Early New York Paper Currency. 



47 



sessions in America had resulted partially favorable to 

 the latter. Vast amounts of money had been expended 

 by the colonies for the honor of the crown. New York 

 alone had contributed up to this time more than £81,000 

 without demanding or receiving any reimbursement, 1 as 

 had been the case in some of the other colonies. The 

 amount which she had issued since the commencement of 

 the bills of credit system, although quite large, had not 

 yet brought about the disastrous consequences which had 

 befallen some of the neighboring provinces where proper 

 precautions for canceling had not been taken. The 

 emissions and reemissions in Massachusetts alone from 

 1702 to 1740 amounted to £1,442,500, and at the latter 

 date .£230,000 were still outstanding. Its depreciation 

 was alarming. In 1700 the colonial pound was worth $2.90 

 of Massachusetts money; in 1727, $1.48; in 1734, 91 

 cents; in 1738, 78 cents, was finally reduced to & of a 

 pound sterling. 2 In respect to the colonies in general, 

 the following table exhibits the rate of exchange for £100 

 sterling at two different periods. 





1740. 



1748. 





£525, 



£1,100, 



New York, 



160, 



190, 



New Jersey, 



160, 



180, & 190. 



Pennsylvania, 



170, 



180, 





200, 



200, 



North Carolina, 



1,400, 



1,000, 



South Carolina, 



800, 



750, 







120, & 125. 



The result of unsafe and extravagant issues in the 

 eastern provinces was the passage of an act by parliament 

 in 1751, regulating and restraining paper bills of credit 

 in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New 

 Hampshire, and preventing the same from being a legal 



*Two small grants were subsequently made by the British parliament. 



2 Essex Inst Hist. Coll, i, 128. 



