Over the local institutions the Bank of the United States always exercised a salutary control, checking any disposition to overtrade by restraining their issues and holding them to a proper specie reserve; and this by no other interference except its countenance or ill favor, as such banks severally observed or disregarded the ordinary rules of financial prudence. The immediate effect of the refusal of Congress to recharter the Bank of the United States was to bring the Treasury to the verge of bankruptcy. The interference of Parish, Girard, and Astor alone saved the credit of the government, and this interference was no doubt prompted by self-interest. That Mr. Astor was hostile to the bank is certain. Gallatin wrote to Madison in January, 1811, that Mr. Astor had sent him a verbal message, "that in case of non-renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, all his funds and those of his friends, to the amount of two millions of dollars, would be at the command of government, either in importing specie, circulating government paper, or in any other way best calculated to prevent any injury arising from the dissolution of the bank," and he added that Mr. Bentson, Mr. Astor's son-in-law, in communicating this message said, "that in this instance profit was not Mr. Astor's object, and that he would go great lengths, partly from pride and partly from wish, to see the bank down." In 1813, when the bank was "down," Mr. Gallatin was no longer master of the situation. He offered to treat directly with Parish, Girard, and Astor for ten millions of dollars, but finding some hesitation, he opened the loan for subscription. When the subscription failed, he was at the mercy of the capitalists. Another immediate effect of the dissolution of the bank was the withdrawal from the country of the foreign capital invested in the bank, more than seven millions of dollars. This amount was remitted, in the twelve months preceding the war, in specie. Specie was at that time a product foreign to the United States, and by no means easy to obtain. Specie, as Mr. Gallatin profoundly observed, does not precede, but follows wealth. The want of it nearly destroyed Morris's original plan for the Bank of North America, and was only made up by the fortunate receipt of the French remittances. In 1808 the specie in the vaults of the treasury reached fourteen millions of dollars, but during the operation of the Embargo Act, the banks of New England had gradually accumulated a specie reserve, and that of Richmond, Virginia, pursued the same policy. Together they held one third of the entire specie reserve of the banks. The amount of specie in the Bank of the United States, January 1, 1811, had fallen to $5,800,000, which soon found its way abroad.