The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Chapter I.: History of American Currency.
• Chapter II.: The English Bank Restriction.
• Chapter III.: Austrian Paper Money. *
• Appendix.: Report From the Select Committee On the High Price of Gold Bullion.

APPENDIX.

REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE
HIGH PRICE OF GOLD BULLION.

The Select Committee appointed to enquire into the cause of the High Price of Gold Bullion, and to take into consideration the state of the Circulating Medium, and of the Exchanges between Great Britain and Foreign Parts;—and to report the same, with their Observations thereupon, from time to time, to the House;—Have, pursuant to the Orders of the House, examined the matters to them referred; and have agreed to the following Report:

Your Committee proceeded, in the first instance, to ascertain what the price of gold bullion had been, as well as the rates of the foreign exchanges, for some time past; particularly during the last year.

Your Committee have found that the price of gold bullion, which, by the regulations of his Majesty's Mint, is 3l. 17s. 10½d. per ounce of standard fineness, was, during the years 1806, 1807, and 1808, as high as 4l. in the market. Towards the end of 1808 it began to advance very rapidly, and continued very high during the whole year 1809; the market price of standard gold in bars fluctuating from 4l. 9s. to 4i. 12s. per oz. The market price at 4l. Ios. is about 15½ per cent, above the Mint price.

Your Committee have found, that during the three first months of the present year, the price of standard gold in bars remained nearly at the same price as during last year; viz., from 4l. IOS, to 4l. 12s. per oz. In the course of the months of March and April, the price of standard gold is quoted but once in Wetten-hall's tables; viz., on the 6th of April last, at 4l. 6s. which is rather more than 10 per cent, above the Mint price. The last quotations of the price of gold, which have been given in those tables, are upon the 18th and 22d of May, when Portugal gold in coin is quoted at 4l. IIS. per oz. : Portugal gold coin is about the same fineness as our standard. It is stated in the same tables, that in the month of March last, the price of new doubloons rose from 4l. 7s. to 4l. 9s. per oz. Spanish gold is from 4½ to 4¾ grains better than standard, making about 4s. per oz. difference in value.

It appears by the evidence, that the price of foreign gold coin is generally higher than that of bar gold, on account of the former finding a more ready vent in foreign markets. The difference between Spanish and Portugal gold in coin and gold in bars, has of late been about 2s. per ounce. Your Committee have also to state, that there is said to be at present a difference of between 3s. and 4s. per ounce between the price of bar gold which may be sworn off for exportation as being foreign gold, and the price of such bar gold as the dealer will not venture to swear off: while the former was about 4l. IOS. in the market, the latter is said to have been about 4l. 6s. On account of these extrinsic differences, occasioned either by the expense of coinage, or by the obstructions of law, the price of standard gold in bars, such as may be exported, is that which it is most material to keep generally in view through the present inquiry.

It appeared to your Committee, that it might be of use, in judging of the cause of this high price of gold bullion, to be informed also of the prices of silver during the same period. The price of standard silver in his Majesty's Mint is 5s. 2d. per ounce; at this standard price, the value of a Spanish dollar is 4s. 4d. or, which comes to the same thing, Spanish dollars are, at that standard price, worth 4s. 11½d. per ounce. It is stated in Wettenhall's tables that throughout the year 1809, the price of new dollars fluctuated from 5s. 5d. to 5s. 7d. per ounce, or from 10 to 13 per cent, above the Mint price of standard silver. In the course of the last month, new dollars have been quoted as high as 5s. 8d. per ounce, or more than 15 per cent, above the Mint price.

Your Committee have likewise found, that towards the end of the year 1808, the Exchanges with the continent became very unfavourable to this country, and continued still more unfavourable through the whole of 1809, and the three first months of the present year.

Hamburgh, Amsterdam, and Paris, are the principal places with which the Exchanges are established at present. During the last six months of 1809, and the first three months of the present year, the Exchanges on Hamburgh and Amsterdam were depressed as low as from 16 to 20 per cent, below par; and that on Paris still lower. The exchanges with Portugal have corresponded with the others; but they are complicated by some circumstances which shall be explained separately.

Your Committee find, that in the course of the month of March last, that is, from the 2d of March to the 3d of April, the exchanges with the three places above mentioned received a gradual improvement. The exchange with Hamburgh rose gradually from 29. 4. to 31.; that with Amsterdam from 31. 8. to 33.5.; that with Paris from 19. 16. to 21. 11. Since the 3d April last to the present time, they have remained nearly stationary at those rates, the exchange with Hamburgh, as stated in the tables printed for the use of the merchants, appearing as much against this country as 9l. percent, below par; that with Amsterdam appearing to be more than 7l. per cent, below par; and that with Paris more than 14l. per cent, below par.

So extraordinary a rise in the market price of gold in this country, coupled with so remarkable a depression of our exchanges with the continent, very early, in the judgment of your Committee, pointed to something in the state of our own domestic currency as the cause of both appearances. But before they adopted that conclusion, which seemed agreeable to all former reasonings and experience, they thought it proper to enquire more particularly into the circumstances connected with each of those two facts; and to hear, from persons of commercial practice and detail, what explanations they had to offer of so unusual a state of things.

With this view, your Committee called before them several merchants of extensive dealings and intelligence, and desired to have their opinions, with respect to the cause of the high price of gold and the low rates of exchange.*

I.

It will be found by the evidence, that the high price of gold is ascribed, by most of the witnesses, entirely to an alleged scarcity of that article, arising out of an unusual demand for it upon the continent of Europe. This unusual demand for gold upon the continent is described by some of them as being chiefly for the use of the French armies, though increased also by that state of alarm, and failure of confidence, which leads to the practice of hoarding.

Your Committee are of opinion, that, in the sound and natural state of the British currency, the foundation of which is gold, do increased demand for gold from other parts of the world, however great, or from whatever causes arising, can have the effect of producing here, for a considerable period of time, a material rise in the market price of gold. But before they proceed to explain the grounds of that general opinion, they wish to state some other reasons which alone would have led them to doubt whether in point of fact, such a demand for gold, as is alleged, has operated in the manner supposed.

If there were an unusual demand for gold upon the continent, such as could influence its market price in this country, it would of course influence also, and indeed in the first instance, its price in the continental markets; and it was to be expected that those who ascribed the high price here to a great demand abroad, would have been prepared to state that there was a corresponding high price abroad. Your Committee did not find that they grounded their inference upon any such information; and so far as your Committee have been enabled to ascertain, it does not appear that during the period when the price of gold bullion was rising here, as valued in our paper, there was any corresponding rise in the price of gold bullion in the market of the continent, as valued in their respective currencies. Mr. Whitmore. indeed, the late governor of the bank, stated, that in his opinion it was the high price abroad which had carried our gold coin out of this country; but he did not offer to your Committee any proof of this high price. Mr. Greffulhe, a continental merchant, who appeared to be remarkably well informed in the details of trade, being asked by the Committee, if he could state whether any change had taker place in the price of gold in any of the foreign markets within the last year? answered, “No very material change that I am aware of.” Upon a subsequent day, having had time to refer to the actual prices, he again stated to the Committee, “I beg leave to observe, that there has been no alteration of late in the Mint price of gold in foreign places, nor have the market prices experienced an advance at all relative to the rise that has taken place in England; one of the papers 1 have delivered shews the foreign prices reduced into sterling money at the present low rates of exchange, and the excess above our market price may be considered as about equal to the charges of conveyance.” The paper he refers to will be found in the Appendix; and this statement made by Mr. Greffulhe throws great light upon this part of the subject; as it shews, that the actual prices of gold in the foreign markets are just so much lower than its mar'cet price here, as the difference of exchange amounts to, Mr. Greffulhe's paper is confirmed by another, which has been laid before your Committee. Mr. Abraham Goldsmid has also stated to your Committee, that during that part of last year when the market price of gold here rose so high, its price at Hamburgh did not fluctuate more than from 3 to 4 per cent.

Here your Committee must observe, that both at Hamburgh and Amsterdam, where the measure of value is not gold as in this country, but silver, an unusual demand for gold would affect its money price, that is, its price in silver; and that as it does not appear that there has been any considerable rise in the price of gold, as valued in silver, at those places in the last year, the inference is, that there was not any considerable increase in the demand for gold. That permanent rise in the market price of gold above its Mint price, which appears by Mr. Greffulhe's paper to have taken place for several years both at Hamburgh and Amsterdam, may in some degree be ascribed, as your Committee conceive, to an alteration which has taken place in the relative value of the two precious metals all over the world: concerning which, much curious and satisfactory evidence will be found in the Appendix, particularly in the documents laid before your Committee by Mr. Allen. From the same cause, a fall in the relative price of silver appears to have taken place in this country for some time before the increase of our paper currency began to operate. Silver having fallen in relative value to gold throughout the world, gold has appeared to rise in price in those markets where silver is the fixed measure, and silver has appeared to fall in those where gold is the fixed measure.

With respect to the alleged demand for gold upon the continent for the supply of the French armies, your Committee must further observe, that, if the wants of the military chest have been latterly much increased, the general supply of Europe with gold has been augmented by all that quantity which this great commercial country has spared in consequence of the substitution of another medium of circulation. And your Committee cannot omit remarking, that though the circumstances which might occasion such an increased demand may recently have existed in greater force than at former periods, yet in the former wars and convulsions of the continent, they must have existed in such a degree as to produce some effect. Sir Francis Baring has very justly referred to the seven years' war and to the American war, and remarks, that no want of bullion was then felt in this country. And upon referring for a course of years to the tables which are published for the use of the merchants, such as Lloyd's lists and Wettenhall's Course of Exchange, your Committee have found that from the middle of the year 1773, when the reformation of the gold coin took place, till about the middle of the year 1799, two years after the suspension of the cash payments of the Bank, the market-price of standard gold in bars remained steadily uniform at the price of 3l. 17s. 6d. [being, with the small allowance for loss by detention at the Mint, equal to the Mint price of 3l. 17s. 10½d.] with the exception of one year, from May, 1783, to May, 1784, when it was occasionally 3l. 18s. During the same period it is to be noticed, the price of Portugal gold coin was occasionally as high as 4l. 2s.; and your Committee also observe, that it was stated to the Lords' Committee in 1797 by Mr. Abraham New-land, that the bank had been frequently obliged to buy gold higher than the Mint price, and upon one particular occasion gave as much for a small quantity, which their agent procured from Portugal, as 4l. 8s. But your Committee find, that the price of standard gold in bars was never for any length of time materially above the Mint price, during the whole period of 24 years which elapsed from the reformation of the gold coin to the suspension of the cash payments of the Bank. The two most remarkable periods prior to the present, when the market price of gold in this country has exceeded our Mint price, were in the reign of King William, when the silver coin was very much worn below its standard, and in the early part of his present Majesty's reign, when the gold coin was very much worn below its standard. In both those periods, the excess of the market price of gold above its Mint price was found to be owing to the bad state of the currency; and in both instances, the reformation of the currency effectually lowered the market price of gold to the level of the Mint price. During the whole of the years 1796 and 1797, in which there was such a scarcity of gold, occasioned by the great demands of the country bankers in order to increase their deposits, the market price of gold never rose above the Mint price.

Your Committee have still further to remark upon this point, that the evidence laid before them has led them to entertain much doubt of the alleged fact, that a scarcity of gold bullion has been recently experienced in this country. That guineas have disappeared from the circulation, there can be no question; but that does not prove a scarcity of bullion, any more than the high price proves that scarcity. If gold is rendered dear by any other cause than scarcity, those who cannot purchase it without paying the high pi ice, will be very apt to conclude that it is scarce. A very extensive home dealer who was examined, and who spoke very much of the scarcity of gold, acknowledged, that he found no difficulty in getting any quantity he wanted, if he was willing to pay the price for it. And it appears to your Committee, that, though in the course of the last year there have been large exportations of gold to the continent, there have been also very considerable importations ol it into this country from South America, chiefly through the West Indies. The changes which have affected Spain and Portugal, combined with our maritime and commercial advantages, would seem to have rendered this country a channel through which the produce of the mines of New Spain and the Brazils pass to the rest of the world. In such a situation, the imports of bullion and coin give us the opportunity of first supplying ourselves; and must render this the last of the great markets in which a scarcity of that article will be felt. This is remarkably illustrated by the fact, that Portugal gold coin is now sent regularly from this country to the cotton settlements in the Brazils, Pernambuco, and Maranham, while dollars are remitted in considerable quantities to this country from Rio Janeiro.

It is important also to observe, that the rise in the market price of silver in this country, which has nearly corresponded to that of the market price of gold, cannot in any degree be ascribed to a scarcity of silver. The importations of silver have of late years been unusually large, while the usual drain for India and China has been stopped.

For all these reasons, your Committee would be inclined to think, that those who ascribe the high price of gold to an un usual demand for that article, and a consequent scarcity, assume facts as certain of which there is no evidence. But even if these assumptions were proved, to ascribe the high price of gold in this country to its scarcity, seems to your Committee to involve a misconception, which they think it important to explain.

