Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/32

14 high prices for those times, but destined to become higher.

The evil of high prices was aggravated by the nature of the currency, which was government scrip, orders on merchants, and wheat; the former, though drawing interest, being of uncertain value owing to the state of the colonial treasury which had never contained money equal to the face of the government's promises to pay. The law making orders on merchants currency constituted the merchant a banker without any security for his solvency, and the value of wheat was liable to fluctuation. There were, besides, different kinds of orders. An Abernethy order was not good for some articles. A Hudson's Bay order might have a cash value, or a beaver-skin value. In making a trade a man was paid in Couch, Abernethy, or Hudson's Bay currency, all differing in value. The legislature of 1847 so far amended the currency act as to make gold and silver the only lawful tender for the payment of judgments rendered in the courts, where no special contract existed to the contrary; but making treasury drafts lawful tender in payment of taxes, or in compensation for the services of the officers or agents of the territory, unless otherwise provided by law; and providing that all costs of any suit at law should be paid in the same kind of money for which judgment might be rendered.

This relief was rather on the side of the litigants than the people at large. Merchants' paper was worth as much as the standing of the merchant. Nowhere in the country, except at the Hudson's Bay Company's store, would an order pass at par. The inconvenience of paying for the simplest article by orders on wheat in warehouse was annoying both to purchaser and seller. The first money brought into the country in any quantity was a barrel of silver dollars received at