Chapter X: Letter IX (3)

Well: all is pawned then. The land, the houses, the canals, the mines, and the labour are pawned for the payment of the interest of the Boroughmongers debt. Your labour, mind, Jack, is pawned for the one-half of its worth. But you will naturally ask, how is it that the nation, that everybody submits to this? There's your mistake, Jack. It is not _everybody_ that submits. In the first place there are the Boroughmongers themselves and all their long tribe of relations, legitimate and spurious, who profit from the taxes, and who have the church livings, which they enjoy without giving the poor any part of their legal share of those livings. Then there are all the officers of army and navy, and all the endless hosts of place-men and place-women, pensioned men and pensioned women, and all the hosts of tax-gatherers, who alone, these last I mean, swallow more than would be necessary to carry on the Government under a reformed Parliament. But have you forgotten the lenders of the money which makes the debt? These people live wholly upon the interest of the debt; and of course they approve of your labour, and the labour of every man being pawned. The Boroughmongers have pawned your labour to them. Therefore they like that your labour should be taxed. They cannot be said to submit to the tyranny; they applaud it, and to their utmost they support it.

But you will say, still the mass of the people would, if they had a mind to bestir themselves, be too strong for all these. Very true. But you forget the army, Jack. This is a great military force, armed with bayonets, bullets and cannon-balls, ready at all times and in all places to march or gallop to attack the people, if they attempt to eat sugar or salt without paying the tax. There are forts, under the name of barracks, all over the kingdom, where armed men are kept in readiness for this purpose. In Ireland they actually go in person to help to collect the taxes; and in England they are always ready to do the same. Now, suppose, Jack, that a man who has a bit of land by the seaside, were to take up a little of the salt that Providence sends on shore. He would be prosecuted. He would resist the process. Soldiers would come and take him away to be tried and _hanged_. Suppose you, Jack, were to dip your rushes into grease, till they came to farthing candles. The Excise would prosecute you. The sheriff would send men to drag you to jail. You would fight in defence of your house and home. You would beat off the sheriff's men. Soldiers would come and kill you, or would take you away to be hanged.

This is the thing by which the Boroughmongers govern. There are enough who would gladly not submit to their tyranny; but there is nobody but themselves who has an army at command.

Nevertheless they are not altogether easy under these circumstances. An army is a two-edged weapon. It may cut the employer as well as the thing that it is employed upon. It is made up of flesh and blood, and of English flesh and blood too. It may not always be willing to move, or to strike when moved. The Boroughmongers see that their titles and estates hang upon the army. They would fain coax the people back again to feelings of reverence and love. They would fain wheedle them into something that shall blunt their hostility. They have been trying Bible-schemes, school-schemes, and soup-schemes. And at last they are trying the Savings Banks scheme, upon which I shall now more particularly address you.

This thing is of the same nature, and its design is the same, as those of the grand scheme of Bishop Burnet. The people are discontented. They feel their oppressions; they seek a change; and some of them have decidedly protested against paying any longer any part of the interest of the debt, which they say ought to be paid, if at all, by those who have borrowed and spent, or pocketed, the money. Now then, in order to enlist great numbers of labourers and artisans on their side, the Boroughmongers have fallen upon the scheme of coaxing them to put small sums into what they call _banks_. These sums they pay large interest upon, and suffer the parties to take them out whenever they please. By this scheme they think to bind great numbers to them and their tyranny. They think that great numbers of labourers and artisans, seeing their little sums increase, as they will imagine, will begin to conceive the hopes of becoming rich by such means; and as these persons are to be told that their money is in the _funds_, they will soon imbibe the spirit of fundholders, and will not care who suffers, or whether freedom or slavery prevail, so that the funds be but safe.

Such is the scheme and such the motives. It will fail of its object, though not unworthy the inventive powers of the servile knaves of Edinburgh. It will fail, first because the men from whom alone the Borough-tyrants have anything to dread, will see through the scheme and despise it; and will, besides, well know that the funds are a mere bubble that may burst, or be bursted at any moment. The parsons appear to be the main tools in this coaxing scheme. They are always at the head of everything which they think likely to support tyranny. The depositors will be domestic servants, particularly women, who will be tickled with the idea of having a fortune in the funds. The Boroughmongers will hint to their tenants that they must get their labourers into the Savings Banks. A preference will be given to such as deposit. The Ladies, the 'Parsons' Ladies,' will scold poor people into the funds. The parish officers will act their part in this compulsory process: and thus will the Boroughmongers get into their hands some millions of the people's money by a sort of 'forced loan': or in other words, a robbery. In order to swell the thing out, the parsons and other tools of the Boroughmongers will lend money in this way themselves, under feigned names; and we shall, if the system last a year or two, hear boastings of how rich the poor are become.

