“Your account of the increase of the growth of hemp, gives me great pleasure; and I think the demand there has been for wheat, since the date of your letter, must have made the country people rich, even those who were poor before: it will prevent people being under the necessity of parting with their lands, and going to Carolina. Their produce will always bring them money at Philadelphia, notwithstanding there may be some more need for paper-money; yet, when trade is brisk, it circulates faster, and a less quantity will carry on a greater trade: however, I hope, in the next session of parliament, we may get the law which prohibits our making any more, repealed.” The parliamentary restriction was, in fact, afterwards taken off; and an effort was made, in the beginning of the year 1770, by the legislature of Pennsylvania, to enact a loan-office law, for the purpose of putting in circulation a further emission of paper-money: but the measure then miscarried, in consequence of some disagreement between the governor and the general assembly respecting the right they severally claimed, of appointing the trustees of the proposed loan-office. Footnote 210a: See Note 202. ----- In the year 1782, Mr. Rittenhouse was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, of Boston: his certificate bears date the 30th of January, in that year. This academy, which Dr. Morse ranks among the first literary institutions in the state of Massachusetts, holds a very respectable station in relation to science: yet it was not established till so lately as May 4, 1780. The end and design of the institution are stated to be—“to promote and encourage the knowledge of the antiquities of America, and of the natural history of the country, and to determine the uses to which its various natural productions may be applied: also, to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical disquisitions, philosophical enquiries and experiments; astronomical, meteorological and geographical observations, improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures, commerce, and the cultivation of every science that may tend to advance a free, independent and virtuous people.”[211] ----- Footnote 211: The number of members in the Boston Academy is never to exceed two hundred, nor to be less than forty. By being limited to so moderate a number as the former, for the greater extreme, this academy will be likely to select suitable persons for the honour of fellowship, with the more discriminating circumspection. -----