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Allan's Commissariat Currency Notes |
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Notes:On 25 July, 1813, Deputy Commissary General Allan became the head of the New South Wales colony's Commissariat. He suspended the previous system of issuing store receipts and replaced then with private promissory notes.Pre-printed in fixed sums, these new notes were, in fact, currency notes. They were issued over a period of 20 months until, on 24 March, 1815, Governor Macquarie ordered their recall and banned further issues. Allan, it appears, had been dishonestly utilising the notes for his own personal expenditure. The previous 'store receipts' system was quickly reinstated. Allan's notes were printed in the offices of the Sydney Gazette. Records of the total number of notes issued, if they existed, have not been found. Reports from the period indicate that after the recall, notes with a total value of somewhere between £7,000 and £10,000 remained unredeemed - a huge sum for those times. In Macquarie's words, 'in the two years of Dep. Comm. Gen. Allan's issue of his private notes very bad consequences resulted and, if perservered with in that time, would have proved ruinous to both the Crown and Individuals'. It appears that the administration was slow to learn from its mistakes. Four years later, Allan's replacement - Drennan - would again rort the system. See the separate article on Paper Money in Early New South Wales.
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