The melancholy state of this province consider'd, in a letter, from a gentleman in Boston to his friend in the country.

The melancholy state of this province consider'd, in a letter, from a gentleman in Boston to his friend in the country.

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Title page

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[Page]

SIR,

YOUR's of the 20th of May, I have received, in which you complain of the Extortion and Oppression which is breaking in upon this People, and admire that the Government does not by some sutable Laws prevent it, more especially you complain of the Gentlemen concerned in the Bank, and wonder how any Men can be so blind as not to foresee the fatal Consequences that would attend that Project.

In the first Place, I must inform you, That the Scheme these Bankers are come into is not the Scheme which was first proposed: The first Proposal was to make One hundred thousand Pounds, in Notes to be paid in to the Trustees of the Bank in ten Years, in Silver at twenty Shillings per Ounce; the Silver to remain in the Bank until the ten Years were expired, By this Method [Page] we should have been sure of One hundred thousand Pounds passing amongst us to carry on our Trade, & at the End of the ten Years there would have been One hundred thousand Pounds in Silver to exchange for those Bills, for it would not have been worth any Man's while to have lock'd up these Notes in their Chests for ten Years, through it might answer their End to lock them up for three Years as they now do; I must say it was surprizing to me to see the Gentlemen concerned in that Affair so easily imposed on and perswaded to alter the Scheme, and agree to have the Silver drawn out at three Periods, viz. three Tenths at the End of three Years, and three Tenths more at the End of other three Years, and the remaining four Tenths at the End of the tenth Year: How doth this agree with their pretended Design in erecting this Bank; they pretended that their Design was to supply the People with a Medium of Exchange, and under that Notion refused letting in any to subscribe who would not oblige themselves to refuse the Rhode Island Bills emitted in 1733. Actions speak louder than Words, and are more to be regarded: When they first proposed this Alteration in their Scheme, they were told it would ruin their Design, for that the Bills or Notes would be hoarded up, and that it would raise the Price of Silver and Gold, instead of lowering the Price thereof, as they pretended it would do: I confess I was sick of the Project when I heard that one Gentleman signed ten thousand Pounds, which was a tenth Part of the Stock, and that he and others for him insisted on his having twenty Votes; to suffer this I said [Page] was Distraction in the Subscribers, and contrary to the Policy of all Nations: Power is usually Handmaid to Riches, therefore when Men of overgrown Estates are grasping after Power, every where People have a jealous Eye over'em, least they be swallowed up by them before they are aware: I suppose there never was the like Instance in any Bank. In the Bank of England, South Sea, or India Stocks, any Man who hath One thousand Pounds original Stock hath two Votes, and he who hath One hundred thousand Pounds hath but four Votes, and these Banks are settled by Act of Parliament, so careful is the Government to prevent the Rich oppressing their poor Neighbours, and I shall always be of Opinion, that the Parliament of England which is composed of so many wise, able Statesmen, and so many ingenious Merchants, and have been in the Practice of these Things for Ages past, are better Judges in such Matters than we who are but of Yesterday.

It was easy to see what these Men were driving at who proposed drawing the Silver out at three Periods: But much the greatest Part of the Subscribers were drawn in by others before they considered the Consequences that would attend the Alteration, and now dearly repent and say they were imposed on, and all they have to say for themselves is, alas, who would have thought that Men who swim in abundance, and have as one would think more than Heart can wish, should shew themselves so unsatiably Avaricious, so Unconscionable and Unjust as to pay Men Rhode Island Bills and oblige them to [Page] give Bonds to pay in Lieu thereof Merchants Notes, or on Failure of paying such Notes, to pay Silver at nineteen Shillings per Ounce, and at the same time these very Men are ingrossing the Notes, and give an Advance on them to get 'em all, if possible, into their own Hands, that so those who have mortgaged their Estates to them may never be able to redeem them, and so of Consequence such Estates must fall into their Hands for what they will be pleased to allow for them: I can't but pity those who are exposed to the Mercy of such Men.

