statutory policy beyond the express letter of the law. Certain instances of this, 
which we are about to examine, are rather unusual examples of an effort to 
grapple with the basic problem a statute had set out to solve, in situations 
where the act itself could not be applied, and thereby to supply a wholly 
unanticipated judicial implementation of parliamentary policy. The basic 
problem was the dismal mess in which the currency of the New England 
colonies was mired after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle—a situation for which 
the crown bore some responsibility, since it had permitted the issuance of bills 
of credit during the war. In 1751 Parliament intervened by a statute (24 Geo. 
11, c. 53) which was designed to check the evils of payments by debtors in 
depreciated New England bills of credit. The act, which among other things 
provided for calling in certain bills of credit, declared that after September 29, 
1751, no paper currency issued for current service of the year or extraordinary 
emergency of war should be deemed legal tender for private debts and that 
nothing in the act should be construed to make any bills "now subsisting a 
legal tender." 
Some years after this enactment there came before the Committee on appeal 
a cause from the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature — Dering v. 
Packer (1760) —where on an old contract a difficult problem of valuation was 
presented. The facts were that to secure a debt arising from various transactions 
Thomas Packer entered into a penal bond at Boston in 1733/4 conditioned 
to pay Henry Dering ,£2,640 in "good public bills of credit of the province 
of Massachusetts Bay, or current lawfull money of New England" with 
lawful interest within a year. Several payments made during the life of Dering 
reduced the principal sum to Following the death of Henry 
Dering, Packer, in 1751, tendered executor Thomas Dering in New 
Hampshire bills of credit old tenor and ,£2OO Connecticut bills of credit as constituting 
"current lawful money of New England." In 1733/4 these bills had 
circulated at par with Massachusetts bills of credit, but at the date of tender 
they had greatly depreciated in value. Executor Dering therefore refused the 
tender unless allowance was made for depreciation. When this allowance was 
refused, Dering, in 1757, put the bond in suit in the New Hampshire Inferior 
Court of Common Pleas, receiving judgment for the penalty of the bond. But 
this penal sum was chancered down to ,£345/6/9 % New Hampshire bills 
of credit, new tenor, although Dering contended that in lawful 
money of New England was due. Upon appeal to the Superior Court of 
Judicature and review therein, judgment was affirmed. 139 
139 Case of Appellant, Add. MS, 36,218/44- 
45. For the proceedings in the Superior Court 
o£ Judicature on the writ of review see MS 
N.H. Sup. Ct. Jud. Judgment Book., 1755-59, 
364-66. For some discussion of the depreciation 
in New Hampshire see 1 Davis, Currency and