nded the paper money
coined or rather printed by most of the American colonies in the
century preceding the American Revolution. Thus, about the middle of
the eighteenth century, the paper money of Massachusetts fell to an
eighth of its original value. People were driven to barter, and one
writer observed that "the morals of the people depreciate with the
currency." Parties were divided into debtors and creditors, and a New
England writer in 1749 noted: "The Debtor side has had the ascendant
ever since anno 1741 to the almost utter ruin of the country."[6] To
this writer belongs the credit of discerning, at a time when even
Benjamin Franklin was in error, that "the repeated large emissions of
Paper Money" were responsible for its depreciation.

[5] Macmillan, 1900.

[6] Douglass.

"Not worth a Continental" is an expression which brings us to the next
chapter in American experience of inconvertible paper currencies. The
so-called Continental money was the means by which the Continental
Congress and the individual colonies--too timid to tax--endeavored to
finance the Revolutionary War. By 1781, a paper dollar was worth less
than two cents in specie, and soon afterward it became practically
worthless.[7] Robbery was legalized; rogues flourished; and their
frauds were encouraged and protected by a government whose policy
enabled debtors to pay their debts in valueless money. We hear of
creditors running away from their debtors and being paid off "without
mercy." Stories were told of creditors in Rhode Island leaping out of
back windows to escape the attentions of their debtors.[8] In short,
the law became an engine of oppression and destroyed the fortunes of
thousands who had put their confidence in it. In the words of Breck, a
friendly critic, "... the old debts were paid when the paper money was
more than seventy to one ... widows, orphans and others were paid for
money lent in specie with depreciated paper."

[7] Bullock, _Monetary History of the United States_, chap. V.

[8] _Ibid._, chap. V. In 1780 Congress actually adopted a plan to
redeem its paper issues at one fortieth of their pretended or
nominal value.

The astonishing thing is that all this knavery was devised, or winked
at, not only by low class politicians but by statesmen of renown. The
maxim _salus populi suprema lex_ was relied upon not for the first
or last time as a sufficient excuse for a crime far more pernic