But to these Things the Usurer will reply and say, That it is at the Borrower's Election whether he will take up their Money on such Terms or no, and perhaps he will pretend it was out of pure Friendship and to serve the Man that he lent him his Money, &c. But will not every impartial Man who hears him say so, laugh at all such idle Pretences; a Friend will rather abate of the common Interest than make any Advantage of his Friend's Necessity: A Man ought not to exact on a Stranger, much less on his Friend: But the Right of the Matter is this, The Law of the Land ought to be a Rule to the Usurer in this Case, that Man who can't be content with the common Interest, but will exact more than the Law hath set Interest at, is a Breaker of the Law and oppresses his Neighbour; but notwithstanding we have a good and wholesome Law to prevent Men's taking excessive Usury, many Men make no Scruple to exact ten per Cent for Loan of Money in Defiance of the Law; as I said before, the Law ought to [Page] be kept strictly unto, for if Men swerve from the Law, and it is winked at by the Government, it is like breaking down the Hedge or Wall, and letting in the wild Creatures to devour the Vineyard; and as to the frivolous Pretence that it is at the Election of the Borrower to take the Money or leave it, it is Necessity that obliges Men to take up Money when they give more than the common Interest, and that the Lender knows very well, and no Man ought to make another Man's Necessity his Opportunity, and take Advantage thereof to squeeze and oppress him: Let us eat and drink to day, for to morrow we die; rather than go into a Goal Men will comply with any Terms be they never so hard and unreasonable: And it is for this Reason that the Legislator makes Laws to restrain the Corruptions & vicious Inclinations of Men, without which Laws Men would prey upon one another like Fish in the Sea, the greater would devour the less: But yet notwithstanding the good Laws we have to prevent this Evil from spreading amongst us, it is too much practised at this Day to the Ruin of many Families, and if some speedy Remedy be not found out to prevent it, a few Usurers will soon eat up the Substance which many industrious People have been many Years scraping together, in Hopes that their Children would reap the Benefit of it.

As to what you say about the Government's interposing their Authority to prevent the Destruction of so many Families as are in Danger of being ruined by this vile Bank, I am informed it was proposed in the Assembly to make our [Page] Province Bills a lawful Tender for them; how that Matter came to be dropt I know not, it is great Pity it was not prosecuted to Effect, for such an Act would have been of great Service, not only to those who have mortgaged their Estates for these Bank Notes, or have borrowed Money on Bond, to pay in these Notes or in Silver, but to the greatest Part of the Bankers themselves, who groan under the Burthen when the Time comes to pay in their Silver, for it hath raised the Price of Silver to Twenty seven Shillings and six Pence per Ounce; what dreadful Sufferers then are they like to be, who as soon as they received their Money out of this Bank, put it away immediately to pay their Debts, and never had the Advantage of making any profitable Improvement of it, it hath been a very unhappy Bank to such Men, their Case calls for Pity.

