ns, under cover of a snow storm, surprised the English
at Minas; who, after an obstinate resistance, in which they lost
upwards of one hundred men, were compelled to capitulate, and to
engage not to bear arms against his Most Christian Majesty, in Nova
Scotia for one year. De Ramsay, who commanded the French, returned
soon afterwards to Canada.

No farther transactions of importance took place in America during the
war, which was terminated by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. By this
treaty, it was stipulated that all conquests made during the war
should be restored; and the colonists had the mortification to see the
French re-possess themselves of Cape Breton.

The heavy expenses which had been incurred by the New England
colonies, and especially by Massachusetts, had occasioned large
emissions of paper money, and an unavoidable depreciation. Instead of
availing themselves of peace, to discharge the debts contracted during
war, they eagerly desired to satisfy every demand on the public
treasury, by farther emissions of bills of credit, redeemable at
future and distant periods. Every inconvenience under which commerce
was supposed to labour, every difficulty encountered in the interior
economy of the province, was attributed to a scarcity of money; and
this scarcity was to be removed, not by increased industry, but by
putting an additional sum in circulation. The rate of exchange, and
the price of all commodities, soon disclosed the political truth that,
however the quantity of the circulating medium may be augmented, its
aggregate value cannot be arbitrarily increased; and that the effect
of such a depreciating currency must necessarily be, to discourage the
payment of debts, by holding out the hope of discharging contracts
with less real value than that for which they were made; and to
substitute cunning and speculation, for honest and regular industry.
Yet the majority had persevered in this demoralising system. The
depreciation had reached eleven for one; and the evil was almost
deemed incurable, when the fortunate circumstance of a reimbursement
in specie, made by parliament for colonial expenditures on account of
the expeditions against Louisbourg and Canada, suggested to Mr.
Hutchinson, speaker of the house of representatives in Massachusetts,
the idea of redeeming the paper money in circulation, at its then real
value.

This scheme, at first deemed Utopian, was opposed by many well meaning
men who feared that