Bills Of Union: Money, Empire And Ambitions In The Mid-Eighteenth Century British Atlantic

Description

This book brings together for the first time more than half a dozen proposals for an imperial paper currency in the mid-eighteenth century British Atlantic, to show how manage colonial currency and banking in the expanding empire. Existing studies have looked at the successes and failures of schemes in individual colonies. But some had grander ambitions, such as Benjamin Franklin, and offered proposals for ‘imperial’ or ‘continental’ paper currencies and monetary unions which would help knit together colonial territories throughout North America and even the Caribbean into a cohesive whole during a moment of imperial reform. This book brings together these proposals for the first time, including several never studied before, to show how thinkers and writers on empire, currency and finance drew on financial practices, precedents and principles from across the British Atlantic to present their own visions of monetary union and the future of empire. In doing so it makes an important and original contribution to the wider histories of monetary and financial thought and theory and the roots of American monetary policy, and the links between finance, empire, politics, reform and revolution. It will be of interest to academics working on the history of finance, banking and currency in the British Isles, North America and the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, as well as those working on the political economy of the British Empire, including mercantilism, trade, warfare and the politics of empire in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. Preface Contents Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Money Ambitions Empire Consequences Chapter 2: Land Banks Land Banks Franklin (1754–1767) Williamos (1766) Macleane (1765) Conclusion Chapter 3: Specie Banks British Banks Precedents Sir Alexander Cuming (1748) Jackson (1754) McCulloh (1751–1765) Townshend (1767) Conclusion Chapter 4: Conclusion Failures Hypotheticals Monetary Unions Final Thoughts Appendix A: Sir Alexander Cuming, Commonplace Book (Circa 1764 to 1767) Appendix B: Lauchlin Macleane to the Earl of Hertford ‘Proposal’ (1765) Appendix C: Charles Williamos ‘Plan for Establishing a Bank in North America’ (c. 1766) Appendix D: ‘Proposals for Establishing Paper Currency in North America’ (Undated but c. 1767)1 Bibliography Manuscript Sources British Library Clements Library Huntington Library Lloyds Banking Group Archives Newberry Library John Rylands Library Staffordshire Record Office The National Archives of the United Kingdom Printed Sources Secondary Sources Index