But an enemy lies in wait for them! one that foretells their destruction, is able to destroy them, and which looks for its own success in their ruin. The report of the committee of the New York banks expressly refers to "_acts of deliberate hostility_" from a neighboring institution as a danger which the resuming banks might have to dread. The reference was plain to the miscalled Bank of the United States as the source of this danger. Since that time an insolent and daring threat has issued from Philadelphia, bearing the marks of its bank paternity, openly threatening the resuming banks of New York with destruction. This is the threat: "_Let the banks of the Empire State come up from their Elba, and enjoy their hundred days of resumption; a Waterloo awaits them, and a St. Helena is prepared for them._" Here is a direct menace, and coming from a source which is able to make good what it threatens. Without hostile attacks, the resuming banks have a perilous process to go through. The business of resumption is always critical. It is a case of impaired credit, and a slight circumstance may excite a panic which may be fatal to the whole. The public having seen them stop payment, can readily believe in the mortality of their nature, and that another stoppage is as easy as the former. On the slightest alarm--on the stoppage of a few inconsiderable banks, or on the noise of a groundless rumor--a general panic may break out. _Sauve qui peut_--save himself who can--becomes the cry with the public; and almost every bank may be run down. So it was in England after the long suspension there from 1797 to 1823; so it was in the United States after the suspension from 1814 to 1817; in each country a second stoppage ensued in two years after resumption; and these second stoppages are like relapses to an individual after a spell of sickness: the relapse is more easily brought on than the original disease, and is far more dangerous.