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most important advantages upon the whole community. All the witnesses had agreed, that, if the circulation of small notes were prohibited, the Scottish banks would be compelled to put a stop to these cash-credits, and likewise to abandon their branch-banks in remote districts of the country, which would thus be left without a circulating medium. At the same time, the directors of the Bank of England had given it as their opinion, that the continued circulation of small notes in Scotland and Ireland would have no injurious effect on the metallic circulation of England, provided these notes were confined within the boundaries of their respective countries. The committees, therefore, recommended, that the paper money of these parts of the empire should not be meddled with. Some members, however, of the House of Commons, being apprehensive that a metallic currency in England could not exist with a small-paper circulation in Scotland, şir M. W. Ridley moved a resolution, that the House, in the course of next session (though it was well known that parliament was about to be dissolved), would institute an inquiry as to how far the interests of England and Scotland were likely to be affected by the existence of different systems of currency in the two countries, and to ascertain whether any, or what, means ought to be adopted, to assimilate the currency in both. The motion was negatived without a division; and thus Scotland was left, for the present, in possession of that system of currency, under which her commerce, her manufactures, and her agriculture, had so long flourished.

While the fate of the small

notes of Scotland was still undecided, public attention was extraordinarily excited by a series of letters directed against the dreaded alteration, which appeared in an Edinburgh weekly newspaper. The style in which they were written made the first impression, and it was fixed deep by the name of the author, as soon as they were known (and they were soon known) to be the productions of sir Walter Scott. If they did not display great profoundness in political economy, the opinions which they contained were put forth with what appeared to most people invincible sound sense; but, in reality, they deserved attention principally as pieces of composition. Hastily thrown together, and therefore, marked sometimes by a homeliness of expression excellently suited to its purpose, the richness and aptness of illustration, the adaptation to national prejudice, the dramatic variety, the dry and pithy jokes of Malachi Malagrowther (for under this name did the author write) produced in Scotland a sort of similitude to the period of the Drapers Letters in Ireland; and, in the opinion of his countrymen, placed the civic garland on the head of the author of Waverly, beside the laurel wreath which he had so long worn. He discovered, or thought he discovered, in the conduct of England towards Scotland for some years back, a design to contemn and affront the latter, for the sake of establishing a chimerical system of uniformity; and one proof of it he found in the removal of her separate Board of Customs, to consolidate it with that of England. He talked, too, very merrily, of the danger of sending chests of gold through Highland glens, and the proba

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bility of its creating a new race of Rob Roys just as lord Carnarvon, after him, predicted in the House of Peers, the formation of bands of highwaymen round London from the same cause. But the greatest honour paid to these epis tles was, the notice taken of them even in parliament, as dangerous productions. The jokes of sir Walter Scott were actually treated by some members as incentives to rebellion; and senators gravely averred, in the House of Commons, that, not many years ago, they would have subjected him to condign punishment. Nay, even the chancellor of the Exchequer, thought himself bound to notice them, and, when opening the budget on the 13th of March, struck at Malachi Malagrowther, in a rather eloquent and imposing passage, whose periods, more as a compliment to the man, than from respect to the subject, were perhaps better turned than the dignity of the matter required. According," said the chancellor of the Exchequer, "according to a celebrated production which has appeared in the northern part of the kingdom, the destruction of the independent Boards of Customs and Excise in Scotland, and their consolidation with the central Board, are considered by every true Scot to be derogatory to the national dignity, offensive to the national pride, and subversive of the national rights. When Antony makes his beautiful speech over the dead body of Cæsar, and exclaims, 'O, what a fall was there, my countrymen,' the appeal was not more passionate or energetic, than the appeal made in the letters to which I allude, against the author of that woeful tragedy which terminated in the extinction

of two miserable and insignificant fiscal departments! When I first heard of this extraordinary production, I was really apprehensive that I had been countenancing some undefined wrong against Scotland. When I met my noble friend at the head of the Admiralty, or any of his honourable colleagues at that board, I hardly dared to look them in the face. At last it occurred to me, that I had Scottish blood, and good old Scottish blood, too, in my veins ; and that my conscience had never charged me with any attempt to diminish the honour which I experienced from my connection with that ancient country, and its ancient nobility.

When, too, I recollected all the signal triumphs of Scotland in the various intellectual pursuits of the human race; when I remembered the originality and genius of her poets, the eloquence and accuracy of her historians, the elaborate lucubrations, and profound reasonings of her philosophers: when, in addition to these, her brilliant excursions over the regions of fancy, of history, and of science, I adverted to the noble efforts which she had made, in the field and on the ocean, in maintaining the glory and independence of the empire; when I recollected the names of Abercromby, of Moore, of Lynedoch, and of Hopetoun, and that, only two years ago, I successfully proposed to this House, to do tardy justice to the name of Duncan; when I dwelt in imagination upon all these things, I could not for a moment continue to believe, that the honour of Scotland was tarnished by the transference of a paltry Board of Customs or Excise from Edinburgh to London. I had always thought that that honour

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was established on a much more solid basis, that the great names of Scotland would still have shone with perennial light, though Exeise had never meddled with her whisky, nor Customs controlled her commerce. I believe that the memory s of her great men will continue to shed undiminished honour on their country, even although the two wretched boards of revenue have been swallowed up-oh, dreadful calamity! in the all-devouring vortex of English uniformity; but I will not believe that the honour of the ancient lineage of Scotland is so debased, dri moinsm6O. VIT

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CHAP. II.

