USA > New Jersey > Documents relating to the revolutionary history of the state of New Jersey, Vol. III > Part 17
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that of silver; nor by what is inscribed on the bill, for if the bill asserts that the bearer shall be intitled to receive Eight Dollars, and he cannot get one for it, nor the amount of one in real property, then the true value of that bill is not one spanish milled dollar. I confess it is difficult exactly to make out the value of this nominal prop- erty. A more particular discussion of this subject would lead me farther than I am at present disposed to go. I must however here observe, that I cannot agree with such as make land or houses the only true barometer by which we should measure the value of our money. Let such only consider that these are mortgaged for the sinking of the whole sum, and are unmoveable property, and not such matter of trade. Are these sold, it must be under these in- cumbrances, and the apprehension of the future appreciation of the money or depreciation of the lands, which is the same; and that is the reason land sells at present so much under its true value, com- pared with other things. As the money is only nominal property, I apprehend its real value is best measured by its own specific difference, comparing it with what it would purchase before de- preciated, and in all probability will, when reduced to its former standard. It is certainly worth less than the present difference, from whatever causes this may arise.
3. I observe that all money depreciates or appreciates in propor- tion to the quantities to be exchanged, so if gold and silver exceeds the bounds of a necessary medium. This was the case in Solomon's time. Or if real property becomes scarce, and there is not a suffi- ciency to answer the circulating medium. There are instances of scarcity that has depreciated gold and silver as much as our cur- rency is at this time .- It is universally acknowledged that our paper currency is much depreciated, at a medium to twenty for one at the least. The causes are reduced by a Gentleman in the Penn- sylvania Packet of February 16, to these heads: 1. A scarcity of many articles ; 2. A monopoly of many articles; 3. A want of con- fidence in the credit of the money .-- He supposes the depreciation which naturally flows from the superabundant quantity of our money to be four to one. Add the scarcity of articles, which operates in the same way as a surplus of money to the former, and then it is probably five or six for one .- Now it appears evident that all what our money has depreciated below that, has arisen from the bad principles and practice of many of our citizens.
It appears to me undeniable, that the depreciation of our paper currency (our only medium for trade) is the sole efficient cause of our present calamities. And, according to the canon or maxim causa causa est causa causatio, the authors of this depreciation are the authors of our calamities .- Before I proceed to offer my thoughts on the remedies for this evil, I will endeavour to discover the authors of this depreciation in their respective advances, in order that their country may the better know how to trust and treat them in future ; and then briefly hint the natural tendency of this cause to produce all the evils we groan under.
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Among these depreciative are to be ranked such as form a suspicion of the credit of the money they were obliged to take, offered much more of it for real value than it was worth, that they might have this property secured, let the scale turn either way. Such plainly shewed that their principle was to secure their interest at the risk of the community. Others knew that this money was the sinews of our war, and therefore stopped at no prices, but made such monstrous offers for articles of sale, as has often shocked even the venders. This they did with a view entirely to destroy both the value and credit of it. We need not ask from what principle such suicides and aban- doned traitors . to their country acted. Next were many of the gentlemen merchants, who begun under the non-importation agreement. according to which they were bound not to take advantage of the scarcity of foreign produce, by raising their profits of sale on them. These, in order to elude the vigilance of the several committees, have been known to make the same property pass through a circle of sales. each receiving the usual profit without ever moving it; others moving it at considerable expense, on pretended sale, to a distant merchant, and directly back to the owner. All this with express view to raise the price. To this has succeeded the general monopoly and extortion to an unheard of degree. Let such men their actions interpert their principles. King Solomon pronounced their doom --- he that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him. The prices of foreign produce having by these means risen to monstrous height, the farmer and mechanick were of course led to raise the price of their labours in self defence. Tories among them were loath to part with their real property for Continental money, and a few others acted from a principle of extortion. But for the most part thoses prices have thus risen from forestallers and commissaries offering higher prices than ever the farmer would have thought to ask. Thus I venture to assert that the farmers and mechanicks have acted the most upright, sincere and persevering part in this contest, of any class of our citizens ; and I aver that the safety of our liberty and political happiness, under God. chiefly depends upon them .- Among all the harpies which have preyed upon our vitals, none have been worse than Quarter-masters, Com- missaries, and the whole host of their deputies. They having their certain per cent. for all the public money passing through their hands. it became their private interest to enhance the prices of their respective purchases. And their card they seem to have played to their advantage and the Publick's ruin, without controul. I hope the time is not far distant that their injured country will make the guilty among them meet with their just deserts .- By these several steps the prices of things have risen, or our money is got so unnaturally depreciated ; and from thence appears which sort of men our citizens have to consider as the principal authors of it.
