[I.] WHEREAS the Act of Parliament made in the sixth Year of her late
Majesty Queen Anne, intituled
An Act for ascertaining
the Rate of foreign Coins in her Majesty's Plantations in America,
hath been intirely frustrated in his Majesty's said Colonies of
Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations,
Connecticut, the
Massachusets Bay, and
New
Hampshire in
America, by their creating and issuing, from
Time to Time, great Quantities of Paper Bills of Credit, by virtue of
Acts of Assembly, Orders, Resolutions or Votes, made or passed by their
respective Assemblies, and making legal the Tender of such Bills of
Credit in Payment for Debts, Dues and Demands; which Bills of Credit
have, for many Years past, been depreciating in their Value, by means
whereof all Debts of late Years have been paid and satisfied with a much
less Value than was contracted for, which hath been a great
Discouragement and Prejudice to the Trade and Commerce of his Majesty's
Subjects, by occasioning Confusion in Dealings, and lessening of Credit
in those Parts: Therefore, for the more effectual preventing and
remedying of the said Inconveniencies, may it please your most Excellent
Majesty, that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King's most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament
assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That from and after the
twenty-ninth Day of
September one thousand seven hundred and
fifty-one, it shall not be
[_]
No Act to pass for
creating Paper Bills of Credit,
lawful for the Governor, Council or Assembly for the Time being, or any
of them, or for the Lieutenant Governor, or
Person presiding or acting as Governor or Commander in Chief, for the
Time being, within all or any of the aforesaid Colonies or Plantations
of
Rhode Island, and
Providence Plantations,
Connecticut, the
Massachusets Bay, and
New
Hampshire, to make or pass, or give his or their Assent to the
making or passing of any Act, Order, Resolution or Vote, within any of
the said Colonies or Plantations, whereby any Paper Bills or Bills of
Credit, of any Kind or Denomination whatsoever, shall be created or
issued under any Pretence whatsoever; or whereby the Time limited, or
the Provision made, for the calling in,
[_]
or for
protracting the Time for the calling in such, or for depreciating or
reissuing the same.
sinking or discharging of such
Paper Bills, or Bills of Credit, as are already subsisting and passing
in Payment, within any of the said Colonies or Plantations, shall be
protracted or postponed; or whereby any of them shall be depreciated in
Value, or whereby the same shall be ordered or allowed to be re-issued,
or to obtain a new and further Currency; and that all such Acts, Orders,
Resolutions or Votes, which shall or may be passed or made, after the
said twenty-ninth Day of
September one thousand seven hundred
and fifty-one, within all or any of the said Colonies or Plantations,
shall be, and are hereby declared to be null and void, and of no Force
or Effect whatsoever.
