Economics -- Early works to 1800; Finance -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- 18th century
Five millions sterling is an immense sum; to which add the credit of
their cash, which would supply them with all the overplus-money in the
town, and probably might amount to half as much more; and then the credit
of running bills, which by circulating would, no question, be an
equivalent to the other half: so that in stock, credit, and bank-bills
the balance of their cash would be always ten millions sterling—a sum
that everybody who can talk of does not understand.
But then to find business for all this stock, which, though it be a
strange thing to think of, is nevertheless easy when it comes to be
examined. And first for the business; this bank should enlarge the
number of their directors, as they do of their stock, and should then
establish several sub-committees, composed of their own members, who
should have the directing of several offices relating to the distinct
sorts of business they referred to, to be overruled and governed by the
governor and directors in a body, but to have a conclusive power as to
contracts. Of these there should be—
One office for loan of money for customs of goods, which by a plain
method might be so ordered that the merchant might with ease pay the
highest customs down, and so, by allowing the bank 4 per cent. advance,
be first sure to secure the £10 per cent. which the king allows for
prompt payment at the Custom House, and be also freed from the
troublesome work of finding bondsmen and securities for the money—which
has exposed many a man to the tyranny of extents, either for himself or
his friend, to his utter ruin, who under a more moderate prosecution had
been able to pay all his debts, and by this method has been torn to
pieces and disabled from making any tolerable proposal to his creditors.
This is a scene of large business, and would, in proportion, employ a
large cash, and it is the easiest thing in the world to make the bank the
paymaster of all the large customs, and yet the merchant have so
honourable a possession of his goods, as may be neither any diminution to
his reputation or any hindrance to their sale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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