There are no Greenbackers among them. In the
letters of General Washington we find a great many requests to Congress
for a kind of money that would pass current anywhere, and suffer no
deterioration at the bottom of a river in a freshet. He preferred gold
as being the "most portable." He wrote in 1778 from White Plains:
"I have always found a difficulty in procuring intelligence by the means
of paper money, and I perceive that it increases."
It continued to increase, until, I suppose, an offer of a million
dollars in paper would not have induced a spy to enter the enemy's
lines. In fact, the general himself says as much. In acknowledging the
receipt of five hundred guineas for the secret service, he says that for
want of a little gold he had been obliged to dispense with the services
of some of his informers; and adds:
"In some cases no consideration in paper money has been found sufficient
to effect even an engagement to procure intelligence; and where it has
been otherwise, the terms of service on account of the depreciation have
been high, if not exorbitant."
The time was not distant when paper money ceased to have any value, and
Governor Jefferson of Virginia paid his whole salary for a year (a
thousand pounds) for a second-hand side-saddle.
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