In May of the same year, the famous traveler, John Ledyard, and twenty-five other merchants of Connecticut caught up the theme, and in a petition to their legislature said: "The medium of trade whereby our dealings are valued and weighed, ought to be esteemed as sacred as any weights and measures whatever, and, to maintain justice, must be kept as stable, for as a false weight and a false dollar is an abomination to the Lord, a false and unstable medium is equally so, as it occasions as much iniquity, and is at least as injurious."
The Connecticut Assembly supported these memorialists, excluded the bills of paper money of Rhode Island, and overcoming every embarrassment, at last, like Massachusetts, redeemed every nine shillings of its paper money with one shilling in specie. After the first day of November, 1756, all accounts in Connecticut were kept in lawful money.
Mr. Manufacturer: The experience of the other New England States is practically the same as that you have just recited in Connecticut. In 1717 the Council of New Hampshire was zealous to follow the fashion of issuing paper money by loan and issued £15,000.
Rhode Island, also, in July, 1710, on its first emission of Bills of Credit, declared them equal in value to "money," and made them receivable in all public payments. In November, 1711, Rhode Island discharged a claim by a loan of its Bills of Credit to the amount of £300 for four years free of interest.
New Jersey, too, tried its hand at the same scheme, following the lead of Pennsylvania. In December, 1783, it issued £31,250, and in 1786, it struggled hard to issue a larger amount, but William Patterson, who was afterwards a member of the Supreme Court, resisted the proposal with inflexible courage, and here are some of the words which he employed: "An increase of paper money, especially if it be a tender, will destroy what little credit is left, will bewilder conscience in the mazes of dishonest speculations, will allure some and constrain others into the perpetration of knavish acts, will turn vice into a legal virtue, and sanctify iniquity by law. Men have, in the ordinary transactions of life, temptations enough to lead them from the path of rectitude; why then pass laws for the purpose, or give legislative sanction to positive acts of iniquity? Lead us not into temptation is a part of our Lord's prayer worthy of attention at all times, and especially at the present."
In March, 1723, when there was universal peace, borrowers undermined the scruples of Pennsylvania, and that colony issued bills of credit for loans to individuals, and not only compelled creditors to receive the bills at par, or "lose their debts," but ordered sellers to receive them at their nominal value in the sale of goods, or lands, or tenements or "forfeit a sum from 30 shillings to £50."
Again, on March 21, 1783, Pennsylvania, which hardly knew what it was doing and had not yet gathered up the strength of its will, was the first to renew in peace the evil usage of the times of war, and issued $300,000 in what was called Treasury Notes, the lowest of one-quarter of a dollar, the highest at twenty dollars. Two years later, but after great resistance, its legislature issued £150,000, the lowest note of 3 pence. But in the decisive hour Pennsylvania, too, proved the implacable foe of paper money.
In 1733, £90,000 in its bills of credit were brought into circulation by loans of 4 per cent by the legislature of Maryland.
Virginia was involved from May, 1755, in measures of war, and immediate and increasing issues of paper bills were made which from the beginning were a lawful tender for private debts. For the new "notes" of April, 1757, it was further ordered that any seller who should demand more for his goods in notes than in gold or silver coin, should "forfeit 20 per cent of their value." ... In 1781, in the month of March, Virginia directed the emission of £10,000,000 and authorized £5,000,000 more; and the Continental paper currency and its own were made a legal tender in discharge of all debts and contracts, except contracts which expressly promised the contrary.
In 1780 North Carolina directed the emission of more than £1,000,000, and such further sums as the exigencies of the state might require; in the next year gave authority at one dash to issue $26,250,000 of paper dollars bearing 6 per cent interest. Again in 1783, North Carolina emitted £100,000, declaring each pound of the emission equal to two and one-half Spanish milled dollars, and a tender in all payments whatever. In 1785, the state emitted £100,000 more.