in favour of Ireland :-First, a large importation of specie, by the loans negociated with monied people, &c. in England, and some remittances to Ireland for the public service; secondly, the non-payment of rents, which had kept within Ireland much money that would otherwise have been remitted to absentees; thirdly, the non-importation agreements, and the large exports in the provision trade, and in linens.* In October 1779, the price of gold in Dublin was £4. per ounce: the usual price had been from £4. Is. to £4. 2s. This fall was imputed to the state of the exchange. At the same period, the price of silver was 5s. 6d. per ounce. The medium price had been 5s. 10d. This was ascribed to the selling of more old plate, and to the manufacturing of less new, than usual.+ In 1780, the several acts of parliament which prohibited carrying gold or silver to Ireland, were repealed.‡ On the 25th of June, 1783, a public bank was opened at Dublin, with an original capital of £600,000. raised by subscription, which was lodged in the king's treasury, at an interest of four per cent. According to the charter, no person was allowed to subscribe more than £10,000. Leave was granted to the corporation to have and to use a common seal, which they may break, or alter, and make anew, as they shall see cause. They may sue and be sued, in the same manner as any other corporate body; and they are enabled, also, to receive, purchase, hold, and retain, manors, messuages, lands, rents, tenements, franchises, and hereditaments, contrary to all principles of banking; for a banker should confine his dealings to transferable securities, convertible, at short periods, into ready money, that he may always have his capital at command. The bank is to be conducted by a governor, a deputy governor, and fifteen directors; eight or more of whom, the governor or deputy governor being one, are to be called a court of directors, for managing the affairs of the corporation. They are elected every year, but no more than two-thirds of those who were directors in the preceding year, can be chosen at any annual election. The proprietors may meet for the election of directors, notice being first given, by writing, affixed on the Royal Exchange, two days, at least, before the time appointed. The election to take place between the 25th of March and the 25th of April. + Ibid. ib. By the 19th Hen. VII. c. 5, coin transported to was to be forfeited. Statute Law of Ireland, by * Eden's Letters to the Earl of Carlisle, App. No. iii. p. 161. An attempt was made by government, about 1722, to establish a bank in Ireland, and a commission was appointed under the great seal to receive subscriptions, but the plan did not succeed. The author of the Commercial Restrictions, p. 41, calls this a scheme to circulate paper without money. The qualification to vote is £500. sterling, or upwards, share or interest in the stock, which must have been held six calendar months previous to the election. The qualification for a governor is £4,000. sterling, and for a deputy-governor £3,000. These must be natural-born subjects, or naturalized. A director must possess £2,000 stock; and no person can hold that office till he has taken the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration. Other members, before they vote in general courts, must take the same oaths but there is an exception in favour of quakers, whose solemn declaration to the same effect is admitted. Roman catholics, instead of these oaths, to take the oath appointed by the act of parliament, entitled, “An act to enable His Majesty's subjects, of whatever persuasion, to testify their allegiance to him." Four general courts are to be held every year, and a general court may be summoned at any time, on demand. According to the 14th by-law of the corporation, the governor and deputy-governor are allowed each £150. per annum, and each director £100.* In the month of February, 1788, an attempt was made to reduce the interest of money in Ireland from six to five per cent.; and a bill for that purpose was carried through the house of commons, but rejected by the peers of that kingdom.+ In the year 1808, the bank obtained a renewal of its charter, for twenty-one years, to commence at the expiration of the present charter, on the following terms: 1st. The bank to increase its capital in the sum of one million stock, to be raised from the proprietary, at the rate of £125. per cent., making a sum of £1,250,000. ; the money to be lent to government, at the rate of £5. per cent. per annum, during the charter. 