George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[389] a land bank. The design was long resisted as ‘a

Chap XXIII}

fraudulent undertaking,’ and was acknowledged as tending to give to the company ‘power and influence in all public concerns, more than belonged to them, more than they could make a good use of, and therefore unwarrantable;’ yet, but for the interference of parliament, it would at last have been chartered, and ‘the authority of government’—such is the language of a royalist historian of the last century—‘would have been entirely in the land bank company.’

The first effects of the unreal enlargement of the currency appeared beneficial; and men rejoiced in the seeming impulse given to trade. It was presently found that specie was repelled from the country by the system; that the paper furnished but a depreciated currency, fluctuating in value with every new emission; that, from the interest of debtors, there was between the colonies some rivalship in issues; that the increase of paper, far from remedying the scarcity of money, excited a thirst for new issues; that, as the party of debtors, if it prevailed in the legislature but once in ten years, could flood the country with bills of credit, men had an interest to remain in debt; that the income of widows and orphans, and all who had salaries or annuities, was ruinously affected by the fluctuations; that administrators were tempted to delay settlements of estates, as each year diminished the value of the inheritances which were to be paid; and, finally, that commerce was corrupted in its sources by the uncertainty attending the expressions of value in every contract.

This uncertainty rapidly pervaded the country. In 1738, the New England currency was worth but one hundred for five hundred; that of New York, New