Luke

v5:85

PHILADELPHIA, March 7, 1776. — I was yesterday greatly disturbed by an incident which fell put in this city. A gentleman was brought before the Committee of Inspection, for refusing to take a Maryland Convention Bill. The Committee, on hearing the matter, were obliged to dismiss the complaint as without their commission. Every good citizen must be distressed with the contemplation of grievances they cannot find means to redress. Certainly these several Colonial currencies are of this sort. The great intercourse we are obliged to have with each other, from Georgia to Canada, renders these currencies very troublesome, I may indeed say distressing; and, notwithstanding the expense of striking a bank, sufficient to sink every penny of these emissions, I must beg leave to propose it to the consideration of the honourable Continental Congress, whether this grievance docs not absolutely demand this sole, adequate, and effectual redress? A sufficient number of bills might be struck in Philadelphia, even of the lowest value judged necessary, and sent in sheets to each Colony, where Committees, of their respective Conventions or Assemblies, would sign each for themselves. Their respective proportions can be as easily settled by Congress as any other general charge; and should an overplus remain to some, after sinking all the bills they have emitted, they would have so much in bank for future emergencies. To this plan, if the establishment of a Mint were added, where the plate, with which many families abound, could be fitted for a ready exchange with foreigners, for commodities of which the most opulent will soon be in want, I flatter myself the salutary consequences would soon become sensible to every one. I shall trouble my readers with no arguments to enforce these measures, as the inconveniences on the one hand, and the advantages on the other, are too obvious to need them.

Though the Committee of Inspection, cannot be accused of entire inattention to the publick safety, in the late villainous attempt made to injure us by a set of monopolists, I cannot think the sore has yet been probed to the bottom. A gentleman, some time since from Great Britain, informed me that, on a like occasion, the regrated commodities were forcibly taken from the monopolizers, and put into the hands of gentlemen of character, who sold them at a reasonable price to all men alike, and returned the money to the owners; and, by that means, that abominable practice has never since existed in that part of the country, the people being resolute to recur to the remedy as often as the disease appears.

LUKE, THE PHYSICIAN.