In this country, gold is itself the measure of all exchange able value, the scale to which all money prices are referred. It is so, not only by the usage and commercial habits of the country, but likewise by operation of law, ever since the act of the 14th of his present Majesty [finally rendered perpetual by an act of the 39th year of the reign] disallowed a legal tender in silver coin beyond the sum of 25$l. Gold being thus our measure of prices, a commodity is said to be dear or cheap according as more or less gold is given in exchange for a given quantity of that commodity; but a given quantity of gold itself will never be exchanged for a greater or a less quantity of gold of the same standard fineness. At particular ≳ it may be convenient in exchange for gold in a particular coin, to give more than an equal quantity of other gold; but this difference can never exceed a certain small limit: and thus it has happened that the Bank, while liable to pay its notes in specie, has under particular emergencies been put to the necessity of purchasing gold at a loss, in order to keep up or to repair its stock. But generally speaking, the price of gold, being itself measured and expressed in gold, cannot be raised or lowered by an increased or diminished demand for it. An ounce of gold will exchange for neither more nor less than an ounce of gold of the same fineness, except so far as an allowance is to be made, if the one ounce is coined or otherwise manufactured and the other is not, for the expense of that coinage or manufacture. An ounce of standard gold bullion will not fetch more in our market than 3l. 17s 10½d. unless 3l. 17s 10½d., in our actual currency is equivalent to less than an ounce of gold. An increase or diminution in the demand for gold, or what comes to the same thing, a diminution or increase in the general supply of gold, will, no doubt, have a material effect upon the money prices of all other articles. An increased demand for gold, and a consequent scarcity of that article, will make it more valuable in proportion to all other articles; the same quantity of gold will purchase a greater quantity of any other article than it did before: in other words, the real price of gold, or the quantity of commodities given in exchange for it, will rise, and the money prices of all commodities will fall; the money price of gold itself will remain unaltered, but the prices of all other commodities will fall. That this is not the present state of things is abundantly manifest; the prices of all commodities have risen, and gold appears to have risen in its price only in common with them. If this common effect is to be ascribed to one and the same cause, that cause can only be found in the state of the currency of this country.

Your Committee think it proper to state still more specifically, what appear to them to be the principles which govern the relative prices of gold in bullion and gold in coin, as well as of paper circulating in its place and exchangeable for it. They cannot introduce this subject more properly, than by adverting to those simple principles and regulations, on which a coinage issuing from the King's mint is founded.

The object is, to secure to the people a standard of a determinate value, by affixing a stamp, under the royal authority, to pieces of gold, which are thus certified to be of a given weight and fineness. Gold in bullion is the standard to which the legislature has intended that the coin should be conformed, and with which it should be identified as much as possible. And if that intention of the legislature were completely fulfilled, the coined gold would bear precisely the same price in exchange for all other commodities, as it would have borne had it continued in the shape of bullion; but it is subject to some small fluctuations.

First, there is some expense incurred in converting bullion into coin. They who send bullion to be coined, and it is allowed to any one to send it, though they are charged with no seignorage, incur a loss of interest by the detention of their gold in the mint. This loss may hitherto have amounted to about i/. per cent., but it is to be presumed that the improvements of the system of the new Mint will cause the detention and consequent loss to be much smaller. This Il. per cent, has formed the limit, or nearly the limit, to the possible rise cf the value of coin above that of bullion; for to suppose that coin could, through any cause, advance much above this limit, would be to assume that there was a high profit on a transaction, in which there is no risk and every one has an opportunity of engaging.

The two following circumstances conjoined, account for the depression of the coin below the price of bullion, and will shew what must have been the limit to its extent before 1797, the period of the suspension of the cash payments of the Bank of England. First, the coin, after it had become current was gradually diminished in weight by use, and therefore if melted, would produce a less quantity of bullion. The average diminution of weight of the present current gold coin below that of the same coin when fresh from the mint, appears by the evidence to be nearly Il. per cent. This evil, in more ancient times, was occasionally very great. It was particularly felt in an early period of his present Majesty's reign, and led to the reformation of the gold coin in 1773. But it is now carefully guarded against, not only by the legal punishment of every wilful deterioration of the gold coin, but also by the regulation of the statute, that guineas, of which the full weight when fresh from the mint is 5 dwts. 9⅜8/9 grains shall not be a legal tender if worn below 5 dwts. 8 grs.; the depreciation thus allowed being at the utmost i. ii per cent. A still more material cause of depression, is the difficulty under which the holders of coin have been placed when they wished to convert it into bullion. The law of this country forbids any other gold coin than that which has become light to be put into the melting pot, and, with a very questionable policy, prohibits the exportation of our gold coin, and of any gold, unless an oath is taken that it has not been produced from the coin of this realm. It appears by the evidence, that the difference between the value of gold bullion which may be sworn off for exportation, and that of the gold produced or supposed to be produced from our own coin, which by law is convertible only to domestic purposes, amounts at present to between 3s. and 4s. per ounce.

The two circumstances which have now been mentioned have unquestionably constituted, in the judgment of your Committee, the whole cause of that depression of the value of the gold coin of this country in exchange for commodities, below the value of bullion in exchange for commodities, which has occasionally arisen or could arise at those times when the Bank paid in specie, and gold was consequently obtainable in the quantity that was desired; and the limit fixed by those two circumstances conjoined, to this excess of the market price of gold above the Mint price, was therefore a limit of about 5½ per cent. The chief part of this depression is to be ascribed to that ancient, but doubtful policy of this country, which, by attempting to confine the coin within the kingdom, has served, in the same manner as permanent restrictions on the export of other articles, to place it under a disadvantage, and to give to it a less value in the market than the same article would have if subject to no such prohibition.

The truth of these observations on the causes and limits of the ordinary difference between the market and Mint price of gold, may be illustrated by a reference to the mode, explained in the evidence, of securing a fixed standard of value for the great commercial payments of Hamburgh. The payments in the ordinary transactions of life are made in a currency composed of the coins of the several surrounding states; but silver is the standard there resorted to in the great commercial payments, as gold is in England. No difference analogous to that which occurs in this country, between the Mint and market price of gold, can ever arise at Hamburgh with regard to silver, because provision is made that none of the three causes above specified [the expense of coinage, the depreciation by wear, or the obstruction to exportation] shall have any operation. The large payments of Hamburgh are effected in Bank money, which consists of actual silver of a given fineness, lodged in the Hamburgh bank by the merchants of the place, who thereupon have a proportionate credit in the bank-books, which they transfer according to their occasions. The silver being assayed and weighed with scarcely any loss of time, the first mentioned cause of fluctuation in the relative value of the current medium compared with bullion is avoided. Certain masses of it being then certified (without any stamp being affixed on the metal) to be of a given quantity and fineness, the value is transferred from individual to individual by the medium merely of the bank books, and thus the wearing of the coin being prevented, one cause of depreciation is removed. A free right is also given to withdraw, melt, and export it; and thus the other and principal source of the occasional fall of the value of the current medium of payment, below that of the bullion which it is intended to represent, is also effectually precluded.

In this manner at Hamburgh, silver is not only the measure of all exchangeable value, but it is rendered an invariable measure, except in so far as the relative value of silver itself varies with the varying supply of that precious metal from the mines. In the same manner the usage, and at last the law, which made gold coin the usual and at last the only legal tender in large payments here, rendered that metal our measure of value: and from the period of the reformation of the gold coin down to the suspension of the Bank payments in specie in 1797, gold coin was not a very variable measure of value; being subject only to that variation in the relative value of gold bullion which depends upon its supply from the mines, together with that limited variation, which, as above described, might take place between the market and the Mint price of gold coin.

The highest amount of the depression of the coin which can take place when the Bank pays in gold, has just been stated to be about 5½ per cent., and accordingly it will be found, that in all the periods preceding 1797, the difference between what is called the Mint price and market price of gold never exceeded that limit.

Since the suspension of cash payments in 1797, however, it is certain, that, even if gold is still our measure of value and standard of prices, it has been exposed to a new cause of variation, from the possible excess of that paper which is not convertible into gold at will; and the limit of this new variation is as indefinite as the excess to which that paper may be issued. It may indeed be doubted, whether since the new system of Bank of England payments has been fully established, gold has in truth continued to be our measure of value: and whether we have any other standard prices than that circulating medium issued primarily by the Bank of England and in a secondary manner by the country banks, the variations of which in relative value may be as indefinite as the possible excess of that circulating medium. But whether our present measure of value, and standard of prices, be this paper currency thus variable in its relative value, or continues still to be gold, but gold rendered more variable than it was before in consequence of being interchangeable for a paper currency, which is not at will convertible into gold, it is, in either case, most desirable for the public that our circulating medium should again be conformed, as speedily as circumstances will permit, to its real and legal standard, gold bullion.

If the gold coin of the country were at any time to become very much worn and lessened in weight, or if it should suffer a debasement of its standard, it is evident that there would be a proportionable rise of the market price of gold bullion above its Mint price: for the Mint price is the sum in coin, which is equivalent in intrinsic value to a given quantity, an ounce for example, of the metal in bullion; and if the intrinsic value of that sum of coin be lessened, it is equivalent to a less quantity of bullion than before. The same rise of the market price of gold above its Mint price will take place, if the local currency of this particular country, being no longer convertible into gold, should atany time be issued to excess. That excess cannot be exported to other countries, and, not being convertible into specie, it is not necessarily returned upon those who issued it; it remains in the channel of circulation, and is gradually absorbed by increasing the prices of all commodities. An increase in the quantity of the local currency of a particular country, will raise prices in that country exactly in the same manner as an increase in the general supply of precious metals raises prices all over the world. By means of the increase of quantity, the value of a given portion of that circulating medium, in exchange for other commodities, is lowered: in other words, the money prices of all other commodities are raised, and that of bullion with the rest. In this manner, an excess of the local currency of a particular country will occasion a rise of the market price of gold above its Mint price.* It is no less evident, that in the event of the prices of commodities being raised in one country by an augmentation of its circulating medium, while no similar augmentation in the circulating medium of a neighboring country has led to a similar rise of prices, the currencies of those two countries will no longer continue to bear the same relative value to each other as before. The intrinsic value of a given portion of the one currency being lessened while that of the other remains unaltered, the exchange will be computed between those two countries to the disadvantage of the former.

In this manner, a general rise of all prices, a rise in the market price of gold, and a fall of the foreign exchanges, will be the effect of an excessive quantity of circulating medium in a country which has adopted a currency, not exportable to other countries, or not convertible at will into a coin which is exportable.

II.

Your Committee are thus led to the next head of their inquiry: the present state of the exchanges between this country and the continent. And here, as under the former head, your Committee will first state the opinions which they have received from practical men, respecting the causes of the present state of the exchange.

Mr. Greffulhe, a general merchant, trading chiefly to the continent, ascribed the fall of exchange between London and Hamburgh, near 18 per cent, below par, in the year 1809, “altogether to the commercial situation of this country with the continent; to the circumstance of the imports, and payments of subsidies, &c., having very much exceeded the exports.” He stated, however, that he formed his judgment of the balance of trade in a great measure from the state of the exchange itself, though it was corroborated by what fell under his observation. He insisted particularly on the large imports from the Baltic, and the wines and brandies brought from France, in return for which no merchandise had been exported from this country. He observed on the other hand, that the export of colonial produce to the continent had increased in the last year compared with former years; and that during the last year there was an excess, to a considerable amount, of the exports of colonial produce and British manufactures to Holland above the imports from thence, but not nearly equal, he thought, to the excess of imports from other parts of the world, judging from the state of the exchange as well as from what fell generally under his observation. He afterwards explained, that it was not strictly the balance of trade, but the balance of payments, being unfavourable to this country, which he assigned as the principal cause of the rate of exchange; observing also, that the balance of payments for the year may be against us, while the general exports exceed the imports. He gave it as his opinion that the cause of the present state of exchange was entirely commercial, with the addition of the foreign expenditure of government; and that an excess of imports above exports would account for the rates of exchange continuing so high as 16 per cent, against this country, for a permanent period of time.

It will be found in the evidence, that several other witnesses agree in substance with Mr. Greffulhe, in this explanation of the unfavourable state of the exchange; particularly Mr. Chambers and Mr. Coningham.

Sir Francis Baring stated to the Committee, that he considered the two great circumstances which affect the exchange in its present unfavourable state, to be the restrictions upon trade with the continent, and the increased circulation of this country in paper, as productive of the scarcity of bullion. And he instanced, as examples of a contrary state of things, the seven years' war, and the American war, in which there were the same remittances to make to the continent for naval and military expenditure, yet no want of bullion ever was felt.

The Committee likewise examined a very eminent continental merchant, whose evidence will be found to contain a variety of valuable information. That gentleman states, that the exchange cannot fall in any country in Europe at the present time, if computed in coin of a definitive value, or in something convertible into such coin, lower than the extent of the charge of transporting it, together with an adequate profit in proportion to the risk attending such transmission. He conceives, that such fall of our exchange as has exceeded that extent in the last 15 months, must certainly be referred to the circumstance of our paper currency not being convertible into specie; and that if that paper had been so convertible, and guineas had been in general circulation, an unfavourable balance of trade, could hardly have caused so great a fall in the exchange as to the extent of 5 or 6 per cent. He explains his opinion upon the subject more specifically in the following answers, which are extracted from different parts of his evidence.

