Macquarie mutilated each by cutting out a small coin for exchange. The value of the large coin was 5s. and of the small 1s. 3d.[1]
The Proclamation insisting that the notes should be immediately payable in sterling money was a failure, and the courts were unable to enforce it.[2] Its objects were made more unattainable by the action of Commissary Allan, who arrived in June, 1813. He persuaded the Governor to allow him to replace the old system of store receipts at the Commissariat by the issue of promissory notes signed by the Commissary, pointing out the greater convenience and simplicity of the method. But Allan issued notes for private as well as public purposes, and improved his own while injuring the Government's credit. Had he kept, as he promised to do, within his monthly estimate, he would have run no risk. But he did not, and Macquarie was practically forced to restore the old custom of store receipts. He did it, however, so suddenly as to cause Allan great financial embarrassment, and to procure him the sympathy of the whole settlement.[3] In 1816 a determined effort was made to do away with the depreciated paper currency. At the end of November the tender of sterling money for the face value of the currency notes was again made compulsory, but finding that this could not be enforced, on the 7th December a Proclamation was issued containing a schedule of the rates at which they were to be exchanged, and this was carried out very leniently.[4] Wylde in his desire to find a stable currency to replace the promissory notes proposed that a bank should be established, a scheme
- ↑ D. 5, May, 1812, Bathurst to M., R.O., MS. also D. 1, 28th June, 1813. R.O., MS.
- ↑ Proclamation, 11th December, 1813. Bent and Wylde both admitted actions founded on the notes which by this Proclamation were declared illegal. See Evidence of Wylde, Appendix, Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS.
- ↑ D. 6, 23rd June. 1815. R.O., MS. A similar attempt was made by Allan's successor in 1817 with precisely the same result.
- ↑ Wylde described the state of affairs when he arrived in 1816 in the following words: … "I very soon … had to discover, that to give effect and validity to any of the currency notes, for the non-payment of which actions were brought, it would be necessary altogether to overlook and dismiss from the consideration of the Court in Judgment several colonial Proclamations and Orders not only of old but of very recent date, which declared all such notes as (were) in question and their negotiations to be absolutely null and void". Wylde to Goulburn 3rd March, 1817. R.O., MS. The Proclamations were those of 1813. It was this state of affairs which gave rise to the above-mentioned meetings, etc., and the Proclamation, 7th December, 1816.
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