258 CHANGE OF THE USURY LAW. 



this particular time, when money is so scarce, it is worth 

 more than your legal interest of 7 per cent, but you 

 shall fix the rate yourselves.&quot; This was done by the 

 parties receiving the accommodation, and the transaction 

 was completed. But when, towards the close of 1849, 

 the money was to be repaid, the New York house refused 

 to pay, denounced the transaction as usurious, the con 

 tract void, and the principal sum forfeited, in terms of 

 the State law. But all New York was shocked with their 

 bad faith, and sent the repudiating party to Coventry. 

 Everybody knew that the usury promised was the fair 

 price of money at the time, paid by thousands at that 

 crisis both in England and America, to save themselves 

 from bankruptcy ; and a bill was forthwith brought before 

 the Assembly at Albany to assimilate the law to that of 

 New England, and to make it no longer a cloak for 

 fraud, and an excuse for dishonesty and afore-thought- 

 swindling. 



There is not only much energy, but much moral 

 weight in the New England character. New York, as 

 in this case, and in that of its free-schools, imitates and 

 adopts, and perhaps carries farther, what has already 

 been proved in New England. Canada, again, and the 

 more western States, imitate New York as their original ; 

 and thus, by another less direct process than that which 

 I have adverted to in the preceding volume of sending 

 drafts of their most enterprising people do the poorer 

 States of the east influence and propel, even in advance 

 of themselves, the richer, wider, and more populous 

 States of the western and north-western country. 