“To what causes do you ascribe the present unfavourable course of exchange? —The first great depreciation took place when the French got possession of the north of Germany, and passed severe penal decrees against a communication with this country; at the same time that a sequestration was laid upon all English goods and property, whilst the payments for English account were still to be made, and the reimbursements to be taken on this country; many more bills were in consequence to be sold than could be taken by persons requiring to make payments in England. The communication by letters being also very difficult and uncertain, middle men were not to be found, as in usual times, to purchase and send such bills to England for returns; whilst no suit at law could be instituted in the courts of justice there against any person who chose to resist payment of a returned bill, or to dispute the charges of re-exchange. Whilst those causes depressed the exchange, payments due to England only came round at distant periods; the exchange once lowered by those circumstances, and bullion being withheld in England to make up those occasional differences, the operations between this country and the continent have continued at a low rate, as it is only matter of opinion what rate a pound sterling is there to be valued at, not being able to obtain what it is meant to represent.”

“The exchange against England fluctuating from 15 to 20 per cent, how much of that loss may be ascribed to the effect of the measures taken by the enemy in the north of Germany, and the interruption of intercourse which has been the result, and how much to the effect of the Bank of England paper not being convertible into cash, to which you have ascribed a part of that depreciation? —I ascribe the whole of the depreciation to have taken place originally in consequence of the measures of the enemy, and its not having recovered to the circumstance of the paper of England not being exchangeable for cash.”

“Since the conduct of the enemy which you have described what other causes have continued to operate on the continent to lower the course of exchange?—Very considerable shipments from the Baltic, which were drawn for and the bills negotiated immediately on the shipments taking place, without consulting the interest of the proprietors in this country much, by deferring such a negotiation till a demand should take place for such bills: The continued difficulty and uncertainty in carrying on the correspondence between this country and the continent: The curtailed number of houses to be found on the continent willing to undertake such operations, either by accepting bills for English account drawn from the various parts where shipments take place, or by accepting bills drawn from this country, either against property shipped, or on a speculative idea that the exchange either ought or is likely to rise . The length of time that is required before goods can be converted into cash, from the circuitous routes they are obliged to take: The very large sums of money paid to foreign ship owners, which in some instances, such as on the article of hemp, has amounted to nearly its prime cost in Russia: The want of middle men who as formerly used to employ great capitals in exchange operations, who, from the increased difficulties and dangers to which such operations are now subject, are at present rarely to be met with, to make combined exchange operations, which tend to anticipate probable ultimate results.”

The preceding answers, and the rest of this gentleman's evidence, all involve this principle, expressed more or less distinctly, that bullion is the true regulator both of the value of a local currency and of the rate of foreign exchanges; and that the free convertibility of paper currency into the precious metals, and the free exportation of those metals, place a limit to the fall of exchange, and not only check the exchanges from falling below that limit, but recover them by restoring the balance.

Your Committee need not particularly point out in what respects these opinions received from persons of practical detail, are vague and unsatisfactory, and in what respects they are contradictory of one another; considerable assistance, however, may be derived from the information which the evidence of these persons affords, in explaining the true causes of the present state of the exchanges.

Your Committee conceive that there is no point of trade, considered politically, which is better settled, than the subject of foreign exchanges. The par of exchange between two countries is that sum of the currency of either of the two, which, in point of intrinsic value, is precisely equal to a given sum of the currency of the other; that is, contains precisely an equal weight of gold or silver of the same fineness. If 25 livres of France contained precisely an equal quantity of pure silver with 20s. sterling, 25 would be said to be the par of exchange between London and Paris. If one country uses gold for its principal measure of value, and another uses silver, the par between those countries cannot be estimated for any particular period, without taking into account the relative value of gold and silver at that particular period; and as the relative value of the two precious metals is subject to fluctuation, the par of exchange between two such countries is not strictly a fixed point, but fluctuates within certain limits. An illustration of this will be found in the evidence, in the calculation of the par between London and Hamburgh, which is estimated to be 34 3½ Flemish shillings for a pound sterling. That rate of exchange, which is produced at any particular period by a balance of trade or payments between the two countries, and by a consequent disproportion between the supply and the demand of bills drawn by the one upon the other, is a departure on one side or the other from the real and fixed par. But this real par will be altered if any change takes place in the currency of one of the two countries, whether that change consists in the wear or debasement of a metallic currency below its standard, or in the discredit of a forced paper currency, or in the excess of a paper currency not convertible into specie; a fall having taken place in the intrinsic value of a given portion of one currency, that portion will no longer be equal to the same portion, as before, of the other currency. But though the real par of the currencies is thus altered, the dealers, having little or no occasion to refer to the par, continue to reckon their course of exchanges from the former denomination of the par; and in this state of things a distinction is necessary to be made between the real and computed course of exchange. The computed course of exchange, as expressed in the tables used by the merchants, will then include, not only the real difference of exchange arising from the state of trade, but likewise the difference between the original par and the new par. Those two sums may happen to be added together in the calculation, or they may happen to be set against each other. If the country, whose currency has been depreciated in comparison with the other, has the balance of trade also against it, the computed rate of exchange will appear to be still more unfavourable than the real difference of exchange will be found to be; and so if that same country has the balance of trade in its favour, the computed rate of exchange will appear to be much less favourable than the real difference of exchange will be found to be. Before the new coinage of our silver in King William's time, the exchange between England and Holland, computed in the usual manner according to the standard of their respective Minte, was 25 per cent, against England; but the value of the current coin of England was more than 25 per cent, below the standard value; so that if that of Holland was at its full standard, the real exchange was in fact in favour of England. It may happen in the same manner, that the two parts of the calculation may be both opposite and equal, the real exchange in favour of the country by trade being equal to the nominal exchange against it by the state of its currency: in that case, the computed exchange will be at par, while the real exchange' is in fact in favour of that country. Again, the currencies of both the countries which trade together may have undergone an alteration, and that either in an equal degree, or unequally; in such a case, the question of the veal state of the exchange between them becomes a little more complicated, but it is to be resolved exactly upon the same principle. Without going out of the bounds of the present inquiry, this may be well illustrated by the present state of the exchange of London with Portugal, as quoted in the tables for the 18th of May last. The exchange of London on Lisbon appears to be 67½; 67½d. sterling for a milree is the old established par of exchange between the two countries; and 67½ accordingly is still said to be the par. But by the evidence of Mr. Lyne, it appears, that, in Portugal, all payments are now by law made one-half in hard money, and one-half in government paper; and that this paper is depreciated at a discount of 27 per cent. Upon all payments made in Portugal, therefore, there is a discount or loss of 13½ per cent, and the exchange at 67½, though nominally at par, is in truth 13½ per cent, against this country. If the exchange were really at par, it would be quoted at 56 65/100 or apparently 13½ per cent, in favour of London, as compared with the old par which was fixed before the depreciation of the Portuguese medium of payments. Whether this 13½ per cent, which stands against this country by the present exchange on Lisbon, is a real difference of exchange, occasioned by the course of trade and by the remittances to Portugal on account of government, or a nominal and apparent exchange occasioned by something in the state of our own currency, or is partly real and partly nominal, may perhaps be determined by what your Committee have yet to state.

It appears to your Committee to have been long settled and understood as a principle, that the difference of exchange resulting from the state of trade and payments between two countries is limited by the expense of conveying and insuring the precious metals from one country to the other; at least, that it cannot for any considerable length of time exceed that limit The real difference of exchange, resulting from the state of trade, and payments, never can fall lower than the amount of such expense of carriage, including the insurance. The truth of this position is so plain, and it is so uniformly agreed to by all the practical authorities, both commercial and political, that your Committee will assume it as indisputable.

It occurred, however, to your Committee that the amount of that charge and premium of insurance might be increased above what it has been in ordinary periods even of war, by the peculiar circumstances which at present obstruct the commercial intercourse between this country and the Continent of Europe; and that as such an increase would place so much lower than usual the limit to which our exchanges might fall, an explanation might thereby be furnished of their present unusual fall. Your Committee accordingly directed their enquiries to this point

It was stated to your Committee, by the merchant who has been already mentioned as being intimately acquainted with the trade between this country and the Continent, that the present expense of transporting gold from London to Hamburgh, independent of the premium of insurance, is from 1½ to 2 per cent.; that the risk is very variable from day to day, so that there is no fixed premium, but he conceived the average risk, for the fifteen months preceding the time when he spoke, to have been about 4 per cent.: making the whole cost of sending gold from London to Hamburgh for those fifteen months at such average of the risk, from 5½ to 6 per cent.—Mr. Abraham Goldsmid stated, that in the last five or six months of the year 1809, the expense of sending gold to Holland varied exceedingly, from 4 to 7 per cent, for all charges, covering the risk as well as the costs of transportation. By the evidence which was taken before the Committees upon the Bank Affairs, in 1797, it appears that the cost of sending specie from London to Hamburgh in that time of war, including all charges as well as an average insurance, was estimated at a little more than 3½ per cent. It is clear, therefore, that in consequence of the peculiar circumstances of the present state of the war, and the increased difficulties of intercourse with the Continent, the cost of transporting the precious metals thither from this country has not only been rendered more fluctuating than it used to be, but, upon the whole, is very considerably increased. It would appear, however, that upon an average of the risk for that period when it seems to have been highest, the last half of the last year, the cost and insurance of transporting gold to Hamburgh or to Holland did not exceed 7 per cent. It was of course greater at particular times, when the risk was above that average. It is evident also that the risk, and consequently the whole cost of transporting it to an inland market, to Paris, for example, would upon an average, be higher than that of carrying it to Amsterdam or Hamburgh. It folio vs, that the limit to which the exchanges, as resulting from the state of trade, might fall and continue unfavourable for a considerable length of time, has, during the period in question, been a good deal lower than in former times of war; but it appears also, that the expense of remitting specie has not been increased so much, and that the limit, by which the depression of the exchanges is bounded, has not been lowered so much, as to afford an adequate explanation of a fall of the exchanges so great as from 16 to 20 per cent, below par. The increased cost of such remittance would explain, at those moments when the risk was greatest, a fall of something more than 7 per cent, in the exchange with Hamburgh or Holland, and a fall still greater perhaps in the exchange with Paris; but the rest of the fall which has actually taken place, remains to be explained in some other manner.

Your Committee are disposed to think from the result of the whole evidence, contradictory as it is, that the circumstances of the trade of this country, in the course of the last year, were such as to occasion a real fall of our exchanges with the Continent to a certain extent, and perhaps at one period almost as low as the limit fixed by the expense of remitting gold from hence to the respective markets. And your Committee is inclined to this opinion, both by what is stated regarding the excess of imports from the Continent above the exports, though that is the part of the subject which is left most in doubt; and also by what is stated respecting the mode in which the payments in our trade have been latterly effected, an advance being paid upon the imports from the Continent of Europe, and a long credit being given upon the exports to other parts of the world.

Your Committee, observing how entirely the present depression of our exchange with Europe is referred by many persons to a great excess of our imports above our exports, have called for an account of the actual value of those for the last five years; and Mr. Irving, the Inspector General of Customs, has accordingly furnished the most accurate estimate of both that he has been enabled to form. He has also endeavoured to forward the object of the Committee, by calculating how much should be deducted from the value of goods imported, on account of articles in return for which nothing is exported. These deductions consist of the produce of fisheries, and of imports from the East and West Indies, which are of the nature of rents, profits, and capital remitted to proprietors in this country. The balance of trade in favour of this country, upon the face of the account thus made up, was:

So far therefore, as any inference is to be drawn from the balance thus exhibited, the exchanges during the present year, in which many payments to this country on account of the very advantageous balances of the two former years may be expected to take place, ought to be peculiarly favourable.

Your Committee, however, place little confidence in deductions made even from the improved document which the industry and intelligence of the Inspector General has enabled him to furnish. It is defective, as Mr. Irving has himself stated, inasmuch as it supplies no account of the sum drawn by foreigners (which is at the present period peculiarly large) on account of freight due to them for the employment of their shipping, nor, on the other hand, of the sum receivable from them (and forming an addition to the value of our exported articles), on account of freight arising from the employment of British shipping. It leaves out of consideration all interest on capital in England possessed by foreigners, and on capital abroad belonging to inhabitants of Great Britain, as well as the pecuniary transactions between the governments of England and Ireland. It takes no cognizance of contraband trade, and of exported and imported bullion, of which no account is rendered at the Custom-house. It likewise omits a most important article, the variations of which, if correctly stated, would probably be found to correspond in a great degree with the fluctuations of the apparently favorable balance; namely, the bills drawn on government for our naval, military, and other expenses in foreign parts. Your Committee had hoped to receive an account of these from the table of the House; but there 1 as been some difficulty and consequent delay in executing a material part of the order made for them. It appears from “An Account, as far as it could be made out, of sums paid for expenses abroad in 1793-4-5–6,” inserted in the Appendix of the Lords' Report on the occasion of the Bank Restriction Bill, that the sums so paid were.

