colony, and answered the purpose for paying private debts as well, or rather better, than gold and silver. As the trade of the country increased, no doubt a certain quantity of money was necessary to carry it on with ease and freedom; but when paper bills are permitted to increase beyond what are necessary for commercial ease and utility, they sink in value; and in such a case creditors lose in proportion to their depreciation. In Carolina, as well as in the other British colonies in America, the greatest part of gold and silver current was foreign coin, and the different assemblies settled their value from time to time, by laws peculiar to each province. To remedy the inconveniences arising from the different rates at which the same species of foreign coin did pass in the several colonies and plantations, Queen Anne, in the sixth year of her reign, had thought fit, by her royal proclamation, to settle and ascertain the current rate of foreign coin in all her colonies. The standard at which currency was fixed by this proclamation, was at an hundred and thirty-three pounds, six shillings and eight-pence _per cent_.; but this regulation, however convenient and advantageous to trade, was afterwards little regarded in these provinces, and the confusion of current money continued and prevailed. After the emission of this great quantity of bank-bills in Carolina, and speedy rise of the price of produce in consequence of it, the merchants of London, to whom the colony stood indebted, judging it prejudicial to trade, complained of it to the Proprietors. They perceived that the trade of the country, by this means, would be carried on entirely without silver or gold; and although their factors in Carolina might raise the price of British commodities and manufactures, equal to the advanced price of the produce, yet it might be for their interest sometimes to take gold and silver rather than produce in return for their British goods. They considered the issuing of such bank-notes as a violation of the laws of England, and prevailed on the Proprietors to write Governor Craven a letter to the following effect: "We have heard complaints from several hands of an act you have passed, called the Bank Act. We do recommend to you to consider of some expedient for preventing the mischievous consequences of that act, lest, upon further complaints, we be forced to repeal it. The act is exclaimed against by our London merchants as injurious to trade, as an infringement and violation of the laws of Great Britain, and made almost in opposition to the act of the sixth of Queen Anne. Therefore we expect, for preventing such complaints for the future, that you will endeavour, as much as in you lies, to reduce that paper credit, pretended to be established in your bank act, and that you will strictly put in execution the aforesaid act of Queen Anne." [Sidenote] Trade infested by pirates.