Before I dismiss this subject I cannot avoid hinting the influence that misrule in our civil superiors has had upon this prenicious evil .- Before I proceed I beg leave to declare, that what I am about to offer does not proceed from any personal malice, envy or grudge against any
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of my superiors, for which I have not the least cause; nor from a disrespect to them. I conscientiously believe lawful civil power to be the Minister of God unto us for good, and such I truly esteem those entrusted with the government of this new empire, since the glorious rvolution. I however esteem them fallible men, and a discovery of their crrors, lessons to them, and a spur to the community to guard against the abuse of their power, and urge them to a proper discharge of their duty .- The misrule I chiefly have in view, I humbly conceive to consist in the following particulars.
1. As the origin of the depreciation is the surplus of our money, it is evident government should have emitted no more than what was necessary for a circulating medium. The prodigious surplus gave an advantageous opportunity to monopolizers and forestallers to get quan- tities of it in their hands, and use it to the vilest of purposes.
2. The neglect of due attention to the civil or staff department of the army. Their pay to be so much per cent. was a manifest induce- ment to the raising of prices, and wanton destruction of whatever they purchased, and a dilatory idleness in all that fell within that depart- ment. For whatever had a tendency to increase the demands upon the public treasury in this way, turned to their private emolument. Add to this the opportunities they have for embezzling the public money, in receiving immense quantities of it, without being called to a settlement of their accounts at certain proper periods. Suppose there should be now seventy or eighty millions of our public money disbursed, which had as yet never been properly accounted for, how difficult will it be to make a true settlement of such large, various and intricate accounts ? beside the danger of losing millions in the hands of villains.
3. A third error is the method fallen upon to prevent the necessity of emitting more money for the exigencies of the war, by funding or taking money on loan. Here the remedy was worse than the disease : because it is calculated to take in a great quantity of depreciated money, and make the community liable to render it good to the par- ticular proprietors, besides a heavy load of yearly interest to be paid. The consequence of which will be a prenicious national debt, and it has not after all answered the intended purpose. For there was at that time a surplus of money, its depreciation has kept much more than pace with it, and therefore there was no more than a necessary medium for a kind of trade then and as yet carried on. It is not the quantity but the value which settles the sufficiency for a medium. For if 30,- 000,000 of dollars at their former value was but sufficient, then at the present depreciation we must have twenty times that sum to make it equal to what is necessary. It is true that putting it in bank was not taking it out of circulation, but it was true that most of those who got it in their hands, thought they could employ it more to their emolument, in the kind of trade carried on, than receiving six per cent. on loan. If my views of these matters are right, then our government has erred by doing what was wrong. I also humbly conceive they have erred and greatly promoted the depreciation of our currency, by not doing what they ought to have done.
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4. As soon as they had emitted money sufficient for circulation, they ought immediately to have raised the sum necessary for carrying on the war by tax. The public zeal and patriotism which at that time so remarkably distinguished Americans, would have induced them to pay those taxes more cheerfully than they will now; and the ardor that forced heavy and just fines from tories for their refusal of personal service in the militia, would have forced this from them. Thus would new emissions have been effectually prevented, and the money have a proper circulation, if frugally and prudently applied.
