ud against the
speculators, especially those who operated in bread-stuffs. Washington
said he would like to hang them all on a gallows higher than that of
Haman; but they were, after all, but the inevitable products of this
abnormal state of things, and the more guilty criminals were the
demagogues who went about preaching the doctrine that the poor man needs
cheap money. After the collapse of this continental currency in 1780, it
seemed as if there were no money in the country, and at the peace the
renewal of trade with England seemed at first to make matters worse. The
brisk importation of sorely needed manufactured goods, which then began,
would naturally have been paid for in the south by indigo, rice, and
tobacco, in the middle states by exports of wheat and furs, and in New
England by the profits of the fisheries, the shipping, and the West
India trade. But in the southern and middle states the necessary revival
of agriculture could not be effected in a moment, and British
legislation against American shipping and the West India trade fell with
crippling force upon New England. Consequently, we had little else but
specie with which to pay for imports, and the country was soon drained
of what little specie there was. In the absence of a circulating medium
there was a reversion to the practice of barter, and the revival of
business was thus further impeded. Whiskey in North Carolina, tobacco in
Virginia, did duty as measures of value; and Isaiah Thomas, editor of
the Worcester "Spy," announced that he would receive subscriptions for
his paper in salt pork.

[Sidenote: State of the coinage.]

It is worth while, in this connection, to observe what this specie was,
the scarcity of which created so much embarrassment. Until 1785 no
national coinage was established, and none was issued until 1793.
English, French, Spanish, and German coins, of various and uncertain
value, passed from hand to hand. Beside the ninepences and
fourpence-ha'-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens,
picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the
doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas,
carolins, ducats, and chequins. Of coppers there were English pence and
halfpence and French sous; and pennies were issued at local mints in
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The
English shilling had everywhere degenerated in value, but differently in
different lo