Now then, Jack, supposing it possible that Farmer Gripe may, under pain of being turned out of your cottage, have made you put your twopence a week into one of these banks, let us see what is the natural consequence of your so doing. Twopence a week is eight shillings and eightpence a year; and the interest will make the amount about nine shillings perhaps. What use is this to you? Will you let it remain; and will you go on thus for years? You must go on a great many years, indeed, before your deposit amounts to as much as the Boroughmongers take from you in one year! Twopence will buy you a quarter of a pound of meat. This is a dinner for your wife or yourself. You never taste meat. And why are you to give up half a pound of your bread to the Boroughmongers. You are ill; your wife is ill; your children are ill. 'Go to the bank and take out your money,' says the overseer; 'for I'll give you no aid till that be spent.' Thus then, you will have been robbing your own starved belly weekly, to no other end than that of favouring the parish purse, upon which you have a just and legal claim, until the clergy restore to the poor what they have taken from them. As the thing now stands, the poor are starved by others, this scheme is intended to make them assist in the work themselves, at the same time that it binds them to the tyranny.

But, Jack, what a monstrous thing is this, that the Boroughmongers should kindly pass an Act to induce you to save your money, while they take from you five shillings out of every nine that you earn? Why not take less from you! That would be the more natural way to go to work, surely. Why not leave you all your earnings to yourself? Oh, no! They cannot do that. It is from the labour of men like you that the far greater part of the money comes to enrich the Boroughmongers, their relations and dependants.

However, suppose you have gotten together five pounds in a Savings Bank. That is to say in the funds. This is a great deal for you, though it is not half so much as you are compelled to give to the Boroughmongers in one year. This is a great sum. It is much more than you ever will have; but suppose you have it. It is _in the funds_, mind. And now let me tell you what the funds are; which is necessary if you have not read my little book called _Paper against Gold._ The funds is _no place_ at all, Jack. It is nothing, Jack. It is moonshine. It is a lie, a bubble, a fraud, a cheat, a humbug. And it is all these in the most perfect degree. People think that the funds is a place where money is kept. They think that it is a place which contains that which they have deposited. But the fact is, that the funds is a word which means nothing that the most of the people think it means. It means the _descriptions of the several sorts of the debt_. Suppose I owed money to a tailor, to a smith, to a shoemaker, to a carpenter, and that I had their several bills in my house. I should in the language of the Boroughmongers, call these bills my _funds_. The Boroughmongers owe some people annuities at three pounds for a hundred; some at four pounds for a hundred; some at five pounds for a hundred; and these annuities, or debts they call their funds. And, Jack, if the Savings Bank people lend them a good parcel of money, they will have that money in these debts or funds. They will be owners of some of those debts which never will and never can be paid.

But what is this money too in which you are to be paid back again? It is no money. It is paper; and though that paper will pass just at this time; it will not long pass, I can assure you, Jack. When you have worked a fortnight, and get a pound note for it, you set a high value upon the note, because it brings you food. But suppose nobody would take the note from you. Suppose no one would give you anything in exchange for it. You would go back to Farmer Gripe and fling the note in his face. You would insist upon real money, and you would get it, or you would tear down his house. This is what will happen, Jack, in a very short time.

I will explain to you, Jack, how this matter stands. Formerly bank-notes were as good as real money, because anybody that had one might go at any moment, and get real money for it at the Bank. But now the thing is quite changed. The Bank broke some years ago; that is to say, it could not pay its notes in real money; and it never has been able to do it from that time to this; and what is more, it never can do it again. To be sure the paper passes at present. You take it for your work, and others take it of you for bread and tea. But the time may be, and I believe is, very near at hand, when this paper will not pass at all; and then as the Boroughmongers and the Savings Bank people have, and can have, no real money, how are you to get your five pounds back again?

The bank-notes may be all put down at any moment, if any man of talent and resolution choose to put them down; and why may not such a man exist, and have the Disposition to put them down? They are now of value, as I said before, because they will pass; because people will take them and will give victuals and drink for them; but, if nobody would give bread and tea and beer for them, would they then be good for anything? They are taken because people are pretty sure that they can pass them again; but who will take them when he does not think that he can pass them again? And I assure you, Jack, that even I myself could, before next May-day, do that which would prevent any man in England from ever taking a bank-note any more. If you should put five pounds into a Savings Bank, therefore, you could, in such case, never see a farthing in exchange for it.

This being a matter of so much importance to you, I will clearly explain to you how I might easily do the thing. Mind, I do not say that I will do the thing. Indeed, I will not; and I do not know any one that intends to do it. But I will show you how I _might_ do it; because it is right that you should know what a ticklish state your poor five pounds will be in if you deposit them in the Savings Bank.

You know, Jack, that _forged_ notes pass till people find them out. They keep passing very quietly till they come to the Bank, and there being known for forged notes, the man who carries them to the Bank, or owns them at the time, loses the amount of them. Suppose now, that Tom were to forge a note, and pay it to Dick for a pig. Dick would pay it to Bob for some tea. Bob would send it up to London to pay his tea-man. The tea-man would send it to the Bank. The Bank would keep it, and give him nothing for it. If the tea-man forgot whom he got it from, he must lose. If he could prove that he got it from Bob, Bob must lose it; and so on; but either Dick or Bob or the tea-man must lose it. There must be a loss somewhere.

