The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1779-03-10 00:00:00, page 1

Mr. Collins,
OUR paper money and funds having
been for some time past the general
and feeling topic of convcrfation, I
have anxiously waited in expectation
of feeing something on this important
and interesting fubjed worthy of the
public attention. But as there seems to be almost
a total silence with refpeft to these great points, I
have committed a few thoughts to paper, which I
request the favour of you to publish in your next
Gazette. —I offer them with candour, and I trust
with due deference to the opinions of others. —I am
confeious of my inability to treat the fubjeft in the
manner I would wish ; a fubjed full of intricacy, and
which, to do it ample justice, requires more atten
tion, knowledge and compass of thought, than I
am capable of. —What my views are, I shall leave
the publick to judge from the fads and observations
I am about to mention —these, if true, may have
some weight and be of use; if erroneous in any
part, I shall be glad to fee it pointed out.
At the commencement of the present war Ame
rica had no finances, there was scarce the value of a
pepper-corn in the public treasuries. The operation
of taxes was too flow to create funds, the occalion
was pressing, and could not admit of delay.—The
only expedient in our power was the striking of paper
money. —It was a risk, because it was an experiment
upon the people —it was calculated to try the temper
of the body at large, as well as to answer the most
valuable ends —it became a fort of touchstone and
test of the spirit of the times, and the success with
which it was attended formed an happy presage of
the unanimity and vigour which afterwards appeared.
What Great-Britain had looked upon as imprac
ticable, and beyond the reach of policy and patri
otism in this country, was easily attained ; and the
new money was every where received on the foot of
gold and silver. —It multiplied, and not a murmur
was heard. Public credit stood on the firmeft foun
dation, and this prosperous state of it was doubly
ufeful; it serving us at home, and procuring us
friends abroad.
The firft campaign, tho' an expensive one, gave
no shock to our paper credit —that of 1776 was
truly alarming—A vast naval and military force came
to America, and threatened the total and immediate
subversion of our liberties ; and yet the terror of so
great an armament did not destroy nor even much
impair the value of it—it kept its ground with little
abatement, and this more owing to a real scarcity of
goods than any diltruft of the public credit. In sup
port of this opinion I would only refer to the price
of provisions at that time.
Great additional sums were emitted to prepare an
army for the campaign of 1777; Philadelphia was
known to be the objed of the enemy, and it was
intended we should be strong enough to fight them
in their progress.—The bounty-money, cloathing,
equipping, magazines of provisions and forage, all
these called for large supplies, and as no taxes were
levied, the necessity of farther emissions was obvious.
The taking of Philadelphia certainly had an effect
in precipitating the value of the money, the state of
men's minds in such cases being the political ther
mometer by which all things relating to public credit
are tried.
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
Our alliance with France and the military opera
tions of last year were attended with real and al
most deceive advantages in favour of these States,
and tho' it must be acknowledged the expences of
the campaign were great, yet this was not so much
owing to the quantity of the necessaries consumed,
or the scarcity of them, as to the sudden depreciation
of the currency..
It is a melancholy truth, which every man in this
country feels the force of very sensibly, that in the
course of the last five months, altho' the campaign
was over, the enemy's army divided, and reduced
to a state of impotence, and notwithstanding our
profpeds have brightened exceedingly, yet the cur
rency all on a sudden has fallen in the molt unexpect
ed manner.
There is, I am afraid, something radically wrong
jn the arangements of some of the army departments;
for, as I am informed, the Quarter-Masters, Commis
saries General, &c. draw commissions on all the
sums that pass through their hands, instead of hav
ing fixed or Rated pay. In proportion therefore as
the expence increases or the depreciation of the
money proceeds, the greater will be the profits aris
ing to them. I do not mean to be personal, or to
refled on the Gentlemen at the head of these de
partments, but I know enough of human rature to
be assured in my own mind, that those regulations
[Vol. ll.]