The Objections made by some in the Assembly against making the Province Bills a lawful Tender for these Notes are, First, They make a Matter of Conscience of it, to oblige a Man to take any thing for his Bond, other than what is mentioned in the Condition. And Secondly, They say it will be a Means of having the Province Bills hoarded up; In Answer to these Reasons, I must observe, That the Government have in their great Wisdom, with great Justice and in Compassion to the Poor, as well becomes the Fathers of the People, made the Bills of this Province a lawful Tender for any Debt that should be contracted after the making that Law, so that no Person may be imprisoned who tenders [Page] those Bills for Payment; and shall the same Government see a few Men issue out their own Notes as a Bank, and call nineteen Shillings of those Notes an Ounce of Silver, and take Bonds for them accordingly? Shall Usurers as they come to be possest of these Notes, call in their Bonds and Morgages, and oblige their Debtors to give new Bonds and Mortgages, payable in these Notes, or Silver at nineteen Shillings per Ounce? Shall a few mercenary Men so prey upon their necessitous Neighbours, as to pay them Rhode Island Bills, & oblige them to give Bonds or Mortgages to pay in Lieu thereof Bank Notes or an Ounce of Silver for every nineteen Shillings, when an Ounce of Silver is worth twenty-seven Shillings and six Pence, and rising, and will be at thirty Shillings per Ounce before the Year comes about, if this Bank continues as it is, I say will the Government suffer such horrid Injustice? No surely. No Christian can hear these Things and not be deeply affected at the Thoughts of such monstrous Extortion and Oppression breaking in like a Torrent upon the People, much less will a Christian Government suffer it: But I have heard some of these Bankers say, It is not in the Power of the Government to do any thing to relieve the People in this Matter: To which I reply and say, When a Physician finds his Patients Case extremely hazardous, he will venture to go further than in ordinary Cases, desperate Diseases call for extraordinary Remedies, even so when the State is disordered and Extortion and Oppression comes rowling over a People like the raging Sea, and all Things are running into Confusion; whence can we expect [Page] Relief but from the Government who are cloathed with Power for that very End, and GOD expects it from them; that they be Eyes to the blind, and Feet to the lame, and deliver the Poor out of the Hands of their Oppressors: The Rich are always able to help themselves, and it is in their Power, very often, to oppress their Neighbours, if the Government do not take Care to prevent it, and their Assistance was never more wanted than at this Day to deliver this poor oppressed, and distressed People out of the Hands of the Rich and Mighty: I believe every disinterested Man in the Province will say, That he who receives Rhode Island Bills, ought to pay in the same, and all others ought to pay in Bills of this Province. Shall any Man's Note be better than the Money of the Government established by the Law of the Land and confirmed by the King? Can there be any Injustice in making a Law to oblige every Man who hath paid Rhode-Island Bills to accept the same for any Specialties for which he paid no other than those Bills, and to oblige all others to receive the Bills of this Government in lieu of the Merchants Notes? No, I know it is the Opinion of many good Men and rich Men too amongst us, That such a Law would do a great deal of Good, and do no Injustice to any Man: Most certainly it would do this Good, it would bring abroad the Merchants Notes, we shou'd soon see them abroad circulating in Trade and doing the Office for which it was pretended they were made, viz. pass from Man to Man to facilitate our Payments in in our Commerce, and I am perswaded that nine Tenths of the Bankers were concerned with no [Page] other Views, but that the whole People should reap that Benefit by the Circulation of the Notes; but when it was proposed to draw 'em in at three Periods, no Man that wou'd bestow a Thought on it, could think they ever would Circulate or do the least Good to the Trade, or to People in general, but quite the contrary: It was easy to see that some Men would build great Estates by them, and that many Families would be ruined by them. And can this be thought to be for the Good of the Publick? All Men know that the middling Sort of People are the greatest Support to the common Wealth, they pay the greatest Part to support both Church and State. But we, in the Method we are in, shall in a little Time have no middling Sort, we shall have a few, and but a very few Lords, and all the rest Beggars: Some there are among us who say there is Money enough, and that there is no Want of Money with them to whom the Money belongs; as if Money was designed only for a few rich Men to lye in their Chests, until a lucky Opportunity offers it self for them to make their Market with on their poor Neighbours: I confess these Men's Notions concerning Money, vastly differs from mine: I think every Man is Intitled to Money, as much as the richest Man amongst us; I mean to so much as he Earns; the Tradesmen and Labourers ought to receive their Money as soon as their Work is done, and not be turned away to Shops, or perhaps to a Shop for their Pay: The Labourers at this Day will work for Six Shillings per Day in Money rather than for Seven Shillings in Goods, and I believe it is their Interest so to do, I confess, I shall never [Page] think there is Money enough till poor Men can get Money for their Labour, and have it in their Power to lay it out where they can be best used, and not be obliged to go to such a particular Shop for their Pay because their Imployer deals with that Shop and no other, which is the Case of many in this Town every Day, and it is to be feared, some Shopkeepers use but little Conscience with such Customers, but make 'em pay dearly for what they have.

The second Objection some make against the Province Bills being made a lawful Tender for the Merchants Notes is, That in lieu of hoarding up these Notes, they will then hoard up the Province Bills: But I confess I can see no weight at all in this Argument, for these Notes are mostly in the Hands of the Merchants who made 'em, and now keep 'em on Purpose to make a Market of 'em by leting 'em out to receive Silver at Nineteen Shillings per Ounce in lieu of them, and they never will come abroad until there be such a Law made. But admit it should have that Tendency as they pretend, we shou'd be much better than we are now with Respect to our Trade; for we should then as I said before, have the Notes abroad Circulating in Payment, and that would prevent hundreds of Lawsuits which are brought into the Courts only through the scarcity of Money. This Consideration alone methinks should induce the General Court to make the Province Bills a lawful Tender for them. But add to this the mighty Advantage it would be to many poor Men whose pressing Necessities have obliged 'em to Mortgage [Page] their Estates for these Notes, who if something be not done for their Relief will be obliged to pay forty per Cent for the Money they have so borrowed, over and above the common Interest established by Law. But I can't believe the Province Bills will be hoarded up more than they now are, if there were such a Law; for every Man who keeps any Money by him, keeps our Province Bills as long as he can, it is the last Money he will part with. We see very few of 'em abroad, we have little else but Rhode Island Bills to go to Market with from Day to Day to buy our Provisions with. To speak plain, our Misfortune is, we have a few lucky Men among us who have had the good Fortune to raise considerable Estates from nothing within these twenty or thirty Years: these Men are for sinking all paper Mediums, and say, If the paper Bills were once gone we shou'd have Silver among us; but I confess I can't be of their Opinion, I rather think we must have a paper Medium or none at all: While the Ballance of our Trade with Great-Britain is so much in their Favour, all our Silver and Gold which we Import from other Places, will go to England to Ballance that Account, we shall have none of it stay with us until we can find a Way to live more Independent of them: And every Scheme that can be projected to bring in Silver, will most certainly be attended with the same Inconveniencies which have attended the Merchants Notes. I wish some Method could be found out to revive our dying Trade, for I see nothing but Poverty and Misery before us in the Way we are in; our Neighbours at Rhode Island Thrive and grow Rich while [Page] we decline every Year; they sit easy, the Interest of their Money out on Loan pays the whole Charge of the Government, while we are loaded with Taxes, more especially this Town, we set at a very great Charge, more then the People will be able to pay, unless some Way can be found out to enliven our Trade, which I am of opinion must be by supplying the People with Money, or assisting them in supplying themselves in a private Way.