The following is an account of the official value of our Imports and Exports with the Continent of Europe, alone, in each of the last five years:

The balances with Europe alone in favour of Great Britain, as exhibited in this imperfect statement, are not far from corresponding with the general and more accurate balances before given. The favourable balance of 1809 with Europe alone, if computed according to the actual value, would be much more considerable than the value of the same year, in the former general statement. A favourable balance of trade on the face of the account of exports and imports, presented annually to Parliament, is a very probable consequence of large drafts on Government for foreign expenditure; and augmentation of exports, and a diminution of imports, being promoted and even enforced by the means of such drafts. For if the supply of bills drawn abroad, either by the agents of Government, or by individuals, is disproportionate to the demand, the price of them in foreign money falls, until it is so low as to invite purchasers; and the purchasers, who are generally foreigners, not wishing to transfer their property permanently to England, have a reference to the terms on which the bills on England will purchase those British commodities which are in demand, eilher in their own country, or in intermediate places, with which the account may be adjusted. Thus, the price of the bills being regulated in some degree by that of British commodities, and continuing to fall till it becomes so low as to be likely to afford profit on the purchase and exportation of these commodities, an actual exportation nearly proportionate to the amount of the bills drawn can scarcely fail to take place. It follows, that there cannot be, for any long period, either a highly favourable or unfavourable balance of trade; for the balance no sooner affects the price of bills, than the price of bills, by its re-action on the state of trade, promotes an equalization of commercial exports and imports. Your Committee have here considered cash and bullion as forming a part of the general mass of exported or imported articles, and as transferred according to the state both of the supply and the demand; forming, however, under certain circumstances, especially in case of great fluctuations in the general commerce, a peculiarly commodious remittance.

Your Committee have enlarged on the documents supplied by Mr. Irving, for the sake of throwing further light on the general question of the balance of trade and the exchanges, and of dissipating some very prevalent errors which have a great practical influence on the subject now under consideration.

That the real exchange against this country with the continent cannot at any time have materially exceeded the limit fixed by the cost at that time of transporting specie, your Committee are convinced upon the principles which have been already stated. That in point of fact, those exchanges have not exceeded that limit seems to receive a very satisfactory illustration from one part of the evidence of Mr. Greffulhe, who, of all the merchants examined, seemed most wedded to the opinion that the state of the balance payments alone was sufficient to account for any depression of the exchanges, however great. From what the Committee have already stated with respect to the par of exchange, it is manifest that the exchange between two countries is at its real par, when a given quantity of gold or silver in the one country is convertible at the market price into such an amount of the currency of that country, as will purchase a bill of exchange on the other country for such an amount of the currency of that other country, as will there be convertible at the market price into an equal quantity of gold or silver of the same fineness. In the same manner the real exchange is in favour of a country having money transactions with another, when a given quantity of gold or silver in the former is convertible for such an amount in the currency of that latter country, as will there be convertible into a greater quantity of gold or silver of the same fineness.

Upon these principles, your Committee desired Mr. Greffulhe to make certain calculations, which appear in his answers to the following questions, viz.:

“Supposing you had a pound weight troy of gold of the English standard at Paris, and that you wished by means of that to procure a bill of exchange upon London, what would be the amount of the bill of exchange which you would procure in the present circumstances?—I find that a pound of gold of the British standard at the present market price of 105 francs, and the exchange at 20 livres, would purchase a bill of exchange of 59l. 8s.

“At the present market price of gold in London, how much standard gold can you purchase for 59/. 8s.?—At the price of 4/. 12s. I find it will purchase 13 ounces of gold, within a very small fraction.

“Then what is the difference per cent. in the quantity of standard gold which is equivalent to 59/. 8s. of our currency as at Paris and in London?—About 8½ per cent.

“Suppose you have a pound weight troy of our standard gold at Hamburgh, and that you wished to part with it for a bill of exchange upon London, what would be the amount of the bill of exchange, which, in the present circumstances, you would procure?—At the Hamburgh price of 101, and the exchange at 29, the amount of the bill purchased on London would be 58/. 4s.

“What quantity of our standard gold, at the present price of 4l. 128. do you purchase for 58l. 4s.?—About 12 ounces and 3 dwts.

“Then what is the difference per cent, between the quantity of standard gold at Hamburgh and in London, which is equivalent to 58l. 4s. sterling?—About 5½ per cent.

“Suppose you had a pound weight troy of our standard gold at Amsterdam, and wished to part with it for a bill of exchange upon London, what would be the amount sterling of the bill of exchange which you would procure?—At the Amsterdam price of 14½, exchange 31.6, and Bank agio i per cent, the amount of the bill on London would be 58l. 18s.

“At the present price of 4l. 12s. what quantity of our standard gold do you purchase in London for 58l. 18s. sterling?— 12 oz. 16 dwts.

“How much is that per cent.?—7 per cent.”

Similar calculations, but made upon different assumed data, will be found in the evidence of Mr. Abraham Goldsmid. From these answers of Mr. Greffulhe, it appears, that when the computed exchange with Hamburg was 29, that is, from 16 to 17 per cent, below par, the real difference of exchange, resulting from the state of trade and balance of payments was no more than 5½ per cent. against this country; that when the computed exchange with Amsterdam was 31. 6, that is about 15 per cent. below par, the real exchange was no more than 7 per cent, against this country; that when the computed exchange with Paris was 20, that is 20 per cent, below par, the real exchange was no more than 8½ per cent, against this country. After making these allowances, therefore, for the effect of the balance of trade and payments upon our exchanges with those places there will still remain a fall of 11 per cent. in the exchange with Hamburgh, of above 8 percent. in the exchange with Holland, and 11½ per cent, in the exchange with Paris, to be explained in some other manner.

If the same mode of calculation be applied to the more recent statements of the exchange with the continent, it will perhaps appear, that though the computed exchange is at present against this country, the real exchange is in its favor.

From the foregoing reasons relative to the state of the exchanges, if they are considered apart, your Committee find it difficult to resist an inference, that a portion at least of the great fall which the exchanges lately suffered must have resulted not from the state of trade, but from a change in the relative value of our domestic currency. But, when this deduction is joined with that which your Committee have stated, respecting the change in the market price of gold, that inference appears to be demonstrated.

III.

In consequence of the opinion which your Committee entertained, that, in the present artificial condition of the circulating medium of this country, it is most important to watch the foreign exchanges and the market price of gold, your Committee were desirous to learn whether the Directors of the Bank of England held the same opinion, and derived from it a practical rule for the control of their circulation; and particularly whether, in the course of the last year, the great depression of the exchanges, and the great rise in the price of gold, had suggested to the Directors any suspicion of the currency of the country being excessive.

Mr. Whitmore, the late Governor of the Bank, stated to the Committee, that in regulating the general amount of the loans and discounts, he did “not advert to the circumstance of the exchanges; it appearing upon a reference to the amount of our notes in circulation, and the course of exchange, that they frequently have no connexion.” He afterward said, “My opinion is, I do not know whether it is that of the Bank, that the amount of our paper circulation has no reference at all to the state of the exchange.” And on a subsequent day, Mr. Whitmore stated, that “the present unfavourable state of exchange has no influence upon the amount of their issues, the Bank having acted precisely in the same way as they did before.” He was likewise asked, Whether, in regulating the amount of their circulation, the Bank ever adverted to the difference between the market and Mint price of gold? and having desired to have time to consider that question, Mr. Whitmore, on a subsequent day, answered it in the following terms, which suggested these further questions:

In taking into consideration the amount of your notes, out in circulation, and in limiting the extent of your discounts to merchants, do you advert to the difference, when such exists, between the market and the Mint price of gold?—We do advert to that, inasmuch as we do not discount at any time for those persons who we know, or have good reason to suppose, export the gold.

“Do you not advert to it any farther than by refusing discounts to such persons?—We do advert to it, inasmuch as whenever any Director thinks it bears upon the question of our discounts, and presses to bring forward the discussion.

“The market price of gold having, in the course of the last year, risen as high as 4s/. 10s. or 4/. 12s., has that circumstance been taken into consideration by you, so as to have had any effect in diminishing or enlarging the amount of the outstanding demands?—It has not been taken into consideration by me in that view.”

Mr. Pearse, now Governor of the Bank, agreed with Mr. Whitmore in this account of the practice of the Bank, and expressed his full concurrence in the same opinion.

Mr. Pearse.—“In considering this subject, with reference to the manner in which Bank notes are issued, resulting from the applications made for discounts to supply the necessary want of Bank notes, by which their issue in amount is so controlled that it can never amount to an excess, I cannot see how the amount of Bank notes issued can operate upon the price of Bullion, or the state of the exchanges, and therefore I am individually of opinion that the price of Bullion, or the state of the exchanges, can never be a reason for lessening the amount of Bank notes to be issued, always understanding the control which I have already described.

“Is the Governor of the Bank of the same opinion, which has now been expressed by the Deputy Governor?

Mr. Whitmore.—“I am so much of the same opinion, that I never think it necessary to advert to the price of gold, or the state of the exchange, on the days on which we make our advances.

“Do you advert to these two circumstances with a view to regulate the general amount of your advances?—I do not advert to it with a view to our general advances, conceiving it not to bear upon the question.”

And Mr. Harman, another Bank Director, expressed his opinion in these terms— “I must very materially alter my opinions before I can suppose that the exchanges will be influenced by any modifications of our paper currency.”

These gentlemen, as well as several of the merchants who appeared before the Committee, placed much reliance upon an argument which they drew from the want of correspondence in point of time, observable between the amount of Bank of England notes and the state of the Hamburgh exchange during several years; and Mr. Pearse presented a paper on this subject, which is inserted in the Appendix. Your Committee would feel no distrust in the general principles which they have stated, if the discordance had been greater; considering the variety of circumstances which have a temporary effect on exchange, and the uncertainty both of the time and the degree in which it may be influenced by any given quantity of paper. It may be added, that the numerical amount of notes (supposing 1/. and 2/. notes to be excluded from the statement) did not materially vary during the period of the comparison; and that in the last year, when the general exchanges with Europe have become much more unfavourable, the notes of the Bank of England, as well as those of the country Banks, have been very considerably increased. Your Committee, however, on the whole, are not of opinion that a material depression of the exchanges has been manifestly to be traced in its amount and degree to an augmentation of notes corresponding in point of time. They conceive, that the more minute and ordinary fluctuations of exchange are generally referable to the course of our commerce; that political events, operating upon the state of trade, may often have contributed as well to the rise as to the fall of the exchange; and in particular, that the first remarkable depression of it in the beginning of 1809, is to be ascribed, as has been stated in the evidence already quoted, to commercial events arising out of the occupation of the North of Germany by the troops of the French Emperor. The evil has been that the exchange, when fallen, has not had the full means of recovery under the subsisting system. And if those occasional depressions, which arise from commercial causes, are not after a time successively corrected by the remedy which used to apply itself before the suspension of the cash payments of the Bank, the consequences may ultimately be exactly similar to those which a sudden and extravagant issue of paper would produce. The restoration of the exchange used to be effected by the clandestine transmission of guineas, which improved it for the moment by serving as a remittance; and unquestionably also in part, probably much more extensively, by the reduction of the total quantity of the remaining circulating medium, to which reduction the banks were led to contribute by the caution which every drain of gold naturally excited. Under the present system, the former of these remedies must be expected more and more to fail, the guineas in circulation being even now apparently so few as to form no important remittance; and the reduction of paper seems therefore the chief, if not the sole corrective, to be resorted to. It is only after the Bank shall have for some time resumed its cash payments, that both can again operate, as they did on all former occasions prior to the restriction.

The Committee cannot refrain from expressing it to be their opinion, after a very deliberate consideration of this part of the subject, that it is a great practical error to suppose that the exchanges with foreign countries, and the price of Bullion, are not liable to be affected by the amount of a paper currency, which is issued without the condition of payment in specie at the will of the holder. That the exchanges will be lowered, and the price of Bullion raised, by an issue of such paper to excess, is not only established as a principle by the most eminent authorities upon commerce and finance; but its practical truth has been illustrated by the history of almost every state in modern times which has used a paper currency; and in all those countries, this principle has finally been resorted to by their statesmen, as the best criterion to judge by, whether such currency was or was not excessive.

In the instances which are most familiar in the history of foreign countries, the excess of paper has been usually accompanied by another circumstance, which has no place in our situation at present, a want of confidence in the sufficiency of those funds upon which the paper had been issued. Where these two circumstances, excess and want of confidence, are conjoined, they will co-operate and produce their effect much more rapidly then when it is the result of the excess only of a paper of perfectly good credit; and in both cases an effect of the same sort will be produced upon the foreign exchanges, and upon the price of bullion. The most remarkable examples of the former kind are to be found in the history of the paper currencies of the British Colonies in North America, in the early part of the last century, and in that of the assignats of the French Republic: to which the Committee have been enabled to add another, scarcely less remarkable, from the money speculations of the Austrian government in the last campaign, which will be found in the Appendix. The present state of the currency of Portugal affords, also, an instance of the same kind.

