Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow ( Extract Inclosed ) RICHARD CRANCH TO JOHN ADAMS. - The Works of John Adams, vol. 7 (Letters and State Papers 1777-1782)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 7 (Letters and State Papers 1777-1782)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

( Extract Inclosed ) RICHARD CRANCH TO JOHN ADAMS. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 7 (Letters and State Papers 1777-1782) [1852]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 7.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


(Extract Inclosed)

RICHARD CRANCH TO JOHN ADAMS.

You will see by the papers the congress has recommended a total revolution in the paper currency. The general court is now sitting here. We have adopted the spirit of the recommendation, and a bill for that purpose has passed both houses, but is not yet enacted. By this act, a tax of seventy-two thousand pounds per annum for seven years, including the present year, is to be raised in hard money or produce at a certain rate; which sum is supposed sufficient to redeem our quota of the continental currency at its present depreciated value, estimated at forty paper dollars for one hard one. This tax is to be paid in silver, at six shillings and eight pence per ounce, or gold in proportion; or else in wheat, rye, corn, merchantable fish, barrelled pork and beef, &c. &c., which are to be delivered into the State stores, free of charge, at a certain stipulated price, such as the merchants would be willing to pay for them in silver and gold. This is the fund on which the new bills proposed by congress for this State are to be founded, and will, at the end of seven years, be sufficient to redeem them with gold and silver, and pay the intervening interest.