ABSTRACT
The American Colonies had been in the habit of carrying on a profitable export trade to the French West Indies, and of bringing back, rum, sugar, and molasses. A Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, directed against this trade, and, after much dispute, and the defeat of the Bill in its original shape, it was enacted in 1733. The experience of modern times has again and again justified Hutchinson's wise remark that the influence that a bad currency has upon the morals of a people is greater than is generally imagined. In New England the actual depreciation of the redeemable paper currency began in 1712 or 1713. How demoralising the effects must have been of this depreciation of the currency it is impossible to say, but an impartial judgment would probably find in this, and in the smuggling which went on by the side of it, the most serious grounds for condemnation of British Colonial policy.
