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some censure from the legislature, offered £300 more, and the newspapers urged their readers and all of his majesty's good subjects to make every exertion to secure "this very dangerous man." The plantation, the island, the servants, the horses and all of his property, were seized and sold, and henceforth he was an outcast and a wanderer. Soon afterward the war commenced, and in the folk lore which has come down to us from that era Richardson appears as the hero of many a marvelous tory incident, and is described as a cherished companion of those noted Bucks county desperadoes, the Doanes, in their deeds of lawlessness and adventure. Once a man named Conway came upon him lurking in a dense wood, where stands the present village of Port Providence, which then belonged to David Thomas, the husband of Richardson's sister and the grandfather of the author of Lippincott's biographical dictionary. He compelled Conway to bring him some food and by threats of death if his whereabouts should be divulged enforced secrecy. A farmhouse of the neighborhood has a portion of the garret separated from the rest by a plastered partition, forming a false chamber without windows; and in this dark receptacle, called still by the country folk "the Richardson hole," it is said that he and the Doanes used to hide away their booty. Once he went to Bromback's tavern, in Chester county, and laying a loaded pistol within reach, ate a meal while the cowed bystanders looked on without daring to interfere. At another time, being closely pursued by a body of horsemen, among whom, we are told, were several of the Vanderslices, he rode across the country to the Delaware, and, nothing daunted, plunged into the river. His horse, fatigued by a long course, struggled ineffectually against the waves; and so leaving the animal to its fate he threw himself from its back, and swimming across to the Jersey shore again escaped. "But the fox must sleep sometimes and the wild deer must rest," and February 24, 1777, a vigilant individual wrote to inform the Committee of Safety that the "famous or Infamous Ritchardson" had been seen in Philadelphia. Three days later General Thompson, Major Butler, and some other officers, captured him between the city of York and the Susquehanna river, and conveyed him to Lancaster, and there had him securely confined in the jail. His good fortune, however, did not yet desert him; and, strange to relate, either because of his innocence or shrewdness, there seems to have been an entire lack of evidence against him.

The mittimus in the first instance charged him with being a tory; but this accusation was abandoned, and that of forging and counterfeiting substituted. Having demanded and received from William Atlee, chairman of the Committee of Lancaster County, a certificate to the effect that there was no proof of his being in league with the enemy, he wrote concerning the other charge a bold letter to Colonel Timothy Matlack, Secretary of the Council of Safety, saying that the reports against him had been circulated by ill-disposed persons, and that before the war he had gone without avail to Philadelphia county to be tried. He intimated that his confinement would be of disadvantage to the Continental cause, since, if continued, his son, who held a commission in the service, would be compelled to resign; and he appealed to Matlack as an old friend to procure an early disposition of the case. Atlee, whom the Council authorized to act in the matter, refused to discharge him upon bail, holding that although no evidence of his guilt had been produced, the proclamations of the Governors made upon affidavits raised a very strong presumption of it. In June Daniel Clymer renewed the application to the Council for him, and he was then liberated after a confinement of about four months. Three years later, on the 6th of March, 1780, he was again arrested upon a warrant from Joseph Reed, president of the Supreme Executive Council, issued by their direction, and thrown into jail in Philadelphia. The old accusation of counterfeiting was renewed, and in addition it was declared that he was disaffected to the cause of America, and his going at large was injurious to the interests of the good people of the State. It must be admitted that his incarceration upon charges vague and seemingly impossible to prove, has much the appearance of persecution. He immediately presented a petition for a hearing. The Council submitted him to a searching examination, remanded him to jail, and at the expiration of two months ordered his release "on condition of his leaving the State of Pennsylvania, and going to some other part of America not in the possession of the enemy, not to return to this State without leave." If he obeyed these requirements it was only for a short time, for he had returned to his old neighborhood in 1782, and there, before 1798, he probably died.9

7 Penna. Archives, Vol. v, pages 239, 248, 249, 254.

8 Colonial Records Vol. xi, pp. 216, 226, Vol. xii, pp. 270, 272, 273, 339. 9 Jacobs MSS.

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The latter part of his life seems to be involved in impenetrable obscurity, and doubtless his relatives and friends were loath to renew the recollections of a career which, though it opened with much brilliancy, was afterward tarnished by suspicion, if not stained with crime.

