What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
It was a counterfeit advertisement that mocked the rebel congress. The October 28, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, published in a city occupied by British forces carried an advertisement that proclaimed that a “Gentleman” who was “fond of Curiosities” and planned to travel to England “WANTED” a “Parcel of CONGRESS NOTES, with which he intends to paper some Rooms.” Money issued by the Continental Congress, the advertisement sneered, was not worth the paper it was printed on. It might as well be used as wallpaper!
From 1775 to 1779, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society, “Congress ordered 11 emissions of Continental Currency to the amount of 226 million Spanish milled Dollars.” By the time this advertisement appeared, Congress had already issued paper currency on five occasions (May 10, 1775; November 29, 1775; February 17, 1776; May 9, 1776; and July 22, 1776) and was just days away from doing so again on November 2, 1776. “At first the currency circulated at par with the Spanish milled dollar, but since the states were simultaneously emitting their own bills of credit and debt certificates to cover their war expenses, the glut of bills issued without sound financial resources soon led to depreciation of all forms of circulating paper, but especially that of Congress.”
Such news was familiar to the anonymous advertiser and readers of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, making the taunt even more biting. “Those, who wish to make something of their Stock in that Commodity,” the advertisement proclaimed, “shall, if they are clean and fit for the Purpose, receive at the Rate of One Guinea per Thousand, for all they can bring, before the Expiration of the present Month.” In exchange for stacks of Continental currency, the advertiser offered just one guinea (or a pound and a shilling). Furthermore, the advertiser confided in a nota bene that it was “expected they will soon be much lower.” Perhaps word that the Continental Congress considered a new emission had reached New York. The advertisement preemptively undermined the value of those notes, yet another salvo fired in a war of words that occurred during the war for independence.
