STATE OF DELAWARE 391 



contributed later to its steady fall. Opposition to the 

 war and mistrustful fear of its outcome, on the part of 

 the discontent ; the preference of a trading nation for 

 the nobler, solider, and glittering metals, a preference 

 never extinct and hardly to be repressed by patriotism ; 

 the obligation of the merchant to pay for his imported 

 European wares with sounding coin ; the necessity of 

 supplying American soldiers in British prisons with 

 cash money, which their relatives wished to do even if 

 the Congress assiduously neglected it ; and finally the 

 absolute impossibility, or at least the extreme improb- 

 ability of coming by a sure fonds on which in some 

 measure to base the credit of the rapidly increasing 

 paper millions ; all these circumstances contributed pro- 

 portionately to the depreciation of the paper-money. 

 Then a few merchants, under some one of these pre- 

 texts, began to ask for their wares the customary 

 cash-price, or the double of it in paper-money. Who- 

 ever had to buy, must submit to the condition, but in 

 his own business made use of a similar for his reim- 

 bursement. But this device once adopted, the deprecia- 

 tion of the paper-money went forward irresistibly. The 

 Congress sought in vain, with the whole fulness of its 

 credit, and by repeated and emphatic decrees, to stay 

 the pernicious evil, but all the measures adopted re- 

 mained without effect, or the effect was of short dura- 

 tion. Once the tormented Congress set an example of 

 the greatest tyranny, through a law for the mainte- 

 nance of its paper, known as the ' Tender-law ' and for- 

 ever to be abominated. The value of the paper had 

 already considerably fallen, when it was proclaimed 

 that in the payment of old debts the Congress or 

 Paper-money should be legally accepted at its full 



