1844, L22,015,000 L7,797,000 L7,716,000 L3,804,000 L41,325,000 1862, 20,190,000 5,680,000 5,519,000 4,053,000 35,442,000 Had this principle been adopted in the United States at the same period, the excesses and extravagance of 1856-'7 might have been obviated, as well as the revulsion of the latter year, and the distress which followed. Let us recur to the eventful history of the bank. Although a private institution, owned and controlled by private capital, its large profits accruing for the benefit of its own shareholders, yet it became so closely interwoven with the commerce, manufactures, trade, and the public finances of the nation, that it may be considered as in reality a national institution. At its inception its whole capital was swallowed by the treasury. This was a part of the contract of charter. Its subsequent accumulations of capital, from L1,200,000, have likewise been absorbed by the Government, until now the bank reports the Government debt to them to be L11,015,100, and the Government securities held, to be L11,064,000. Without the aid of the bank, the national treasury could not, probably, have made the enormous disbursements which were actually made between the commencement of the American Revolution in 1776, and the termination of the continental war of 1815. The bank here furnished, almost alone, 'the sinews of war.' During this eventful period there were large numbers of provincial banks of issue created in England and Ireland. These were managed mainly with a view to private profit, while the public interests have suffered severely from the frequent expansions and contractions of the volume of the currency through such private management, and from the numerous failures of these concerns. The evils of this system were for many years the subject of discussion in Parliament and among prominent journals. In 1826 the Edinburgh _Review_ expressed the opinion that 'So long, therefore, as any individual, or association of individuals, may issue notes of a low value, to be used in the common transactions of life, without lodging any security for their ultimate payment, so long is it _certain_ that those panics which must necessarily occur every now and then, and against which no effectual precaution can be devised, must occasion the destruction of a greater or smaller number of banking establishments, and by consequence a ruinous fluctuation in the supply and value of money.' (_Edinburgh Review_, February, 1826.) This was a period of great speculation in England. In the year 1823 no less than 532 companies were chartered, with a nominal capital of 441 millions sterling. These speculations were fostered by the increasing volume of bank paper. The evil increased, and was allowed to exist until the year 1844, when a stop was put to the further increase of the volume of bank circulation, and to the further incorporation of joint stock banks.