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ragement, and be no more the victims of wild and fantastic experiments! Our hopes may be blasted. Thick clouds and fearful storms may once more prevail. But I cherish the hope of better times;-for future distress may, and I hope will, be prevented by a due exercise of prudence, discretion and liberality on the part of the banks, and by profiting of past ruin

ous errors.

April 29, 1816.

P. S. Extracts from Grotjan's Price Current, April 29,

Reading, Lancaster, and Susquehanna bridge bank notes,
York Town,

All other Pennsylvania country notes,*
Farmers Bank of Delaware,

District of Columbia, chartered,

1816.

BELOW PAR.

7 a 8 9

11

9 a 10

7 a 10

No purchasers.

District of Columbia, unchartered,
Baltimore,

Other Maryland notes,

Unchartered Virginia bank notes,

The Price Current does not notice Ohio bank notes, but they

are at

5 a 5

9 a 10

10 a 12

12 a 15

When it is considered that probably three-fourths of all the remittances made to, or money received in this city, are in the above notes, which our citizens are too often obliged to receive at par, some idea may be formed of the miserable state of the trade of Philadelphia.

(CIRCULAR.)

To the Directors of the Bank of the United States.

Philadelphia, June 28, 1819 GENTLEMEN,-Permit a citizen, who has always been favourably disposed towards your institution, and who is ardently desirous of supporting public credit, and diminishing the existing distresses and embarrassments, which press so heavily on the community, to address you a few lines on subjects connected with your official stations.

Except Easton, New Hope, Delaware County, Montgomery, Harrisburg, Hulmeville, and Chester, which are at par.

TO THE DIRECTORS OF THE BANK OF THE U. S. 263

The magnitude of the subject of this letter, and my views in addressing it, render apology unnecessary for the freedom of the style, which, under other circumstances, might be indefensible.

I adopt the mode of private communication, as there is some portion of its contents which I would not wish to meet the public eye. In this form, moreover, I have a better chance of a fair hearing, than if I addressed you through the channel of a newspaper.

The subject divides itself into four parts:

I. The present state of the trade, commerce, and financial concerns of our citizens.

II. The system of banking operations you pursue.

III. The consequences it is likely to produce.

IV. The object you propose to yourselves.

It must be as painful to you to read, as it is to me to delineate, a sketch of the present state of the trading and commercial world.

1. Trade and commerce are almost wholly suspended.

2. Confidence between man and man is greatly impaired. 3. The interest of money privately borrowed is extravagantly high. Old mortgages on valuable property are currently sold at 12 per cent. per annum.

4. Few men buy but what they can immediately sell. Of course, how large soever a person's stock may be, he cannot rely upon it for meeting his engagements, unless sold by auction, and at ruinous sacrifices.

5. On the collection of debts no dependence can be placed. 6. The mechanics and manufacturers are daily discharging their workmen, from the mere inability to raise money to pay their wages.

7. Thousands of the latter are absolutely unemployed-and in consequence the poor tax is likely to be doubled this year— and depredations on the public to increase.

8. Men are liable to be forced to stop payment, who are worth double the amount of their engagements.

This is a slight sketch. It has, however, the merit of fidelity of delineation, and of presenting to the mind the great outlines of the existing state of affairs.

I shall detail what I understand to be the leading features of the system you pursue. Should they be in any wise incorrect,

you will do me the justice to believe, that the error is not intentional.

I. You have annulled an old and approved regulation, coeval with the government, and acted on by the old Bank of the United States during the whole course of its existence, (and by the state banks when they were employed to collect the duties) whereby importers, indebted for duties, were accommodated with discounts for a certain portion of the amount.

II. You have adopted a regular system of curtailment, whereby the amount of your discounts is reducing weekly; and, contrary to the usual system of banking, circumscribe the circulation of your notes.

III. You refuse to collect notes, or to draw drafts on your branches, or to allow them to draw on you, or on each other, thus annihilating a species of accommodation frequently afforded by all the state banks, even very insignificant ones, and wholly defeating one of the objects with those who voted for your charter.

IV. Thus, in a time of stagnation, embarrassment, and difficulty, all your measures have a direct tendency to increase the public distress; and are manifest (and some of them I believe unnecessary) departures from the system adopted by your predecessors, and generally in use in the state banks.

