quarterly average of the weekly liabilities and assets of the Bank of England, which embraces the period between the 25th of July and the 17th of October inclusive, with the like return for the period between the 29th of June and the 19th of September, we arrive at the following conclusions: It appears that the circu. lation has decreased in the sum of 98,0001, and the deposites in the sum of 592,000l. The securities have been withdrawn or run off in the sum of 1,289,000l., while the stock of bullion in their coffers has increased in the sum of 553,000l., being an increase on the ag gregate of the present and former return inclusive of 1,102,000l. The total liabilities of the bank corporation appear to be £29,217,000, and their assets £32,856,000; showing the rest, or what are presumed to be the surplus profits, to amount to £2,885,000, which is £146,000 less than on the last return; yet on the aggregate £13,000 more than at the same period last year. By comparing the present return with that of October 21st, 1836, it appears that the circulation is £780,000 larger than at that period, and that the amount of the deposites is less by the sum of £2,823,000. With respect to the assets, it appears that the corporation hold securities less by the sum of £1,289,000, and also that on the year the stock of bullion has increased in the sum of £599,000. Comparing the circulation and the stock of bullion with the February return, this is the most favourable of the whole year, inasmuch as the stock of bullion has increased more than two millions, while the circulation in proportion has not been extended to one million. Of the precise actual amount of bullion which the bank corporation have now in their possession, we can. not furnish any statement without reference to the weekly official return, but by well informed parties it is estimated at about 7,000,000l. The most important features in this return are the decrease in the deposites, and the withdrawal or taking up of the securities, with the increase of the stock of bullion. The diminution in the "rest," however, shows that the intricate game which the bank corporation have had to play, in order to extricate themselves from the labyrinth of unlimited credit, for which that body was alone to blame, in the first instance, has placed them, and most deservedly, as tamperers with the currency, in the situation of the noodle who had "to pay for his whistle." December 9. The present situation of the Bank of England, considering all things, is much more favourable than the Bills on London,* 60 days sight, 11 a 12 direction could have anticipated five months ago; and it is the general opinion of experienced monetary men, that the corporation would never have outlived the late struggle in which they were involved by attempting too much, unless it had been for the stability, honesty, and prudence, of our own mercantile interests, as well as the non-anticipated honesty of a great portion of our American debtors, who, as well as the Bank of Eng. land, now actually the representative, par necessité, of the suspended firms, owe more to the United States Bank than they will ever get by Van Buren's administration of republican finance. As American affairs have taken their present turn, we take some credit to ourselves for having abstained from the continued and useless twaddle which has been wasted on the matter. SALES OF STOCK AT PHILADELPHIA. 2 shares Mechanics' Bank, 66 France, p. cent. prem. 5 17 a 5 20 fr. p. doll. Holland, 41 cts. p. guilder. Hamburgh, 36 cts. p. mc. ba. Bremen, 14 a 24 discount. 208 December 16. Bills on London, 60 days sight, 10 France, a 11 per ct. prem. 5 25 66 66 40 Hamburgh, Charleston, Savannah, 66 66 New Orleans " American gold, do. cts. per guilder. 36 a 36 cts. p. ma. ba. 81 a 814 cts. p. rix doll. 13 a 24 per cent. dis. do. 2 a 21 do. new coinage, 4 Five-franc pieces, do. patriot, a 5 do. $5 07 a $5 10 each. The annual report of the secretary of the treasury on the finances, and of the direc tor of the mint on the coinage, and such parts of the president's messages and other public documents and acts of congress as relate to the finances, banking, the currency, coinage, and collateral subjects. Abstracts from the annual commercial statements, showing the extent of the commerce and navigation of the United States. Abstracts from the reports annually made to the different state legislatures, on the condition of the state banks, sufficient to show their actual condition. Weekly quotations of the sales at New York and Philadelphia of the principal stocks, local and distant, sold in those markets: as also bills of exchange, foreign and domestic. The latest news of the state of the money $17 20 a $17 30 each. markets in England and France, together with all such correlative matters as are connected with capital and its employment, the prices of British stocks, American securities, &c. 97 a 98 each. do. 16 45 a 16 55 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1837. The present number completes one half of the first volume of the Register. As the publishers propose to print an extra number of copies in order to bring the work into the view of the members of some of the state legislatures now in session, or soon about to assemble, they deem it expedient to mention for the information of such, that the previous numbers contained the following documents and papers : The Bullion Report of 1810. France. J. Horsley Palmer's new pamphlet on the late Money Crisis in England. S. Jones Loyd's Reply to the same. England and France as they may appear. ed with finance, banking, currency, exchange, We understand that an account of the proceedings of the late bank convention at New it appears, we shall give it a place in our York will soon be officially published. When columns. TERMS. Col. Torrens's pamphlet on the same sub- Wednesday, on a super-royal sheet of 10 octavo pages, com1. The Financial Register is published every alternate mencing on the 5th of July, 1837, and will comprise one volume of 416 pages in a year. 2. The price of subscription is three dollars for one copy. or five dollars for two copies, per annum, payable in advance. 