“Lastly, a bank with a certain number of sufficient men of estate and credit, joined together in a joynt stock, being as it were the general cashkeepers or treasurers of the place where they are settled, and divers others, tending much to the tranquility of your highness and the welfare of the English nation, which, with your highness’s favourable encouragement, I shall in all humility be ready to make known to you, and remove any objections as can be alledged in the premises, and propound a way how it may be effected, and the evils remedied and prevented, being unwilling to bury the talent in a napkin which it hath pleased the Giver of all blessings in his great goodness and mercie to bestow upon me, hoping that I shall not offend by tendering this with my best services to your highness.” Although this matter was referred to a Parliamentary Committee, nothing came of the proposal. In 1667 the gradually developing banking business received a check by what is known as a “run” taking place, and this appears to be the first episode of the kind of which we have any record. This event lessened the credit of the bankers, but the action of Charles II. in closing the Exchequer in 1672 nearly brought their business to an end. By the time of the establishment of the Bank of England, however, many bankers had again regained a position of credit and wealth, and they continued to carry on and develop their business in spite of the competition of the new bank. About the same time several joint-stock banks were founded and carried on successfully until they were obliged to wind up their affairs in 1708, in consequence of the monopoly granted to the Bank of England in that year. Although the London banks, which continued in existence after the granting of this monopoly, were not prohibited by the Bank Charter from issuing their own notes, yet this part of their business gradually declined in the presence of their all-powerful rival, and it ceased altogether about the year 1750 (though some writers give the date as about 1793). About the year 1775 the City bankers, finding great inconvenience in settling their mutual transactions, established what is called the “Clearing House,” to facilitate their exchanges with each other; of this we shall have more to say later. It may be noted that the two oldest banking houses in London are those of Messrs. Child and Company and Messrs. Hoare, both of which were established before the Bank of England. In the early days of which we are now speaking, the personal relations of banker and customer were rather different from those of the present time of keen competition: only the merchants and wholesale dealers were personally known to their banker, who was scarcely acquainted with even the names of the retail dealers favouring him with their patronage.