Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/15

Rh older discussions is found in Roger Sherman's A Caveat against Injustice or an Enquiry into the Evil Consequences of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange, published at New York in 1752 under the name of Philoeunomos; R. T.'s A Letter to the Common People of the Colony of Rhode Island Concerning the Unjust Designs ... of a Number of Misers and Money Jobbers (Providence, 1763); and a Letter from a Gentleman in Connecticut relative to Paper Currency (Boston, 1766). The ablest of the pamphlets of this period was Considerations on a Paper Currency by Tench Francis, of Pennsylvania, in 1765. While the currency question attracted the greatest attention, we find a few discussions of trade and tax problems. Among these tracts worthy of mention are Proposals for Traffic and Commerce or Foreign Trade in New Jersey by "Amicus patrise" (Philadelphia, 1718); Observations on the Act for Granting an Excise on Wine (Boston, 1720); Francis Rawle's Some Remedies Proposed for Restoring the Sunk Credit of the Province of Pennsylvania with Some Remarks on Its Trade (Philadelphia, 1721); and the anonymous The Interest of the Country in laying Duties: or a Discourse shewing how Duties on some Sorts of Merchandize may make the Province of New York richer than it would be without them (New York, n. d. [1726]). To the last tract two replies were published in the same year. It was not until the middle of the century that we again find any discussion of taxation in Some Observations on the Bill Intitled An Act for Granting to His Majesty an Excise upon Wines and on Spirits Distilled (Boston, 1754).

The writings on agriculture, on the other hand, began a little later. The well-known clergyman, Jared Eliot, published his Essays upon Field Husbandry in New England as it is or may be Ordered, in six parts from 1748 to 1759 in New London, New York, and New Haven. The interest engendered in the problem led to the publication of Extracts from the Essays of the Dublin Society Relating to the Culture and Manufacture of Flax (Annapolis, 1748) and to Charles Woodmaston's A Letter from a Gentleman from South Carolina on the Cultivation of Indico (Charleston, 1754).

With the enactment of the Molasses Act of 1763 there ensued a discussion of the economic aspects of the problem. Among the pamphlets three deserve mention: