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No bank could be established unless it was based on their principles. The first bill, proposing a paper-money bank, originated in the House, and was killed there by a strong majority, Mr. Webster making a long speech against it which has not been preserved. The next bill came from the Senate, and was also for a paper-money bank. Against this scheme Mr.
An episode at Athens on the day of arrival had a spice of novelty in it which soon dulled on the palate in a rapidity of repetition: It is Sunday afternoon, and on the pavement of a quiet street stands a mute and gloomy man with an armful of what appears to be paper-money. He is holding it out in his two hands. Impossible that it should be money! But it is.
The scheme failed, and in spite of his public assurance that the Continental currency would shortly be equal in value to gold and silver, it swiftly sank until it was not worth two cents on the dollar. This wretched and worthless paper-money, which the Americans brought with them, was a perfect curse to the country.
The company was pleasant, too, and some very genteel dealers sitting near. "`My respec's to you, sir, says one, holding up his glass to me `best respec's. These pore folk isn't used to the flimsies, and was a bit surprised at your paper-money; but directly I see you, I says to my friends, "Mates, that gentleman's one of us; that's a monied man, if ever I see one."
Having duly supplied myself with Japanese paper-money ten, five, and one yen notes; fractional currency of fifty, twenty, and ten sen notes, besides copper sen for tea and fruit at road-side teahouses, on Tuesday morning, November 23d, I start on my journey of eight hundred miles through lovely Nippon to Yokohama. Captain F and Mr. B, the American consul, have come to the hotel to see me off.
The Legislature immediately sent out a huge quantity of paper-money, with which, as if by magic spell, the governor hoped to get possession of all the old cannon, powder and balls, rusty swords and muskets, and everything else that would be serviceable in killing Frenchmen. Drums were beaten in all the villages of Massachusetts to enlist soldiers for the service.
The figures alarmed us, so we all put on the waiters' plate various coins in gold, which he took to the counter and returned the change, making the total about sixteen dollars. The millreis is about a dollar, but being a paper-money was at a discount, so as only to be worth about fifty-six cents in coin.
The paper-money demagogues shouted for joy at his departure; their chorus rang through the journalism of the time. No words could express their contempt for a man who was unable to see the advantages of filling the treasury with the issues of a printing press. Marat, Hébert, Camille Desmoulins and the whole mass of demagogues so soon to follow them to the guillotine were especially jubilant.
He cannot deny what is true. England, France, Germany, America, all the great Papalangi countries, have the paper-money system. It works. From century to century it works. I challenge you, Ieremia, as an honest man, as one who was once a zealous worker in the Lord's vineyard, I challenge you to deny that in the great Papalangi countries the system works."
I no longer found in the people the same probity which had struck me four years before: this paper-money sets the imagination at work with the hope of rapid and easy gains; and the hazardous chances overturn the gradual and certain existence which is the basis of the honesty of the middling classes.
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