402
would be worth while, to submit to the sacrifice of nineteen out of twenty dollars, if they could thereby stop further depreciation. They, therefore, published an address to their constituents, in which they renewed their original declarations, that this paper money should be redeemed at dollar for dollar. They proved the ability of the States to do this, and that their liberty would be cheaply bought at that price. The declaration was ineffectual. No man receiv ed the money at a better rate ; on the contrary, in six months more, that is, by March, 1780, it had fallen to forty for one. Con gress then tried an experiment of a different kind. Considering their former offers to redeem this money, at par, as relinquished by the general refusal to take it, but in progressive depreciation, they required the whole to be brought in, declared it should be redeemed at its present value, of forty for one, and, that they would give to the holders new bills, reduced in their denomination to the sum of gold or silver, which was actually to be paid for them. This would reduce the nominal sum of the mass in circu lation, to the present worth of that mass, which was five millions ; a sum not too great for the circulation of the States, and which, they therefore hoped, would not depreciate further, as they con tinued firm in their purpose of emitting no more. This effort was as unavailing as the former. Very little of the money was brought in. It continued to circulate and to depreciate, till the end of 1780, when it had fallen to seventy-five for one, and the money circulated from the French army, being, by that time, sensible in all the States north of the Potomac, the paper ceased its circula tion altogether, in those States. In Virginia and North Carolina, it continued a year longer, within which time it fell to one thousand for one, and then expired, as it had done in the other States, with out a single groan. Not a murmur was heard, on this occasion, among the people. On the contrary, universal congratulations took place, on their seeing this gigantic mass, whose dissolution had threatened convulsions which should shake their infant con federacy to its centre, quietly interred in its grave. Foreigners, indeed, who do not, like the natives, feel indulgence for its memo ry, as of a being which has vindicated their liberties, and fallen in the moment of victory, have been loud, and still are loud in their complaints. A few of them have reason ; but the most noisy are not the best of them. They are persons who have become bank rupt, by unskilful attempts at commerce with America. That they may have some pretext to offer to their creditors, they have bought up great masses of this dead money in America, where it is to be had at five thousand for one, and they shew the certifi cates of their paper possessions, as if they had all died in their