Examples of the other sort, in which the depreciation was produced by excess alone, may be gathered from the experience of the United Kingdom at different times.

In Scotland, about the end of the seven years' war, banking was carried to a very great excess; and by a practice of inserting in their promissory notes an optional clause of paying at sight, or in six months after sight with interest, the convertibility of such notes into specie at the will of the holder was in effect suspended. These notes accordingly became depreciated in comparison with specie; and while this abuse lasted, the exchange between London and Dumfries, for example, was sometimes four per cent, against Dumfries, while the exchange between London and Carlisle, which is not thirty miles distant from Dumfries, was at par. The Edinburgh banks, when any of their paper was brought in to be exchanged for bills on London, were accustomed to extend or contract the date of the bills they gave, according to the state of the exchange, diminishing in this manner the value of those bills, nearly in the same degree in which the excessive issue had caused their paper to be depreciated. This excess of paper was at last removed by granting bills on London at a fixed date; for the payment of which bills, or in other words, for the payment of which excess of paper, it was necessary in the first instance to provide, by placing large pecuniary funds in the hands of their London correspondents. In aid of such precautionary measures on the part of the Edinburgh banks, an act of Parliament prohibited the optional clauses, and suppressed ten and five shilling notes. The exchange between England and Scotland was speedily restored to its natural rate: and bills on London at a fixed date having ever since been given in exchange for the circulating notes of Scotland, all material excess of Scottish paper above Bank of England has been prevented, and the exchange has been stationary.

The experience of the Bank of England itself, within a very short period after its first establishment, furnishes a very instructive illustration of all the foregoing principles and reasonings. In this instance, the effects of a depreciation of the coin, by wear and clipping, were coupled with the effect of an excessive issue of paper.* The Directors of the Bank of England did not at once attain a very accurate knowledge of all the principles by which such an institution must be conducted. They lent money not only by discount, but upon real securities, mortgages, and even pledges of commodities not perishable; at the same time, the Bank contributed most materially to the service of government for the support of the army' upon the Continent. By the liberality of these loans to private individuals, as well as by the large advances to government, the quantity of the notes of the Bank became excessive, their relative value was depreciated, and they fell to a discount of 17 per cent. At this time there appears to have been no failure of the public confidence in the funds of the Bank; for its stock sold for 110 per cent., though only 60 per cent. upon the subscriptions had been paid in. By the conjoint effect of this depreciation of the paper of the Bank from excess, and of the depreciation of the silver coin from wear and clipping, the price of gold bullion was so much raised, that guineas were as high as 3,os.; all that had remained of good silver gradually disappeared from the circulation; and the exchange with Holland, which had been before a little affected by the remittances for the army, sunk as low as 25 per cent. under par, when the Bank † notes were at a discount of 17 per cent. Several expedients were tried, both by Parliament and by the Bank, to force a better silver coin into circulation, and to reduce the price of guineas, but without effect. At length the true remedies were resorted to: first, by a new coinage of silver, which restored that part of the currency to its standard value, though the scarcity of money occasioned by calling in the old coin brought the Bank into straits, and even for a time affected its credit; secondly, by taking out of the circulation the excess of Bank notes. This last operation appears to have been effected very judiciously. Parliament consented to enlarge the capital stock of the Bank, but annexed a condition, directing that a certain proportion of the new subscriptions should be made good in Bank notes. In proportion to the amount of notes sunk in this manner, the value of those which remained in circulation began presently to rise; in a short time the notes were at par, and the foreign exchanges nearly so. These details are all very fully mentioned in authentic tracts published at the time, and the case appears to your Committee to afford much instruction upon the subject of their present inquiry.

Your Committee must next refer to the confirmation and sanction which all their reasonings receive from the labours of the Committee of this House, which was appointed in a former Parliament to examine into the causes of the great depreciation of the Irish exchange with England in 1804. Most of the mercantile persons who gave evidence before that Committee, including two Directors of the Bank of Ireland, were unwilling to admit that the fall of the exchange was in any degree to be ascribed to an excess of the paper currency arising out of the restriction of 1797; the whole fall in that case, as in the present, was referred to an unfavourable balance of trade or of payments; and it was also then affirmed, that “notes issued only in proportion to the demand, in exchange for good and convertible securities, payable at specific periods, could not tend to any excess in the circulation, or to any depreciation.” This doctrine, though more or less qualified by some of the witnesses, pervades most of the evidence given before that Committee, with the remarkable exception of Mr. Mansfield, whose knowledge of the effects of that over issue of Scotch paper, which has just been mentioned, led him to deliver a more just opinion on the subject. Many of the witnesses before the Committee, however unwilling to acknowledge the real nature of the evil, made important concessions, which necessarily involved them in inconsistency. They could not, as practical men, controvert the truth of the general position, that “the fluctuations of exchange between two countries are generally limited by the price at which any given quantity of bullion can be purchased in the circulating medium of the debtor country, and converted into the circulating medium of the creditor country, together with the insurances and charges of transporting it from the one to the other.” It was at the same time admitted, that the expense of transporting gold from England to Ireland, including insurance, was then under one per cent.; that before the restriction, the fluctuations had never long and much exceeded this limit; and, moreover, at the exchange with Belfast, where guineas freely circulated at the time of the investigation by that Committee was then 1¼ in favor of Ireland, while the exchange with Dublin, where only paper was in use, was io/. per cent, against that country. It also appeared from such imperfect documents as it was practicable to furnish, that the balance of trade was then favourable to Ireland. Still, however, it was contended, that there was no depreciation of Irish paper, that there was a scarcity and consequent high price of gold, and that the diminution of Irish paper would not rectify the exchange. “The depreciation of Bank paper in Ireland” (it was said by one of the witnesses, a Director of the Bank of Ireland) “is entirely a relative term with respect to the man who buys and sells in Dublin by that common medium: to him it is not depreciated at all; but to the purchaser of a bill on London, to him in that relation, and under that circumstance, there is a depreciation of 10 per cent.” By thus avoiding all comparison with a view to the point in issue between the value of their own paper and that of either the then circulating medium of this country or of gold bullion, or even of gold coin then passing at a premium in other parts of Ireland, they appear to have retained a confident opinion, that no depreciation of Irish paper had taken place.

It is further observable, that the value of a considerable quantity of dollars put into circulation by the Bank of Ireland at this period was raised to 5s. a dollar, for the professed purpose of rendering the new silver coin conformable to the existing state of the exchange, a circumstance on which the Committee animadverted in their Report, and which serves to show that the Irish paper currency could not stand a comparison with the standard price of silver, any more than with that of gold bullion, with gold in coin, or with the then paper currency of this kingdom.

A fact was mentioned to that Committee on the evidence of Mr. Colville, a Director of the Bank of Ireland, which though it carried no conviction to his mind of the tendency of a limitation of paper to lower exchanges, seems very decisive on this point. He stated that in 1753 and 1754, the Dublin exchange being remarkably unfavourable, and the notes of the Dublin Bank being suddenly withdrawn, the exchange became singularly favourable. The mercantile distress produced on that occasion was great, through the suddenness of the operation, for it was effected, not by the gradual and prudential measures of the several Banks, but through the violent pressure which their unguarded issues had brought upon them. The general result, however, is not the less observable.

With a view to the further elucidation of the subject of the Irish exchanges, which so lately attracted the attention of Parliament, it may be proper to remark that Ireland has no dealings in exchange with foreign countries, except through London, and that the payments from Ireland to the Continent are consequently converted into English currency, and then into the currency of the countries to which Ireland is indebted. In the spring of 1804 the Exchange of England with the Continent was above par, and the Exchange of Ireland was in such a state that 118/. 10s. of the notes of the Bank of Ireland would purchase only 100/. of those of the Bank of England. Therefore, if the notes of the Bank of Ireland were not depreciated, and it was so maintained, it followed that the notes of the Bank of England were at more than 10 per cent, premium above the standard coin of the two countries.

The principles laid down by the Committee of 1804, had probably some weight with the Directors of the Bank of Ireland; for between the period of their Report (June, 1804) and January, 1806, the circulation of the notes of the Bank of Ireland was gradually (though with small occasional fluctuations) reduced from about three millions to 2,410,000l., being a diminution of nearly one-fifth; at the same time, all the currency which had been issued under the name of silver tokens, was by law suppressed. The paper currency, both of the Bank of England and of the English country Banks, seems during the same period to have gradually increased. The combination of these two causes is likely to have had a material effect in restoring to par the Irish exchange with England.

The Bank of Ireland has again gradually enlarged its issues to about 3,100,000l., being somewhat higher than they stood in 1804, an increase probably not disproportionate to that which has occurred in England within the same period. Perhaps, however, it ought not to be assumed, that the diminution of issues of the Bank of Ireland between 1804 and 1806, would produce a corresponding reduction in the issues of private Banks in Ireland, exactly in the same manner in which a diminution of Bank of England paper produces that effect on the country banks in Great Britain; because the Bank of Ireland does not possess the same exclusive power of supplying any part of that country with a paper currency, which the Bank of England enjoys in respect to the metropolis of the empire. The Bank of England, by restricting the quantity of this necessary article in that important quarter, can more effectually secure the improvement of its value; and every such improvement must necessarily lead, by a corresponding diminution in amount, to a similar augmentation of the value of country Bank paper exchangeable for it. That the same diminution of the circulation of private Banks took place in Ireland is more than probable, for the private Banks in Ireland are accurtomed to give Bank of Ireland paper for their own circulating notes when required to do so, and therefore could not but feel the effect of any new limitation of that paper for which their own was exchangeable.

It is due, however, in justice to the present Directors of the Bank of England, to remind the House that the suspension of their cash payments, though it appears in some degree to have originated in a mistaken view taken by the Bank of the peculiar difficulties of that time was not a measure sought for by the Bank, but imposed upon it by the Legislature for what were held to be urgent reasons of state policy and public expediency. And it ought not to be urged as matter of charge against the Directors, if in this novel situation in which their commercial company was placed by the law, and entrusted with the regulation and control of the whole circulating medium of the country, they were not fully aware of the principles by which so delicate a trust should be executed, but continued to conduct their business of discounts and advances according to their former routine.

It is important at the same time, to observe, that under the former system, when the Bank was bound to answer its notes in specie upon demand, the state of the foreign exchanges and the price of gold did most materially influence its conduct in the issue of those notes, though it was not the practice of the Directors systematically to watch either the one or the other. So long as gold was demandable for their paper, they were speedily apprised of a depression of the exchange, and a rise in the price of gold, by a run upon them for that article. If at any time they incautiously exceeded the proper limit of their advances and issues, the paper was quickly brought back to them, by those who were tempted to profit by the market price of gold or by the rate of exchange. In this manner the evil soon cured itself. The Directors of the Bank having their apprehensions excited by the reduction of their stock of gold, and being able to replace their loss only by reiterated purchases of bullion at a very losing price, naturally contracted their issues of paper, and thus gave to the remaining paper, as well as to the coin for which it was interchangeable, an increased value, while the clandestine exportation either of the coin, or the gold produced from it, combined in improving the state of the exchange and in producing a corresponding diminution of the difference between the market price and Mint price of gold, or of paper convertible into gold.

Your Committee do not mean to represent that the manner in which this effect resulted from the conduct which they have described, was distinctly perceived by the Bank Directors. The fact of limiting their paper as often as they experienced any great drain of gold, is, however, unquestionable. Mr. Bosanquet stated, in his evidence before the secret Committee of the House of Lords, in the year 1797, that in 1783, when the Bank experienced a drain of cash, which alarmed them, the Directors took a bold step and refused to make the advances on the loan of that year. This, he said, answered the purpose of making a temporary suspension in the amount of the drain of their specie. And all the three Directors who have been examined before your Committee, represent some restriction of the Bank issues as having usually taken place at those periods antecedent to this suspension of the cash payments of the Bank when they experienced any material run. A very urgent demand for guineas, though arising not from the high price of gold and the state of the exchange, but from a fear of invasion, occurred in 1793, and also in 1797, and in each of these periods the Bank restrained their discounts, and consequently also the amount of their notes, very much below the demands of the merchants. Your Committee question the policy of thus limiting the accommodation in a period of alarm, unaccompanied with an unfavorable exchange and high price of bullion; but they consider the conduct of the Bank at the two last mentioned periods, as affording illustration cf their general disposition, antecedently to 1797, to contract their loans and their paper, when they found their gold to be taken from them.

It was a necessary consequence of the suspension of cash payments, to exempt the Bank from that drain of gold, which, in former times, was sure to result from an unfavorable exchange and a high price of bullion. And the Directors, released from all fears of such a drain, and no longer feeling any inconvenience from such a state of things, have not been prompted to restore the exchanges and the price of gold to their proper level by a reduction of their advances and issues. The Directors, in former times, did not perhaps perceive and acknowledge the principle more distinctly than those of the present day, but they felt the inconvenience, and obeyed its impulse; which practically established a check and limitation to the issue of paper. In the present times the inconvenience is not felt; and the check, accordingly, is no longer in force.

