p into
commerce had already passed through all its phases, from direct barter
to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to
get what they wanted more, the products of industry without doors for
the products of industry within doors; and it was only when they felt
the necessity of adding to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from
a distance that they experienced the want of money. Prices naturally
found their own level,--were what, when left to themselves they always
are, the natural expression of the relations between demand and supply.
Tobacco stood the Virginian in stead of money long after money had
become abundant; procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too,
it procured him something better still. In the very same year in which
the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, history tells us, ninety maidens of
"virtuous education and demeanor" landed in Virginia; the next year
brought sixty more; and, provident industry reaping its own reward, he
whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to
make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and
pleasant spectacle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing on towards
the landing with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking
deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under his arm.

But already there was a pernicious principle at work,--protested against
by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew,--the
assumption by Government of the power to regulate the prices of goods.
The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still
believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor
was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal
tenders and the various representatives of value, without any
correspondent measures for creating the value itself, or, in simpler
words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as
historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year
so memorable as the year of the first Congress.

New England, encouraged by a successful expedition against Port Royal,
made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her
little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came
back soured by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of
'76, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the
immediate danger, Massachusetts b