The example of Virginia is more conspicuous, although not so early in time. The very term, “Treasury notes,” now used as the equivalent of “bills of credit,” first appears in her colonial legislation, when, in 1755, they were made a tender in payment of debts.[176] There were successive emissions in 1769, 1771, and 1773, which were not made a tender,--and then in 1778, and at other times afterwards, which were made a tender. That these “Treasury notes” were deemed “bills of credit” is demonstrated by the legislation of the State, especially by the Act of May, 1780, which, after reciting that the exigencies of the war require the further emission of paper money, authorizes new “Treasury notes,” and proceeds to punish with death any person who shall forge “any bill of credit _or_ Treasury note to be issued by virtue of this Act.”[177] I find that North Carolina, as early as 1748, sent forth bills of credit which were made a tender, and many subsequent emissions were authorized. South Carolina began in 1703; but these bills, bearing interest at twelve per cent, do not seem to have been made a tender. Others issued by this colony, at different times afterwards, were made a tender. In 1760 Georgia authorized bills of credit on interest, and secured by mortgage of the property of the receivers, which were made a tender. The extensive employment of paper money in New England aroused the jealousy of the Imperial Parliament, which, by the Act of 25th June, 1751,[178] expressly forbade the issue of any “paper bills, or bills of credit,” except for certain specific purposes, or upon certain specified emergencies. The Act constantly speaks of these two as equivalent expressions, thus seeming to show that “bills of credit,” in their true meaning, were what is familiarly called “paper money,” with the incidents of such money. But the Act proceeds to limit these incidents by declaring expressly that “no paper currency, or bills of credit,” issued under it, shall be a tender in payment of any private debts or contracts whatsoever, with a proviso that nothing therein contained should make any bills then subsisting a tender. That Parliament should deem it necessary, by special enactment, to take from bills of credit the character of a tender, attests the customary association between these two ideas. During the Revolutionary War, under the exigencies of that time, with a country without resources and a treasury without money, bills of credit, known as Continental money, were issued by Congress. But, while receivable in discharge of taxes and other public dues, they were not made a tender by Congress, although the States were recommended to make them such. MR. COLLAMER. And did make them so.