During the debates which were held upon the subject, many other facts were elicited, which confirm all the previous remarks, and prove the iniquity with which the money of the country was disposed of. One member possessed a contract producing £30,000 a year more than the legitimate profit. Mr. Alderman Harley made £37,000 too much by another. On a contract for remitting gold, £35,000 was paid more than was necessary. At an earlier period it was discovered, that, out of 16,000 tuns of beer contracted and paid for, only 7,000 tuns were delivered. The rum contract was granted at fifty per cent. above a remunerating price. The transport service paid twenty per cent. too much. Millions were lying for years in the hands of favorite placemen, favorite agents, and favorite contractors, while the country was borrowing at an exorbitant interest; and, after a careful perusal of the evidence, there can be no doubt that the charge of corrupting the House was true; nor was it in the nature of a member of Parliament in the eighteenth, any more than in the nineteenth century, to possess profitable contracts, the continuation of which depended on war, and yet speak honestly and earnestly for peace. The names of Abraham and Benjamin Goldsmid will recall to the memory of many of our readers the forms and features of these magnates of the money-market. Of singular capacity, and of equally singular good fortune, the firm of which they were the members rose, from comparative obscurity, to be the head and front of ’Change Alley. Prior to 1792 they were little known,—Mr. Gurney, the eminent bill-broker, regards them as his predecessors,—but by that year they occupied an important position, and became successful competitors for the national loans. They were the first members of the Stock Exchange who competed with the bankers for the favors of the Chancellor, and diverted from their purses those profits which were scarcely a legitimate portion of banking business. The combination of that interest being thus broken, the bargains for public loans became more open; there was no confederation to limit and lower the prices; and the ministry and country reaped the benefit in improved terms. The house of Sir William Curtis, whose fortunes were founded in this manner; of Dorrien and of Boldero, names which, great in their day, have almost passed from the roll of city bankers; of Grote, now better known as the philosophical historian of Greece; were all competitors, three quarters of a century ago, for those loans which the necessities of the country made so frequent. Nor were people wanting who openly accused the entire banking interest of an unfair confederation to realize their views. This interest was first attacked by the boldness of Abraham and Benjamin Goldsmid; and it is easy to imagine the feelings of the bankers when unknown men reaped the prize which they had hitherto gathered.