But your Committee beg leave to report it to the House as their most clear opinion, that so long as the suspension of cash payments is permitted to subsist, the price of gold bullion and the general course of exchange with foreign countries, taken for any considerable period of time, form the best general criterion from which any inference can be drawn, as to the sufficiency or excess of paper currency in circulation; and that the Bank of England cannot safely regulate the amount of its issues, without having reference to the criterion presented by these two circumstances. And upon a review of all the facts and reasonings which have already been stated, your Committee are further of opinion, that, although the commercial state of this country, and the political state of the continent, may have had some influence on the high price of gold bullion and the unfavourable course of exchange with foreign countries, this price, and this depreciation, are also to be ascribed to the want of a permanent check, and a sufficient limitation of the paper currency in this country.

In connection with the general subject of this part of their report, the policy of the Bank of England respecting the amount of their circulation, your Committee have now to call the attention of the House to another topic, which was brought under their notice in the course of their inquiry, and which in their judgment demands the most serious consideration. The Bank Directors, as well as some of the merchants who have been examined, shewed a great anxiety to state to your Committee a doctrine, of the truth of which they professed themselves to be most thoroughly convinced, that there can be no possible excess in the issue of Bank of England paper, so long as the advances in which it is issued are made upon the principles which at present guide the conduct of the Directors, that is, so long as the discount of mercantile bills are confined to paper of undoubted solidity, arising out of real commercial transactions, and payable at short and fixed periods. That the discounts should be made only upon bills growing out of real commercial transactions, and falling due in a fixed and short period, are sound and well-established principles. But that, while the Bank is restrained from paying in specie, there need be no other limit to the issue of their paper than what is fixed by such rules of discount, and that during the suspension of cash payments the discount of good bills falling due at short periods cannot lead to any excess in the amount of bank paper in circulation, appears to your Committee to be a doctrine wholly erroneous in principle, and pregnant with dangerous consequences in practice.

But before your Committee proceed to make such observations upon this theory as it appears to them to deserve, they think it right to shew from the evidence, to what extent it is entertained by some of those individuals who have been at the head of the affairs of the Bank. The opinions held by those individuals are likely to have an important practical influence; and appeared to your Committee, moreover, the best evidence of what has constituted the actual policy of that establishment in its corporate capacity.

Mr. Whitmore, the late Governor of the Bank, expressly states, “The Bank never force a note in circulation, and there will not remain a note in circulation more than the immediate wants of the public require; for no banker, I presume, will keep a larger stock of bank notes by him than his immediate payments require, as he can at all times procure them.” The reason here assigned is more particularly explained by Mr. Whitmore, when he says, “The Bank notes would revert to us if there was a redundancy in circulation, as no one would pay interest for a bank note that he did not want to make use of.” Mr. Whitmore further states, “The criterion by which 1 judge of the exact proportion to be maintained between the occasions of the public, and the issues of the Bank, is by avoiding as much as possible to discount what does not appear to be legitimate mercantile paper.” And further when asked, What measure the court of Directors has to judge by, whether the quantity of bank notes out in circulation is at any time excessive? Mr. Whitmore states, that their measure of the security or abundance of bank notes is certainly by the greater or less application that is made to them for the discount of good paper.

Mr. Pearse, late Deputy-Governor, and now Governor of the Bank, stated very distinctly his concurrence in opinion with Mr. Whitmore upon this particular point. He referred “to the manner in which bank notes are issued, resulting from the applications made for discounts to supply the necessary want of bank notes, by which their issue in amount is so controlled that it can never amount to an excess.” He considers “the amount of the bank notes in circulation as being controlled by the occasions of the public, for internal purposes,” and that, “from the manner in which the issue of bank notes is controlled, the public will never call for more than is absolutely necessary for their wants.”

Another Director of the Bank, Mr. Harman, being asked, If he thought that the sum total of discounts applied for, even though the accommodation afforded should be on the security of good bills to safe persons, might be such as to produce some excess in the quantity of the Bank issues, if fully complied with? he answered, “I think if we discount only for solid persons, and such paper as is for real bonâ-fide transactions, we cannot materially err.” And he afterwards states, that what he should consider as the test of a superabundance would be, “money being more plentiful in the market.”

It is material to observe, that both Mr. Whitmore and Mr. Pearse state that “the Bank does not comply with the whole demand upon them for discounts, and that they are never induced, by a view to their own profit, to push their issues beyond what they deem consistent with the public interest.”

Another very important part of the evidence of these gentlemen upon this point, is contained in the following extract:

“Is it your opinion that the same security would exist against any excess in the issues of the Bank, if the rate of the discount were reduced from 5l. to 4l. per cent.?” Answer.—“The security of an excess of issue would be, I conceive, precisely the same.” Mr. Pearse.—“I concur in that answer.”

“If it were reduced to 3l. per cent.?”—Mr. Whitmore.—“I conceive there would be no difference if our practice remained the same as now, of not forcing a note into circulation.” Mr. Pearse.—“I concur in that answer.”

Your Committee cannot help again calling the attention of the House to the view which this evidence presents, of the consequences which have resulted from the peculiar situation in which the Bank of England was placed by the suspension of cash payments. So long as the paper of the Bank was convertible into specie at the will of the holder, it was enough, both for the safety of the Bank and for the public interest in what regarded its circulating medium, that the Directors attended only to the character and quality of the bills discounted, as real ones and payable at fixed and short periods. They could not much exceed the proper bounds in respect of the quantity and amount of bills discounted, so as thereby to produce an excess of their paper in circulation, without quickly finding that the surplus returned upon themselves in demand for specie. The private interest of the Bank to guard themselves against a continued demand of that nature, was a sufficient protection for the public against any such excess of Bank paper as would occasion a material fall in the relative value of the circulating medium. The restriction of cash payments, as has already been shown, having rendered the same preventive policy no longer necessary to the Bank, has removed that check upon its issues which was the public security against an excess. When the Bank Directors were no longer exposed to the inconvenience of a drain upon them for gold, they naturally felt that they had no such inconvenience to guard against by a more restrained system of discounts and advances; and it was very natural for them to pursue, as before (but without that sort of guard and limitation which was now become unnecessary to their own security), the same liberal and prudent system of commercial advances from which the prosperity of their own establishment had resulted, as well as in a great degree the commercial prosperity of the whole country. It was natural for the Bank Directors to believe, that nothing but benefit could accrue to the public at large, while they saw the growth of Bank profits go hand in hand with the acommodations granted to the merchants. It was hardly to be expected of the Directors of the Bank, that they should be fully aware of the consequences that might result from their pursuing, after the suspension of cash payments, the same system which they had found a safe one before. To watch the operation of so new a law, and to provide against the injury which might result from it to the public interests, was the province, not so much of the Bank as of the Legislature: and, in the opinion of your Committee, there is room to regret that this House has not taken earlier notice of all the consequences of that law.

By far the most important of those consequences is, that while the convertibility into specie no longer exists as a check to an overissue of paper, the Bank Directors have not perceived that the removal of that check rendered it possible that such an excess might be issued by the discount of perfectly good bills. So far from perceiving this, your Committee have shown that they maintain the contrary doctrine with the utmost confidence, however it may be qualified occasionally by some of their expressions. That this doctrine is a very fallacious one, your Committee cannot entertain a doubt. The fallacy, upon which it is founded, lies in not distinguishing between an advance of capital to merchants, and an addition of supply of currency to the general mass of circulating medium. If the advance of capital only is considered, as made to those who are ready to employ it in judicious and productive undertakings, it is evident there need be no other limit to the total amount of advances than what the means of the lender, and his prudence in the selection of borrowers, may impose. But in the present situation of the Bank, intrusted as it is with the function of supplying the public with that paper currency which forms the basis of our circulation, and at the same time not subjected to the liability of converting the paper into specie, every advance which it makes of capital to the merchants in the shape of discount, becomes an addition also to the mass of circulating medium. In the first instance, when the advance is made by notes paid in discount of a bill, it is undoubtedly so much capital, so much power of making purchases, placed in the hands of the merchant who receives the notes; and if those hands are safe, the operation is so far, and in this its first step, useful and productive to the public. But as soon as the portion of circulating medium in which the advance was thus made performs in the hands of him to whom it was advanced this its first operation as capital, as soon as the notes are exchanged by him for some other article which is capital, they fall into the channel of circulation as so much circulating medium, and form an addition to the mass of currency. The necessary effect of every such addition to the mass is to diminish the relative value of any given portion of that mass in exchange for commodities. If the addition were made by notes convertible into specie, this diminution of the relative value of any given portion of the whole mass would speedily bring back upon the Bank which issued the notes as much as was excessive. But if by law they are not so convertible, of course this excess will not be brought back, but will remain in the channel of circulation, until paid in again to the Bank itself in discharge of the bills which were originally discounted. During the whole time they remain out, they perform all the functions of circulating medium; and before they come to be paid in discharge of those bills, they have already been followed by a new issue of notes in a similar operation of discounting. Each successive advance repeats the same process. If the whole sum of discounts continues outstanding at a given amount, there will remain permanently out in circulation a corresponding amount of paper; and if the amount of discounts is progressively increasing, the amount of paper, which remains out in circulation over and above what is otherwise wanted for the occasions of the public, will progressively increase also, and the money prices of commodities will progressively rise. This progress may be as indefinite, as the range of speculation and adventure in a great commercial country.

It is necessary to observe, that the law, which in this country limits the rate of interest, and of course the rate at which the Bank can legally discount, exposes the Bank to still more extensive demands for commercial discounts. While the rate of commercial profit is very considerably higher than five per cent., as it has lately been in many branches of our foreign trade, there is in fact no limit to the demands which merchants of perfectly good capital, and of the most prudent spirit of enterprise, may be tempted to make upon the Bank for accommodation and facilities by discount. Nor can any argument or illustration place in a more striking point of view the extent to which such of the Bank Directors as were examined before the Committee, seem to have in theory embraced that doctrine upon which your Committee have made these observations, as well as the practical consequences to which that doctrine may lead in periods of a high spirit of commercial adventure, than the opinion which Mr. Whitmore and Mr. Pearse have delivered; that the same complete security to the public against any excess in the issues of the Bank would exist if the rate of discount were reduced from five to four, or even to three per cent. From the evidence, however, of the late Governor and Duputy Governor of the Bank it appears, that though they state the principle broadly, that there can be no excess of their circulation if issued according to their rules of discount, yet they disclaim the idea of acting up to it in its whole extent; though they stated the applications for the discount of legitimate bills to be their sole criterion of abundance or scarcity, they gave your Committee to understand that they do not discount to the full extent of such applications. In other words, the Directors do not act up to the principle which they represent as one perfectly sound and safe, and must be considered, therefore, as possessing no distinct and certain rule to guide their discretion in controlling the amount of their circulation.

The suspension of cash payments has had the effect of committing into the hands of the Directors of the Bank of England, to be exercised by their sole discretion, the important charge of supplying the country with that quantity of circulating medium which is exactly proportioned to the wants and occasions of the public. In the judgment of the Committee, that is a trust which it is unreasonable to expect that the Directors of the Bank of England should ever be able to discharge. The most detailed knowledge of the actual trade of the country, combined with the profound science in all the principles of money and circulation, would not enable any man or set of men to adjust, and keep always adjusted, the right proportion of circulating medium in a country to the wants of trade. When the currency consists entirely of the precious metals, or of paper convertible at will into the precious metals, the natural process of commerce, by establishing exchanges among all the different countries of the world, adjust, in every particular country, the proportion of circulating medium to its actual occasions, according to that supply of the precious metals which the mines furnish to the general market of the world. The proportion which is thus adjusted and maintained by the natural operation of commerce, cannot be adjusted by any human wisdom or skill. If the natural system of currency and circulation be abandoned, and a discretionary issue of paper money substituted in its stead, it is vain to think that any rules can be devised for the exact exercise of such discretion; though some cautions may be pointed out to check and control its consequences, such as are indicated by the effect of an excessive issue upon exchanges and the price of gold. The Directors of the Bank of England, in the judgment of your Committee, have exercised the new and extraordinary discretion reposed in them since 1797, with an integrity and a regard to the public interest according to their conceptions of it, and indeed a degree of forbearance in turning it less to the profit of the Bank than it would easily have admitted of, that merit the continuance of that confidence which the public has so long and so justly felt in the integrity with which its affairs are directed, as well as in the unshaken stability and ample funds of that great establishment. That their recent policy involves great practical errors, which it is of the utmost public importance to correct, your Committee are fully convinced; but those errors are less to be imputed to the Bank Directors than to be stated as the effect of a new system, of which, however it originated or was rendered necessary as a temporary expedient, it might have been well if Parliament had sooner taken into view all the consequences. When your Committee consider that this discretionary power of supplying the kingdom with circulating medium has been exercised under an opinion that the paper could not be issued to excess if advanced in discounts to merchants in good bills payable at stated periods, and likewise under an opinion that neither the price of bullion nor the course of exchanges need be adverted to, as affording any indication with respect to the sufficiency or excess of such paper, your Committee cannot hesitate to say that these opinions of the Bank must be regarded as in a great measure the operative cause of the continuance of the present state of things.

