Currency Act of 1751
24 George II, Chapter 53
An act to regulate and restrain paper bills of credit in his Majesty's colonies or plantations of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Connecticut, the Massachusets Bay, and New Hampshire in America; and to prevent the same being legal tenders in America.
WHEREAS the Act of Parliament made in the sixth Year of her late Majesty Queen
Anne, intituled
An Act for ascertaining the Rate of foreign Coins in her Majesty's Plantations in America, hath been intirely frustrated in his Majesty’s said Colonies of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, the Massachusets Bay, and New Hampshire in America, by their creating and issuing, from Time to Time, great Quantities of Paper Bills of Credit, by virtue of Acts of Assembly, Orders, Resolutions or Votes, made or passed by their respective Assemblies, and making legal the Tender of such Bills of Credit in Payment for Debts, Dues and Demands; which Bills of Credit have, for many Years past, been depreciating in their Value, by means whereof all Debts of late Years have been paid and satisfied with a much less Value than was contracted for, which hath been a great Discouragement and Prejudice to the Trade and Commerce of his Majesty's Subjects, by occasioning Confusion in Dealings, and lessening of Credit in those Parts: Therefore, for the more effectual preventing and remedying of the said Inconveniencies, may it please your most Excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That from and after the twenty-ninth Day of September one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one, it shall not be lawful for the Governor, Council or Assembly for the Time being, or any of them, or for the Lieutenant Governor, or Person presiding or acting as Governor or Commander in Chief, for the Time being, within all or any of the aforesaid Colonies or Plantations of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, the Massachusets Bay, and New Hampshire, to make or pass, or give his or their Assent to the making or passing of any Act, Order, Resolution or Vote, within any of the said Colonies or Plantations, whereby any Paper Bills or Bills of Credit, of any Kind or Denomination whatsoever, shall be created or issued under any Pretence whatsoever; or whereby the Time limited, or the Provision made, for the calling in, sinking or discharging of such Paper Bills, or Bills of Credit, as are already subsisting and passing in Payment, within any of the said Colonies or Plantations, shall be protracted or postponed; or whereby any of them shall be depreciated in Value, or whereby the same shall be ordered or allowed to be re-issued, or to obtain a new and further Currency; and that all such Acts, Orders, Resolutions or Votes, which shall or may be passed or made, after the said twenty-ninth Day of September one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one, within all or any of the said Colonies or Plantations, shall be, and are hereby declared to be null and void, and of no Force or Effect whatsoever.
II. And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That all such Paper Bills, or Bills of Credit as are now subsisting, and passing in Payments, within any of the said Colonies or Plantations of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, Massachusets Bay and New Hampshire, shall be duly and punctually called in, sunk and discharged, according to the Tenor of and within the Periods limited by the respective Acts, Orders, Votes or Resolutions, for creating and issuing, or continuing the same respectively, unless where the same have been altered by any subsequent Act or Acts of Assembly; and in that Case, that the same be discharged according to the Tenor mentioned in the said Act or Acts of Assembly; and that no such Paper Bills, or Bills of Credit, shall, from and after such Periods so limited, as aforesaid be any longer current in all or any of the said Colonies or Plantations respectively.