the debts owed to British merchants.

[Illustration: THE OLD BLOCKHOUSE AT MACKINAC, 1780]

At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, large sums had been due
British exporters and factors by American planters and traders, because
of the commercial system in vogue at that time. The war gave excuse
to unscrupulous debtors to withhold payment. Associations were formed
in many communities to adopt this form of retaliation, although
discountenanced by the better classes. At the close of the war, it was
said that there was not sufficient money in circulation to discharge
these long-due obligations. Jefferson estimated the debts due British
merchants in Virginia alone at thirty times the amount of money in
circulation in the State. Many States had passed stay laws against
executions to recover such debts and had thrown other legal obstructions
in the way of the British creditors. Claim was made not only for the
original amount of the debts, but for back interest as well. The
American merchants rejoined that they could pay neither principal nor
interest until they had been compensated for their slaves carried away
by the British Army and the Tories at the end of the war and contrary
to the terms of the treaty of peace. The labour of these slaves, they
said, would enable them to pay the debts.

Undoubtedly American statesmen wished to sustain inviolate the
provisions of the treaty, not only by preventing the States from
interfering with the collection of valid debts, but also by protecting
the Loyalists or Tories, as the treaty demanded. The English
negotiators, having small experience with a Confederation, supposed
that the clause in the treaty binding Congress to recommend actions
to the several State Legislatures was equivalent to a warrant. It was