WEDNESDAY, March io, 1779.
are formed upon wrong principles, that they ought
in prudence, justice and policy to be altered, and
if possible, placed on the fame footing as in the year
1776, only with this difference, that very ample
salaries Should be allowed.
But there is a fort of creature with which this
country has of late been infefted called, by some,
jobbers or /peculators, but whom I call by the name
of monopolizers. They are a set of men who go
about to ruin their country very industriously ; and
will do it very effectually, if the Legislatures of the
several States do not timely interpole their influence
to prevent it.—l have known these people play into
each others hands with such dexterity, that the price
of a commodity has been doubled, trebled, nay, in
some instances quadrupled, before it has reached the
proper place of sale. In this manner has the honest
and truly industrious part of the community been
made the victims of the avarice and unpunilhed
villainy of these wretches. —But to proceed —
In proportion as mankind debated from the simple
habits of life to which they were accustomed in the
firft ages of the work, and as luxury increased with
the exercise and display of the passions, it became
necessary that some medium should be fixed on as
the standard of the relative value of things. —Gold and
silver, as the rarest metals, by common consent were
chosen to form this standard. —These became of course
the representatives of every thing, but nevertheless
were tubjeft to an alteration in the value according
to the plenty or scarcity of it in any country, and the
rarity, scarcity or fuperfluity of the different forts
of property.
But the ingenuity of some financiers hath, in seve
ral instances, devised mediums of a different kind,
which have answered all the purposes of gold and
silver.
Of the sum of one hundred and sixty millions fler
ling,* which is pretty nearly the amount of the
national debt in Britain at this time, I should ima
gine from the facts stated by the ingenious and accu
rate Dr. Price, that not much more than a tenth
part is in specie or hard money ; and tho' the paper
has been rapidly increasing upon the nation since the
reign of William 3d, the has been enabled to carry
on several expensive wars, and till of latef has main
tained her credit beyond all expectation.
In the province of Maffachufets-Bay, in New-
England, about the year 1748, there were several
millions of paper money in circulation, and, if my
memory serves me, the exchange was so high as
£. tioo for £. ioo sterling ; and yet in the year
1768, as I am informed, the whole of this great mats
was nearly if not entirely funk, and a hard dollar
passed only for fix shillings.
It is now about seventeen years since the last war,
in the course of which immense sums of paper money
were emitted in the different provinces. The quan
tity so fir exceeded the expectation of Great-Britain,
that the parliament granted a considerable sum in
ease of the great burthens with which it was forefeen
the colonies must be charged.—The fame idea was
entertained on this fide the Atlantic.—But what has
been the event ?
The people of America were ignorant of their own
riches—for the had nearly paid off all her public
debts at the time hostilities were commenced in 1775;
so that our resources are free and difincumbered, and
will he employed in difeharging the expence incurred
in this just and necessary war.
If we confider that such was the ability of Ame
rica, under all the disadvantages of a limited trade,
the fad is truly astonishing.—Great-Britain had a
monopoly of many of the most valuable articles of
the produce of these States. —We could not fend our
indigo, tobacco, wool, hemp, fax, iron, pot-afo, pitch,
tar, turpentine, mafls or furs, to any part of Europe
except Great-Britain —her merchants received them,
Iron was the only current money in Sparta for 700
years —Copper and leather, marked or damped with
certain devices, figures, or characters, have been
fubhituted in the room of gold and silver in Sweden ;
paper was used with great success in our own coun
try during the two last wars between Fiance and
Great-Britain, and in the latter country the experi
ment has been carried very far indeed.
* This fam at 175 per cent, exchange, amounts to
280 millions of pounds old money, but at the present
rate of exchange, comes to the enormous sum of sixteen
hundred millions.
f The loss of these colonies having greatly diminished
the property, commerce, power, and by regular infer
ence, the credit of the empire —-flocks have fallen
confderably in London, which circumflance renders it
very difficult for the Minifry to raise the annual supplies.
