umerous failures,--chiefly on the Continent. The pressure in
England relieved by an issue of Exchequer bills.

1807-9. Great speculations in flax, hemp, silk, wool, etc.

1810. Recoil of speculation,--extensive failures, and great demand for
money.

1811. Parliament adopts a resolution declaring a one-pound note and a
shilling legal tender for a guinea.

1814-16. Heavy losses and bankruptcies,--failure of two hundred and
forty country banks,--the distress and suffering of the people compared
to that in France after the bursting of the Mississippi Scheme.

1819. Law passed for the resumption of specie payments in 1823,--after a
suspension of twenty-seven years.

1822. Great commercial depression throughout Europe,--agricultural
distress,--famine in Ireland.

1824. Speculations in scrips and shares of foreign loans and new
companies, to a fabulous amount.

1825. Recoil of the speculations,--run upon the banks,--seventy banks
stop,--a drain of gold exhausts the bullion of the Bank.

1826. Depression of trade,--government advances Exchequer bills to the
Bank.

1832. A run for gold,--bullion in the Bank again alarmingly reduced.

1834-7. Jackson vs. Biddle in America produces considerable derangements
in England,--drain of gold,--great alternate contractions and
expansions,--severe mercantile distress.

1844. Renewal of the Bank Charter, limiting its issues,--great
speculations in railroad shares, to the amount of L500,000,000.

1845. Recoil of the speculations,--immense sacrifice of property.

1846. Drain of gold,--large importations of corn,--alarm.

1847. Drain of gold continues,--panic and universal mercantile
depression,--Bank refuses discounts,--forced sales of all kinds of
property,--the Bank Charter suspended.

1857. The experiences of 1847 repeated on a more injurious scale, with
another suspension of the Bank Charter Act.

Now this record does not show a brilliant success in banking; it does
not encourage the hopes of those who place great hopes in a national
institution; for the Bank of England is the highest result of the
financial sagacity and political wisdom of the first commercial nation
of the globe. A recognized ally of the government,--at the very centre
of the world's trade,--enjoying a large freedom of movement within its
sphere,--conducted by the most eminent merchants of the metropolis,
assisted by the advice of the most accomplished political
economists,--sanctioned and amended, f