Now, it is clear that if there were a great quantity of forged notes in circulation, people would be afraid to take notes at all; and that if this great quantity came out all of a sudden, it would for a while put an end to all payments and all trade. And if such great quantity can with safety be put out, I leave you to guess, Jack, at the situation of your five pounds. I will now show you, then, that I could do this myself, and with perfect safety and ease.

I could have made, at a very trifling expense, a million of pounds in bank-notes of various amounts. There are fourteen different ways in which I could send them to England, and lodge them safely there, without the smallest chance of their arrival being known to any soul except the man to whom they should be confided. The Banks might search and ransack every vessel that arrived from America. They might do what they would. They would never detect the cargo!

There they are then, safe in London; a famous stock of bank-notes, so well executed that no human being except the Bank people would be able to discover the counterfeit. The agent takes a parcel at a time, and drops them in the street in the dark. This work he carries on for a week or two in such streets as are best calculated for the purpose, till he has well stocked the town. He may do the same at Portsmouth and other great towns if he please, and he may send off large supplies by post.

Now, Jack, suppose you were up at London with your master's waggon. You might find a parcel of notes. You would go to the first shop to buy your wife a gown and your children some clothes, yourself a hat, a greatcoat, and some shoes. The rest you would lay out at shops on the road home; for the sooner you got rid of this _foundal_, the less chance of having it taken from you. The shopkeepers would thank you for your custom, and your wife's heart would bound with joy.

The notes would travel about most merrily. At last they would come to the Bank. The holders would lose them; but you would gain by them. So that, upon the whole, there would be no loss, and the maker of the notes would have no gain. Others would find, and nearly all would do like you. In a few days the notes would find their way to the Bank in great numbers, where they would all be stopped. The news would spread abroad. The thieftakers would be busy. Every man who had had his note stopped at the Bank would alarm his neighbourhood. The country would ring with the news. Nobody would take a bank-note. All business would be at a stand. The farmers would sell no corn for bank-notes. The millers would have nothing else to pay with. No markets, because no money. The baker would be able to get no flour. He could sell no bread, for nobody would have money to pay him.

Jack, this thing will assuredly take place. Mind, I tell you so. I have been right in my predictions on former occasions; and I am not wrong now. I beg you to believe me; or, at any rate, to blame yourself if you lose by such an event. In the midst of this hubbub what will you do? Farmer Gripe will, I daresay, give you something to eat for your labour. But what will become of your five pounds? That sum you have in the Savings Bank, and as you are to have it out at any time when you please, your wife sets off to draw it. The banker gives her a five-pound note. She brings it; but nobody will take it of you for a pig, for bread, for clothing, or for anything else! And this, Jack, will be the fate of all those who shall be weak enough to put their money into those banks!

I beg you, Jack, not to rely on the power of the Boroughmongers in this case. Anything that is to be done with halters, gags, dungeons, bayonets, powder, or ball, they can do a great deal at; but they are not conjurers; they are not wizards. They cannot prevent a man from dropping bank-notes in the dark; and they cannot make people believe in the goodness of that which they must know to be bad. If they could hold a sword to every man's breast, they might indeed do something; but short of this, nothing that they can do would be of any avail. However, the truth is that they, in such case, will have no sword at all. An army is a powerful weapon; but an army must be paid. Soldiers have been called machines; but they are eating and drinking machines. With good food and drink they will go far and do much; but without them, they will not stir an inch. And in such a case whence is to come the money to pay them? In short, Jack, the Boroughmongers would drop down dead, like men in an apoplexy, and you would, as soon as things got to rights, have your bread and beer and meat and everything in abundance.

The Boroughmongers possess no means of preventing the complete success of the dropping plan. If they do, they ought to thank me for giving them a warning of their danger; and for telling them that if they do prevent the success of such a plan, they are the cleverest fellows in this world.

I now, Jack, take my leave of you, hoping that you will not be coaxed out of your money, and assuring you that I am your friend,

WM. COBBETT.

VII.--'THE LETTERS OF MALACHI MALAGROWTHER'

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

(_To what has been said in the Introduction respecting the _Letters of Malachi Malagrowther_ it is only necessary to add that their immediate cause was a Bill due to the very commercial crisis which indirectly ruined Scott himself, and introduced in the spring of 1826 for stopping the note circulation of private banks altogether, while limiting that of the Bank of England to notes of £5 and upwards. The scheme, which was to extend to the whole of Great Britain, was from the first unpopular in Scotland, and Scott plunged into the fray. The letters excited or coincided with such violent opposition throughout the country that the Bill was limited to England only. As Scott was a strong Tory, his friends in the Government, especially Lord Melville and Croker (who was officially employed to answer 'Malachi'), were rather sore at his action. He defended himself in some spirited private letters, which will be found in Lockhart._)

