The controversy over the Two-penny Act came at a time when the Board of Trade was at odds with the Virginia Assembly over the repeated issues of paper money. Had Dinwiddie and Fauquier not assured them that without these issues there would have been no funds with which to carry on the war, they would certainly have put a stop to them. As it was, all they could do was to urge that steps be taken to prevent the paper from declining in value and to protect the interests of the British merchants. Prior to 1757 each issue had borne five per cent interest, and taxes had been voted for their redemption. But in April of that year the notes were all called in and new ones issued in their place bearing no interest. This, with a new issue of L80,000 brought the total to L179,962.10.0. This was more than was needed to carry on the business of the colony, and the value of the notes began to sink.[20] In 1748 an act had been passed declaring that debts contracted in sterling could be paid in Virginia currency at a twenty-five per cent advance, or one pound five shillings for one pound sterling. But as the rate of exchange was not long in rising above this figure, the merchants feared large losses. The London merchants, speaking not only for themselves, but for those of Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow, laid their complaint before the Board of Trade. The issuing of large amounts of paper money could be most injurious to trade by putting it upon an uncertain basis, they said. And to pay debts contracted in sterling in depreciated colonial currency was as unjust as it was unwise. So they asked the King to instruct the Governor to urge the Assembly to amend the act of 1748 to make all debts due to persons in Great Britain payable according to the real difference in exchange.[21] It seems strange that the merchants and the Board of Trade did not know that what they asked for had already been done. In 1755 the act of 1748 had been amended so as to direct the courts in cases where contracts had been made in sterling, to order payment in Virginia money at the rate of exchange they thought just.[22] "The merchants do not know the law," Fauquier wrote the Board. "Let the value of paper currency fall as much as they please ... exchange will rise as fast, and they will obtain for a sterling debt just as much of the paper currency as will purchase a good sterling bill of exchange. And what injury is done them unless ... the whole court combine in a barefaced villainy to defraud them?" At the last court the exchange had been fixed at 35 per cent.[23] The amendment to the law of 1748 had had no clause suspending its operation until the King had given his assent, and, like the Two-penny Act, was a clear infringement on the royal prerogative. But since it had merely anticipated the King's wishes, it drew no rebuke from him. None the less, it was one more step toward autonomy, one more demonstration that in internal affairs the Virginians were a self-governing people.