The promoters of the scheme therefore were filled with
the negative virtue always attaching toi an undertaking
which has not been forbidden by law. Also there were at-
tracted to it many who desired to justify the payment of
debts in a currency bearing the stamp of a false standard
of value by clothing the act with legality.'-

Belcher's efforts at suppression were tO' these misguided
folk persecution. The act of Parliament in 1741 applying
the " Bubble Act " of 1720 to the plantations was, if any-
thing, worse, for it purported tO' make the land bank illegal
from the beginning by a retroactive enactment.^ The ef-
fort of Parliament tO' protect creditors from the essential
alteration through the land bank of the contracts under
which debts were due them involved the destruction of the
contracts which the partners in the bank believed they had
legally made. Retroactive legislation, although a beneficent
means of applying the lessons of experience when used
with wisdom and a sense of responsibility, is, under other
conditions, likely to be unjust. It appears especially un-
just when it involves impairing the obligation of contracts.
This feature added to the rage of the partners, whose en-

^ Some of the partners who had met their obligations, after charac-
terizing the undertaking as " that unluckey and unfortinate skeeme
called the land bank or manafactery," complained of the " obstinate and
willful negligence or dishonest delays and deallings " of the delinquent
members. The petition of the complainants is in Ar., vol. cii, fols.
243-245-

' 14 George II, c. 37.
