their army than one silver dollar
would buy, yet they thought it would be worth while to submit to the
sacrifices of nineteen out of twenty dollars, if they could thereby stop
further depreciation. They, therefore, published an address to their
constituents, in which they renewed their original declarations, that
this paper money should be redeemed at dollar for dollar. They proved
the ability of the States to do this, and that their liberty would be
cheaply bought at that price. The declaration was ineffectual. No man
received the money at a better rate; on the contrary, in six months
more, that is, by March, 1780, it had fallen to forty for one. Congress
then tried an experiment of a different kind. Considering their former
offers to redeem this money, at par, as relinquished by the general
refusal to take it, but in progressive depreciation, they required the
whole to be brought in, declared it should be redeemed at its present
value, of forty for one, and that they would give to the holders new
bills, reduced in their denomination to the sum of gold or silver, which
was actually to be paid for them. This would reduce the nominal sum of
the mass in circulation, to the present worth of that mass, which was
five millions; a sum not too great for the circulation of the States,
and which, they therefore hoped, would not depreciate further, as they
continued firm in their purpose of emitting no more. This effort was as
unavailing as the former. Very little of the money was brought in. It
continued to circulate and to depreciate, till the end of 1780, when it
had fallen to seventy-five for one, and the money circulated from the
French army, being, by that time, sensible in all the States north
of the Potomac, the paper ceased its circulation altogether, in those
States. In Virginia and North Carolina, it continued a year longer,
within which time it fell to one thousand for one, and then expired, as
it had done in the other States, without a single groan. Not a murmur
was heard, on this occasion, among the people. On the contrary,
universal congratulations took place, on their seeing this gigantic
mass, whose dissolution had threatened convulsions which should shake
their infant confederacy to its centre, quietly interred in its grave.
Foreigners, indeed, who do not, like the natives, feel indulgence for
its memory, as of a being which has vindicated their liberties, and
fallen in the moment of victory, have been loud, and