Was he guilty? A hundred years have rolled away, and who can answer now a question which was not determined then? While the intelligent wife of an English baronet can recognize the coarse features of an Australian butcher as those of her own educated and refined son; while thousands of people believe, and scores of them ⚫ declare upon oath, that an unfortunate convict is the heir of one of the oldest Saxon families of the realm, who can solve the mysteries of the past? His long flight lends color to the accusations, and his subsequent readiness to meet his accusers has the appearance of innocence. If blameless, he was the unhappy victim of one of those webs of circumstance which are sometimes woven about even the purest of men, checking their usefulness and darkening their fame; and if guilty, strength of .intellect and craft enabled him to conceal the traces so effectually that the keenest of his enemies were powerless to discover them. In reaching a decision it should not be forgotten that whatever were the virtues of our revolutionary grandsires, lenity toward those suspected of loyalty was not one of them; and the repeated arrests and imprisonments of Richardson show what would have been his fate could the proof have been obtained. We commend the study of his life and character to the coming American novelist, who will fix upon the crests of our own Alleghanies some of the halo which since the beginning of the century has radiated from the highlands of Scotland.

SAML. W. PENNYPACKER.

THE

THE FALLACY OF THE GOLD STATEMENT.

HE public attention has recently been largely directed to the pending questions as to the stock of gold remaining in the country, and as to the possibility of an accumulation of coin sufficient to replace the currency issues of the government and the banks. The several gold statements of the Treasury and of the commercial

authorities are eagerly scanned, and in most cases they are necessarily accepted as conclusive. Balances are reported of large amounts, so large that the impression is general that gold to the amount of eighty to ninety millions of dollars now lies unused in the several banks and depositaries. Vague estimates of commercial writers are also made, in which it is generally assumed that a stock of about a hundred and fifty million dollars of coin exists, all of which would be available for currency if the circulation of notes was sufficiently restricted.

These various statements are, we venture to say at the outset, subject to great allowances and abatements, and in the form they have, or with the meaning attached to them, they are essentially fallacious and misleading. They convey an impression entirely erroneous, and one which is now leading to the most unfortunate consequences. The actual stock of gold is less than half that appearing by these statements to be held by all the custodians accredited with it. If this is the fact, is it not a very grave and important duty to require a full analysis of the reports now given to the public, professing to show what amount of gold is actually held by the Treasury and the banks?

By the Act of March 3, 1863, now section 254, Revised Statutes, "The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to receive deposits of coin and bullion with the Treasurer, or any Assistant Treasurer of the United States, in sums of not less than twenty dollars, and to issue certificates therefor, in denominations of not less than twenty dollars each, corresponding to the denominations of United States notes." And these certificates "may be issued in payment of interest on the public debt," or may be used in any manner as the equivalent of gold coin, being "receivable at par in payment of duties on imports," and delivered when gold is sold from the Treasury. These quoted stipulations are in the text of the act itself, and the further stipulation is made in it, that "they shall not at any time exceed twenty per centum beyond the amount of coin and bullion in the Treasury." Of course, therefore, the amount of such issues held by the treasury, or by those to whom they have been paid out as gold, may reach the full amount of gold and bullion held by, or paid into the treasury as the basis of their original issue, and twenty per centum in excess of this amount. The law permits the entire stock of coin and bullion passing through the Treasury to

be duplicated in the form of these gold certificates, and twenty per centum of this stock of actual coin and bullion to be used for any purpose without cancellation of the corresponding certificates. Twenty millions of gold and silver coin and bullion held originally. by the Treasury, and twenty millions more of either deposited by persons desiring to convert the same into certificates, will therefore produce forty millions of gold notes or certificates; and by subsequent use of twenty per centum of these forty millions of coin and bullion, there may remain in use seventy-two millions of so-called "coin," namely, forty millions of certificates counted as coin, and payable as well as receivable as such, and thirty-two millions of real coin or bullion, which bullion may be silver bullion.

This was certainly a most effective law to secure the complete utilization of coin and bullion. Not a dollar's worth of either, whether of gold or silver, need after its enactment remain idle in any sub-treasury, any bank, or in the hands of any individual owner. It could be deposited safely and used immediately, the depositor profiting by the full value, and the Treasury able to use twenty per cent. more than it was required to hold of coin or bullion to redeem them if presented. The result has been the most extreme economy in the keeping of actual gold.. Banks and bankers have reduced their stocks to the lowest figures; the larger share of the banks reporting little or none in their regular statements, and the strongest of both banks and bankers holding but a few thousand dollars to meet emergencies. No distinction being made between actual gold or bullion and what are called gold certificates in the New York bank returns, it is impossible to say how much of the minimum of seven and a half millions of specie reported to be held by them just previous to December 1st, 1875, was in the form of certificates. And now, when they report, on January 1st, 1876, that they hold $20,233,300 in specie, none but themselves can say how much is really gold and silver.

The extent to which what are called "gold certificates" are actually employed in what are reported as gold payments is much greater than is supposed. In the payment of duties on imports at New York they constitute four-fifths to nineteen-twentieths of the sums paid. A fair illustration of their use is afforded in any week's return, the average being $10,000 to $20,000 in gold daily, to $250,000 or $400,000 of "gold certificates." On September 11th,

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