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A History | Events Leading to the American Revolution | The Currency Act of 1764
The Currency Act of 1764
British Parliament - 1764
WHEREAS great quantities of paper bills of credit have been created and issued in his Majesty's colonies or
plantations in America, by virtue of acts, orders, resolutions, or votes of assembly, making and declaring such
bills of credit to be legal tender in payment of money: and whereas such bills of credit have greatly
depreciated in their value, by means whereof debts have been discharged with a much less value than was
contracted for, to the great discouragement and prejudice of the trade and commerce of his Majesty's subjects,
by occasioning confusion in dealings, and lessening credit in the said colonies or plantations: for remedy
whereof, 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 first day of
September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, no act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of
his Majesty's colonies or plantations in America, shall be made, for creating or issuing any paper bills, or
bills of credit of any kind or denomination whatsoever, declaring such paper bills, or bills of credit, to be
legal tender in payment of any bargains, contracts, debts, dues, or demands whatsoever; and every clause or
provision which shall hereafter be inserted in any act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, contrary to
this act, shall be null and void.
II. And whereas the great quantities of paper bills, or bills of credit, which are now actually in circulation
and currency in several colonies or plantations in America, emitted in pursuance of acts of assembly declaring
such bills a legal tender, make it highly expedient that the conditions and terms, upon which such bills have
been emitted, should not be varied or prolonged, so as to continue the legal tender thereof beyond the terms
respectively fixed by such acts for calling in and discharging such bills; be it therefore enacted by the
authority aforesaid, That every act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of the said colonies or
plantations, which shall be made to prolong the legal tender of any paper bills, or bills of credit, which are
now subsisting and current in any of the said colonies or plantations in America, beyond the times fixed for
the calling in, sinking, and discharging of such paper bills, or bills of credit, shall be null and void.
III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any governor or commander in chief for the
time being, in all or any of the said colonies or plantations, shall, from and after the said first day of
September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, give his assent to any act or order of assembly contrary
to the true intent and meaning of this act, every such governor or commander in chief shall, for every such
offence, forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand pounds, and shall be immediately dismissed from his government,
and for ever after rendered incapable of any public office or place of trust.
IV. Provided always, That nothing in this act shall extend to alter or repeal an act passed in the
twenty fourth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, intituled, 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 Massachuset's Bay, and New Hampshire, in America, and to prevent the same being
legal tenders in payments of money.
V. Provided also, That nothing herein contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to make any
of the bills now subsisting in any of the said colonies a legal tender.
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