3. No subscription will be received for a less term than one money is remitted from a distance, it will be considered in year; and in all cases prior to the first of April next, where accordingly be forwarded. payment of the current volume, and the back numbers will 4. All postages must be paid, but the risk of miscarriage by the mail is assumed by the publishers. 5. Any postmaster, or other individual, who shall remit ten dollars at one time, shall be entitled to five copies. 6. The notes of banks of five dollars' denomination and OF THE UNITED STATES. DEVOTED CHIEFLY TO FINANCE AND CURRENCY, AND TO BANKING AND COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. "It is the interest of every country that the standard of its money, once settled, should be inviolably and immutably kept to perpetuity. For whenever that is altered, upon whatever pretence soever, the public will lose by it. "Men in their bargains contract, not for denominations or sounds, but for the intrinsic value.”—Locke on Money. Vol. I. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1838. From the National Gazette of June 8, 1837. NO. IV. No. 14. gold bill would have operated upon the British currency by so slow and gradual a process that its influence would scarcely have been felt, whilst the motive for importing the indemnity money from France, and issuing the specie circular, would not have had an exist ence. It is no uncommon thing, however, for people to " shut the stable-door, after the steed is stolen," and this appears to be the present intention of the government. It would appear, from the articles published in the Washington Globe, that the government considers its whole duty, in the present posture of affairs, to be to adhere to the metallic standard, in its receipts and disbursements, and to collect its revenue and pay its debts In adverting to this plan upon a former octhrough the custom houses and land offices, by casion, I took the opportunity to say, that its making the collectors and receivers at the adoption, at the present period, could have no same time holders of the public money. Had influence in restoring specie payments; and this plan, as set forth in detail by a writer on that as the government had brought the counthe 29th of October, 1834, in an article re-try into its present bankrupt condition, it had published by the Globe, on the 3d inst., been no right to withhold its aid in the accomplishadopted at the time of its first appearance, the ment of that great object, which it would country would not now be writhing under the effectually do if it were to confine itself to the miseries inflicted by the unfortunate league simple effort of collecting and paying its own entered into between the deposite banks and revenue in coin. As these remarks, however, the government. In a statement published in have been distorted by the writer" Franklin,” the Globe, on the 1st of April last, it was he making me say that "the pecuniary afshown that the loans of the Bank of the United fairs of the United States cannot be conveStates had been reduced between July, 1833, niently managed excepting through a bank or and November, 1834, from 63,300,000 dollars banks," whereas I merely insisted, that withto 45,754,201 dollars, embracing the year of out a bank the government could not bring the panic occasioned by the removal of the about a restoration of specie payments, it is deposites; and all who recollect the tremen- my present purpose to offer a few more obserdous pressure of that period, will bear testi-vations upon this subject, and I think the mony to the fact, that the whole banking and proposition I have laid down can be so clearly credit system of the country was then brought substantiated, that no man of ordinary intellect down to the lowest point of contraction, as can fail to see its truth. was proved by the circumstance of specie The plan to relieve the country proposed by flowing in upon us from all quarters of the the Globe, and it is the only one that has thus world. I say, that had the "admirable essay," far been seriously urged, is that which is now as it is called by a correspondent of the Wash-in the course of trial by the Secretary of the ington Globe under the signature of "Frank-Treasury-namely, the collection of bonds for lin," been attended to at that period, there duties and of the revenue from the sale of would have been no deposite banks, no poli-public lands, and the payment of all the public tical partisans rewarded with bank loans, no forty-four million of land sales in three years, and consequently no surplus revenue, no more new banks, no extravagant speculations and overtrading, no unusual bankruptcies, no wide spread disasters, and, finally, no stoppage of The amount of the revenue of the United specie