| Notes |
- Later, Governor of Rhode Island.From Colonial Rhode Island by Sydney V. James, Published 1975 by Charles Scribner's Sons
P. 176:
On the issuance of paper money:
"Rhode Island went on to issue more bills - a third bank of L40,000 in 1728, then
L60,000 in 1731 over mounting opposition. The second of these provided for bounties on
hemp, flax, whale oil and codfish... Towns with commercial ambitions...called for a new
bank, while a coterie of opponents coagulated in Newport. This group included the
customs collector, attorney Nathaniel Newdigate, and an assortment of merchants, seven
of them Anglicans and probably several with aspirations to open direct trade with Britain.
They planned an appeal to the Board of Trade, seconded by Governor Joseph Jenckes,
who inquired whether his refusal of assent to the act had vetoed it. These opponents even
went so far as to talk of Rhode Island's laws becoming subject to review by the Privy
Council like those of royal colonies. Deputy Governor John Wanton got wind of these
schemes, called the Assembly back into session to hear about them, seized the
opposition's papers, rushed some explanatory statements through the legislature, and then
returned the papers in a mutilated condition."
"Suddenly Rhode Island faced a constitutional crisis. Even the elderly and experienced
agent in London, Richard Partridge, feared the consequences. Astonishingly, the Crown's
attorney general and solicitor general announced that the charter did not give the
governor a veto and that 'the crown hath no discretionary power of repealing laws' in
Rhode Island. Jenckes tried to rescind his dissent from the paper money act and declined
to stand for reelection, pleading advanced years and failing memory. Paper money
advocates triumphantly elected the Wanton brothers governor and deputy governor and
proceeded in 1733 to celebrate the victory by authorizing the fifth land bank of L104,000.
In London, however, the Board of Trade began a long, slow search for ways to stop this
sort of thing. (In Boston, frightened merchants set up a syndicate to issue bills with silver
backing, vainly hoping to drive the dubious paper out of use. All that came of their efforts
was hoarding of their bills and a steeper rise of the price of silver as the merchants tried
to buy enough to expand their operations.)"
P. 180:
"Anguished Boston importers saw Newport thrive during the depression that spread over most of New England from the late 1720's through the 1730's."
P. 235:
"By that time the budding Newport swells had long abandoned hostility to the charter government. Led by Coddington's grandsons, they and joined forces with the Wanton brothers, newly rich ex-Quakers, and newcomers to the colony though they
were."
"In the 1720's, the Newport gentry was enlisting recruits of diverse character. Abraham Redwood moved in from Antigua; he was much more given to ostentation, knowledge, and the social whirl than his Quaker precursor, Thomas Richardson... Later
Godfrey Malbone from Virginia followed the Wanton path to wealth and eminence."
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1672 - 1740 (68 years)
