mentary attempt to put the future use of the public credit of Rhode Island 
under instruction is mentioned in April, 1750. 403 The bill introduced in 1751 
to regulate New England paper currency contained a declaratory clause as to 
royal instructions covering the issuance of paper currency. 404 This clause was 
strongly and successfully opposed by William Bollan, the Massachusetts 
agent, 405 and the measure as finally enacted lacked such declaratory clause. 406 
become borrowers upon loans who paid interest 
for them to the publick at one rate and 
lent out the money to private persons at a 
greater . . . and after much said of the injury 
to the fair dealer by means of the fluctuating 
state of a precarious and unsettled paper credit, 
it was carried in the Committee upon an 
amendment proposed to the first enacting 
paragraph, that no paper money should hereafter 
be issued on any pretense whatsoever as a 
legal tender; there the Committee stopped." In 
the course of the debate it appeared that the 
promoters of the bill were not agreed among 
themselves in this scheme. Secondly, a doubt 
began to prevail whether a general rule could 
be laid down suited to the nature of the 
various currencies subsisting on different footings 
in every colony. Thirdly, the House possessed 
no recent data on the state of these currencies. 
From these considerations it was obvious 
that the progress of the bill would be 
greatly retarded; after keeping it alive by several 
adjournments, without debating it further 
in the committee, on May 30 it was adjourned 
over to June 9, and Parliament rising on the 
13 th the bill was dropped for this session at 
least (Charles to Jones, May 31, 1749 [Wm. 
Smith MSS]). Writing at a later date, agent 
William Bollan of Massachusetts termed the bill 
"plainly such an unconstitutional attempt, that 
it could not be maintained and supported; when 
fully explained, and laid open" (21 MS Mass. 
Archives [Foreign Relations, 1751-58], 17). 
Cf. Richard Penn to John Kinsey, May 30, 
1749 (5 Pemberton MSS, 1748-49, 105). 
403 Bollan feared this would serve as an entering 
wedge and declared that several clauses 
in the bill to which he objected had been struck 
out (20 MS Mass. Archives [Foreign Relations, 
1658-1751], 617). 
404 Bollan wrote that in contrast to the scope 
of the 1749 bill, the present bill would only 
put one single article under the King's instruction 
and in only part of the colonies. The King 
by his prerogative having greater power over 
money than over most other matters, and bills 
of credit having been used in the colonies as 
money, "it was apprehended that this might 
more easily pass; and, being once passed, would 
serve for introducing, by degrees, the King's 
instructions to control other articles, and so 
would have been a very dangerous precedent. 
It was moreover urged that there had been 
great abuse in this article in particular in the 
colonies, and that they had disregarded the 
orders issued upon addresses to his Majesty 
from Parliament, and that there was a necessity 
of laying a restraint on the colonies, and 
also of reposing a trust somewhere; and that 
it could not be so well placed anywhere in 
this case, as in the crown. Hereupon, I thought 
it my duty to oppose the bill to the utmost" 
(21 MS Mass. Archives [Foreign Relations, 
17)- Bollan had earlier written that 
he feared that "there is at bottom in the minds 
of some a fixed design of getting a Parliamentary 
sanction of some kind or other, if 
possible, to the King's instructions" in the matter 
of the issuance of bills of credit (20 MS 
Mass. Archives [Foreign Relations, 1658- 
'75'], 683). Cf. 287 MS Mass. Archives (Letters, 
1663-1760), 44. Agent Charles of New 
York thought it "amazing that a bill of this 
nature, arising from private application and 
said not to be patronized by the ministry or any 
particular Board should have had the King's 
instructions mentioned in it" (Charles to Jones, 
June 1, 1751 [Wm. Smith MSS]). 
405 Richard Partridge, the Rhode Island agent, 
first opposed the bill, but then thought fit to 
withdraw his petition (21 MS Mass. Archives 
[Foreign Relations, 1751-58], 17; 26 f.H. 
of C, 174, 196). Cf. Wolcott Papers, 16 Conn. 
Hist. Soc. Coll., 84; 2 Correspondence of Colonial 
Governors of R. 1., 130, 132. Bollan's petition 
came on next. "I was advised by some of 
the members, friends to the colonies, as well 
as other judicious powers, to confine my opposition 
before the House to the point of the 
instructions; and by conferring with principal 
members, to endeavor to get the other parts of 
the bill altered, as far as I could, to my mind. 
Immediately after the delivery of my petition, 
the House breaking up, tire first of the 
managers of the bill sent for me down into the 
House to speak with him upon it; they then