The object at first was to anticipate taxes, and it was expected that the states would redeem and destroy the notes, but this was not done.

The notes passed at par for a time, but depreciated rapidly as their number increased.

It has been estimated that the country had less than $10,000,000 of coin before the war, and when, in 1780, over $200,000,000 of notes were in circulation they were completely discredited: hence the phrase "not worth a continental." Specie then quickly came back into use.

A few years later the leaders of the French Revolution, failing to learn the lesson of the American experience, issued, on the security of land, notes called assignats in such enormous quantities that they became worth no more than the paper on which they were printed.

The paper money issued under the English bank restriction act of 1797-1820 is especially notable because it gave rise to the controversy which did much to develop the modern theory of the subject.