It was expected that this new and immense volume of currency, poured at once on to the wheels of trade, would immediately start the wheels. But, somehow, it didn't seem to have that effect at all. The wheels not only would not revolve, but the friction on them seemed to have become more persistent and chronic than ever. In fact, the doubling the volume of the currency, instead of increasing the before existing instrumentalities for facilitating exchanges, had really diminished them; for all who were willing to exchange commodities for the new currency either doubled the price of their commodities, or gave only half the quantity for what they regarded as half of the former money; so that with all this class the abundance of currency was relatively the same as before. But the majority who had any thing to sell would not accept the ideal money in exchange at all. They did not claim, they said, to be financiers, or philosophers, or even special friends of humanity; but they did think that they were not such fools that they could be made to believe that the half of a thing was equal to the whole, or that one bushel of grain could be converted into two by putting one bushel into two half-bushel measures. The only really positive effect of the doubling of the volume of the currency in the manner authorized by law was, therefore, to scale all debts to the extent of fifty per cent., and in such a manner that creditors were wholly unable to help themselves; for by terms of the act every one dollar of old legal tender was now made two for all new legal-tender purposes. In this way the people on the island soon learned a most important elementary lesson in finance, which was, that the only one attribute of legal tender which is imperative and unavoidable [32] is its inherent power of canceling or liquidating debts or of tapping creditors--and this, too, irrespective of the endowment of the legal tender with any real or representative value. So that a truthful designation of the act in question would have been "An act to relieve debtors from half of their obligations, and swindle creditors to a corresponding extent of what was due them by the debtor's acknowledgment." To the credit of the people of the island it must be recorded that, as a general rule, they were too honorable to take advantage of the law to do so wrong and mean a thing; [33] but the knowledge that every debtor had it in his power to so act, and the fear that some would take advantage of their unquestionable legal privileges, contributed still further to bring all business to a stand-still.