2dly. The bank to continue the management of the public debt and loans, free of expense to government, during the continuance of the charter. THE PRESENT STATE OF MONEY AND CIRCULATING MEDIUM. The limited circulation of Ireland is aided by various expedients: 1st. By the issues of the national bank, the original capital of which was • House of Commons' Papers, ordered to be printed 2d March, 1808. + Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. p. 20. By the 10 Car. I. sess. ii. c. 22, the interest of money was fixed at 10 per cent. per annum. The act made 3 Hen. VII. in England, for usury, and other statutes in force in Ireland, were repealed by this act. By the 2 Anne, c. 16, the interest of money was reduced to 8 per cent. per annum, from the 26th of March, 1704. By the 8 Geo. I. c. 13, interest was reduced to 7 per cent. per annum, after the 25th of March, 1722. By the 5 Geo. II. c. 7, the interest of money was reduced to 6 per cent. per annum, from the 1st day of May, 1732, and persons taking more were to lose treble the value of the money, &c. lent, which was to be given to the king and the informer. Statule Law of Ireland, by Ed. Lee, Esq. p. 334. ✦ House of Commons' Papers, ordered to be printed 13th May, 1808. £600,000. four per cent. stock, subscribed for the security of the establishment. They borrowed £60,000. for a monied capital; the like amount was afterwards raised for the same purpose, and since that time a farther sum of £400,000. After this, £500,000. was vested in government securities; so that the actual capital of the bank, in government securities, is £1,000,000., and the monied capital £400,000. The bank cannot call in the money vested in government securities, although they may bring their stock to market. Their income from this source is £55,000. They discount commercial paper at five per cent., but do not limit the time which that paper has to run, although it is generally confined to sixty-one days. The bank will also advance money to individuals upon their own notes, accompanied with a counter deposit of government securities, and they receive deposits of cash like private bankers. These transactions yield a profit, which added to the interest of government loans, enables them to pay, on the original capital, an interest of 7 per cent annually, among the proprietors, and occasionally there has been a bonus. The value of its stock at the periods mentioned below, were, The payment of its notes in specie was restricted by act of parliament, in the spring of 1797. The bank issues are partly paper and partly tokens. The paper consists of notes payable to bearer on demand, and of notes payable to order, seven days after sight. An ACCOUNT of the Amount of the Notes, and Post Bills, of the Bank of Ireland, in circulation in the Months of January and June, from 1804 to 1810, both inclusive. For the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland, Dublin, 22d February, 1811. WILLIAM DONLEVY, Act. Gen. The Bank of England limits its discount to two months. The tokens are Spanish dollars, which have been stamped as "tokens" for six shillings Irish currency, amounting to £200,000. The last issue is partly a credit medium, for the dollar is worth only about 4s. 3d. or 4s. 6d.; and the difference between this intrinsic value and the sum of six shillings, at which it is issued, is completely a credit given by the public, and rests on the same foundation as an issue of paper. The bank gives receipts for guineas, which receipts they pay on demand in guineas. These receipts are an article of daily traffic, bearing a premium; which is a decisive proof that the credit of the bank has not suffered, but that the state of the silver coinage has pulled down their notes payable in silver. 2d. Issues of private banks. The banking houses in Dublin, except those of Messrs. Latouche and Sir Thomas Newcomen and Co., issue notes, as well as the country banks, payable to bearer. The issues of private bankers are notes payable in bank of Ireland notes, and not in specie. Private bankers' post bills are likewise made payable in bank of Ireland notes; and, as they require acceptance ten days before they are payable, they are thus kept in a state of forced circulation. The Lurgan, Londonderry, and three Belfast banks, make their notes payable in Dublin, as well as at their own houses; but nearly all the other private bankers make their notes payable only at the place where they are issued.* The notes of the bank of Ireland, and those of private bankers, are now issued for one or more pounds, but not for a guinea, or £1. 