"The evening was excellent. Little Mr Perker came out wonderfully, told various comic stories, and sang a serious song, which was almost as funny as the anecdotes. Arabella was very charming, Mr Wardle very jovial, Mr Pickwick very harmonious, Mr Ben Allen very uproarious, the lovers very silent, Mr Winkle very talkative, and all of them very happy."--_The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club_, chap. liv.] [Footnote 45: _David Copperfield_, chap. lvii.] CHAPTER IX The First Bankers--Middleton & Campbell, predecessors of Coutts & Co., "at The Three Crowns in the Strand"--Patrick and John Coutts--Patrick and Thomas Coutts in London--Death of James Coutts--Enter, Thomas Coutts--Letter by Him--His Stern Character--Married to Harriot Mellon--Susan Starkie and "The Three Graces"--Sir Francis Burdett--Angela Georgina Burdett--The Duchess of St Albans--Anecdotes of Thomas Coutts--His Personal Appearance--Interior of the Bank--The Chinese Wall-Paper--The Adelphi Chapel--Illustrious Customers of Messrs Coutts--Partners in the Firm--The Wills of Thomas Coutts and the Duchess of St Albans--The Savage Club--Thomas Hardy--E.L. Blanchard. QUEEN ELIZABETH "was particularly kind to the citizens, and borrowed money of them on all occasions." At first sight this may not seem a compliment, since monarchs have not always been too particular in the matter of the repayment of their loans. Queen Elizabeth, however, was a good borrower, and the Goldsmiths Company--employed by her in these transactions--drank annual libations to her memory, out of a silver cup which she had presented to them, for many years after her decease. But "the business of goldsmiths," as Pennant has pointed out, "was confined to the buying and selling of plate, and foreign coins of gold and silver, melting them, and coining others at the mint. The banking was accidental, and foreign to their institution. Regular banking by private people resulted, in 1643, from the calamity of the time, when the seditious spirit was incited by the arts of the parliamentary leaders. The merchants and tradesmen, who before trusted their cash to their servants and apprentices, found that no longer safe; neither did they dare to leave it in the mint at the Tower, by reason of the distress of Majesty itself, which before was a place of public deposit." In the year 1645, the goldsmiths added banking to their business. The first regular banker was Thomas Child, goldsmith, of Fleet Street, who began in this way soon after the Restoration. "He was the father of the profession, a person of large fortune and most respectable character."[46]