The Land Bank

Felt quotes an act showing that a system of counterfeiting had grown up by which a counterfeit part was pasted on a mutilated bill, raising its denomination. ;£ 170,000 of outstanding bills must, by law, be redeemed before 1742. THE LAND BANK. In 1739 the Land Bank scheme was revived. The scheme was this: a number of land owners formed a company and mortgaged their estates to it for its notes, giving 3 per cent, per annum interest in merchandise, and 5 per cent, per 28 HISTORY OF AMERICAN CURRENCY. annum on the principal in the same currency. A mechanic, with two sureties, might have £100 stock. The notes were payable after twenty years " in manufactures of the province." The preamble of the schedule of this bank recites that it is organized "in order to redress the existing circumstances which the trade of this province labors under for want of a medium." This bank was the most prominent factor in the political movements of the next ten years, and even later it turns up, from time to time, a cause of perplexity and distress to the government and the surviving stockholders.