AFTER THE WAR.
At last the war ended. The cannibals were utterly repulsed;
and the islanders no longer laid awake nights for fear of being
roasted and eaten. A vast amount of every thing useful had, however,
been necessarily destroyed; and it would seem as if this admitted
fact would have made the people of the island feel poor. But,
very curiously, it did not. The promises to pay for the commodities
destroyed had all been preserved. They were regarded by almost every
body as money; and if money, then, of course, as every body knew,
they were wealth, and wealth so great and superabundant that the
one thing especially necessary to do was to devise plans for using
it. Every body, therefore, devised plans; those who had no money more
especially devising plans for those who had. All sorts of schemes were
accordingly entered upon; railroads to carry people to the isothermals
and every other place where they didn't want to go; and oil-wells on
Cheat and Al(l)gon(e)quin rivers, and patented inventions for making
substitutes for tea and coffee, being especially recommended as
permanent investments. John Law, Lemuel Gulliver, Baron Munchausen,
Sir John Mandeville, Juan Ferdinand Mendez-Pinto, and Sindbad the
Sailor, all came to town, and were chronicled in the newspapers as
having registered at the principal hotels.
Great and commendable industry was also displayed in replacing
the things destroyed by the war, so that, for a time, the societary
circulation became more brisk than ever; while some who had up to this
time regarded war as a misfortune and national calamity, now felt that
they had made a mistake; and others who had known all the time that
war was a blessing, seriously thought of proposing another war as a
means of increasing national prosperity. [19] The large and constant
investment of the results of labor and economy in enterprises which
never could by any possibility give back any adequate return, was, as
every body saw, the next best thing to war; and on the advice of the
most Christian newspapers, very many of the best people made haste to
make such use of their little savings; although, as agriculturists,
they were perfectly well aware that to plant seed wheat or corn in
soils where it would not come up, or, coming up, bear no fruit, was
always very bad business, and did not encourage the sower to hire
much additional labor the next year.
Another idea which about this time had become very popular on the
island was, that while it was a very desirable thing to sell as much as
possible of the products of the island to people in other countries,
it was not desirable to buy any thing from foreigners in return, and
that it was wise to put all possible obstructions in the way of any
ill-informed persons who desired to make such exchanges. But as no
one can long continue to buy unless he proportionally sells, or sell
unless he proportionally buys, the foreign commerce of the island soon
came to a stand-still; and what also notably helped to this result
was, that the necessity of insuring all exchanges made through the
medium of the unstable currency of the island caused all the island
products to cost from five to ten or fifteen per cent. more than they
otherwise would, and more than they would cost the foreigners to buy
elsewhere. [20] But as every industrious community (especially if it
calls in the aid of the forces of nature through machinery) produces
more than it consumes; and as the islanders were both industrious and
ingenious, it oddly enough happened that the community became sorely
troubled by an accumulation of useful things, which the manufacturers
would not part with, because they were unwilling to sell at a loss,
and which the foreigners would not buy because they could buy cheaper
elsewhere, and pay in their own products for what they bought. Then
the manufacturers stopped producing, and next the laborers, by lack of
employment, being unable to buy a full share of the existing abundance,
in turn diminished their consumption; so that for a time it seemed as
though the island would get into the condition of those unfortunate
people who die of their own fatness.
In this way the times gradually "got out of joint." Gradually
the people on the island came to realize that much which they had
considered as wealth was not wealth, and that many influences, before
little regarded, were powerfully acting to make and keep them poor. All
were satisfied that the currency which they were using was one prime
cause of their difficulties, but in precisely what manner the currency
exerted an influence few agreed. All were of one mind, that they ought
to talk about it continually; and they accordingly did so, those who
knew the least talking the most. Some thought that the honest thing
to do, and because honest the best, was for the Government of the
island to redeem its promises to pay on demand as rapidly as possible;
that where they had borrowed a canoe of one man, cloth of another,
spears of a third, or money of a fourth, they should return them,
and not keep promising and never doing. But even these did not agree
as to the manner of thus paying. Some thought it was best to return
the canoes, the iron, the cloth, and the money from day to day as the
Government gradually acquired them. Others thought that a better way
would be to accumulate each separate thing in a separate warehouse,
and then when the warehouses had, after some years, become full,
open the doors, and return every man what had been borrowed of him
all at once. But, as before pointed out, the Government never had,
or could have, any canoes, cloth, iron, or money, except such as
it obtained from the people; and, therefore, payment on the part of
the Government was really the same thing as payment on the part of
the people. But payment of debts is something to which many people
are constitutionally opposed; and this scheme accordingly found
many opponents, who alleged that, if it were carried out, it would
deprive them of money, and consequently of instrumentalities for
making their exchanges; while the real trouble with many of this
class of people was, that they hadn't any thing useful, the products
of their own industry, to exchange, and therefore could get no money,
unless they went to work, or, what was preferable, acquired it from
somebody without consideration.