The consequences of this system will be

1. To drain the state banks of their specie.

2. To oblige them to press on their customers-and thus greatly increase the general distress.

3. To produce extensive bankruptcies.

4. To inflict heavy losses on your stockholders by those bankruptcies.

5. To increase the unpopularity of your institution, to which the state banks, in their own vindication, will be obliged to ascribe those calamities.

6. To lessen your dividends-impair the value of your stock -and thus also deeply to injure your stockholders, whose interests you are sacredly bound by every tie of honour to guard.

7. Possibly to break up some of the state banks, to the ruin of hundreds of citizens.

8. To oblige those who are able to hold out, to make ruinous sacrifices of their property.

9. To enable wealthy men to possess themselves of the property of the distressed-and thus produce the worst possible

TO THE DIRECTORS OF THE BANK OF THE U. s. 265

effect that can arise from such an institution; to make the rich richer the middle class poor-and the poor poorer.

Here is a number of great and serious evils, most of them certain and all of them highly probable. The mere contemplation of them cannot fail to excite alarm and distress in the mind of every man of humanity. None deserving of that character would consent to the adoption of measures calculated to produce them, without a strong belief of their absolute necessity, or of their effecting some grand and paramount object, which would more than counterbalance them. It is hardly possible to limit the censure due to their adoption without such a justification.

But I confess I have sought in vain for such an object. I have turned the matter over in my mind in every shape and form, with all the solicitude its importance demanded, and whatever the object may be, it has eluded my inquiry.

Let me, then, gentlemen, invoke you to ponder deeply on these matters. Pause in your career. Consider well the high responsibility attached to your situation-and the double duty you owe your constituents and the public. Decide whether you can justify yourselves in the sight of God or man, in producing such masses of misery for any good your system can possibly produce-and should the certain evil outweigh the probable good, as I feel certain must be the case, change your plans, and afford the public every accommodation in your power, consistent with your own safety, in order to mitigate the existing evils as far as practicable.

Should you, however, persevere, and your system produce the effects I anticipate, you will double, perhaps treble the present distress, and ruin hundreds, many of them as estimable and as useful as any at your board-many men with large families-many women-many children-who, pardon me for the freedom, will have cause to deplore the hour that gave birth to your bank, which will have (wantonly, they will suppose) dashed the cup of happiness from their lips, and blasted their prospects through life. You will thus disappoint all the predictions of your best friends, and verify the worst anticipations of your most inveterate enemies.

Permit me, gentlemen, to offer an advice to which I trust you will attend. Should the object to be attained by your system be of such magnitude and importance to the public welfare, as to warrant the course you pursue, it is due to yourselves-and

to the community, to have it distinctly stated, so that if heavy sufferings be inflicted on your fellow citizens, the sufferers and others may know that the good to be attained, is worth the price it costs. You will thus save yourselves from the unqualified censure which the devastation you are likely to produce must excite, should it be generally believed that it proceeds from a wanton exercise of power, or in pursuit of some visionary or unimportant object.

The system pursued by your immediate predecessors, invited applications for discounts, in consequence of which immense sums were borrowed, which were invested in trade, commerce, houses, and lands. Yours is the antipodes of theirs. But surely, in order to cure a plethora, arising from repletion, it cannot be necessary to starve the community to death.

That I do not subscribe my name to this letter, does not arise from any doubt of its propriety, or reluctance to incur the responsibility of it; but from a wish to avoid ostentation. So fully am I satisfied of the correctness of the view taken of our affairs, and of the consequences that will result from a perseverance in your present system, that if I were disposed to suffer martyrdom for any truth whatever, I should not hesitate to do it for the contents of this letter.

A FRIEND TO PUBLIC CREDIT.

P. S. On a review of the above, just as it is going to press, my mind misgives me, and leads me to apprehend that my zeal may have carried me to a length that will hardly be excused. In the hope, however, that some salutary consequences may result from the measure, I cannot persuade myself to suppress this communication. If it do injury, it must be to me alone, by exciting hostility, not very honourable or reputable. And I cannot shrink from the risque of personal injury, for the chance of great public good.

REPORT ON FEMALE WAGES.

Philadelphia, March 25, 1829.

The Subscribers, a committee appointed by the Town Meeting of the citizens of the city and county of Philadelphia, on the 21st ult. "to ascertain whether those who are able and willing to

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