5. Government foresaw, as they easily could, that our particular circumstances would give singular advantages to monopolizers, fore- stallers and extortioners, and the train of evils they might bring upon the community, as they have done. To prevent which Congress recommended the passing regulation acts, the only effectual means of preventing it. Some states complied, others refused. If Congress has exerted all the powers they were possessed of to carry those salutary resolves into execution, the refusing states must take all the national calamities which have thence ensued to their charge. Congress ought to have been convinced by that, that it was a most dangerous tendency to lodge the power of making war in the representative body of the United States, and still leave it in the lawful power of the minority, to ruin the whole while engaged in it, and to have induced them to remedy that evil in the confederation.
6. The last error I shall mention is the mode Congress has adopted and published, for sinking our money and paying our national debt ; an error which I conceive to be unjust in its nature, and highly injuri- ous to the most numerous and virtuous part of our community. But as this is intended as a remedy for the evils I have been endeavouring to investigate the causes of, I shall defer it to a future essay, in which I intend a thorough examination of this matter, and to apprize my fellow-citizens of its most dangerous consequences.
From what I have offered, it becomes evident from what causes the depreciation and uncertainty of the value of our currency has chiefly arisen : it requires no great penetration of thought to see that this is the sole efficient cause of our present calamities and disorders. These are the plain and natural effects of this cause. View its effect upon public spirit and patriotism. The fluctuation of the value of money makes every kind of commerce and trade precarious, and as every individual is more or less interested in it, the innate principle of self- preservation prompts them to be continually on their guard. Thus the whole of that care and attention which was given to the public weal, is turned to private gain or self-preservation. View it with respect to the division of property, we will find this the sole cause, that hundreds of our most respectable citizens, widows and orphans, who have large or comfortable estates in money at the commencement of our troubles, are now not worth the twentieth part, whereas many of the vilest among us have by the same means amassed immense estates .- With respect to social virtues, it is evident what tendency it has had on the one hand to put charity, honesty, veracity and truth on the rack : and
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on the other to banish sobriety and oeconomy, and open the sluices to luxury and dissipation.
The cause of so many evils, fatal to society, demands our serious attention and vigorous exertions to discover and apply the proper remedy, which may afford me the subject for another essay. I am, sir, Your's and the Publick's sincere friend.
A TRUE PATRIOT.
For the NEW JERSEY GAZETTE.
Mr. COLLINS.
IN the English, as well as American papers, we are told, Mr. Com- missioner Johnstone declared in the British House of Commons, No- vember last, "that two-thirds of the people of the provinces," so he is pleased to call them, meaning the American States, "wish to return to their allegiance to Britain." Lord North vouches for the truth of what the Commissioner says, and fixes also the precise proportion for the whole union, "that two-thirds of the people were inclined to return to the allegiance of Great-Britain." It is a good rule of prudence, not forwardly to pronounce a thing impossible because it is strange and unaccountable, or because, from aught that appears, there is an arrant absurdity and contradiction in it: but to disencumber this rule from absolute scepticism. I cannot therefore help asking, might not these orators every whit as well have said "all the people of American to a man" were of the disposition mentioned? Or that the pretence of their being an opposition in that country to the counsels and measures of Great Britain was a malicious falsehood, without the least colour of foundation in fact? The one to me appears equally probable with the other ; nor can the transcendent abitilies, the profound judgment or enlarged information either of the studious Premier, so famous for knocking his head against paradoxies, and splicing up prophecies not yet fulfilled ; or of the laborious Commissioner who has lately travelled so extensively in America, as from Philadelphia to New York by water. formed so wide an acquaintance by letters not yet answered, and picked up so many "things to tell his children about," give it sufficient weight to attract my belief. It is a natural question, How do these knowing ones become possessed of their knowledge? From the Whigs of America they can scarcely derive it, neither their interest, their prin- ciples or their inclinations leading them to have any connection or correspondence either with the Minister or Commissioner, or any of their missionaries, nor would they be so imprudent or self-denied as to discover the weakness of their party. Do the disaffected, do the tories of America furnish it? Are these the days of Bernard and Hutchinson? , Can a thousand men. can a single regiment now march from one end of America to the other? Is the cry about a little con- temptible faction yet in fashion? If so I know the oracle which has been consulted, and can readily distinguish the genuineness of the response. But if dire experience has for years taught a different doctrine, if facts have long since contradicted the vain boasts of courtiers and their little officious retainers, what are we to think of
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that callous effrontery which dares to persist, or of that unmixed stupidity which seems to be as credulous as ever.