payments. On the contrary, the affairs States for the year 1837, was computed, in of the country would have gone on in their the Treasury Report of December last, at usual way, without convulsion, for even the $24,000,000. In an estimate like the one creditors, in specie. The writers in the administration papers maintain, that a perseverance in this measure will restore the currency. I deny that it will have any such effect, and this shall now be proved. about to be made, a few millions are of no mulated in Mr. Swartwout's vaults is equal to account, and those writers may, therefore, the sum which the government finds it convehave the benefit of the most liberal allowance.nient to keep on hand, in New York, to meet Let us suppose, then, that the receipts and ex- its engagements at that city, which we will penditures for many years to come will be suppose for the sake of round numbers to be thirty millions of dollars per annum. Let us two millions of dollars. also suppose that the average balance which Thus far, it will be seen, that the current the government keeps on hand to meet its has been running altogether one way. But engagements should be five millions of dol-now it is met by a counter current. The lars, which is equal to two months' payments ahead, and which is also the sum which the distribution law authorised to be held back on the first of January last. public treasury has creditors as well as debt. ors. It is obliged to pay money, as well as to receive money, and upon this fund it begins to draw its checks or warrants to pay the salaries of the various public servants in the civil, naval, and military departments, and in fulfilment of the numerous contracts for supplies and services which constitute the objects for which the annual appropriations are made. These checks or warrants are presented at the Let us now suppose that the bonds of the merchants instead of lying over unpaid until the 1st of October next, or of being paid in treasury checks or warrants, drawn upon the deposite banks, were now all actually paid in coin agreeably to the original requirement of the secretary of the treasury, issued imme-custom house by the holders, and paid in diately after the suspension of specie pay ments by the banks, what would be the course that matters would pursue? To trace it out, we will assume the city of New York, the spot at which the principal part of the revenue from duties is collected, as the most appropriate place; and whatever is true of New York must be true of every other place where any part of the revenue is collected. specie, and the parties who receive it having no use for it, unless they be silversmiths who want to melt it, or merchants who want to export it, carry it back in bags to the same brokers, of whom Dobbs & Co. and the others bought it, and sell it at 6 per cent. premium, that being the purchasing price for silver. Thus whilst a current of coin is every day going into the custom house, another current of equal extent is coming out, and the absur dity of the process in a short time becomes so evident, that the brokers, in order to save themselves, as well as the buyers and sellers and the clerks in the custom house, from the labour and trouble of transporting and count. Dobbs & Co., importers of dry goods in Pearl street, have a bond falling due at the custom house for five hundred dollars. Before the fatal tenth day of May last, they used to pay such a bond at the Dry Dock Bank, by giving a check on that back for the amount, or by giving the notes of some other bank.ing the money, find the most convenient mode Now, they must pay the amount at the custom of transmitting the business for all parties, to house instead of at the Dry Dock Bank or any be, to buy the treasury checks or warrants other deposite bank, and not in a check or before the specie is drawn out, at the buying bank notes but in specie. To get this specie price of specie, and to sell them again to they must go into Wall street, to one of the those who have bonds to pay, at the selling bullion brokers, whose office is located as price of specie, or perhaps in both cases, upon near the custom house as possible, having terins a little more favourable to both parties on a sign over his door, as if in compliment account of the greater facility of the operation. to the administration," Gold and Silver A little inconvenience might be sustained at bought and sold here." The selling price of first, from the circumstance that treasury American silver, the cheapest he can buy, is, checks or warrants could not be found of the as at present, we will suppose, 7 per cent. precise amounts of the bonds that were to be premium, and Dobbs & Co. having paid that paid. Expedients would however soon be inprice for it, carry it away in a bag, and hand vented, such, for instance, as a broker's depoit to Mr. Swartwout, the collector, who deli-siting with the collector checks or warrants vers up the bond, counts the money and stows for a large sum, under the stipulation that he it away in his vault or iron chest, and there is an end of that transaction. should be at liberty to draw in payment of bonds, for any amount that might be required. As soon as Dobbs & Co. have left the cus- The treasury itself would also accommodate tom house, Tommy Nokes and Johnny Styles, its creditors by drawing its checks or warrants and a dozen others, come in with their bags of for every convenient sum, so that in no event specie, bought of the same