of safety were at that time almost supreme powers in the land; and one, as a matter of course, was appointed at the meeting referred to, charged with full authority to carry out its objects; to regulate the value of property, of rentals, of labor, and, in fact, of almost every act of society. The people, sensible only of their sufferings, and ignorant of the cause, clamored fiercely for a reduction in the price of food. Congress promised to give ear to their complaints; but constantly aggravated them by new issues of paper, at the same time urging the States to establish tariffs of prices, and denouncing to the severest punishments all who should violate them. In all such measures, it was certain to have the sympathy of the great mass of the people, who still believed that prices could be regulated by law. In illustration, the following extract is given, from a communication which appeared at the time in the "Philadelphia Packet: " "I am one who thinks," says the writer, " a limitation of prices is absolutely necessary. I am sure every man must wish it as the only means to get rich. We have all been wrong in our notions of getting rich. It is true we have got money. I have more money than I ever had; but I am poorer than I ever was. I had money enough some time ago to buy a hogshead of sugar. I sold it again, and got a great deal more money for it than what it cost me; yet what I sold it for, when I went to market again, would buy but a tierce. 1 What some of these prices were on the first day of May, will be seen by the following statement: I sold that tierce for a great deal of profit; yet the whole of what I Among the expedients resorted to at the time, for the purpose of maintaining the value of paper money, were associations. organized for the purpose of driving hard money out of circulation, in the hope that, by confining all the operations of society to paper money, its decline, at least, could be prevented. The following copy of a handbill placarded at the time in Boston will give a good idea of the mode by which such a result was sought to be accomplished: "SONS OF BOSTON! SLEEP NO LONGER! Wednesday, June 16, 1779. "You are requested to meet on the floor of the Old South Meeting-House to-morrow morning, at 9 o'clock, at which time the bells will ring. "Rouse and catch the Philadelphia spirit; rid the community of those monopolizers and extortioners, who, like canker-worms, are gnawing upon your vitals. They are reducing the currency to waste paper, by refusing to take it for many articles. The infection is dangerous. We have borne with such wretches; but will bear no longer. Public examples at this time would be public benefits. You, then, that have articles to sell, lower your prices; you that have houses to let, refuse not the currency for rent; for, inspired with the spirit of those heroes and patriots who have struggled and bled for their country, and moved with the cries and distresses of the widow, the orphan, and the necessitous, Boston shall no longer be your place of security. Ye inhabitants of Nantucket, who first introduced the accursed crime of refusing paper money, quit the place, or destruction shall attend your property, and your persons be the object of "VENGEANCE. "N. B. Lawyers, keep yourselves to yourselves. "It is our determination to support the reputable merchant and fair trader" Congress, still having little other resource than its notes, continued their issue on a larger scale than ever, to meet their more rapid and excessive decline. On the 26th of August, the amount issued equalled $161,500,000. Of this sum, $100,000,000 had been issued during the year. The value was then reduced to eighteen for one. Congress still attempted to arrest a further decline, by an address in which it promised, "if pos sible," not to exceed the amount already outstanding; and to inspire confidence by the method so often resorted to in similar cases, of depreciating the magnitude of present burdens by showing the vastly increased number of shoulders upon which they must soon rest; for, peace established, crowds of emigrants would flee from oppressed Europe to this land of liberty. A country so rich by nature, and soon to be so populous, could easily bear all the burdens likely to be imposed upon her by the war: "Let us suppose," it said, "for the sake of argument, that at the conclusion of the war the emissions should amount to $200,000,000; that, exclusive of supplies from taxes, which will not be inconsiderable, the loans should amount to $100,000,000, then the whole national debt of the United States would be $300,000,000. There are at present 3,000,000 of inhabitants in the thirteen States; $300,000,000, divided among 3,000,000 of people, would give to each person $100; and is there an individual in America unable, in the course of eighteen or twenty years, to pay it again? Suppose the whole debt assessed, as it ought to be, on the inhabitants in proportion to their respective estates, what would then be the share of the poorer people? Perhaps not $10. Besides, as this debt will not be payable immediately, but probably twenty years allotted for it, the number of inhabitants by that time in America will be far more than double their present amount. It is well known that the inhabitants of this country increased almost in the ratio of compound interest. By natural population they doubled almost every twenty years, and how great may be the host of emigrants from other countries cannot be ascertained. We have the highest reason to believe the number will be immense. Suppose that only ten thousand should arrive the first year after the war, what will those ten thousand, with their families, count in twenty years time? Probably double the number. This observation applies with proportionable force to the emigrants of every successive year. Thus you see a great part of your debt will be payable, not merely by the present number of inhabitants, but by that number swelled and increased by the natural population of the present inhabitants, by multitudes of emigrants daily arriving from other countries, and by the natural population of those succes sive emigrants; so that every person's share of the debt will be constantly diminishing by others coming in to pay a proportion of it." The injustice of being compelled to accept the government notes in the payment of debts previously contracted had now become so great as to be no longer tolerated. Even Washington would no longer receive them in the payment of old debts, bit at their value. In a letter to the manager of his estate, Lund Washington, written under date of the 17th of August, 1779, he said: "Some time ago you applied to me to know if you should receive payment of General M -'s bonds, and of the bond due from the deceased Mr. M's estate to me; and you were, after animadverting a little upon the subject, authorized to do so. sume the money has been received. I have since considered the Of course, I prematter in every point of view in which my judgment enables me to place it; and am resolved to receive no more old debts (such, I mean, as were contracted and ought to have been paid before the war) at the present nominal value of the money, unless compelled to do it, or it is the practice of others to do it. Neither justice, 1 The amount of the public debt incurred in the prosecution of the war, in addition to that incurred by the several States, was given in the address from which the preceding extract was made, as follows: Notes issued Money borrowed in France Money borrowed at home, for which govern ment certificates were chiefly given $159,948,880 7,545,196 26,188,909 Money borrowed in Europe, and not yet re ceived Total 4,000,000 $197,682,985 At that time the whole amount received from taxation, through requisitions upon the States, amounted only to $3,027,560. The whole amount supplied by the people up to the date of the address, other than that furnished on the notes, equalled $29,216,469. The domestic debt was chiefly in the form of certificates, or acknowledgments of the government of supplies furnished it, which were given largely by commissaries in payment of articles seized by them, and represented the estimated value of such as were taken. The following statement of expenditures of the government for 1778, and the proportions of paper and metallic money used, will show the extremities to which it was reduced: Notes Livres $62,156,842 78,666 28,525 The amount of specie amidst such a vast mass of paper was very like the wit of Gratiano in the play. |