DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0151
HISTORY OF CHARTERED TRADE COMPANIES. 135
the Bank, for the issue was forced and inconvertible. Then came
the inevitable. The note was depreciated, that is, fell below the
gold standard, though it had to be taken at its nominal value.
The opinion, and a very natural opinion it was, got abroad that
the Bank was deluging the country with its paper in order to get
a profit on the excess of issue. It was predicted that the Bank
would never resume cash payments, and Cobbett, who saw pretty
clearly what the situation was, after circulating certain letters to
the public in which he denounced the Bank and the Government,
published a periodical called the Gridiron, in which he asserted
his willingness to be roasted on that implement if the Bank ever
honoured its liabilities. And when the time came it required all
the address and courage of Peel, who then did a notable service
to his country in saving it from following the advice of men who,
having been unconscious fools a few years before, were now un-
conscious knaves.
The memory of those twenty-two dismal years clung to the
great Corporation, for it was supposed to have fallen in with the
project under which it made its gain out of the public loss and
misery of the great war, the main gains of which to the British
nation was an enormous debt, a few costly acquisitions, and a
State prisoner at St. Helena. But during the period which
intervened between the recoinage and the resumption of cash
payments in 1818, and the Bank Act of 1844, the Corporation
more than once did great services to public and private credit.
It had become the centre of the world's finance. In an eloquent
passage, my late friend, Mr. Cobden, describes the intense eager-
ness with which the announcement of the Bank's rate of discount
was watched for in the commercial centres of the further East.
It was supposed to possess in its hands the gains or losses of
trade, and that on the decisions which its directors came to in
their parlour—the language of the earliest days of the Bank are
still traditional with it—depended the success or failure of
commerce.
Peel totally changed its constitution by the Act of 1844. The
alteration was a subject of much controversy at the time, and
even now that the warfare of words has somewhat abated, and the
nation is ready to accept the new condition of things, the last
the Bank, for the issue was forced and inconvertible. Then came
the inevitable. The note was depreciated, that is, fell below the
gold standard, though it had to be taken at its nominal value.
The opinion, and a very natural opinion it was, got abroad that
the Bank was deluging the country with its paper in order to get
a profit on the excess of issue. It was predicted that the Bank
would never resume cash payments, and Cobbett, who saw pretty
clearly what the situation was, after circulating certain letters to
the public in which he denounced the Bank and the Government,
published a periodical called the Gridiron, in which he asserted
his willingness to be roasted on that implement if the Bank ever
honoured its liabilities. And when the time came it required all
the address and courage of Peel, who then did a notable service
to his country in saving it from following the advice of men who,
having been unconscious fools a few years before, were now un-
conscious knaves.
The memory of those twenty-two dismal years clung to the
great Corporation, for it was supposed to have fallen in with the
project under which it made its gain out of the public loss and
misery of the great war, the main gains of which to the British
nation was an enormous debt, a few costly acquisitions, and a
State prisoner at St. Helena. But during the period which
intervened between the recoinage and the resumption of cash
payments in 1818, and the Bank Act of 1844, the Corporation
more than once did great services to public and private credit.
It had become the centre of the world's finance. In an eloquent
passage, my late friend, Mr. Cobden, describes the intense eager-
ness with which the announcement of the Bank's rate of discount
was watched for in the commercial centres of the further East.
It was supposed to possess in its hands the gains or losses of
trade, and that on the decisions which its directors came to in
their parlour—the language of the earliest days of the Bank are
still traditional with it—depended the success or failure of
commerce.
Peel totally changed its constitution by the Act of 1844. The
alteration was a subject of much controversy at the time, and
even now that the warfare of words has somewhat abated, and the
nation is ready to accept the new condition of things, the last