Arrangement with the Bank of England-Bill brought into the House of Lords to enable private Banks to have an unlimited Number of Partners Clause introduced authorising the Bank of England to establish Branch Banks-Discussion on the Propriety of relieving the existing Distress by an Issue of Exchequer Bills-The Bank agrees to advance Money upon Security-Bill to enable Factors holding the Documents of property in Goods, to pledge them to the Bank as effectually as if they were the real Owners-Appointment of a Committee on Emigration.-CORN Laws: Mr. Whitmore's Motion-Bill to allow the admission of Bonded Corn into the Market-Bill to authorise Government to Import a limited quantity of Foreign Grain during the Recess-Mr. Ellice's Motion on the State of the Silk Trade-Petitions concerning the Navigation LawsMr. Huskisson's Statement of the Effects of the recent Alterations in these Laws-Relaxation of the Navigation Laws in favour of the new South American States.

HE measure for suppressing

Tthe circulation of small notes

had been conjoined, in the statements of ministers at the opening of the session, with another expedient, the purpose of which was, to render unlimited the number of partners who might legally unite as partners to form a bank. To gain this end, it was necessary to interfere to a certain extent, with the charter of the Bank of England; for, by the privileges of that corporation, no private banking company could consist of more than six partners, a limitation which had sprung from apprehensions that large co-partnerships might tend to exclude the Bank from its paramount influence in the pecuniary transactions of the country, and which rested on the same principle that had induced the incorporated insurance companies to purchase from parliament the power of preventing the formation of any rival

company for similar The purposes. consent of the Bank, therefore, was required, even to the introduction of this measure; for parliamentary omnipotence is never more imprudently, and, in most instances, more unjustly, exerted, than when it violently wrests legal rights from the unwilling. Accordingly, in the month of January, government had entered into a negotiation with the Bank-directors, stating generally the wish which they entertained to restore a metallic circulation, and to establish private banks on a more solid foundation. One measure, the directors were informed, by which the former object might be in part attained, was the establishment, by them, of branch-banks in different parts of the country; but government stated their conviction, that such establishments could not be erected in sufficient numbers to answer the demands of the community. There

remained another expedient, that of allowing private banks to increase the number of their partners indefinitely, and thus to establish them on a basis so broad as to give the country, at all times, a confidence in their solidity, like that which had so long existed in Scotland. The minister pressed earnestly upon the directors, how little they would lose, and how much the publie would gain, by the surrender of their particular privilege. Their notes, they were told, did not circulate beyond a certain limited space round the metropolis, excepting, perhaps, in Lancashire. So long as the country establishments continued upon their present footing, a smaller or greater degree of temporary difficulty, and of necessity for temporary exertion, must always be experienced by the Bank, whenever the exchanges were unfavourable; and, therefore, by giving increased stability to the former, it would secure itself against much occasional embarrassment.

lation was agreed to; and, on the day after parliament had assembled, a general meeting of the proprietors was held, for the purpose of confirming or rejecting the proposed arrangement. Opinions were much divided. One party strongly maintained, that the proposition had nothing equal in it; that the anxiety of government to obtain the concession proved it to be of value, and that therefore it ought not to be made without some acknowledgement; that all the benefit would accrue to the country at the expense of the Bank, and that, when thus required to lay open their charter, and surrender their rights for the public good, it was unjust to call upon them to do so without compensation. Those who, supported the arrangement, rested chiefly on the ground, that all the exertions of the directors to bend government on the point of compensation had been, and would be, unavailing; that the concession would not affect the real interests of the Bank; and that, if, at any future period, they should apply for an extension of their charter, they would be enabled to do so with a better grace, and on the ground of stronger merits, if they yielded now. At the close of the discussion, the arrangement was approved of almost unanimously.

The answer of the directors was unfavourable. It bore, that they could not consent to recommend to the proprietors the surrender of any privileges sanctioned and confirmed by so many acts of the legislature. In return, the Treasury would not admit the right of the Bank to ask compensation in the shape of new privileges, for what they were required to give up; and, at the same time, informed the directors, that, if conditions were to be proposed, it was from them that they must come. The directors now required, that the Bank of England should be placed upon the same footing as the Bank of Ireland, by extending its exclusive privileges to the distance of sixty-five miles round the metropolis. This stipu

That the measure founded on this arrangement might go on simultaneously in parliament with the small-note bill, the act for enabling private banks to consist of an unlimited number of partners, was introduced in the House of Lords. The first discussion upon it took place, on the occasion of lord Liverpool moving the second reading (17th March); but the discussion, almost entirely forgetting the specific proposition before the

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