end of September
all the banks south and west of New England had suspended specie
payment. In his "Considerations on the Currency," Mr. Gallatin expressed
his--

"deliberate opinion that the suspension might have been prevented
at the time when it took place, had the Bank of the United States
been in existence. The exaggerated increase of state banks,
occasioned by the dissolution of that institution, would not have
occurred. That bank would _as before_ have restrained them within
proper bounds and checked their issues, and through the means of
its offices it would have been in possession of the earliest
symptoms of the approaching danger. It would have put the Treasury
Department on its guard; both, acting in concert, would certainly
have been able, at least, to retard the event; and as the treaty of
peace was ratified within less than six months after the suspension
took place, that catastrophe would have been avoided."

But within fifteen months the bank issues increased from forty-five and
a half to sixty millions.

----------------------+-------------+--------------+------------
| Capital. | Circulation. | Specie.
----------------------+-------------+--------------+------------
Banks of New England. | $15,690,000 | $5,320,000 | $8,200,000
Other Banks | 66,930,000 | 44,730,000 | 8,600,000
----------------------+-------------+--------------+------------
1815. 208 State Banks.| $82,620,000 | $50,050,000 | $16,800,000
1816. 246 State Banks.| 89,822,422 | 68,000,000 | 19,000,000
----------------------+-------------+--------------+------------

The depression of the local currencies ranged from seven to twenty-five
per cent. In New York and Charleston it was seven to ten per cent. below
the par of coin. At Philadelphia from seventeen to eighteen per cent. At
Washington and Baltimore from twenty to twenty-two, and at Pittsburgh
and on the frontier, twenty-five per cent. below par. The circulating
medium, or measure of values, being doubled, the price of commodities
was doubled. The agiotage, of course, was the profit of the bankers and
brokers; a sum estimated at six millions of dollars a year, or ten per
cent. on the exchanges of the country, which McDuffie, in his celebrated
report, estimated at sixty millions annually.

In November the Treasury Department found itself involved in the common
disaster. The