Washington himself gave the puzzle up in despair toward the end of the war and paid his manager in produce, not money.
We of to-day have, in fact, not the faintest conception of the blessing we enjoy in a uniform and fairly stable monetary system.

Even before the days of the "Continentals" there was depreciated paper afloat that had been issued by the colonial governments and, unless the fact is definitely stated, when we come upon figures of that period we can never be sure whether they refer to pounds sterling or pounds paper, or, if the latter, what kind of paper.

People had to be constantly figuring the real value of Pennsylvania money, or Virginia money or Massachusetts money, and one meets with many such calculations on the blank leaves of Washington's account books.

Even metallic money was a Chinese puzzle except to the initiated, there were so many kinds of it afloat.

Among our Farmer's papers I have found a list of the money that he took with him to Philadelphia on one occasion--6 joes, 67 half joes, 2 one-eighteenth joes, 3 doubloons, 1 pistole, 2 moidores, 1 half moidore, 2 double louis d'or, 3 single louis d'or, 80 guineas, 7 half guineas, besides silver and bank-notes.
The depreciation of the paper currency during the Revolution proved disastrous to him in several ways.