1819 secured a gradual return of cash payments,
and the old metallic standard was restored. It was Peel's great
principle that a national bank should always be prepared to pay specie
for its notes on demand, a principle he afterwards worked out in the
Bank Charter. The same year a new plan was devised to prevent bank-notes
being forged. The Committee's report says:--"A number of squares will
appear in chequer-work upon the note, filled with hair lines in elliptic
curves of various degrees of eccentricity, the squares to be alternately
of red and black lines; the perfect mathematical coincidence of the
extremity of the lines of different colours on the sides of the squares
will be effected by machinery of singular fidelity. But even with the
use of this machinery a person who has not the key to the proper
disposition would make millions of experiments to no purpose. Other
obstacles to imitation will also be presented in the structure of the
note; but this is the one principally relied upon. It is plain that any
failure in the imitation will be made manifest to the observation of the
most careless, and the most skilful merchants who have seen the
operation declare that the note cannot be imitated. The remarkable
machine works with three cylinders, and the impression is made by small
convex cylindrical plates."

In 1821 the real re-commencement of specie payments took place. In 1822
Turner, a Bank clerk, stole L10,000 by altering the transfer book. The
rascal, however, was too clever for the Bank, and escaped. In 1822 Mr.
Pascoe Grenfell put the profits of the Bank at twenty-five millions, in
twenty-five years, after seven per cent. was divided.

By Fauntleroy's (the banker) forgeries in 1824, the Bank lost L360,000,
and the interest alone, which was regularly paid, had amounted to L9,000
or L10,000 a year. Fauntleroy's bank was in Berners Street. He had
forged powers of attorney to enable him to sell out stock. An epicure
and a voluptuary, he had lived in extraordinary luxury. In a private
desk was found a list of his forgeries, ending with these words: "The
Bank first began to refuse our acceptances, thereby destroying the
credit of our house. The Bank shall smart for it." After Fauntleroy was
hung at Newgate there were obscure rumours in the City that he had been
saved by a silver tube being placed in his throat, and that he had
escaped to Paris.

Having given a summary of the history of the Bank of England, we now
p