or some other would the payer of a bond be obliged to furbroker at 7 per cent., and pay their bonds, and nish himself with more specie than would be this process goes on until the amount accu-sufficient to make up fractions. That this is the course which the scheme of ments made by the treasury, but the five thousand millions made by the states, by corperations and individuals. Do not startle, reader, at the magnitude of the sum that has been named. There is no exaggeration in it, as I will prove to your satisfaction. There are twenty-six states in this Union, besides the territories, each having a government. Each of these governments expends a large sum in its ordinary disbursements, and in internal improvements. Payments to the amount of ten or twenty millions in a year, may be charged to this account. From what has been said, it must be evident collecting and paying the public revenue in to every enquirer after truth, that the process coin would take, is too clear to admit of any of collecting and paying the public revenue in dispute. And now let me ask, what conceiv-hard money, when all the states, counties, able influence towards bringing 823 banks townships, parishes, cities, boroughs, corporaand branches back to specie payments could tions and individuals of the Union, collect and be exercised by this process? Could it coerce pay in soft money, would not have the slighta single one of them to pay a five-dollar note ? est effect in bringing about the desired reNobody can coerce but creditors, and in the sumption of specie payments. And yet this case before us, the government resolves not to is the result, for the accomplishment of which, become a creditor. I invite the writers in the the public has a right to demand of the goGlobe, and the administration itself, to exa-vernment its prompt and efficient aid. The mine this subject well, and see whether the IN-metallic standard is wanted, not for the purEVITABLE TENDENCY of such a course at this pose of measuring the thirty millions of paytime would not be to fix upon us, for an indefinite term of years, the very depreciated currency of which they profess to entertain such a patriotic abhorrence? Would not many of the banks very soon say, that as the general government had abandoned all intention of applying its power in the only mode in which it could be made universal in bringing us back, we will profit by its folly and expand our loans? Just as certain as that the country is now borne down under affliction, would its agony be increased, and no one could foretell the period at which a return to specie payments could be accomplished. As to the very mistaken idea advanced in the Globe, that by the process described, specie would be constantly kept in circulation, it is evident that if it circulated at all, it would only be between the custom house and the brokers, and between the brokers and the custom house. The owners of it who should receive it at the custom house, would certainly not pass it away in the purchase of goods upon the same terms The whole expenditure of the people of the that they would pass away paper, worth six per United States for their food, clothing, house cent. less, and if they were so patriotic as to rent and fuel, exclusive of foreign goods, may do this, the first man into whose hands it be fairly estimated at one dollar a week each, would fall, would carry it off to the broker's, upon an average, that is, say fifty dollars per and thus would its circulation be immediately annum, man, woman, and child. The total stopped. People never pay in coin when population is about fifteen millions, and conpaper will be taken instead, for not one man sequently the cost of this portion of the mainin a hundred is willing to lose the difference tenance of the whole may be placed at seven between the value of the two, even if it hundred and fifty millions of dollars per anamount to but one per cent. And as to the num. It is true that with a large portion of frivolous notion, that specie payments would the agricultural classes, many of their wants are be resumed by eight hundred corporations supplied without an actual sale or purchase, from the mere circumstance that by the pro- but on the other hand, a large portion of the cess going on at the custom houses and land articles they consume pass through several offices, a metallic standard would be held up sales before they are consumed. In regard to to the view of the people, it is plain that it has foreign goods, there were imported in the no foundation. Such a standard is now held year 1836 to the value of 189,980,035 dollars, up daily to the people in all the newspapers of of which there was exported 21,746,360 dolthe United States which quote the market lars, leaving for consumption 168,233,675 dolprice of specie, and there is not now a man lars. After the payment of the freight, insurwho has a dollar hoarded away in an old stock-ance and other charges and commercial profit, ing that does not daily see or hear of that these goods would be sold by the importers to standard. the wholesale dealers for probably 200,000,000 The banking capital of the United States, on the first of January last, was upwards of 324 millions, and if we assume the total amount of loans at only 176 millions beyond the capitals, we shall have 500 millions as the aggregate amount of bank loans. This sum probably comes round four times a year, and consequently creates payments to the amount of two thousand millions. |