the Legislature to adopt any compulsory measures relative to the banks.” The original report and the substitute were postponed, and no action was ever had afterwards upon either. The substitute states the following to have been the causes of the suspension of specie payments in Pennsylvania: 1. The blockade by the enemy of the Middle and Southern seaports, the impossibility of getting their productions to market, and the consequent necessity imposed upon them to pay in specie to New England the price of the foreign merchandise imported into that portion of the Union. 2. The large loans made by banks and individuals of this and the adjacent States to the Government to sustain the war, and the small comparative loans made in New England, which were paid by an extravagant issue of bank notes. These latter bore but a small proportion to the money expended there. To make up this deficiency, the specie of the Middle and Southern States was drawn from the vaults of these banks, and was used by the New England people in commerce, or smuggled to the enemy. 3. The great demand for specie in England. 4. The recent establishment of a number of new banks throughout the interior of Pennsylvania, which drew their capital chiefly from the banks in Philadelphia and thereby weakened them, compelled them first to suspend specie payments. These new banks, in self-defence, were therefore obliged to suspend. 5. The immense importation of foreign goods at the close of the war, and the necessity of paying for them in specie, have continued the suspension. During this session, and whilst the debates on the subject were proceeding in Congress, I changed my impression on the subject of a Bank of the United States, and became decidedly hostile to such an institution. In this opinion I have never since wavered, and although I have invested much of the profits of my profession in stocks, and was often advised by friends to buy stock in this bank, I always declined becoming a stockholder. Whilst the bill was pending in Congress, I urged Mr. Holgate and other influential Democrats in the House to offer instructions against the measure, but could not prevail with them. I recollect Mr. H. told me that it was unnecessary, as our Democratic Senators in Congress would certainly vote against the measure without any instructions. Mr. Buchanan appears to have left the Legislature at the end of the session of 1815–16, with a fixed determination to devote himself exclusively to the practice of his profession. He says: