s morning ride, he was surprised to find
both sides of the gateway accommodated each with a prisoner, like a
pair of heraldic supporters, _chained_ and _collared proper_. He asked
the gardener, whom he found watching the place of punishment, as his
duty required, whether another delinquent had been detected? "No, my
Lord," said the gardener, in the tone of a man excellently well
satisfied with himself,--"but I thought the single fellow looked very
awkward standing on one side of the gateway, so I gave half a crown to
one of the labourers to stand on the other side for _uniformity's
sake_." This is exactly a case in point, and probably the only one
which can be found--with this sole difference, that I do not hear that
the members of the Scottish Revenue Board got any boon for standing in
the pillory with those of Ireland--for uniformity's sake.

Lastly, sir, I come to this business of extending the provisions of
the Bill prohibiting the issue of notes under five pounds to Scotland,
in six months after the period that the regulation shall be adopted in
England.

I am not about to enter upon the question which so much agitates
speculative writers upon the wealth of nations, or attempt to discuss
what proportion of the precious metals ought to be detained within a
country; what are the best means of keeping it there; or to what
extent the want of specie can be supplied by paper credit: I will not
ask if a poor man can be made a rich one, by compelling him to buy a
service of plate, instead of the delf ware which served his turn.
These are questions I am not adequate to solve. But I beg leave to
consider the question in a practical point of view, and to refer
myself entirely to experience.

I assume, without much hazard of contradiction, that Banks have
existed in Scotland for near one hundred and twenty years--that they
have flourished, and the country has flourished with them--and that
during the last fifty years particularly, provincial Banks, or
branches of the principal established and chartered Banks, have
gradually extended themselves in almost every Lowland district in
Scotland; that the notes, and especially the small notes, which they
distribute, entirely supply the demand for a medium of currency; and
that the system has so completely expelled gold from the country of
Scotland, that you never by any chance espy a guinea there, unless in
the purse of an accidental stranger, or in the coffers of these Banks
them