A LETTER ON THE PROPOSED CHANGE OF CURRENCY

_To the Editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal_

My dear Mr. Journalist--I am by pedigree a discontented person, so that you may throw this letter into the fire, if you have any apprehensions of incurring the displeasure of your superiors. I am, in fact, the lineal descendant of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, who makes a figure in the _Fortunes of Nigel_, and have retained a reasonable proportion of his ill-luck, and, in consequence, of his ill-temper. If, therefore, I should chance to appear too warm and poignant in my observations, you must impute it to the hasty and peevish humour which I derive from my ancestor. But, at the same time, it often happens that this disposition leads me to speak useful, though unpleasant truths, when more prudent men hold their tongues and eat their pudding. A lizard is an ugly and disgusting thing enough; but, methinks, if a lizard were to run over my face and awaken me, which is said to be their custom when they observe a snake approach a sleeping person, I should neither scorn his intimation, nor feel justifiable in crushing him to death, merely because he is a filthy little abridgment of a crocodile. Therefore, 'for my love, I pray you, wrong me not.'

I am old, sir, poor, and peevish, and therefore I may be wrong; but when I look back on the last fifteen or twenty years, and more especially on the last ten, I think I see my native country of Scotland, if it is yet to be called by a title so discriminative, falling, so far as its national, or rather, perhaps, I ought now to say its _provincial_, interests are concerned, daily into more absolute contempt. Our ancestors were a people of some consideration in the councils of the empire. So late as my own younger days, an English minister would have paused, even in a favourite measure, if a reclamation of national rights had been made by a member for Scotland, supported as it uniformly then was, by the voice of her representatives and her people. Such ameliorations in our peculiar system as were thought necessary, in order that North Britain might keep pace with her sister in the advance of improvement, were suggested by our own countrymen, persons well acquainted with our peculiar system of laws (as different from those of England as from those of France), and who knew exactly how to adapt the desired alteration to the principle of our legislative enactments, so that the whole machine might, as mechanics say, work well and easily. For a long time this wholesome check upon innovation, which requires the assimilation of a proposed improvement with the general constitution of the country to which it has been recommended, and which ensures that important point, by stipulating that the measure shall originate with those to whom the spirit of the constitution is familiar, has been, so far as Scotland is concerned, considerably disused. Those who have stepped forward to repair the gradual failure of our constitutional system of law, have been persons that, howsoever qualified in other respects, have had little further knowledge of its construction than could be acquired by a hasty and partial survey, taken just before they commenced their labours. Scotland and her laws have been too often subjected to the alterations of any person who chose to found himself a reputation, by bringing in a bill to cure some defect which had never been felt in practice, but which was represented as a frightful bugbear to English statesmen, who, wisely and judiciously tenacious of the legal practice and principles received at home, are proportionally startled at the idea of anything abroad which cannot be brought to assimilate with them.

The English seem to have made a compromise with the active tendency to innovation, which is one great characteristic of the day. Wise and sagacious themselves, they are nervously jealous of innovations in their own laws--_Nolumus leges Angliae mutari_, is written on the skirts of their judicial robes, as the most sacred texts of Scripture were inscribed on the phylacteries of the Rabbis. The belief that the Common Law of England constitutes the perfection of human reason, is a maxim bound upon their foreheads. Law Monks they have been called in other respects, and like monks they are devoted to their own Rule, and admit no question of its infallibility. There can be no doubt that their love of a system, which, if not perfect, has so much in it that is excellent, originates in the most praiseworthy feelings. Call it if you will the prejudice of education, it is still a prejudice honourable in itself, and useful to the public. I only find fault with it, because, like the Friars in the Duenna monopolising the bottle, these English monks will not tolerate in their lay brethren of the north the slightest pretence to a similar feeling.

In England, therefore, no innovation can be proposed affecting the administration of justice, without being subjected to the strict enquiry of the Guardians of the Law, and afterwards resisted pertinaciously, until time and the most mature and reiterated discussion shall have proved its utility, nay, its necessity. The old saying is still true in all its points--Touch but a cobweb in Westminster Hall, and the old spider will come out in defence of it. This caution may sometimes postpone the adoption of useful amendments, but it operates to prevent all hasty and experimental innovations; and it is surely better that existing evils should be endured for some time longer, than that violent remedies should be hastily adopted, the unforeseen and unprovided for consequences of which are often so much more extensive than those which had been foreseen and reckoned upon. An ordinary mason can calculate upon the exact gap which will be made by the removal of a corner stone in an old building; but what architect, not intimately acquainted with the whole edifice, can presume even to guess how much of the structure is, or is not, to follow?

The English policy in this respect is a wise one, and we have only to wish they would not insist in keeping it all to themselves. But those who are most devoted to their own religion have least sympathy for the feelings of dissenters; and a spirit of proselytism has of late shown itself in England for extending the benefits of their system, in all its strength and weakness, to a country which has been hitherto flourishing and contented under its own. They adopted the conclusion that all English enactments are right; but the system of municipal law in Scotland is not English, therefore it is wrong. Under sanction of this syllogism, our rulers have indulged and encouraged a spirit of experiment and innovation at our expense, which they resist obstinately when it is to be carried through at their own risk.

For more than half of last century, this was a practice not to be thought of. Scotland was during that period disaffected, in bad humour, armed too, and smarting under various irritating recollections. This is not the sort of patient for whom an experimental legislator chooses to prescribe. There was little chance of making Saunders take the patent pill by persuasion--main force was a dangerous argument, and some thought claymores had edges.

This period passed away, a happier one arrived, and Scotland, no longer the object of terror, or at least great uneasiness, to the British Government, was left from the year 1750 under the guardianship of her own institutions, to win her silent way to national wealth and consequence. Contempt probably procured for her the freedom from interference, which had formerly been granted out of fear; for the medical faculty are as slack in attending the garrets of paupers as the caverns of robbers. But neglected as she was, and perhaps _because_ she was neglected, Scotland, reckoning her progress during the space from the close of the American War to the present day, has increased her prosperity in a ratio more than five times greater than that of her more fortunate and richer sister. She is now worth the attention of the learned faculty, and God knows she has had plenty of it. She has been bled and purged, spring and fall, and _talked_ into courses of physic, for which she had little occasion. She has been of late a sort of experimental farm, upon which every political student has been permitted to try his theory--a kind of common property, where every juvenile statesman has been encouraged to make his inroads, as in Moray land, where, anciently, according to the idea of the old Highlanders, all men had a right to take their prey--a subject in a common dissecting room, left to the scalpel of the junior students, with the degrading inscription,--_fiat experimentum in corpore vili_.

I do not mean to dispute, Sir, that much alteration was necessary in our laws, and that much benefit has followed many of the great changes which have taken place. I do not mean to deprecate a gradual approach to the English system, especially in commercial law. The Jury Court, for example, was a fair experiment, in my opinion, cautiously introduced as such, and placed under such regulations as might best assimilate its forms with those of the existing Supreme Court. I beg, therefore, to be considered as not speaking of the alterations themselves, but of the apparent hostility towards our municipal institutions, as repeatedly manifested in the course of late proceedings, tending to force and wrench them into a similarity with those of England.

The opinions of our own lawyers, nay, of our Judges, than whom wiser and more honourable men never held that character, have been, if report speaks true, something too much neglected and controlled in the course of these important changes, in which, methinks, they ought to have had a leading and primary voice. They have been almost avowedly regarded not as persons the best qualified to judge of proposed innovations, but as prejudiced men, determined to oppose them, right or wrong. The last public Commission was framed on the very principle, that if Scotch lawyers were needs to be employed, a sufficient number of these should consist of gentlemen, who, whatever their talents and respectability might be in other respects, had been too long estranged from the study of Scottish law to retain any accurate recollection of an abstruse science, or any decided partiality for its technical forms. This was done avowedly for the purpose of evading the natural partiality of the Scottish Judges and practitioners to their own system; that partiality which the English themselves hold so sacred a feeling in their own Judges and Counsel learned in the law. I am not, I repeat, complaining of the result of the Commissions, but of the spirit in which the alterations were undertaken. Unquestionably much was done in brushing up and improving the old machinery of Scottish Law Courts, and in making it move more rapidly, though scarce, I think, more correctly than before. Dispatch has been much attended to. But it may be ultimately found that the timepiece which runs fastest does not intimate the hour most accurately. At all events, the changes have been made and established--there let them rest. And had I, Malachi Malagrowther, the sole power to-morrow of doing so, I would not restore the old forms of judicial proceedings; because I hold the constitution of Courts of Justice too serious matters to be put back or forward at pleasure, like a boy's first watch, merely for experiment's sake.

What I _do_ complain of is the general spirit of slight and dislike manifested to our national establishments by those of the sister country who are so very zealous in defending their own; and not less do I complain of their jealousy of the opinions of those who cannot but be much better acquainted than they, both with the merits and deficiencies of the system, which hasty and imperfectly informed judges have shown themselves so anxious to revolutionise.

There is no explanation to be given of this but one--namely, the entire conviction and belief of our English brethren that the true Themis is worshipped in Westminster Hall, and that her adorers cannot be too zealous in her service; while she, whose image an ingenious artist has depicted balancing herself upon a _tee-totum_ on the southern window of the Parliament House of Edinburgh, is a mere idol,--a Diana of Ephesus,--whom her votaries worship, either because her shrine brings great gain to the craftsmen, or out of an ignorant and dotard superstition, which induces them to prefer the old Scottish _Mumpsimus_ to the modern English _Sumpsimus_. Now, this is not fair construction in our friends, whose intentions in our behalf, we allow, are excellent, but who certainly are scarcely entitled to beg the question at issue without inquiry or discussion, or to treat us as the Spaniards treated the Indians, whom they massacred for worshipping the image of the Sun, while they themselves bowed down to that of the Virgin Mary. Even Queen Elizabeth was contented with the evasive answer of Melville, when hard pressed with the trying question, whether Queen Mary or she were the fairest. We are willing, in the spirit of that answer, to say that the Themis of Westminster Hall is the best fitted to preside over the administration of the larger, and more fertile country of beef and pudding; while she of the tee-totum (placed in that precarious position, we presume, to express her instability, since these new lights were struck out) claims a more limited but equally respectful homage, within her ancient jurisdiction--_sua paupera regna_--the Land of Cakes. If this compromise does not appease the ardour of our brethren for converting us to English forms and fashions, we must use the scriptural question, "Who hath required these things at your hands?"

