The Rhode-Island Republican. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1809-1841, 1836-01-06
THE TERMS
OF THE
MEMOIR OF RHODE-ISLAND.

MEMOIR OF RHODE-ISLAND.
I7l5
The general assembly met at Newport the Sd
Gay of May, U.S. being the day before the general
election. Present the governor, deputy governor,
assistants, and the following named deputies from
he towns.
di Newport.
VIM. Wanton, Robert Gardner,
James Brown, Benz Ellery,
Thomas Weaver, Wm Coddington.
q t.. Pr0yidence,
Andrew Harris Rowland Waterman.
y Thomas Steere.
Portsmouth.
Wm. CoggeshalI, WIN. Hail.
Adam Lawton, Thomas Cornell,
Warwick
Randall Holden, John Weeks,
Anthony Low, Moses Lippitt.
Westerly.
Daniel Brown Joseph Stanton.
4 Ne,o ShOreham.
Simon Ray.
u Kingston.
Elisha Cole, Stephen Hazard,
Greenpich.
Thomas Fry Thomas Spencer.
jamestown.
David Greene, John Underwood.
g By Election, Nay At
SAMUEL CRANSTON, Gov.
JOSEPH JENKs, Dep. Gov.
Assistants.
John Wanton, Nathaniel Coddngton
James Brown, Thomas Fcnner,
Wm. Coggeshall, Samuel Clarke,
Randall Holden, John Weeks,
Jeffrey Champln, John Eldred.
u Richard Ward, Recorder.
Joseph Borden, Treasurer.
Weston Clarke, Attorney General.
The assembly adjourned to, and met June 18th,
l7l5. An act passed for enIarging and repairing
the colony Jail in Newport and another appointing
Richard Partridge of London as the colony's agent
in England
The assembly met again in Newport on the 18th
of July 17l5. An act passed this assembly for is
suing thirty thousand pounds in bills of credit, to
deray the public charges, and also to let out at five
per cent interest, to the inhabitants of the several
towns on land security, in sums not over 500 nor
under ESQ to any one person..
The reasons gwen for this, Unprecedented a
mount of paper money was, the expenses of the late
wars, the decay of trade the great scarcity of silver
and gold, &c.
All the evils enumerated, except the first appears
to this day TO have arisen, not for the want of
more paper money but in consequence of having too
much of it; the natural, direct, tendency of which
was to Danish silver and gold, from and asp to en-
barras, the trade of the colony. The subject was
not then, well understood, to all its bearings
The people found it easier to imprint paper and
use it for money, than to supply the medium of cir
culation by the slow returns of trade and industry
and the practice of letting the money individuals,
on mortgage, was the most fatal policy of the whole
system for by filling the pockets of the people,
rapid depreciation was sure 10 follow and that de-
probation must eventually fall on the merchants,
traders and capitalists, whose claims were payable
in the money of the colony thus the capitalists, mer
chants &c. defrauded, and mostly ruined, and
foreign trade nearly annihllated, by the very
taken with view to advance it. The return of
peace too had reduced the price of the produce of
the countryside home market for which during
The war; had been great for the supply of the land
and sea forces, which had been paid by the crown
in bills on England. This project of issuing bills
of credit, and letting them out to individuals con-
tinued to be the practice up to the revolutionary
war, and in some instances after that time by the
colonies, afterwards states. We shall not attempt,
in future to give detail of the many issues of such
bills of credit or banks they were called as that
would be wholly inconsistent with the brevity of
this work.
The assembly granted one balf the revenue arr