For the elite, revolution was the shrewdest economic choice.22 London had already stymied landownership in the West, restricting those with capital (or those capable of borrowing capital) from acquiring coveted acres. Virginia’s public finances were a mess; there was no way for the colony to honor the paper money issued during the Seven Years’ War, which alienated most of the holders of the paper.23 And there was the inescapably personal issue of the money that planters owed creditors in Britain.24 In Jefferson’s words, such debts were now “hereditary
