The pressing necessity for circulating money and the creation of banks, two subjects unavoid ably connected for sustaining and developing the exchanges and commerce of the British American colonies, manifested itself almost at the outset of their settlement; and had no little to do with their subsequent revolt from royal authority. The position of the Crown, as laid down in the celebrated case of the Mixt Moneys, 1604, was that the creation and issuance of money was a royal prerogative, which could not lawfully be exercised by any other power than the King; a prerogative not delegated to the colonies. Hence, whatever coins, or sub stitutes for coins, were needed for their ex changes, had to come from England. Such, too, had been the position of the Spanish Crown; yet the necessities of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and other Spanish possessions in America, had compelled their inhabitants, so early as 1586, to employ leather moneys in their dealings. Con sult Lewes, Robert, 'Map of Commerce,' Lon don 1711, p. 16._ Strengthened by this example, the attitude of the British cqlonies was laid down in 1665 no less positively than the Mixt Moneys de cision. (They say,0 writes a commissioner of Massachusetts, (that so long as they pay (to the Crown) a fifth of the gold and silver (found or captured), according to the terms of the Charter, they are not obliged to the King, except by civility.x' (Sir J. R. Seeley, 'Expan sion of England,' Norman Angell, citante, p. 376). Such became their justification for the Pine Tree coinage, for John Blackwell's bank and for colonial bills of credit.
The subsequent institution of American colonial banks and issues of money are treated under appropriate heads.
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