preservative apprehension which is the best security of all banks.
For this reason the period under which the Bank of England did not pay gold for its notes—the period from 1797 to 1819—is always called the period of the Bank restriction. As the Bank during that period did not perform, and was not compelled by law to perform, its contract of paying its notes in cash, it might apparently have been well called the period of Bank licence. But the word "restriction" was quite right, and was the only proper word as a description of the policy of 1797. Mr. Pitt did not say that the Bank of ^England need not pay its notes in specie; he "restricted" them from doing so; he said that they must not.
In consequence, from 1797 to 1844 (when a new era begins) there never was a proper caution on the part of the Bank directors. At heart they considered that the Bank of England had a kind of charmed life, and that it was above the ordinary banking anxiety to pay its way. And this feeling was very natural. A bank of issue, which need not pay its notes in cash, has a charmed life; it can lend what it wishes, and issue what it likes, with no fear of harm to itself, and with no substantial check but its own inclination. For nearly a quarter of a century, the Bank of England was such a bank, for all that time it could not be in any danger. And naturally the public mind was
