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THE

FINANCIAL REGISTER

OF THE

UNITED STATES:

DEVOTED CHIEFLY TO FINANCE AND CURRENCY,

AND TO

BANKING AND COMMERCIAL STATISTICS.

VOL. II.

FROM JULY, 1838, TO DECEMBER, 1838.

PHILADELPHIA:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ADAM WALDIE, 46 CARPENTER STREET.

1838

H

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DEVOTED CHIEFLY TO FINANCE AND CURRENCY, AND TO BANKING AND COMMERCIAL STATISTICS.

"It is the interest of every country that the standard of its money, once settled, should be inviolably and immutably kept to perpetuity. For whenever that is altered, upon whatever pretence soever, the public will lose by it. "Men in their bargains contract, not for denominations or sounds, but for the intrinsic value."-Locke on Money.

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THE TRADE OF BANKING IN
ENGLAND:

No. 1.

the fluctuations which from time to time have

thing connected with the concerns of the company is disclosed without reserve. Embracing the substance of the evidence taken Decided differences of opinion prevailed before the secret committee of the house of amongst several of the witnesses who apcommons, digested and arranged under appeared before the committee, with respect to propriate heads. Together with a summary of the law applicable to the Bank of England, to private banks of issue, and joint stock banking companies. To which is added an appendix. By MICHAEL J. QUINN, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister at Law. London, Butterworth, 7 Fleet street; Murray, Albemarle street; Ridgway, Piccadilly and Richardson, Royal Exchange.

1833.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY LORD BROUGHAM AND
VAUX, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN, THIS

WORK IS, WITH HIS PERMISSION, AND WITH SENTIMENTS
OF UNFEIGNED GRATITUDE FOR SEVERAL TOKENS OF

KINDNESS, MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE
AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

taken place in the currency. I found it necessary, therefore, to attempt to clear away the obscurities by which that subject has been heretofore surrounded; and I hope, that, with the assistance of the practical knowledge relating to it which abounds in the minutes of evidence, I have succeeded in simplifying a topic which theorists had previously made almost unintelligible. In order to prepare the reader for this discussion, I have touched on the nature of the foreign exchanges-a theme also hitherto fruitful of perplexity to all persons who have not an immediate interest in their variations, and a practical acquaintance with the causes that elevate or depress them in the course of trade. If the reader go with me through these explanations, I trust that he will then be enabled to

The lessons afforded to the country by the

I have endeavoured in the following pages judge how far the management of the bank is to present, in the first place, a general view chargeable with producing contractions or of the origin, privileges, and functions of enlargements of the circulation to the prejuthe Bank of England, of the mode in which dice of the community, and whether any its business is conducted, and of the charac- system of banking can be devised by which ter which it has acquired amongst those such alternations can for the future be prepersons in London, who, from their own ex-vented. perience, are peculiarly competent to bear testimony to the true nature of its operations. catastrophe of 1825 are next alluded to, as I have then proceeded to treat of its branch well as the extent to which the bank has probanks recently established in different parts fited by those serious and providential admoof the country, collecting from the evidence nitions. The whole of the objections which laid before the committee of the house of have been made to its system of management, commons such information as might enable and the answer given to those objections on the public to judge of the value of those the part of the bank, are then exhibited, in institutions. Considering the bank and its order that the reader may decide for himself branches, then, in one point of view, I have between conflicting opinions, arguments, and traced out its actual condition as to capital, statements of fact, on which side the truth is liabilities, and annual profits, from the ac- probably to be found. counts which were rendered to the committee. As no similar returns were ever before communicated by the bank, the real state of that corporation can now be examined, for the first time, upon the faith of documents of an authentic description, and in which every

As the enquiry now pending in parliament extends to private and joint-stock banks, the evidence with respect to those establishments is condensed in successive chapters; and they will, perhaps, be found, in connection with those which precede them, to disclose a more

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