T H E
and exported what could be spared from their own
consumption to other countries, and reaped the
profit—fo that we were not only under the necessity
of fending many of those articles to an overflocked
market, but obliged to give away all the profits at
foreign markets, which in justice ought to have been
the property of America.
pom a partiality also very injurious to our trade,
owing in great measure to the interest of the Weft-
India Members in Parliament, a beneficial commerce
with the foreign ifiands was facrificed to the Weft-
India planters.
Our trade with Portugal and Spain was consider
able—they took from us a great quantity of corn,
which is a staple commodity of several flourifhing
colonies, and we received in return chiefly wines and
fruit, which by aft of parliament we were prohibit
ed bringing hither without firft landing in some British
port; the expences attending which, exclusive of
the loft time, the wages and maintenance of the sea
men, and tear and wear of the Blips, were immense
Add to this, that we were confined to the importa
tion of British manufactures and East-India goods,
altho' we could have had many of the fame forts of
goods from other countries much cheaper: namely,
linens of various kinds from Russia, the finer woollen
manufactures from France,* and East-India goods
from Holland.
These are some of the many disadvantages under
which our trade laboured before the happy /Era of
our emancipation from the tyranny of British aCts of
parliament, which they have coloured over with the
tender and specious appellations of regulations of
trade.
I have thus given a general view of the effeCts of
the wealth and resources of these States, from incon
teftible fads, whilst fubjeC tto all the unfavourable
circumstances of a reftriCted commerce.—But a new
and boundless profped:is now opened to us; we
have the choice of every market both for felling and
purchasing, and our ports are opened wide to all
the world (except our declared enemies) advantages
we never before experienced, and which, on the re
turn of peace, must cause riches to flow in upon us
in abradant streams.—America is said, from very
accurate observation and calculation, to duel 1? the
number of her inhabitants every 25 years : ag icul
ture, the foundation of trade, will in course have a
proportionate progfefs; and our ability to pay taxes
will increase in the compound ratio of the increase
of our agriculture and commerce. So that, indepen
dent of any other expedient, than that of the ordi
nary mode of taxing, her debts will be decreasing
and her circumstances growing better; and the tax
of each year, supposing it the fame sum from firft to
last, will be made more light in proportion as the
time is more distant from the present.
If a loan could be procured in Europe for such a
sum as would, in consequence of the present high
exchange, fink a great part of the paper in circula
tion ; the remainder would instantly become of value,
and the bills drawn for such loan would enable the
purchasers to import great quantities of all kinds of
goods from Europe.—Should this take place, which
seems most probable, the business will be performed
at once. But should it not be thought on it will
be highly necessary to impose very heavy taxes imme
diately, because it will be an easy matter to raise large
sums whilst there is so great a quantity of paper in
circulation.
But I would propose something more in aid of
taxes, towards finking the quantity—it is this —
Suppose fubferiptions, under the fandion of an
aft of the Legislature, were to be opened for this
State, for the sum of £. 300,000 or more, each sub
scription to be £,. 300, for which an annual interest
of 8,9, or io per cent, (as may be thought most pro
per) is to be allowed each subscriber during his life,
or the life of any other person (on which he would
chute rather to risk his money than his own) with
the benefit of furvivor/bip with reflect to the interest —
That is to fay, as the number of subscribers for
£300,000, at £. 300 a-piece, will be 1000 persons,
it one, two or more of the thousand dies, the interest
due to such person or persons is to be divided among
the surviving subscribers, and so on to the last sur
viving subscriber, who will be entitled to the annua!
intereftof the whole principal sum during his Use,
which is the sum of £,. 27,000 per annum; and at
* A comparative experiment in refpefl to the prices
o f these articles in France and England, has been made,
and it is proved that in France .whenever the price of
labour bestowed on any manufacture is more than one
half the value of it, the lowness of wages throws the
advantage into the French scale.
[Numb. 66.]