Currency Act 1764
The Currency Act of 1764 was an act of British Parliament which banned the printing of colonial paper money and prohibited the use of existing paper money to pay private debts. This legislation was based on the notion of bullionism: the belief that a nation’s wealth was determined by the amount of gold and silver in one’s treasury (directly correlating with mercantilist policies). The new act had consequences for American merchants and importers, who now had to find gold or foreign coin to settle debts with English companies and led to many colonial merchants becoming bankrupt.
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