of Government would have stopped with it, and we never could have believed that so formidable a calamity would have arisen if the Government could have prevented it.
1160. Chairman.] The notion of the convertibility of the note being in danger never crossed your mind?—Never for a moment; nothing of the kind.
1161. Mr. Weguelin.] I refer not to the convertibility of the note, but to the state of the Banking Department of the Bank of England?—If we had thought that there was any doubt whatever about it, we should have taken the bank notes and put them in our own strong chest. We could never for a moment believe an event of that kind as likely to happen.
1162. Therefore you think that the measure taken by the Government, of issuing a letter authorising the Bank of England to increase their issues of notes upon securities, was what was generally expected by the commercial world, and what in future the commercial world would look to in such a conjunction of circumstances?—We looked for some measure of that nature. That, no doubt, was the most obvious one. We had great doubts whether it would come when it did, until the very last moment.
1163. Have you ever contemplated the possibility of the Bank refusing to advance, under circumstances similar to those which existed in November, 1857, upon good banking securities?—Of course I have, and it is a very difficult question to answer as to what its effect might be; but the notion appears to me to be so thoroughly ingrained in the minds of the commercial world, that whenever you have good security it ought to be convertible at the Bank in some shape or way, that I have very great doubt indeed whether the Bank can ever take a position to refuse to assist persons who have good commercial securities to offer.
1164. Mr. Cayley.] When you say that you have come to some fresh arrangement with regard to your allowance of interest upon deposits, do you speak of yourselves as the