The inquiries and result of another Commission are too much to the purpose to be suppressed. The object was to investigate the conduct of the Revenue Boards in Ireland and Scotland. In the former, it is well known, great mismanagement was discovered; for Pat, poor fellow, had been playing the loon to a considerable extent. In Scotland, _not a shadow of abuse prevailed_. You would have thought, Mr. Journalist, that the Irish Boards would have been reformed in some shape, and the Scotch Establishments honourably acquitted, and suffered to continue on the footing of independence which they had so long enjoyed, and of which they had proved themselves so worthy. Not so, sir. The Revenue Boards, in both countries, underwent exactly the same regulation, were deprived of their independent consequence, and placed under the superintendence of English control; the innocent and the guilty being treated in every respect alike. Now, on the side of Scotland, this was like Trinculo losing his bottle in the pool--there was not only dishonour in the thing, but an infinite loss.

I have heard two reasons suggested for this indiscriminating application of punishment to the innocent and to the culpable.

In the first place, it was honestly confessed that Ireland would never have quietly submitted to the indignity offered to her, unless poor inoffensive Scotland had been included in the regulation. The Green Isle, it seems, was of the mind of a celebrated lady of quality, who, being about to have a decayed tooth drawn, refused to submit to the operation till she had seen the dentist extract a sound and serviceable grinder from the jaws of her waiting-woman--and her humour was to be gratified. The lady was a termagant dame--the wench a tame-spirited simpleton--the dentist an obliging operator--and the teeth of both were drawn accordingly.

This gratification of his humours is gained by Pat's being up with the pike and shillelagh on any or no occasion. God forbid Scotland should retrograde towards such a state--much better that the Deil, as in Burns's song, danced away with the whole excisemen in the country. We do not want to hear her prate of her number of millions of men, and her old military exploits. We had better remain in union with England, even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland, as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves by even hinting the possibility of a rupture. But there is no harm in wishing Scotland to have just so much ill-nature, according to her own proverb, as may keep her good-nature from being abused; so much national spirit as may determine her to stand by her own rights, conducting her assertion of them with every feeling of respect and amity toward England.

The other reason alleged for this equal distribution of _punishment_, as if it had been the influence of the common sun, or the general rain, to the just and the unjust, was one which is extremely predominant at present with our Ministers--the _necessity_ of _Uniformity_ in all such cases; and the consideration what an awkward thing it would be to have a Board of Excise or Customs remaining independent in the one country, solely because they had, without impeachment, discharged their duty; while the same establishment was cashiered in another, for no better reason than that it had been misused.

This reminds us of an incident, said to have befallen at the Castle of Glammis, when these venerable towers were inhabited by a certain old Earl of Strathmore, who was as great an admirer of uniformity as the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have desired. He and his gardener directed all in the garden and pleasure grounds upon the ancient principle of exact correspondence between the different parts, so that each alley had its brother; a principle which, renounced by gardeners, is now adopted by statesmen. It chanced once upon a time that a fellow was caught committing some petty theft, and, being taken in the manner, was sentenced by the Bailie Macwheeble of the jurisdiction to stand for a certain time in the baronial pillory, called the _jougs_, being a collar and chain, one of which contrivances was attached to each side of the portal of the great avenue which led to the castle. The thief was turned over accordingly to the gardener, as ground-officer, to see the punishment duly inflicted. When the Thane of Glammis returned from his morning ride, he was surprised to find both sides of the gateway accommodated each with a prisoner, like a pair of heraldic supporters, _chained_ and _collared proper_. He asked the gardener, whom he found watching the place of punishment, as his duty required, whether another delinquent had been detected? "No, my Lord," said the gardener, in the tone of a man excellently well satisfied with himself,--"but I thought the single fellow looked very awkward standing on one side of the gateway, so I gave half a crown to one of the labourers to stand on the other side for _uniformity's sake_." This is exactly a case in point, and probably the only one which can be found--with this sole difference, that I do not hear that the members of the Scottish Revenue Board got any boon for standing in the pillory with those of Ireland--for uniformity's sake.

Lastly, sir, I come to this business of extending the provisions of the Bill prohibiting the issue of notes under five pounds to Scotland, in six months after the period that the regulation shall be adopted in England.

