Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/14

426 Massachusetts publications of ephemeral merit. In the eighteenth century there were several well-defined periods of active discussion in Massachusetts, centring respectively about the years 1714, 1720, and 1740. Among the disputants were men like John Wise, John Colman, Hugh Vance, and Richard Prye — clergymen, business men, and visionaries. Far and away the ablest was the learned physician. Dr. William Douglass (1692-1742), who wrote An Essay Concerning Silver and Paper More Especially with Regards to the British Colonies in New England (1738) and a Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America, Especially with Regard to Their Paper Money (1740).

The currency debate was not confined to Massachusetts. In 1729 there appeared in Philadelphia Benjamin Franklin's A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency. This was a well-reasoned defence of the government notes issued by Pennsylvania on land security and in reference to which the distinguished author later wrote in his Autobiography: "My friends, who considered I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money, a most profitable job and a great help to me." In 1734 there was published in Charleston the first Southern tract on the subject, an Essay on Currency of some merit. In 1737 a New York pamphlet appeared, under the title Scheme (by Striking 20,000 Pounds of Paper Money) to Encourage Raising of Hemp and the Manufacture of Iron in the Province of New York. This was followed in the ensuing decade by two tracts, A Discourse Concerning Paper Money in which its Principles are Laid Open (Philadelphia, 1743), by John Webbe, and An Address to the Inhabitants of North Carolina on the Want of a Medium in Lieu of Money (Williamsburg, 1746). With the prohibition, in 1751, of the further emission in the New England colonies of any paper money the discussion was transferred to coinage problems. Two Boston tracts of 1762 are here to be noted: Thomas Hutchinson's A Projection for Regulating the Value of Gold and Silver Coins and Oxenbridge Thatcher's Considerations on Lowering the Value of Gold Coins within the Province of Massachusetts Bay. An echo of the