silver going up in the sense that we saw gold going up in the sixties. The actual inflation which began in 1712 and 1713 at once raised prices in all commercial transactions. A natural result. The paper money was constantly depreciating in value and more of it was needed to make a purchase, hence the increase in prices. To enforce the circulation of the bills, laws were enacted which made the bills legal tender. Then reluctant debtors delayed more, to avail themselves of the advantages which the steady depreciation in the bills brought with the lapse of time.
The movement of paper money in Rhode Island issued against public credit was not in line with public confidence. The emissions[1] of 1710 and 1711 were issued to meet current charges. The "bank" of £40,000 in 1715 was followed by nine others of infamous memory. In 1750, when the last bank of loan of the public credit to individuals was made, the British government peremptorily called a halt. Up to 1733 the Rhode Island bills circulated at about the same credit as the Massachusetts bills.[2] The decline in value of the Rhode Island bank was continuous.
New Hampshire issued banks at 5 and 10 per cent interest.[3] "Private gentlemen" planned an inflation of the currency for which the populace clamored.[4] Connecticut bills passed at about the same discount as the Massachusetts currency. The more conservative financial policy of Connecticut doubtless moved an association of influential citizens in 1630, known as the New London Society for Trade and Commerce[5] to circulate their notes for a period of about two years, when their career was cut short by a
- ↑ Rhode Island Colonial Records, Vol. v, p. 9.
- ↑ In Weeden's "Economic and Social History of New England," there is much valuable comparative matter on finance and currency. Caps. ii, viii, xiii, xvii, xxi. His sense of proportion and wide search for data on all collateral subjects associated with the currency, make his work exceptionably valuable.
- ↑ New Hampshire Provincial Papers, Vol. iii, pp. 671, 688.
- ↑ Ibid., Vol. iv. p. 685.
- ↑ Henry Bronson's "Historical Account of Connecticut Currency," in the New Haven Historical Society Papers, Vol. i, pp. 42–43.
