Page:The Life of George Washington, Volume 1.djvu/310

 280 INTRODUCTION. chap, vu. be lent out at interest, on security, and to be 1703. redeemed gradually, by the payment from the borrowers of one twelfth part of the money emitted. The bills were made a legal tender, and the creditor who should refuse them, lost his debt. After the emission of these bills, the rate of exchange rose in the first year to one hundred and fifty, and in the second, to two hundred per centum. The effect of this depreciation, and of the tender law which accompanied it, on creditors, and on morals, was obvious and certain. As foreign coin generally circulated in the colonies, queen Anne, in the sixth year of her reign attempted to settle its nominal value by proclamation. However convenient it might have been to establish uniform rates of coin throughout the colonies, this attempt did not succeed. Many circumstances concurred to control the operation of this proclamation on the currency of the country. In New York, the Leislerian and anti-Leis- lerian factions were still kept up, and alter- nately persecuted each other. To this cala- mity, was added in the year 1702, the still heavier affliction of a contagious fever, brought in a vessel from the West Indies, which, in almost every case, was mortal. A similar Chalmer.,„Smith.