also the events of British trade and finance.
1694. The Bank went into operation.
1696. Bank suspended specie payments. Panic and failures.
1707. Threatened invasion of the Pretender. Run upon the Bank, — panic. Government helped it through, by guarantying its bills at six per cent. 1714. The Pretender proclaimed in Scotland. Run upon the Bank, — panic. 1718-20. Time of the South-Sea Bubble. Reaction, — demand for money, — Bank of England nearly swept away, — trade suspended, — nation involved in suffering.
1744. Charles Edward sails for Scotland, and marches upon Derby. Panic. Run upon the Bank, — is obliged to pay in sixpences, and to block its doors, in order to gain time.
1772. Extensive failures and a monetary panic. The Bank maintains the convertibility of its notes for several years, at an annual expense of £850,000.
1793. War with France, — drain of gold, — Bank contracts, — panic, — failures throughout the country, — universal hoarding, — one hundred country banks stop, notes as low as five pounds first issued, — general fall of prices.
1796. An Order in Council suspends specie payment by the Bank.
1799. Numerous failures, — chiefly on the Continent. The pressure in England relieved by an issue of Exchequer bills.
1807-9. Great speculations in flax, hemp, silk, wool, etc.
1810. Recoil of speculation, — extensive failures, and great demand for money.
1811. Parliament adopts a resolution declaring a one-pound note and a shilling legal tender for a guinea.
1814-16. Heavy losses and bankruptcies, — failure of two hundred and forty country banks, — the distress and suffering of the people compared to that in France after the bursting of the Mississippi Scheme.
1819. Law passed for the resumption of specie payments in 1823, — after a suspension of twenty-seven years.
1822. Great commercial depression throughout Europe, — agricultural distress, — famine in Ireland.
1824. Speculations in scrips and shares of foreign loans and new companies, to a fabulous amount.
1825. Recoil of the speculations, — run upon the banks, — seventy banks stop, — a drain of gold exhausts the bullion of the Bank.
1826. Depression of trade, — government advances Exchequer bills to the Bank.
1832. A run for gold, — bullion in the Bank again alarmingly reduced. 1834-7. Jackson vs. Biddle in America produces considerable derangements in England, — drain of gold, — great alternate contractions and expansions, — severe mercantile distress.
1844. Renewal of the Bank Charter, limiting its issues, — great speculations in railroad shares, to the amount of £500,000 000.
1845. Recoil of the speculations, — immense sacrifice of property. 1846. Drain of gold, — large importations of corn, — alarm.
1847. Drain of gold continues, — panic and universal mercantile depression, Bank refuses discounts, — forced sales of all kinds of property, — the Bank Charter suspended.
1857. The experiences of 1847 repeated on a more injurious scale, with another suspension of the Bank Charter Act.
Now this record does not show a brilliant success in banking; it does not encourage the hopes of those who place great hopes in a national institution; for the Bank of England is the highest result of the financial sagacity and political wisdom of the first commercial nation of the globe. A recognized ally of the government, — at the very centre of the worlds trade, — enjoying a large freedom of movement within its sphere, — conducted by the most eminent merchants of the metropolis, assisted by the advice of the