IV.

Your Committee will now proceed to state from the information which has been laid before them what appears to have been the progressive increase, and to be the present amount of the paper circulation of this country, consisting primarily of the notes of the Bank of England not at present convertible into specie; and, in a secondary manner, of the notes of the country bankers which are convertible, at the option of the holder, into Bank of England paper. After having stated the amount of Bank of England paper, your Committee will explain the reasons which induce them to think that the numerical amount of that paper is not alone to be considered as decisive of the question as to its excess: and before stating the amount of country bank paper, so far as that can be′ascertained, your Committee will explain their reasons for thinking that the amount of the country bank circulation is limited by the amount of that of the Bank of England.

1. It appears from the accounts laid before the Committees upon the Bank affairs in 1797, that for several years previous to the year 1796, the average amount of bank notes in circulation was between 10,000,000l. and 11,000,000l., hardly ever falling below 9,000,000l., and not often exceeding to any great amount 11,000,000l.

The following abstract of the several accounts referred to your Committee, or ordered by your Committee from the Bank, will show the progressive increase of the notes from the year 1798 to the end of the last year.

Average amount of Bank of England Notes in circulation in each of the following years:

Taking from the accounts the last half of the year 1809, the average will be found higher than for the whole year, and amounts to 19,880,310.

The accounts in the Appendix give very detailed returns for the first four months of the present year, down to the 12th May, from which it will be found that the amount was then increasing, particularly in the smaller notes. The whole amount of bank notes in circulation, exclusive of 939,990l. of bank post bills, will be found on the average of the two returns for the 5th and 12th May last, to be 14,136,610l. in notes of 5l. and upwards, and 6,173,380l. in notes under 5l. making the sum of 20,309,990l. and, including the bank post bills, the sum of 21, 249,980l.

By far the most considerable part of this increase since 1798, it is to be observed, has been in the article of small notes, part of which must be considered as having been introduced to supply the place of the specie which was deficient at the period of the suspension of cash payments. It appears, however, that the first supply of small notes, which was thrown into circulation after that event, was very small in comparison of their present amount; a large augmentation of them appears to have taken place from the end of the year 1799 to that of the year 1802, and a very rapid increase has also taken place since the month of May in the last year to the present time; the augmentation of these small notes from 1st May, 1809, to the 5th of May, 1810, being from the sum of 4,509,470l. to the sum of 6,161,020l.

The notes of the Bank of England are principally issued in advances to government for the public service, and in advances to the merchants upon the discount of their bills.

Your Committee have had an account laid before them, of advances made by the Bank to government on land and malt, Exchequer Bills, and other securities, in every year since the suspension of cash payments; from which, as compared with the accounts laid before the Committees of 1797, and which were then carried back for twenty years, it will appear that the yearly advances of the Bank to government have upon an aver age, since the suspension, been considerably lower in amount than the average amount of advances prior to that event, and the amount of those advances in the last two years, though greater in amount than those of some years immediately preceding, is less than it was for any of the six years preceding the restriction of cash payments.

With respect to the amount of commercial discounts, your Committee did not think it proper to require from the Directors of the Bank a disclosure of their absolute amount, being a part of their private transactions as a commercial company, of which, without urgent reason, it did not seem right to demand a disclosure. The late Governor and Deputy Governor however, at the desire of your Committee, furnished a comparative scale, in progressive numbers, showing the increase of the amount of their discounts from the year 1790 to 1809, both inclusive. They made a request, with which your Committee have thought it proper to comply, that this document might not be made public; the Committee, therefore, have not placed it in the Appendix to the present report but have returned it to the Bank. Your Committee, however, have to state in general terms, that the amount of discounts has been progressively increasing since the year 1796; and that their amount in the last year (1809) bears a very high proportion to their largest amount in any year preceding 1797. Upon this particular subject, your Committee are only anxious to remark, that the largest amount of mercantile discounts by the Bank, if it could be considered by itself, ought never, in their judgment, to be regarded as any other than a great public benefit, and that it is only the excess of paper currency thereby issued, and kept out in circulation, which is to be considered as the evil.

But your Committee must not omit to state one very important principle, that the mere numerical return of the amount of bank notes out in circulation, cannot be considered as at all deciding the question whether such paper is or is not excessive. It is necessary to have recourse to other tests. The same amount of paper may at one time be less than enough, and at another time more. The quantity of currency required will vary in some degree with the extent of trade; and the increase of our trade, which has taken place since the suspension, must have occasioned some increase in the quantity of our currency. But the quantity of currency bears no fixed proportion to the quantity of commodities; and any inferences proceeding upon such a supposition would be entirely erroneous. The effective currency of the country depends upon the quickness of circulation, and the number of exchanges performed in a given time, as well as upon its numerical amount; and all the circumstances, which have a tendency to quicken or to retard the rate of circulation, render the same amount of currency more or less adequate to the wants of trade. A much smaller amount is required in a high state of public credit, than when alarms make individuals call in their advances, and provide against accidents by hoarding; and in a period of commercial security and private confidence, than when mutual distrust discourages pecuniary arrangements for any distant time. But, above all, the same amount of currency will be more or less adequate, in proportion to the skill which the great money-dealers possess in managing and economizing the use of the circulating medium. Your Committee are of opinion, that the improvements which have taken place of late years in this country, and particularly in the district of London, with regard to the use and economy of money among bankers, and in the mode of adjusting commercial payments, must have had a much greater effect than has hitherto been ascribed to them, in rendering the same sum adequate to a much greater amount of trade and payments than formerly. Some of those improvements will be found detailed in the evidence: they consist principally in the increased use of bankers' drafts in the common payments of London; the contrivance of bringing all such drafts daily to a common receptacle, where they are balanced against each other; the intermediate agency of bill-brokers; and several other changes in the practice of London bankers, are to the same effect, of rendering it unnecessary for them to keep so large a deposit of money as formerly. Within the London district, it would certainly appear, that a smaller sum of money is required than formerly, to perform the same number of exchanges and amount of payments, if the rate of prices had remained the same. It is material also to observe, that both the policy of the Bank of England itself, and the competition of the country bank paper have tended to compress the paper of the Bank of England, more and more, within London and the adjacent district. All these circumstances must have co-operated to render a smaller augmentation of Bank of England paper necessary to supply the demands of our increased trade than might otherwise have been required; and shew how impossible it is, from the numerical amount alone of that paper, to pronounce whether it is excessive or not: a more sure criterion must be resorted to; and such a criterion, your Committee have already shewn, is only to be found in the state of the exchanges, and the price of gold bullion.

The particular circumstances of the two years which are so remarkable in the recent history of our circulation, 1793 and 1797, throw great light upon the principle which your Committee have last stated.

In the year 1793, the distress was occasioned by a failure of confidence in the country circulation, and a consequent pressure upon that of London. The Bank of England did not think it advisable to enlarge their issues to meet this increased demand, and their notes, previously issued, circulating less freely in consequence of the alarm that prevailed, proved insufficient for the necessary payments. In this crisis, Parliament applied a remedy, very similar, in its effect, to an enlargement of the advances and issues of the bank; a loan of exchequer bills was authorized to be made to as many mercantile persons, giving good security, as should apply for them; and the confidence which this measure diffused, as well as the increased means which it afforded of obtaining bank notes through the sale of the exchequer bills, speedily relieved the distress both of London and of the country. Without offering an opinion upon the expediency of the particular mode in which this operation was effected, your Committee think it an important illustration of the principle, that an enlarged accommodation is the true remedy for that occasional failure of confidence in the country districts, to which our system of paper credit is unavoidably exposed.

The circumstances which occurred in the beginning of the year 1797, were very similar to those of 1793;—an alarm of invasion, a run upon the country banks for gold, the failure of some of them, and a run upon the Bank of England, forming a crisis like that of 1793, for which, perhaps, an effectual remedy might have been provided, if the Rank of England had had courage to extend instead of restricting its accommodations and issue of notes. Some few persons, it appears from the Report of the Secret Committee of the Lords, were of this opinion at the time; and the late Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank stated to your Committee, that they, and many of the Directors, are now satisfied from the experience of the year 1797, that the diminution of their notes in that emergency increased the public distress: an opinion in the correctness of which your Committee entirely concur.

It appears to your Committee, that the experience of the Bank of England in the years 1793 and 1797, contrasted with the facts which have been stated in the present report, suggests a distinction most important to be kept in view, between that demand upon the Bank for gold for the supply of the domestic channels of circulation, sometimes a very great and sudden one, which is occasioned by a temporary failure of confidence, and that drain upon the Bank for gold which grows out of an unfavourable state of the foreign exchanges. The former, while the Bank maintains its high credit, seems likely to be best relieved by a judicious increase of accommodation to the country; the latter, so long as the Bank does not pay in specie, ought to suggest to the Directors a question, whether their issues may not be already too abundant.

Your Committee have much satisfaction in thinking that the Directors are perfectly aware that they may err by a too scanty supply in a period of stagnant credit. And your Committee are clearly of opinion, that although it ought to be the general policy of the Bank Directors to diminish their paper in the event of the long continuance of a high price of bullion and a very unfavourable exchange, yet it is essential to the commercial interests of this country, and to the general fulfilment of those mercantile engagements which a free issue of paper may have occasioned, that the accustomed degree of accommodation to the merchants should not be suddenly and materially reduced; and that if any general and serious difficulty or apprehension on this subject should arise, it may, in the judgment of your Committee, be counteracted without danger, and with advantage to the public, by a liberality in the issue of Bank of England paper proportioned to the urgency of the particular occasion. Under such circumstances, it belongs to the Bank to take likewise into their own consideration, how far it may be practicable, consistently with a due regard to the immediate interests of the public service, rather to reduce their paper by a gradual reduction of their advances to government, than by too suddenly abridging the discounts to the merchants.

2. Before your Committee proceed to detail what they have collected with respect to the amount of country bank paper, they must observe, that so long as the cash payments of the Bank are suspended, the whole paper of the country bankers is a superstructure raised upon the foundation of the paper of the Bank of England. The same check, which the convertibility into specie, under a better system, provides against the excess of any part of the paper circulation is, during the present system, provided against an excess of country bank paper, by its convertibility into Bank of England paper. If an excess of paper be issued in a country district, while the London circulation does not exceed its due proportion, there will be a local rise of prices in that country district, but prices in London will remain as before. Those who have the country paper in their hands will prefer buying in London where things are cheaper, and will therefore return that country paper upon the banker who issued it, and will demand from him Bank of England notes or bills upon London; and thus, the excess of country paper being continually returned upon the issuers for Bank of England paper, the quantity of the latter necessarily and effectually limits the quantity of the former. This is illustrated by the account which has been already given of the excess, and subsequent limitation, of the paper of the Scotch banks, about the year 1763. If the Bank of England paper itself should at any time, during the suspension of cash payments, be issued to excess, a corresponding excess may be issued of country Bank paper which will not be checked; the foundation being enlarged, the superstructure admits of a proportionate extension. And thus, under such a system, the excess of Bank of England paper will produce its effect upon prices not merely in the ratio of its own increase, but in a much higher proportion.

It has not been in the power of your Committee to obtain such information as might enable them to state, with anything like accuracy, the amount of country bank paper in circulation. But they are led to infer from all the evidence they have been able to procure on this subject, not only that a great number of new country banks has been established within these last two years, but also that the amount of issues of those which are of an older standing has in general been very considerably increased: whilst on the other hand, the high slate of mercantile and public credit, the proportionate facility of converting at short notice all public and commercial securities into Bank of England paper, joined to the preference generally given within the limits of its own circulation to the paper of a well-established country bank over that of the Bank of England, have probably not rendered it necessary for them to keep any large permanent deposits of Bank of England paper in their hands. And it seems reasonable to believe that the total amount of the unproductive stock of all the country banks, consisting of specie and Bank of England paper, is much less, at this period, under a circulation vastly increased in extent, than it was before the restriction of 1797. The temptation to establish country banks, and issue promissory notes, has therefore greatly increased. Some conjecture as to the probable total amount of those issues, or at least as to their recent increase, may be formed, as your Committee conceive, from the amount of the duties paid for stamps on the reissuable notes of country banks in Great Britain. The total amount of these duties for the year ended on the 10th of October, 1808, appears to have been 60,522l. 15s. 3d., and for the year ended on the 10th of October, 1809, 175,129l. 17s. 7d. It must, however, be observed, that on the 10th of October, 1808, these duties experienced an augmentation somewhat exceeding one-third; and that some regulations were made, imposing limitations with respect to the reissue of all notes not exceeding 2l. 2s., the effect of which has been to produce a much more than ordinary demand for stamps or notes of this denomination within the year 1809. Owing to this circumstance, it appears impossible to ascertain what may have been the real increase in the circulation of the notes, not exceeding 2l. 2s., within the last year; but with respect to the notes of a higher value, no alteration having been made in the law as to their reissue, the following comparison affords the best statement that can be collected from the documents before the Committee, of the addition made in the year 1809, to the number of those notes.