I am not about to enter upon the question which so much agitates speculative writers upon the wealth of nations, or attempt to discuss what proportion of the precious metals ought to be detained within a country; what are the best means of keeping it there; or to what extent the want of specie can be supplied by paper credit: I will not ask if a poor man can be made a rich one, by compelling him to buy a service of plate, instead of the delf ware which served his turn. These are questions I am not adequate to solve. But I beg leave to consider the question in a practical point of view, and to refer myself entirely to experience.

I assume, without much hazard of contradiction, that Banks have existed in Scotland for near one hundred and twenty years--that they have flourished, and the country has flourished with them--and that during the last fifty years particularly, provincial Banks, or branches of the principal established and chartered Banks, have gradually extended themselves in almost every Lowland district in Scotland; that the notes, and especially the small notes, which they distribute, entirely supply the demand for a medium of currency; and that the system has so completely expelled gold from the country of Scotland, that you never by any chance espy a guinea there, unless in the purse of an accidental stranger, or in the coffers of these Banks themselves. This is granting the facts of the case as broadly as can be asked.

It is not less unquestionable that the consequence of this Banking system, as conducted in Scotland, has been attended with the greatest advantage to the country. The facility which it has afforded to the industrious and enterprising agriculturalist or manufacturer, as well as to the trustees of the public in executing national works, has converted Scotland from a poor, miserable, and barren country, into one, where, if nature has done less, art and industry have done more, than in perhaps any country in Europe, England herself not excepted. Through means of the credit which this system has afforded, roads have been made, bridges built, and canals dug, opening up to reciprocal communication the most sequestered districts of the country--manufactures have been established, unequalled in extent or success--wastes have been converted into productive farms--the productions of the earth for human use have been multiplied twentyfold, while the wealth of the rich and the comforts of the poor have been extended in the same proportion. And all this in a country where the rigour of the climate, and sterility of the soil, seem united to set improvement at defiance. Let those who remember Scotland forty years since, bear witness if I speak truth or falsehood.

There is no doubt that this change has been produced by the facilities of procuring credit, which the Scottish Banks held forth, both by discounting bills, and by granting cash-accounts. Every undertaking of consequence, whether by the public or by individuals, has been carried on by such means; at least exceptions are extremely rare.

There is as little doubt that the Banks could not have furnished these necessary funds of cash, without enjoying the reciprocal advantage of their own notes being circulated in consequence, and by means of the accommodation thus afforded. It is not to be expected that every undertaking which the system enabled speculators or adventurers to commence, should be well-judged, attentively carried on, or successful in issue. Imprudence in some cases, misfortune in others, have had their usual quantity of victims. But in Scotland, as elsewhere, it has happened in many instances that improvements, which turned out ruinous to those who undertook them, have, notwithstanding, themselves ultimately produced the most beneficial advantages to the country, which derived in such instances an addition to its general prosperity, even from the undertakings which had proved destructive to the private fortune of the projectors.

Not only did the Banks dispersed throughout Scotland afford the means of bringing the country to an unexpected and almost marvellous degree of prosperity, but in no considerable instance, save one, have their own over-speculating undertakings been the means of interrupting that prosperity. The solitary exception was the undertaking called the Ayr Bank, rashly entered into by a large body of country gentlemen and others, unacquainted with commercial affairs, and who had moreover the misfortune not only to set out on false principles, but to get false rogues for their principal agents and managers. The fall of this Bank brought much calamity on the country; but two things are remarkable in its history: First, that under its too prodigal, yet beneficial influence, a fine county (that of Ayr) was converted from a desert into a fertile land. Secondly, that, though at a distant interval, the Ayr Bank paid all its engagements, and the loss only fell on the original stockholders. The warning was, however, a terrible one, and has been so well attended to in Scotland, that very few attempts seem to have been afterwards made to establish Banks prematurely--that is, where the particular district was not in such an advanced state as to require the support of additional credit; for in every such case, it was judiciously foreseen, the forcing a capital on the district could only lead to wild speculation, instead of supporting solid and promising undertakings.

The character and condition of the persons pursuing the profession ought to be noticed, however slightly. The Bankers of Scotland have been, generally speaking, _good_ men, in the mercantile phrase, showing, by the wealth of which they have died possessed, that their credit was sound; and _good_ men also, many of them eminently so, in the more extensive and better sense of the word, manifesting, by the excellence of their character, the fairness of the means by which their riches were acquired. There may have been, among so numerous a body, men of a different character, fishers in troubled waters, capitalists who sought gain not by the encouragement of fair trade and honest industry, but by affording temporary fuel to rashness or avarice. But the number of upright traders in the profession has narrowed the means of mischief which such Christian Shylocks would otherwise have possessed. There was loss, there was discredit, in having recourse to such characters, when honest wants could be fairly supplied by upright men, and on liberal terms. Such reptiles have been confined in Scotland to batten upon their proper prey of folly, and feast, like worms, on the corruption in which they are bred.

