ury, to resort to new and
repeated emissions; and the people found a new source of
distress in the means adopted for their relief."

This subject is frequently referred to, and always as a source of
distress; as a disastrous measure of policy.--

"Louisiana suffered a great deal from the want of a circulating
medium. Card money had caused the disappearance of the gold and
silver circulating in the colony before its emission, and its
subsequent depreciation had induced the commissary ordonnateur
to have recourse to an issue of _ordonances_, a kind of bills
of credit, which although not a legal tender, from the want of
a metallic currency, soon became an object of commerce. They
were followed by treasury notes, which being receivable in the
discharge of all claims of the treasury, soon got into
circulation. This cumulation of public securities in the
market, within a short time threw them all into discredit, and
gave rise to an _agiotage_, highly injurious to commerce and
agriculture."

"The province was at this time inundated by a flood of paper
money. The administration, for several years past, had paid in
due bills all the supplies they had obtained, and they had been
suffered to accumulate to an immense amount. A consequent
depreciation had left them almost without any value. This had
been occasioned, in a great degree, by a belief that the
officers who had put these securities afloat, had, at times,
attended more to their own than to the public interest, and
that the French government, on the discovery of this, would not
perhaps be found ready to indemnify the holders against the
misconduct of its agents. With a view, however, to prepare the
way for the redemption of the paper, the colonial treasurer was
directed to receive all that might be presented, and to give in
its stead certificates, in order that the extent of the evil
being known, the remedy might be applied."

"The province laboured under great difficulties, on account of
a flood of depreciated paper, which, inundating it, annihilated
its industry, commerce, and agriculture. So sanguine were the
inhabitants of their appeal to the throne, that they instructed
their emissary, after having accomplished the principal object
of his mission, to solicit relief in this respect."

W