This doubtless unavoidable neglect on the part of the mother-country, and the final surrender of Louisburg to the French by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), tended still further to strain the relations between England and her colonies on the American continent. Sidenote: Vernon's expedition to the West Indies. Admiral Vernon's expedition against the French in the West Indies in 1740 was participated in by men from nearly all the English colonies, island and continental. A campaign against the Spanish settlements in Florida was undertaken by Oglethorpe during the same year (page 262, § 117). The Carolinas gave somewhat tardy aid to Georgia in this daring enterprise. 128. Economic Conditions. Sidenote: Paper money and finance. Massachusetts was the first of the colonies to issue paper money. This was in 1690, to aid in fitting out an expedition against Canada. The other provinces followed at intervals. Affairs had come to such a pass by 1748 that the price in paper of £100 in coin ranged all the way from £1100 in New England to £180 in Pennsylvania. The royal governors in all the colonies, acting under instructions from home, were generally persistent opponents of this financial expedient. Governor Belcher of Massachusetts, in a proclamation against the practice (1740), said it gave "great interruption and brought confusion into trade and business," and "reflected great dishonor on his Majesty's government here." In 1720, Parliament passed what was known as "the Bubble Act," designed to break up all private banking companies in the United Kingdom chartered for the issue of circulating notes; this Act was made applicable to the colonies in 1740, and reinforced in 1751, the last-named Act forbidding the further issue of colonial paper money except in cases of invasion or for the annual current expenses of the government, these exceptional cases to be under control of the Crown. In 1763 all issues to date were declared void; although ten years later (1773), provincial bills of credit were made receivable as legal tender at the treasuries of the colonies emitting them. The controversy between the colonies and the home government over these issues of a cheap circulating medium developed much bitterness on the part of the former, who deemed the practice essential to their prosperity; and it was one of the many causes of the Revolution. Sidenote: Acts of Navigation and Trade.