,
There is something which would induce us to believe this mysterious position, as far as his Lordship is concerned, originates from reflection instead of information, as we meet with a similar stroke of the marvel- lous in the prosecution of his speech, where, in consideration of the critical state of affairs, he warmly exhorts to vigour and perseverance, and intimates that the nation has not yet, to use the words of a small poet in a like case, "whistles its favourite tune." "Formerly, Mr. Speaker, when one third only of the Americans were in our interest twenty-five thousand men were amply sufficient to curb the republican spirit of that country ; two thirds are now for us, and we find our account in it; for fifty thousand are now compleately a match for the crumbling transatlantick minority ; we need but exert ourselves like men, and when three thirds come over to our purposes, let us convince the rest, the unavailing remnants of the expiring rebellion, that we are in serious earnest, and send out an hundred thousand. There is nothing like a firm well-timed boldness of enterprize." A refined stroke of court-rhetorick, far above the reach of vulgar comprehension. Leaving Great-Britain out of the question, when two-thirds of the American are against one, and that one, to use the current language of his Lordship and his comforters, composed of a few demagogues of much violence but no judgment, at the head of the dregs of the people without interest, system or consequence, we must be contented to be surprised at hearing exhortations to extraordinary exertions, till we become better acquainted with the principles of his reasoning. Far be it from me to insinuate, I have not done it nor will I, that these assertions are palmed at a risque upon the gentle unthinking ignorance of those to whom they are uttered ; or that the Minister trusts himself to such a length of daring and conscious falsehood, steadied by the countenance of the converted Commissioner and depending upon the fidelity of those he has purchased for value received, or secured by expectancy, and the credit of such with their subordinates and depend- ents. And yet to hear it gravely said, that, in a government such as that of the United States, considered either collectively or individu- ally, a minority, and, to beg the expression, less than a minority, made up as before observed of the insignificant inferior mobile, without wisdom or wealth, without head or hands, should either impel or draw after them the majority, or more than a majority, opposite to them in every respect, is a strong temptation to hard thoughts. If two-thirds of the Americans are disposed to return to the allegiance of Great- Britain, why have they not returned? Who appointed our publick bodies to whom the conduct of national affairs is committed? Do not the people mediately or immediately give them their life, motion and object? The people in the strictest sense ; the whole, almost without exception, having a right of voice. Moreover this creation of rulers being repeated at short periods, if the disposition of the people were as declared, is it possible they would continue to countenance men who daily run counter to their planest ideas and purposes. If I employ an
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agent to transact a matter of business for me, and he abuses my confidence, sacrifices my interest, and wilfully acts in direct contradic- tions to my declared intentions, will I repeatedly employed him?
One thing may be suggested in palliation of this extravagant asser- tion. Who has not remarked how wildly and uncertainly the people of one country commonly reason concerning those of another differing in situation of territory, progress of cultivation, in manners, interests and the modes of life. It may perhaps be beyond the power of lan- guage and description to give a domestick Briton an adequate idea of
the state of America. He judges of things similar by analogy, and fondly thinks they cannot be otherwise in America than they are in Great-Britain. If, as we are told, the wheels of government in Great- Britain move upon the principles of bargain and sale; if a system of venality is established throughout the whole train; if the opinion of the Prince is that of the Ministry; if the opinion of the Ministry is that of their dependents; if the influence of these is extended through the mass of the people, such I mean as are of any account, in numerous and diversified degrees of subordination, all referring to the same object and promoting the same purpose ; in such a government, with a standing army the duration of which is unlimited, and where but & handful of the people, comparatively with whole number, have any voice or agency, the idea of two-thirds being ruled by the remaining one is not so absurd or contradictory. In America it is, and I hope always will be, inconsistent and ridiculous. I am not far from being incensed at the prevalence of this prejudice on the other side of the water. They are welcome to all the consolation they can derive from it. They never will derive more than we do when we reflect that to their credulity, ignorance and stupidity we owe, under Providence, our escape from the grasp of tyranny and oppression. The infatuation of our enemies, their campaigns of blunders in the beginning of the struggle gave us time and opportunity to look into our unknown resources, to marshal our scattered, untried strength, and to form ourselves into a well-combined regular opposition.
