•210 



Paper Currency. 



From this it will be seen that a crisis was inevitable. The paper 

 issues had been made without any regard to their redemption. The 

 government was compelled to disregard the promise contained in the 

 notes. Eepudiation made matters desperate. It was thought by some 

 that full value could be given the depreciated paper currency by legal 

 enactment. A law was passed making every person who should purchase 

 specie after April 11, 1793, liable to wear irons for six years. This law 

 did not remedy the difficulty and, the following August, another law 

 was passed which made the penalty for selling an assignat below its 

 par value, twenty years in chains. But these laws did not seem to meet 

 the difficulty or to have any good effect whatever. As a last resort it 

 was made unlawful to send any capital out of France for investment 

 in a foreign country, and any person found guilty of such an offense 

 was punishable with death . Inasmuch as human law cannot follow a 

 person after death, no further attempt to sustain the repudiated prom- 

 ises of the government by legal enactment, was made. But, notwith- 

 standing all this, the depreciation of the paper currency and the flow 

 of gold out of the country continued. In 1796, all the metallic money 

 which the government could place under the control of General Bona- 

 parte when he set out to take command of the army in Italy, was two 

 thousand gold louis. 



In the usual order of events, one would naturally suppose that, after 

 the irredeemable promises of the government had brought such a ter- 

 rible condition of affairs, no plan which was liable to repeat such 

 a calamity would be seriously considered. But there were those who 

 thought that the whole trouble could be overcome by issuing more 

 promises. For the purpose of making the scheme more plausible 

 and popular, it was decided to call the new issue "Territorial Man- 

 dates," make them convertible into land, on demand, and use them 

 in part in redeeming assignats at 30 for 1. The plan had a brillant 

 send-off, but in a few months confidence was gone, and its end was 

 suicide. Paper issues had been tried and allowed to run their course 

 to the very end. The ruin which had been caused, silenced the advo- 

 cates of the unwise measures. Those having conservative views were 

 able to get a respectful hearing. But people and law-makers became 

 fully convinced that no good could come from an execution of the 

 penal laws mentioned, and a decree was issued making it lawful for 

 every man to do business in the usual way. 



" No sooner (says Mr. McLeod," Economical Philosophy") was this 

 great blow struck at the paper currency, making it pass at its cur- 

 rent value, than specie immediately re-appeared in circulation. &»- 



