one man multiplied by fifty. A banker may, therefore, well resort to other men for information; but he may differ from them all, and still be right; any way, if he perform the dictates of his own judgment, he performs all that duty requires; if he act otherwise, he performs less than his duty. "Let the counsel of your own heart stand," says the Bible; and by way of encouragement, it adds, that a man can see more of what concerns himself than seven watchmen on a high tower.

FINALLY.

As virtue's strongest guarantee is an exemption from all motive to commit evil, a banker must avoid all engagements that may make him needy. If he wants to be more than a banker, he should cease from being a banker. Should he discover in himself a growing tendency to irritability, which his position is apt to engender, let him resist it as injurious to his bank and his peace; and, should he find himself popular, let him examine whether it proceeds from the discharge of his duties. A country banker was some few years ago dismissed from a bank which he had almost ruined, and was immediately tendered an honorary public dinner by the citizens of his village, into whose favor his misdeeds had unwisely ingratiated him. The service of massive plate, that was given to a president of the late United States Bank, was in reward of compli ances which soon after involved in disaster every commercial interest of our country. Could we trace actions to their source, these mistakes of popular gratitude would never occur. The moroseness that we abhor, proceeds often from a sensitiveness that is annoyed at being unable to oblige; while the amiability that is applauded, proceeds from an imbecility that knows not how to refuse.

A banker should possess a sufficiency of legal knowledge to make him suspect what may be defects in proffered securities, so as to submit his doubts to authorized counsellors. He must, in all things, be eminently practical. Every man can tell an obviously insufficient security, and an obviously abundant security; but neither of these constitute any large portion of the loans that are offered to a banker. Security practically sufficient for the occasion is all that a banker can obtain for the greater number of the loans he must make. If he must err in his judgment of securities, he had better reject fifty good loans than make one bad debt; but he must endeavor not to err on the extreme of caution, or the extreme of temerity; and his tact in this particular will, more than in any other, constitute the criterion of his merits as a banker.

EULOGY ON A BODY CORPORATE.*

THE Ontario Bank was incorporated March 13, 1813, and soon thereafter commenced business at Canandaigua. The Legislature, on the 15th of April, 1815, authorized it to establish a branch, which commenced business at Utica, December 26, 1815. The corporation was originally to endure till June, 1833, but the Legislature of 1829 extended its existence to the 1st of January, 1856, when it must expire; and, as you and I have been connected with it from its origination, except its first six years, you, as autocrat of the Bank at Canandaigua, and I somewhat so of the branch at Utica, I desire to sketch its history, as due to you, its primum mobile, and that haply the Bank in its example may, "though dead, yet live."

Published June, 1855, and addressed to Henry B. Gibson, Cashier of the Ontario Bank Canandaigua.

For many years the corporate capital ($500,000) was equally divided between both offices, but since November, 1843, three hundred thousand dollars have been located in the branch, and two hundred thousand dollars in the mother bank. The first dividend of profits was paid May 1, 1814, and dividends have been paid semi-annually ever since; each office contributing thereto ratably, after paying its own taxes, salaries, and other expenses of every kind; issuing also separately its own bank-notes, and providing funds for their redemption. One omission, however, of a half-yearly dividend occurred in 1819, on an untoward occasion, which caused my appointment to the branch in September of that year, and your appointment to the mother bank a month or two subsequently. You were wholly unknown to the directors at Canandaigua, who acted therein on my judgment, an event of which our learned and venerable friend, the Hon. Daniel Appleton White, of Salem, Mass., says: "I have similar grounds to exult at as John Adams had at having nominated ChiefJustice Marshall to the United States bench." The responsibility we severally undertook was not small. The corporation was prostrate in credit, and literally a ruin. I forsook no employment for my new post, and therefore hazarded only my reputation; but you were at New-York, in mercantile business, and had already acquired thereby $30,000-a large accomplishment we then thought, though it equals in amount only about half your present established annual cash income; acquired, too, not by making other men poorer, but by varied operations that benefited all their instrumentalities.

We omitted, in May, 1837, one other dividend, by compulsion of the Legislature, on the suspension of specie payments throughout the Union; but on the day the law

terminated, May 16, 1838, our corporation paid its stockholders ten per cent. for the suspended year. In that suspension of specie, our two institutions were among the last in the State that submitted to a necessity originating elsewhere; and at a convention of bankers from all parts of the Union, held in New-York some months after the suspension, our corporation said, through us, as its delegates: "If we designate a day for the resumption of specie payments, persons may say that the designation is to frustrate the sub-treasury bill; and if we adjourn without designating a day, we may be suspected of striving to create a National Bank. The dilemma in these suspicious times may be inevitable, but if our decision shall conform to our moral and legal obligations, its propriety may protect us from misconstruction. We are urged to continue in suspension, lest the public suffer a pecuniary pressure; but, threatened, taunted, and despised as we are, for not complying with our obligations, no person will believe that we continue dishonored to protect the public which thus threaten, taunt, and despise us. Duty, therefore, in this case, as in most others, is our best chance for safety." The convention, however, adjourned without designating any day, but the banks of the State met subsequently, and I had the honor to draft a resolution which was adopted, and on which specie was resumed on the first of May then approaching. On the banks of the city of New-York rested the whole burden, expense, and danger of the resumption, which seemed almost hopeless of permanency, while other cities, especially Philadelphia, continued suspended; but time justified the measure, and the resumption became permanent, gradually extended over the Union, and has been unbroken ever since.

The total profits which our corporation will have paid to

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its stockholders on the first of January next, will be four hundred and eleven per cent.; equalling seven per cent. interest the year on the capital, from its investment in 1813, and, in addition, $5,951 on every thousand dollars of stock; provided the stockholder shall have kept the excess of dividends invested at compound interest from its reception. Should he have kept thus invested the seven per cent. interest also, the whole would amount, with the capital, to $23,286 for every thousand dollars of original investment. The calculation is predicated on compounding annually, though no reason exists why the owner should not have compounded semi-annually as the bank paid the dividends. On looking at a thousand dollars thus enlarged by the slow process of legal accumulation, we can see why prudent perseverance is usually successful; and that men who jeopard their capital to acquire wealth suddenly, are usually only re-enacting the old fable of killing the bird that, if preserved, would have laid daily, for ever, a golden egg. The dividends, too, have been paid at different localities near the respective stockholders, who have been so little troubled that perhaps one cannot be found out of Canandaigua, and few therein, who has ever voted on his stock even by proxy, or known who conducted the two banks except by the names on the bank notes. The corporation has relieved, also, every stockholder from the personal payment of all taxes on his invested capital, and has paid some fifty-five thousand dollars extorted by the safety fund. The stockholders, however, should know that one. dividend of twenty per cent., paid on the whole capital in November, 1843, was paid exclusively out of the surplus earnings of the office at Canandaigua; and, while the disclaimer may wound the susceptibilities of some whom it honors, I cannot resist saying that, though the dividend