2s. 9d. currency, as was formerly the case. All private bankers in Ireland are compelled, by an act of parliament, to take out a license, and are also prohibited from engaging in trade; a regulation which has thrown the banking business into the hands of a wealthier class of men than those to whom it would otherwise have belonged. It has deprived them of some of the means which they employed to force paper into circulation; but this loss has been more than counterbalanced by the increased activity and use of those which are left. It is common for private bankers to pay butter factors, corn buyers, and other dealers,+ on the amount of the paper they can issue; though the paymasters of regiments are prohibited from following this practice, and are supplied with bank of England notes, yet these notes are exchanged for smaller ones by the country bankers, and those of the national bank are thus withdrawn from circulation, and replaced by private paper. * Lord Liverpool, in his Treatise on Coins, p. 221, condemns this system. + OCT. 17th, 1808. TRALEE. The packers, who come from Cork to buy bandle linen, pay for it in Cork bank notes. Nov. 17th, 1808. Cork bankers take the most indefatigable pains to put their notes in circulation, by lending them to corn buyers, butter-factors, wool-hucksters, and other persons of the like description. APRIL 3d, 1809. LYTTLETON GLEBE. TIPPERARY.-As paymasters to regiments must pay postage, they receive only large bank-notes, which they exchange for country paper. At Ballinasloe fair, all payments are made in bills on Dublin, at sixty-one days date; and, though the business done there is immense, the Galway bankers attend, and are ready to exchange these bills at par in exchange for their own notes, The bank of Ireland is restrained by its charter, from taking a larger discount than five per cent.; but the two Dublin banking-houses, which do not issue paper, charge like the country banks, the legal rate of discount, which is six per cent. One evil, connected with issues of private banks, it is, perhaps, a duty to mention. In Ireland there is a circulation of forged notes, to an extent of which no person in England can form an adequate idea.* To determine the amount is impossible; but it is known to be so great, as to create a necessity for making some allowance for it in calculating the amount of the circulating medium of the country. paper In the city and neighbourhood of Dublin, the circulating medium consists of issued by the bank of Ireland, and by the private bankers of the capital. Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, Youghal, Clonmell, Fermoy, Cork, Mallow, Limerick, Birr, Ennis, Galway, and Tuam, have private bankers, whose paper is the principal, and in most instances the only, circulating medium of their respective districts. Each of these private banks has some quantity of the bank of Ireland Townsend, in his Survey of Cork, says, "The substitution of paper money for specie has, in this part. of the kingdom been productive of serious injury as well as inconvenience to the people, from the prodigious number of forged notes that are every day passed. To guard the rising generation against a fraud which is practised with peculiar facility upon the illiterate, is said to be a strong reason for sending their children to school." The author adds, in a note: "The circulation of forged notes is become a trade, and a very gainful one. Parties of swindlers attend the fairs and markets for the purpose of circulating them, and seldom fail to find a sufficient number of dupes among the simple country folks. The lenity with which these practices are treated encourages their continuance. The worst consequence a swindler has usually to apprehend, is being obliged to give a good note for the bad one; offenders are seldom brought to condign punishment for this, or, indeed, any other transgression. A poor man never prosecutes with any other view but compensation.' Survey of Cork, p. 419. OCT. 14th, 1808. ADARE.-At the fair held here the people are under the greatest dread, lest they inadvertently should take forged notes. They flocked round Mr. Quin when he arrived, and, presenting their notes, requested he would give his opinion of them, whether they were good or bad. Many of the buyers assured me that one-third of the bank notes in the fair were forgeries. DEC. 1st, 1808. LIMERICK.-Mr. Maxwell, the banker, says, that the extent of forged paper, in currency, is beyond belief. He shewed me some notes, purporting to be of his own bank, so ingeniously executed that I could not have detected them. AUG. 9th, 1809. COLLON.-Some people came to Mr. Foster to settle a dispute respecting a forged bank note. The parties spoke in Irish, but were heard through the medium of an interpreter. Mr. Foster, before he gave his decision, proposed sending the note to Dublin, to ascertain whether it was really a forgery; but the parties wished to stipulate that it should not be "forged," by which they meant, that, in case it turned out to be a false note, it should not have stamped on it the words, "a forgery," a mark always put upon forged notes by the bank when presented there for payment. Mr. Foster explained to the litigants, that if the note was forged, it was felony to pass it. This the poor fellows could not comprehend; and though they had not had sufficient intercourse with their more civilized neighbours to be able to speak the English language, they were perfectly aware that notes so stamped were not passable. |