It seems very strange, that Men who have raised themselves and Families from nothing by the Help of our Province Bills, should be such bitter Enemies to a Paper Medium; I am sure it is past the Art of Man to make Silver pass as Money unless you can prevent the Silver which comes in being ship'd off again: If some Way be not found out to supply the Trade with some Medium or other, to buy and sell with and pay our Debts with, our Trade will sink and come to nothing, and Poverty will soon overspread the whole Land, both Town and Country: We in this and the other Sea Ports will be first affected with it, but the whole Land will feel the sad Effect of it in a little Time: We may speak as contemptibly as we please of the Rhode-Islanders emitting Bills, they have found the Sweet of it, for they have eaten up half our Trade with it, and will soon eat us out of all if we don't contrive some sort of Money to pass amongst us: It is easy for us to have a better Medium than what we now have, for we have nothing but Rhode Island Bills passing among us, whereas if we had a Medium of our own we [Page] might soon sink all their Bills, but to talk of refusing to take them, before we can have some other Medium to answer in Lieu of them, seems very strange, it is Necessity alone which gives them a Currency: Did ever any trading Place pretend to carry on their Trade without some sort of Money; I believe every Nation under the Sun have something passing amongst them, which answers instead thereof. It is evident that the Heathen in this Land had their Wampum which passed amongst them, and no doubt, was in as much Esteem with them as Silver is with us, and with it they traded; the Inland Country supplied those who dwelt on the Sea Coast with Furs, &c. for Cloathing, and they who dwelt on the Sea Coast supplied the Country with Fish, Fowl, &c. according to the different Seasons of the Year. I have heard some Gentlemen cry up this Merchants Bank for the best Paper Money that ever was made, but I think I have plainly proved it to be just the Reverse; had they stuck to the first Proposal it would have been of general Service for eight or nine Years, but some Gentlemen had not Patience to wait so long for the Silver, which proved the Ruin of the Scheme. To Conclude, Happy should we be if we always bore in mind those wise Sayings left us upon Record; Riches profit not in the Day of Wrath; a little that a righteous Man hath is better than the Treasures of many Wicked.

Boston, June 1. 1736.

I am, Sir, Your assured Friend.

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THE Melancholy State OF THIS PROVINCE Considered, in a LETTER, From a Gentleman in Boston to his Friend in the Country.

Printed in the Year 1736.

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Title statement

The melancholy state of this province consider'd, in a letter, from a gentleman in Boston to his friend in the country.

Gentleman in Boston.

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI :

Date

2008-09.

ID [DLPS]

N30189

ID [TCP]

N30189

ID [STC]

Shipton 40100

ID [NOTIS]

APX9022

ID [IMAGE-SET]

40100

ID [EVANS-CITATION]

99025994

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Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 ; no. 40100.

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(Evans-TCP ; no. N30189)

Transcribed from: (Readex Archive of Americana ; Early American Imprints, series I ; image set 40100)

Images scanned from Readex microprint and microform: (Early American imprints. First series ; no. 40100)

Source

— The melancholy state of this province consider'd, in a letter, from a gentleman in Boston to his friend in the country., Gentleman in Boston..

Extent

14, [2] p. ; 16 cm. (8vo)

s.n.],. [Boston :: Printed in the year 1736.. (Concerning the bills called merchants' notes of hand.) (Dated on p. 14: Boston, June 1, 1736.)

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