Number of Country Bank Notes exceeding 2l. 2s. each, stamped in the years ended the 10th of October, 1808, and 10th of October, 1809, respectively:

Assuming that the notes in the first two of these classes, were all issued for the lowest denomination to which the duties respectively attach, and such as are most commonly met with in the circulation of country paper, viz., notes of 5l. and 10l. [although in the second class there is a considerable number of 20l. and even omitting altogether from the comparison the notes of the three last classes, the issue of which your Committee understands is in fact confined to the chartered banks of Scot land, the result would be, that, exclusive of any increase in the number of notes under 2l. 2s. the amount of country bank paper stamped in the year ended the 10th of October, 1809, has exceeded that of the year ended on the 10th of October, 1808, in the sum of 3,095,340l. Your Committee can form no positive conjecture as to the amount of country bank paper cancelled and withdrawn from circulation in the course of the last year. But considering that it is the interest and practice of the country bankers to use the same notes as long as possible; that, as the law now stands, there is no limitation of time to the reissuing of those not exceeding 2l. 2s.; and that all above that amount are reissuable for three years from the date of their first issuing; it appears difficult to suppose that the amount of notes above 2l. 2s. cancelled in 1809, could be equal to the whole amount stamped in 1808: but even upon that supposition, there would still be an increase for 1809 in the notes of 5l. and 10l. alone, to the amount above specified of 3,095,340l. to which must be added an increase within the same period of Bank of England notes to the amount of about 1,500,000l. making in the year 1809, an addition in the whole of between four and five millions to the circulation of Great Britain alone, deducting only the gold which may have been withdrawn in the course of that year from actual circulation, which cannot have been very considerable, and also making an allowance for some increase in the amount of such country paper, as, though stamped, may not be in actual circulation. This increase in the general paper currency in last year, even after these deductions, would probably be little short of the amount which in almost any one year, since the discovery of America, has been added to the circulating coin of the whole of Europe. Although, as your Committee has already had occasion to observe, no certain conclusion can be drawn from the numerical amount of paper in circulation, considered abstractedly from all other circumstances, either as to such paper being in excess, or still less as to the proportion of such excess; yet they must remark, that the fact of any very great and rapid increase in that amount when coupled and attended with all the indications of a depreciated circulation, does afford the strongest confirmatory evidence, that from the want of some adequate check, the issues of such paper have not been restrained within their proper limits.

Your Committee cannot quit this part of the subject without further observing, that the addition of between four and five millions sterling to the paper circulation of this country, has doubtless been made at a very small expense to the parties issuing it, only about 100,000l. having been paid thereupon in stamps to the revenue, and probably for the reasons already stated, no corresponding deposits of gold or Bank of England notes being deemed by the country banks necessary to support their additional issues. These parties, therefore, it may be fairly stated, have been enabled under the protection of the law, which virtually secures them against such demands, to create within the last year or fifteen months, at a very trifling expense, and in a manner almost free from all present risk to their respective credits as dealers in paper money, issues of that article to the amount of several millions, operating, in the first instance and in their hands, as capital for their own benefit, and when used as such by them, falling into and in succession mixing itself with the mass of circulation of which the value in exchange for all other commodities is gradually lowered in proportion as that mass is augmented. If your Committee could be of opinion that the wisdom of Parliament would not be directed to apply a proper remedy to a state of things so unnatural, and teeming, if not corrected in time, with ultimate consequences, so prejudicial to the public welfare, they would not hesitate to declare an opinion, that some mode ought to be derived of enabling the state to participate much more largely in the profits accruing from the present system; but as this is by no means the policy they wish to recommend, they will conclude their observations on this part of the subject, by observing that in proportion as they most fully agree with Dr. Adam Smith and all the most able writers and statesmen of this country, in considering a paper circulation constantly convertible into specie, as one of the greatest practical improvements which can be made in the political and domestic economy of any state; and in viewing the establishment of the country banks issuing such paper as a most valuable and essential branch of that improvement in this kingdom; in the same proportion is your Committee anxious to revert as speedily as possible to the former practice and state of things in this respect: convinced on the one hand, that anything like a permanent and systematic departure from that practice must ultimately lead to results, which among other attendant calamities, would be destructive of the system itself; and on the other, that such an event would be the more to be deprecated, as it is only in a country like this, where good faith, both public and private, is held so high, and where, under the happy union of liberty and law, property and the securities of every description by which it is represented, are equally protected against the encroachments of power and the violence of popular commotion, that the advantages of this system, unaccompanied with any of its dangers, can be permanently enjoyed, and carried to their fullest extent.

Upon a review of all the facts and reasonings, which have been submitted to the consideration of your Committee in the course of their inquiry, they have formed an opinion, which they submit to the House:—That there is at present an excess in the paper circulation of this country, of which the most unequivocal symptom is the very high price of bullion, and next to that, the low state of the continental exchanges; that this excess is to be ascribed to the want of a sufficient check and control in the issues of paper from the Bank of England; and originally to the suspension of cash payments, which removed the natural and true control. For upon a general view of the subject, your Committee are of opinion, that no safe, certain, and constantly adequate provision against an excess of paper currency, either occasional or permanent, can be found, except in the convertibility of all such paper into specie. Your Committee cannot, therefore, but see reason to regret, that the suspension of cash payments, which, in the most favourable light in which it can be viewed, was only a temporary measure, has been continued so long; and particularly, that by the manner in which the present continuing act is framed, the character should have been given to it of a permanent war measure.

Your Committee conceive that it would be superfluous to point out, in detail, the disadvantages which must result to the country, from any such general excess of currency as lowers its relative value. The effect of such an augmentation of prices upon all money transactions for time; the unavoidable injury suffered by annuitants, and by creditors of every description, both private and public; the unintended advantage gained by government and all other debtors; are consequences too obvious to require proof, and too repugnant to justice to be left without remedy. By far the most important portion of this effect it appears to your Committee to be that which is communicated to the wages of common country labor, the rate of which, it is well known, adapts itself more slowly to the changes which happen in the value of money, than the price of any other species of labor or commodity. And it is enough for your Committee to aliude to some classes of the public servants, whose pay, if once raised in consequence of a depreciation of money, cannot so conveniently be reduced again to its former rate, even after money shall have recovered its value. The future progress of these inconveniences and evils, if not checked, must at no great distance of time work a practical conviction upon the minds of all those who may still doubt their existence; but even if their progressive increase were less probable than it appears to your Committee, they cannot help expressing an opinion, that the integrity and honor of Parliament are concerned, not to authorize longer than is required by imperious necessity, the continuance in this great commercial country of a system of circulation, in which that natural check or control is absent which maintains the value of money, and by the permanency of that common standard of value, secures the substantial justice and faith of moneyed contracts and obligations between man and man.

Your Committee moreover beg leave to advert to the temptation to resort to a depreciation even of the value of the gold coin by an alteration of the standard, to which Parliament itself might be subjected by a great and long-continued excess of paper. This has been the resource of many governments under such circumstances, and is the obvious and most easy remedy to the evil in question. But it is unnecessary to dwell on the breach of public faith and dereliction of a primary duty of government, which would manifestly be implied in preferring the reduction of the coin down to the standard of the paper, to the restoration of the paper to the legal standard of the coin.

Your Committee therefore, having very anxiously and deliberately considered this subject, report it to the House as their opinion, that the system of the circulating medium of this country ought to be brought back, with as much speed as is compatible with a wise and necessary caution, to the original principle of cash payments at the option of the holder of Bank paper.

Your Committee have under stood that remedies, or palliatives, of a different nature, have been projected; such as, a compulsory limitation of the amount of Bank advances and discounts, during the continuance of the suspension; or, a compulsory limitation during the same period, of the late of Bank profits and dividends, by carrying the surplus of profits above that rate to the public account. But, in the judgment of your Committee, such indirect schemes, for palliating the possible evils resulting from the suspension of cash payments, would prove wholly inadequate for that purpose, because the necessary proportion could never be adjusted, and if once fixed, might aggravate very much the inconveniences of a temporary pressure; and even if their efficacy could be made to appear, they would be objectionable as a most hurtful and improper interference with the rights of commercial property.

According to the best judgment your Committee has been enabled to form, no sufficient remedy for the present, or security for the future, can be pointed out, except the repeal of the law which suspends the cash payments of the Bank of England.

In effecting so important a change, your Committee are of opinion that some difficulties must be encountered, and that there are some contingent dangers to the Bank, against which it ought most carefully, and strongly to be guarded. But all those may be effectually provided for, by entrusting to the discretion of the Bank itself the charge of conducting and completing the operation, and by allowing to the Bank so ample a period of time for conducting it, as will be more than sufficient to effect its completion. To the discretion, experience, and integrity of the Directors of the Bank, your Committee believe that Parliament may safely entrust the charge of effecting that which Parliament may in its wisdom determine upon as necessary to be effected; and that the Directors of that great institution, far from making themselves a party with those who have a temporary interest in spreading alarm, will take a much longer view of the permanent interests of the Bank, as indissolubly blended with those of the public. The particular mode of gradually effecting the resumption of cash payments ought therefore, in the opinion of your Committee, to be left in a great measure to the discretion of the Bank, and Parliament ought to do little more than to fix definitely the time at which cash payments are to become, as before, compulsory. The period allowed ought to be ample, in order that the Bank Directors may feel their way, and that, having a constant watch upon the varying circumstances that ought to guide them, and availing themselves only of favourable circumstances, they may tread back their steps slowly, and may preserve both the course of their own affairs as a company, and that of public and commercial credit, not only safe, but unembarrassed.

Your Committee have not been indifferent to the consideration of the possible occurrence of political circumstances, which may be thought hereafter to furnish an argument in favor of some prolongation of the proposed period of resuming cash payments, or even in favor of a new law for their temporary restriction after the Bank shall have opened. They are, however, far from anticipating a necessity, even in any case, of returning to the present system. But if occasion for a new measure of restriction could be supposed at any time to arise, it can in no degree be grounded, as your Committee think, on any state of the foreign exchanges (which they trust that they have abundantly shown the Bank itself to have the general power of controlling), but on a political state of things producing, or likely very soon to produce, an alarm at home, leading to so in definite a demand for cash for domestic uses as it must be impossible for any banking establishment to provide against. A return to the ordinary system of banking is, on the very ground of the late extravagant fall of the exchanges and high price of gold, peculiarly requisite. That alone can effectually restore general confidence in the value of the circulating medium of the kingdom; and the serious expectation of this event must enforce a preparatory reduction of the quantity of paper, and all other measures which accord with the true principles of banking. The anticipation of the time when the Bank will be constrained to open, may also be expected to contribute to the improvement of the exchanges; whereas a postponement of this era, so indefinite as that of six months after the termination of the war, and especially in the event of an exchange continuing to fall (which more and more would generally be perceived to arise from an excess of paper, and a consequent depreciation of it), may lead, under an unfavourable state of public affairs, to such a failure of confidence (and especially among foreigners), in the determination of Parliament to enforce a return to the professed standard of the measure of payments, as may serve to precipitate the further fall of the exchanges, and lead to consequences at once the most discreditable and disastrous.

Although the details of the best mode of returning to cash payments ought to be left to the discretion of the Bank of England, as already stated, certain provisions would be necessary, under the authority of Parliament, both for the convenience of the Bank itself, and for the security of the other banking establishments in this country and in Ireland.

Your Committee conceive it may be convenient for the Bank to be permitted to issue notes under the value of 5l. for some little time after it had resumed payments in specie.

It will be convenient, also, for the chartered Banks of Ireland and Scotland, and all the country banks, that they should not be compelled to pay in specie until some time after the resumption of payments in cash, by the Bank of England; but that they should continue for a short period upon their present footing, of being liable to pay their own notes on demand, in Bank of England paper.

[*]See note on page 267.

[*]This is the point on which Tooke differed from the Bullion Committee. Mr. Horner, in his speech, assumed that grain was a general measure of value, as between different periods, a notion now abandoned, and the same opinion underlies this passage. Grain was dear, but, as Tooko shows, many other things were “oppressively cheap.” Macleod's comment is, that they would have been much cheaper but for the depreciated currency, and that the Committee ought to have relied entirely upon the gold premium to prove their point. He also desires to have it remembered that “excess” of currency is a relative term, and that it must be understood to mean excess relatively to the wants of commerce at the time in question,—a limitation which is to be understood as of course. (See p. 221.)

[*]See a short account of the Bank by Mr. Godfrey, one of the original Directors; and a Short History of the Last Parliament, 1699, by Dr. Drake; both in Lord Somers' Collection of Tracts.

[†]Macleod (Dict, of P. E. I. 303) takes exception to this statement, and in the form in which it stands, it is liable to be misunderstood. The history of American currency shows how much nominal convertibility may differ from actual convertibility, but notes cannot fall to 17 per cent. discount, while the Bank offers to pay on demand. The Bank stopped payment in May, 1696, and then its notes fell to the discount named.