"Pasteboard proving inconvenient, cards were again resorted to. Each had the flourish which the intendant usually added to his signature. He signed all those of the value of four livres and upwards, and those of six livres and above were also signed by the governor.
"Once a year, at a fixed period, the cards were required to be brought to the colonial treasury, and exchanged for bills on the treasurer-general of the marine, or his deputy at Rochefort. Those which appeared too ragged for circulation were burnt, and the rest again paid out of the treasury.
"For a while the cards were thus punctually exchanged once a year; but in course of time bills ceased to be given for them. Their value, which till then had been equal to gold, now began to diminish; the price of all commodities rose proportionably, and the colonial government was compelled, in order to meet the increased demands on its treasury, to resort to new and repeated emissions; and the people found a new source of distress in the means adopted for their relief."
This subject is frequently referred to, and always as a source of distress; as a disastrous measure of policy.—
"Louisiana suffered a great deal from the want of a circulating medium. Card money had caused the disappearance of the gold and silver circulating in the colony before its emission, and its subsequent depreciation had induced the commissary ordonnateur to have recourse to an issue of ordonances, a kind of bills of credit, which although not a legal tender, from the want of a metallic currency, soon became an object of commerce. They were followed by treasury notes, which being receivable in the discharge of all claims of the treasury, soon got into circulation. This cumulation of public securities in the market, within a short time threw them all into discredit, and gave rise to an agiotage, highly injurious to commerce and agriculture."
"The province was at this time inundated by a flood of paper money. The administration, for several years past, had paid in due bills all the supplies they had obtained, and they had been suffered to accumulate to an immense amount. A consequent depreciation had left them almost without any value. This had been occasioned, in a great degree, by a belief that the officers who had put these securities afloat, had, at times, attended more to their own than to the public interest, and that the French government, on the discovery of this, would not perhaps be found ready to indemnify the holders against the misconduct of its agents. With a view, however, to prepare the way for the redemption of the paper, the colonial treasurer was directed to receive all that might be presented, and to give in its stead certificates, in order that the extent of the evil being known, the remedy might be applied."
"The province laboured under great difficulties, on account of a flood of depreciated paper, which, inundating it, annihilated its industry, commerce, and agriculture. So sanguine were the inhabitants of their appeal to the throne, that they instructed their emissary, after having accomplished the principal object of his mission, to solicit relief in this respect."
We turn also to Marbois, on this subject, and trust we shall be excused for giving so much of our time to it, by the interest the people of the United States now have in it. We have had our own experience of the fatal consequences of such schemes; let us also listen to the experience of others, which points to the distress and ruin that attend such experiments. Speaking of Law's great scheme of finance, this wise and venerable statesman says—"A foreigner of an eccentric mind, though a skilful calculator, had engaged the regent in operations the most disastrous to the finances of the state. John Law, after having persuaded credulous people that paper money might advantageously take the place of specie, drew from this false principle the most extravagant consequences. They were adopted by ignorance and cupidity." This writer, with the experience of more than half a century in public affairs, adds—"These chimeras, called by the name of system, do not differ much from the schemes that are brought forward in the present age, under the name of credit."
Speaking of the paper money created for Louisiana, M. Marbois tells us—