Since the period of the Ayr Bank, now near half a century, I recollect very few instances of Banking Companies issuing notes which have become insolvent. One, about thirty years since, was the Merchant Bank of Stirling, which never was in high credit, having been known almost at the time of its commencement by the odious nickname of _Black in the West_. Another was within these ten years, the East Lothian Banking Company, whose affairs had been very ill conducted by a villainous manager. In both cases, the notes were paid up in full. In the latter case, they were taken up by one of the most respectable houses in Edinburgh; so that all current engagements were paid without the least check to the circulation of their notes, or inconvenience to poor or rich, who happened to have them in possession. The Union Bank of Falkirk also became insolvent within these fifteen years, but paid up its engagements without much loss to the creditors. Other cases there may have occurred, not coming within my recollection; but I think none which made any great sensation, or could at all affect the general confidence of the country in the stability of the system. None of these bankruptcies excited much attention, or, as we have seen, caused any considerable loss.

In the present unhappy commercial distress, I have always heard and understood that the Scottish Banks have done all in their power to alleviate the evils which came thickening on the country; and far from acting illiberally, that they have come forward to support the tottering credit of the commercial world with a frankness which augured the most perfect confidence in their own resources. We have heard of only one provincial Bank being even for a moment in the predicament of suspicion; and of that copartnery the funds and credit were so well understood, that their correspondents in Edinburgh, as in the case of the East Lothian Bank formerly mentioned, at once guaranteed the payment of their notes, and saved the public even from momentary agitation, and individuals from the possibility of distress. I ask what must be the stability of a system of credit of which such an universal earthquake could not displace or shake even the slightest individual portion?

Thus stands the case in Scotland; and it is clear any restrictive enactment affecting the Banking system, or their mode of issuing notes, must be adopted in consequence of evils, operating elsewhere perhaps, but certainly unknown in this country.

In England, unfortunately, things have been very different, and the insolvency of many provincial Banking Companies, of the most established reputation for stability, has greatly distressed the country, and alarmed London itself, from the necessary reaction of their misfortunes upon their correspondents in the capital.

I do not think, sir, that the advocate of Scotland is called upon to go further, in order to plead an exemption from any experiment which England may think proper to try to cure her own malady, than to say such malady does not exist in her jurisdiction. It is surely enough to plead, 'We are well, our pulse and complexion prove it--let those who are sick take physic.' But the opinion of the English Ministers is widely different; for, granting our premisses, they deny our conclusion.

The peculiar humour of a friend, whom I lost some years ago, is the only one I recollect, which jumps precisely with the reasoning of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My friend was an old Scottish laird, a bachelor and a humorist--wealthy, convivial, and hospitable, and of course having always plenty of company about him. He had a regular custom of swallowing every night in the world one of Dr. Anderson's pills, for which reasons may be readily imagined. But it is not so easy to account for his insisting on every one of his guests taking the same medicine, and whether it was by way of patronising the medicine, which is in some sense a national receipt, or whether the mischievous old wag amused himself with anticipating the scenes of delicate embarrassment, which the dispensation sometimes produced in the course of the night, I really cannot even guess. What is equally strange, he pressed the request with a sort of eloquence which succeeded with every guest. No man escaped, though there were few who did not make resistance. His powers of persuasion would have been invaluable to a minister of state. 'What! not one _Leetle Anderson_, to oblige your friend, your host, your entertainer! He had taken one himself--he would take another, if you pleased--surely what was good for his complaint must of course be beneficial to yours?' It was in vain you pleaded your being perfectly well,--your detesting the medicine,--your being certain it would not agree with you--none of the apologies were received as valid. You might be warm, pathetic or sulky, fretful or patient, grave or serious in testifying your repugnance, but you were equally a doomed man; escape was impossible. Your host was in his turn eloquent,--authoritative,--facetious, --argumentative,--precatory,--pathetic, above all, pertinacious. No guest was known to escape the _Leetle Anderson_. The last time I experienced the laird's hospitality there were present at the evening meal the following catalogue of guests:--a Bond-street dandy, of the most brilliant water, drawn thither by the temptation of grouse-shooting--a writer from the neighbouring borough (the lairds _doer_, I believe),--two country lairds, men of reserved and stiff habits--three sheep-farmers, as stiff-necked and stubborn as their own haltered rams--and I, Malachi Malagrowther, not facile or obvious to persuasion. There was also the Esculapius of the vicinity--one who gave, but elsewhere was never known to _take_ medicine. All succumbed--each took, after various degrees of resistance according to his peculiar fashion, his own _Leetle Anderson_. The doer took a brace. On the event I am silent. None had reason to congratulate himself on his complaisance. The laird has slept with his ancestors for some years, remembered sometimes with a smile on account of his humorous eccentricities, always with a sigh when his surviving friends and neighbours reflect on his kindliness and genuine beneficence. I have only to add that I hope he has not bequeathed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, otherwise so highly gifted, his invincible powers of persuading folks to take medicine, which their constitutions do not require.