In the year 1724, four hundred and thirty-nine slaves, as also British goods and manufactures of different kinds, to the amount of between fifty and sixty thousand pounds sterling, were imported into the province. In exchange for these slaves and commodities, eighteen thousand barrels of rice, and about fifty-two thousand barrels of pitch, tar and turpentine, together with deer-skins, furs, and raw silk, were exported to England. This trade was carried on almost entirely in British ships, and employed a number of hands. The Carolineans also traded to the West Indies, and several small ships and sloops were employed in carrying provisions, lumber, slaves and naval stores to these islands, which they bartered for sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, cotton, and Spanish gold and silver. To New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, they sent some rice, hides, deer-skins, tar and pitch, which they exchanged for flour, salt fish, fruit, beer, and cyder. All gold and silver that came into the province from the West Indies they commonly sent into Britain, to answer the demands against them; and bills of credit continued increasing and circulating, for the convenience of domestic commerce. Forty thousand pounds were issued during Nicolson's government, over and above former emissions, by which increase the exchange with Britain, and the price of produce arose in one year from five to six hundred _per cent_. This has never failed to be the consequence of issuing large quantities of paper money in Carolina: for whenever this currency was permitted to increase beyond what was necessary for the purposes of commerce, it sunk in value, and proportionably increased the nominal price of provisions and labour; and of course should it by any accident be diminished, the price would again fall. Besides this, when the imports happened to exceed the exports, the great demand for bills of exchange raised the price of them, and helped to increase the depreciation of the current money of the province. [Sidenote] The adventure of Captain Beale.