Besides the persons referred to, who either openly or by their
indecision opposed fiscal reform, there were various other classes
of obstructives. There were those, for example, who, during the
war, were always friends of peace, dressed in broad-brimmed hats
and drab coats, and were at any time ready to compromise with the
cannibals, on condition that the latter should be satisfied with
roasting and eating only the old men, the babies, and an occasional
mother-in-law. All such, as a part of their peace policy, opposed
the original issue and circulation of the bluebacks as something
arbitrary, illegal, and unnecessary. When, however, the cannibals
were driven away, these "friends of peace in time of war" at once
changed their Quaker garb; became "friends of war in time of peace;"
declared earnestly for the enlarged issue and continued use of the
bluebacks, and, as a pretext for so doing, were willing, if necessary,
to have another war, or, at least, an annual scare. During the war,
these friends of peace were called "copper-heads;" and after the
war, their copper-headism, although disguised, was substantially the
same thing. For it was apparent that opposition to the issue of the
bluebacks, as manifested by the advocates of peace during the war,
and opposition to their payment and withdrawal after the war, were only
different manifestations of hostility to the Government and to the war
itself: inasmuch as failure on the part of the Government to observe
its promises, made under such circumstances of extreme peril, would
manifestly put it in bad repute, and prevent it from ever resorting
to similar measures in like emergencies. [21] The really intelligent
and patriotic men of the island at once saw through this duplicity
and repudiation, advocated under pretense of extreme solicitude for
the wants of trade. They remembered the old couplet:
"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
When the devil got well, the devil a monk was he;" [22]
and thereafter designated the opponents of paying the bluebacks, as
inflated, or elongated, copper-heads, by which name they were ever
after known in history.
There were also many well-meaning citizens, who sincerely desired
to have the balloon of inflation come down, but strenuously objected
to have this result effected by any diminution of the volume of gas
contained in it. All the first-cousins of the man who waited for
the river to run by before crossing were certain the balloon would
come down, if people would only be patient, keep a sharp lookout,
and wait. But to this it was objected, that if people were obliged
to consume a large part of their time in watching the balloon, to
avoid having their heads smashed by its swayings and fluctuations,
there would ultimately be a scarcity of victuals and drink; and that,
rendered desperate with watching, and want of employment, food,
and clothing, those interested would finally insist on pulling open
the valves, and letting the whole volume of gas escape at once. Some
proposed to imitate the example of "Peter the Headstrong" in fighting
the Yankees, and bring down the balloon by proclamation; while others
professed to have great faith in family prayer. Eminent patriotic
constitutional lawyers maintained that the military necessity that
authorized and created the bluebacks must necessarily limit their
duration solely to the period of their military necessity; and that
their continued re-issue and use after the repulse of the cannibals
was but a prolongation of the war--not against the enemy, but against
their own people. The astute elongated copper-head lawyers held, on the
other hand, that an instrument of military necessity, once created,
remains such an instrumentality for continued use for all time;
and, therefore, that a bullet or shell, once lawfully employed for
effecting destruction in time of war, could legitimately be reissued
or reshot in time of peace, without matter as to whom it might hit or
what property it might destroy; and that, in fact, to go on reloading
and refiring these instruments, and thereby killing and destroying,
were not crimes, but high acts of patriotism. This theory, however,
alarmed some timid people, who said that one shell or one bullet thus
re-used indefinitely might destroy all the property, or kill all the
people on the island; and they rather regretted, in view of such a
construction, that they did not at once succumb to the cannibals,
whose appetites, in time, might have become cloyed, or whose diet
might have been changed through indigestion or moral suasion.
In the period of doubt and perplexity which thus came to the community,
those fond of precedents carefully searched the old chronicles and
records of other nations for lessons of experience; and, among various
things which profited them greatly, they found, among the chronicles
of the learned Spanish historian, Fray Antonio Agapida, the following
account of what the veteran soldier, Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza,
Count de Tendilla, did, when, besieged by the Moors in the town of
Alhama, he had also serious financial difficulties to contend with:
"It happened," says Agapida, "that this Catholic cavalier, at one
time, was destitute of gold and silver wherewith to pay the wages
of his troops; and the soldiers murmured greatly, seeing that they
had not the means of purchasing necessities from the people of the
town. In this dilemma, what does this most sagacious commander? He
takes me a number of little morsels of paper, on the which he
inscribes various sums, large and small, according to the nature of
the case, and signs me them with his own hand and name. These did he
give to the soldiery, in earnest of their pay. 'How!' you will say,
'are soldiers to be paid with scraps of paper?' 'Even so,' I answer,
'and well paid, too, as I will presently make manifest; for the good
count issued a proclamation ordering the inhabitants of Alhama to
take these morsels of paper for the full amount thereon inscribed,
promising to redeem them at a future time with silver and gold, and
threatening severe punishment to all who should refuse. The people,
having full confidence in his word, and trusting that he would be as
willing to perform the one promise as he certainly was able to perform
the other, took these curious morsels of paper without hesitation
or demur. Thus, by a subtile and most miraculous kind of alchemy,
did this Catholic cavalier turn worthless paper into precious gold,
and make his late impoverished garrison abound in money!'
"It is but just to add," continues the historian, "that the Count de
Tendilla redeemed his promises, like a loyal knight; and this miracle,
as it appeared in the eyes of Agapida, is the first instance on record
of paper money." [23]
It may be also remarked that the island antiquarians did not find
any chronicle of any other soldier who imitated Count de Tendilla in
issuing "little morsels of paper" to serve as money, and subsequently
did not imitate him in promptly redeeming his promises, who found
it easy to obtain again the confidence of the soldiers or the people
when he again got into similar difficulties. [24]