had sustained by its depreciation in the market, they affixed to it themselves a specific depreciation, promising in the body of their notes to pay them on demand in government money at a discount, in the first of these instances, of twenty-five per cent., and in the last of fifty per cent.  But it must be evident that a currency of this nature, payable on demand, became of equal value with the sterling money of the government, to those who took it at the stipulated depreciation; and it was accordingly no sooner in circulation, than it got into the hands of the importing merchants, and was presented to the drawers for payment.  It was thus too good for its intended purpose; and the old worthless currency, which had been for a while proscribed, gradually returned into circulation.  The present governor, sensible of the advantage which the colony would derive from its supercession, and from the substitution of another of intrinsic value in its stead, caused ten thousand pounds worth of dollars to be sent from India, and had a piece struck out of the middle of each, to which he affixed by proclamation, the value of fifteen pence, and to the remainder that of five shillings, making the whole dollar worth six shillings and three pence.  This money he caused to be given in payment of the various articles of internal produce received into the king’s stores; but as they were exchanged every month, if presented to the commissariat department, for bills on the lords of the treasury, in the same manner as the government receipts had been exchanged previously, they have not realized the hopes of abolishing the currency, with which they were issued.  Some few of them, indeed, have from time to time eluded the grasp of the merchants and traders, and got in consequence of the minuteness of their separate value into temporary circulation; but the use of the original currency has neither been superseded nor diminished.

That the colonists should have been thus forced during so long a period, in spite of all their efforts, and contrary to the desire of their government, to tolerate a medium of circulation possessing no intrinsic value whatever, and dependent solely on a general, constrained, and tacit consent for its support and duration, is, I should apprehend, one of the most forcible proofs which it is in the nature of things to adduce, in illustration of their present poverty and wretchedness.  It is impossible to offer a more satisfactory demonstration of the inferiority of their means to their necessities.  Important under every point of view as is the establishment of a safe currency, such is the irresistible pressure of their debts, so much is their expenditure superior to their revenue, that they can devote no portion of it to the most urgent purpose of domestic economy:  the whole is absorbed, and does not suffice to procure those articles of foreign supply, which are absolutely indispensable to civilized life.