But the immense extent of the payments which the merchants of Amsterdam had to make, would not allow their being effected by reciprocal exchanges of debts and demands at certain fixed times. Payments must be made daily, because they were daily wanted; and, in this respect, the bank of Venice suited Amsterdam better than a liquidation by the exchange of debts and demands, as used at Lyons.

By the charter of its foundation, the bank of Amsterdam was authorized to receive the deposit of any sum of money above three hundred gilders; and. to pay all bills of exchange exceeding that sum by transfers in its books. The sums deposited were declared safe against any attachment; the city of Amsterdam guaranteed their safety, and engaged to represent them. The amount of these deposits has been estimated very high by some authors, and rather low by others. D'Avenant estimated them to amount to thirty-six millions sterling*; Adam Smith calculates them to amount only to about three millions sterling, or, at eleven gilders the pound sterling, thirty-three millions of gilders.

Adam Smith was convinced, that the deposits in the bank of Amsterdam had been faithfully respected. But a modern English author pretends, that when the French took possession of Holland, it was discovered that the bank had lent part of its deposits to the city of Amsterdam, and to the ancient government of

New Dialogues, 1710.

+ Wealth of Nations. London. 1805, vol. ü. page 241.

Holland*; but he does not quote the authority on which he grounds his assertion.

* Henry Thornton's Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of England, pages 64 and 309.-Mr. Thornton's statements are these: "The Bank of Amsterdam did not issue circulating notes, but was a mere bank for deposits, the whole of which it was supposed by some to keep always in specie. It was discovered, however, when the French possessed themselves of Holland, that it had been used privately to lend a certain part of them to the city of Amsterdam, and a part to the old Dutch government. Neither of the two debts, as I understand, have yet (1802) been discharged." And, although Mr. Thornton quotes no authority, the fact is well known. The late Professor, J. G. Büsch of Hamburgh, in the first Appendix to his Dissertation on Banks, (which was republished after his death by his friend Ebeling, in 1801, under the title of J. G. Büsch's Sämtliche Schriften über Banken und Münzwesen,) states, § 2, page 159: "This is proved by what happened to the Bank of Amsterdam in 1790, when it was discovered that it had lent more of its original treasure to the state and to the East-India Company, than it should have done.” and, § 6, page 166, he expressly states, that the directors acknow ledged the fact. George Hassel, in his Statistical Account of the Kingdom of Holland, (Geographisch Statistischer Abriss des Königreichs Holland, Weimar, 1809,) also says, page 65, speak. ing of the Bank of Amsterdam: "Its credit had lately been impaired: but the Directory of the Batavian Republic decreed a tax, on the 22d of June, 1802, for the purpose of remedying the deficit of the bank; by which means the bank money, which was at a discount of two per cent, bore again a premium of 41 per cent in the end of the same month." These two authorities sufficiently vindicate Mr. Thornton's assertion, and, as I trust, the liberality of the French author will induce him to omit, in a second edition, the concluding sentence of his paragraph, which runs thus: "Mais il ne cite peint l'autorité sur laquelle il fondo son assertion; de sorte qu'il est prudent de ne pas y croire i have. left it untranslated.-T.

The bank of Rotterdam, created in 1635, was also founded upon the model of that of Amsterdam.

So was the bank of Hamburgh in 1688.

In short, until the foundation of the Bank of England, all the banks, created after that of Venice, were deposit-banks, which effected the payments of those who had deposits with them, by transfers on their books; and of course rendered no other service to commerce than to avoid the charges of transport, to guard against errors in calculation and base coin, and to save the time which paying in metallic money requires.

By means of a blank cheque, with which the merchants of Amsterdam are furnished by the bank, and on which they write the sums which they wish to transfer, they may, without moving, pay more in one hour than they could do in a day, if they were obliged to pay in specie.

These advantages of banks must, no doubt, have recommended them to the attention of the merchants and governments of all countries; and it appears unac-. countable that such banks were not established every where, in proportion as nations made any progress in commerce. It is as if nations were placed near each other merely to injure and destroy each other, and never to profit by their respective knowledge and dis"overies; never to assist and help each other. They are not aware that the communication of knowledge and useful discoveries and the interchange of their duce would increase the mass of that produce, multiply their means of wealth in proportion to their respective labour, and afford them advantages which are not to be

pro

found in their systems of exclusions and prohibitions, or in their mutual monopolies and hostilities.

Notwithstanding her extensive home and foreign trade; in spite of her efforts to pursue the career of wealth, which the Dutch so successfully followed, and even to exclude them from that career; and notwithstanding her extreme attention to appropriate to herself every measure useful to commerce, England witnessed for near a century the success of the bank of Amsterdam without being sensible of its advantages, without being tempted to share them, and even without suspecting their existence.

It was the stadtholder of Holland, William III, to whom England entrusted her government, that first made her sensible of the importance and utility of a 'bank; and yet it was only after a very considerable time that his knowledge, his influence, and the convincing authority of experience, could naturalize such a banking establishment on a soil where it has so much prospered, and where it exhibits this very day one of the most extraordinary phenomena of commercial credit.

Many causes may be assigned for this inconceivable. tardiness, as many causes account for the subsequent prodigious success of the Bank of England.

The Bank of England lost its way on its very outset. Instead of devoting itself to the commercial credit of which the banks of Amsterdam and Hamburgh had so ably laid the foundation, it endeavoured to revive public credit, and lent government the money which its shares had produced. The first operation of the bank confounded the commercial with the public

credit, though they are essentially different;

as will

be seen hereafter. This confusion caused the bank to

languish for sixteen years. fate of public credit, its 20 per cent., and it was only through the constant protection of parliament and through a very uncommon perseverance, that the Bank of England was finally established on a solid foundation.

Its credit experienced the notes were at a discount of

The charter of the bank made it a corporation, and granted it the exclusive privilege of banking as a jointstock company. Subsequent statutes allowed the bank to lend money on pledges, and to deal in gold and silver bullion.

These grants shew, that the founders of the bank and the parliament of England had not very correct notions of the nature and object of banks of circulation; and this becomes evident, when we consider that the bank, even when it was in the greatest distress, advanced to government all the money it could procure, either by creating new shares, or through private loans. In its commencement the bank was, and could not be considered otherwise than, a chest for government to borrow from, or a lombard (lumber-office) totally unconnected with commercial credit.

But if the bank mistook at first the career which it had to run with so much glory, it was not long ere it discovered its error, and wisely promoted the object which it was to accomplish. Without ceasing to be faithful to its engagements with the public creditor, from which it could not separate itself on account of the sums advanced to government, the bank leaned

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