pleas; a museum of natural history; a library; a reading room; a theatre; three newspapers; five banks; an insurance company; three fire engines; a humane society for the resuscitation of persons submersed in water; an agricultural society; two Bible societies; two tract societies, (one of them for distributing Bibles and tracts amongst boatmen on the river;) four Sunday school societies; and three charitable societies. There are twenty-five lawyers and twenty-two doctors in town.
Of four provincial banks in town, the paper of three is reduced to about one-third part of the specie sums on the face of their notes, and the people are making a brisk run on the fourth. This paper shop is not paying in specie, but merely giving money like its own. When the barter can be no longer continued, the house must be shut, and the holders of the pictures find them of no value.
The laws of the country, as formerly explained to you, give no redress.
The balance of trade in favour of England and India, together with the exorbitant premiums to be paid in exchanging bad money for specie, or bills of the United States Bank, are quite unfavourable to commerce with foreign countries. The debts due to the merchants of England, and to those in the Eastern States, might give little {215} annoyance, if creditors were indulgent as to the past, and as liberal as usual in future transactions. Property laws give full security in the meantime, and the bankrupt laws of some States form a complete protection against foreign claims. It is only to be feared, that foreign merchants will not be sufficiently accommodating hereafter. The increasing numbers of their agents in the seaports of America, augur no good to enterprizing traders in this part.
