tability of a system of credit of which such
an universal earthquake could not displace or shake even the slightest
individual portion?

Thus stands the case in Scotland; and it is clear any restrictive
enactment affecting the Banking system, or their mode of issuing
notes, must be adopted in consequence of evils, operating elsewhere
perhaps, but certainly unknown in this country.

In England, unfortunately, things have been very different, and the
insolvency of many provincial Banking Companies, of the most
established reputation for stability, has greatly distressed the
country, and alarmed London itself, from the necessary reaction of
their misfortunes upon their correspondents in the capital.

I do not think, sir, that the advocate of Scotland is called upon to
go further, in order to plead an exemption from any experiment which
England may think proper to try to cure her own malady, than to say
such malady does not exist in her jurisdiction. It is surely enough to
plead, 'We are well, our pulse and complexion prove it--let those who
are sick take physic.' But the opinion of the English Ministers is
widely different; for, granting our premisses, they deny our
conclusion.

The peculiar humour of a friend, whom I lost some years ago, is the
only one I recollect, which jumps precisely with the reasoning of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. My friend was an old Scottish laird, a
bachelor and a humorist--wealthy, convivial, and hospitable, and of
course having always plenty of company about him. He had a regular
custom of swallowing every night in the world one of Dr. Anderson's
pills, for which reasons may be readily imagined. But it is not so
easy to account for his insisting on every one of his guests taking
the same medicine, and whether it was by way of patronising the
medicine, which is in some sense a national receipt, or whether the
mischievous old wag amused himself with anticipating the scenes of
delicate embarrassment, which the dispensation sometimes produced in
the course of the night, I really cannot even guess. What is equally
strange, he pressed the request with a sort of eloquence which
succeeded with every guest. No man escaped, though there were few who
did not make resistance. His powers of persuasion would have been
invaluable to a minister of state. 'What! not one _Leetle Anderson_,
to oblige your friend, your host, your entertainer! He had taken one
himself--he would take another, if you please