Silentio.
TRENTON, APRIL 7.
We hear the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of this state are notified by the Hon. the Speaker to meet at this place on Tuesday the 20th instant.
We are informed that on Wednesday night last the house of the Hon. Robert Ogden,1 Esquire, in Sussex county, was broke open by a number of armed tories, who robbed him of a considerable sum in cash : being pursued by a party of our militia, they betook themselves to the
1 For a sketch of Robert Ogden, see New Jersey Archives. 9: 451.
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mountains. Whether any of this banditti have yet been taken we have not learned.
The account inserted in this Gazette of the 24th ult. mentioning the arrival of a large body of the enemy on Staten Island, altho' roundly asserted by many people at that time, proves to be premature.
Since our last Major-General Green passed through this town on his way to camp.
Extract of a letter from Elizabeth-town, March 26.
"The enemy have an expedition on foot to the eastward, and have taken with them every privateer in the harbour at New York. Their troops were embarked from Long- Island. General Clinton, it is said, is gone with them .- Admiral Gambier, who sailed four days ago from the Hook, is arrived at Rhode Island.
Our accounts corroborate those under the Philadelphia head, of the loss of 14 of the enemy's transports in the east river, the failure of the above-mentioned expedition, and the return of Sir Henry Clinton to New York.
A correspondent, who has just arrived in this state from Virginia, informs us; that there have been lately raised in that state upwards of 2000 men for the continental service, who are to march early in this month for camp. He further says, "I have just seen Capt. Armitage, who made his escape from New York on Sunday evening the 28th ultimo, he says that a reinforcement is not expected there this summer, and that the few troops who lately arrived there from Halifax, have re-embarked for Georgia.
By two men who came on Saturday last from the Minisinks we learn, that a number of Indians have lately committed some depredations on a small settlement at Cuhichtun on the Delaware; and that another party of savages had, about a fortnight since, carried off one pris- oner, and a number of horses and other cattle from the neighborhood of Wyoming.
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TO COVER.
The ensuing season, at Colts Neck, Monmouth county, at the Farm of Capt. John Van Mater, in this state, the beautiful full-blooded HORSE
Liberty,
At forty-one dollars the season, the money to be paid at the stable door.
LIBERTY is a fine blooded bay, fifteen hands and an inch high, very lengthy and strong, and allowed by all good judges to be as handsome a horse as any in America. Liberty was got by Dove, [who] was bred by Mr. Thomas Jackson in the north of England, was got by Young Cade, his dam by Teazer, his grandam Scauing's Arabian, and out of the Gardner mare that won six royal plates of one hun- dred guineas each ; he run at Newcastle upon Tyne at four years old, on the 21st of Oct 1760, and distanced the Duke of Cleaveland's roan filly Coxana, beat the bay colt Swift belonging to William Swinburn, Esq, Charles Willson's bay colt Windless, William Comforth's bay colt Montreal, and Seteinton's bay filly Nameless. Liberty came of Milley, got by old Spark, and full sister to Col. Hopper's Pacalet, her dam was Queen Mab, got by Musgrove's grey Arabian, a most beautiful horse for which he refused 500 guineas, he was set at ten guineas a leap; her dam by the Hampton-Court Childers, her grandam by the Chestnut Arabian, her great great grandam by Leeds, her great great great grandam was a Barb brought over by Mr. Marshall, and was the dam of Mr. Croft's Grey Hound. It would be needless to say anything of his performance, as it hath been so often ascertained heretofore, and estab- lished through this state.
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