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22d  Congress,  ^  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  Ho.  of  Reps. 

Jst  Session, 


BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

r 

April  30,  1832. 
Committed  to  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  House  on  the  state  of  the  Union. 

TWENTY-SECOND  CONGRESS— FIRST  SESSION. 

Congress  op  the  United   States, 
In  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  14,  1832. 

^^ Resolved,  That  a  select  committee  be  appointed  to  inspect  the  books, 
and  examine  into"  the  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  to  report 
thereon,  and  to  report  whether  the  provisions  of  its  charter  have  been  vio- 
lated or  not;  that  the  said  committee  have  leave  to  meet  in  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  shall  make  their  final  report  on  or  before  the  twenty-first  day 
of  April  next;  that  they  shall  have  power  to  send  for  persons  and  papers, 
and  to  employ  the  requisite  clerks,  the  expense  of  which  shall  be  audited  and 
allowed  by  the  Committee  of  Accounts,  and  paid  out  of  the  contingent  fund 
of  the  House.'* 

REPORT  OF  THE  MAJORITY. 

Mr.  Clayton,  on  behalf  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  appointed  on  the 
14th  March,  1832,  to  inspect  the  books,  and  examine  into  the  proceedings 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  made  the  following 

REPORT: 

In  obedience  to  the  foregoing  resolution,  the  committee  appointed  under 
the  same,  proceeded  to  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and  commenced  the  inspec- 
tion of  the  books,  and  the  examination  of  the  proceedings  of  the  bank,  on 
the  23d  of  March  last:  and,  after  the  most  attentive  and  laborious  investiga- 
tion which  their  limited  time  would  allow,  the  majority  have  prepared  the 
following  report,  which  they  beg  leave  to  submit  to  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. 

They  believed,  that,  as  the  House  wished  information  more  for  the  pur- 
pose of  enlightening  their  minds,  and  assisting  their  judgments  as  to  the 
expediency  of  again  renewing  the  charter,  than  to  abridge  it  of  the  small 
rtmnant  of  time  left  for  its  operation,  a  liberal  construction  of  the  Resolution 
wo^ld  not  be  deemed  a  departure  from  their  trust;  consequently,  they  have 
dire^ed  their  inquiries  to  two  general  objects. 

1st.  Whether  the  provisions  of  the  charter  have  been  violated. 

2d.  VVHether  there  have  been  any  circumstances  of  mismanagement 
against  wheh  future  legislation  might  guard,  or  which  should  destroy  its 
claims  to  fur^er  confidence. 


2  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

On  the  first  point,  following  the  example  of  a  former  comrivittee,  making 
a  similar  investigation,  they  will  submit  to  the  House,  without  expressing 
any  opinion,  such  cases  as  have  been  subjects  of  imputation  agair^t  the  bank. 
These  cases  they  conceive  to  be  six  in  number,  and  are  as  follow: 
1st  In  relation  to  usury. 

2d.  In  relation  to  the  issuing  of  branch  orders,  as  a  circulation. 
3d.  The  selling  coin,  and  particularly  American  coin. 
4th.  The  sale  of  stock  obtained  from  Government  under  special  acts  of 
Congress. 

5th.  Making  donations  for  roads  and  canals,  and  other  objects. 
6th.  Building  houses  to  renter  sell,  and  erecting  other  structures  in  aid  of 
that  object. 

On  the  first  ground,  the  president  of  the  bank  refers  us  to  a  statement 
marked  G,  and  says  it  will  <'  explain  the  only  cases  to  which  this  description 
might  be  considered  applicable,  two  of  them  bring  cases  in  which  the  board 
repaid  the  amount  considered  overcharged,  and,  in  regard  to  the  third,  no 
application  has  been  made  for  any  change  in  the  form  of  the  original  loan." 
See  said  statement,  marked  No.  1. 

To  a  question  asked  the  president,  whether  any  cases  of  disguised  loans, 
on  domestic  bills  of  exchange,  had  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  parent 
bank,  in  which  the  branches  have  received  usurious  interest?  he  replied  ho 
had  never  heard  of  any,  but  made  a  further  statement,  marked  No.  2,  in 
which  he  states  that  the  usual  custom  is  to  charge  upon  domestic  bills  of  ex- 
change, the  rate  of  interest  and  the  rate  of  exchange;  and,  if  the  sums  united 
should  exceed  six  per  cent.,  it  is  not  usury;  and  gives  an  Explanation  in  said 
statement. 

On  the  second  ground,  the  committee  will  submit  document  No.  3,  and 
its  enclosures,  in  which  the  cause  and  origin  of  branch  drafts  will  be  fully 
seen.     The  president  states  *<  the  inability  of  the  bank  to  furnish  the  amount 
of  circulating  medium  which  it  was  created  to  supply,  became  apparent  at 
an  early  period.     In  a  year  after  its  organization,  the  directors  presented  a 
memorial  to  Congress,  dated  9th  January,  1S18,  requesting  that  an  altera- 
tion might  be  made  in  the  charter,  so  as  to  authorize  the  president  and 
cashiers  of  the  several  branches   to    sign    the    notes    issued    by    those 
branches.^'     Sec  copy  of  the  memorial,  marked  3,  a,  in  w^hich  it  is  stated 
<<that,  inasmuch  as  the  *act  to  incorporate  the  subscribers  to  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,'  requires  that  the  bills  or  notes  which  may  be  issued  by 
order  of  the  said  corporation,  shall  be  signed  by  the  president,  and  counter- 
signed by  the  principal  cashier,  it  has  been  found  impracticable  to  supply, 
in  any  reasonable  degree,  the  required  circidation  from  the  bank  and  its  nu- 
merous offices  of  discount  and  deposite:"  it  is,  therefore,  asked  of  Congress 
to  permit  the  presidents  and  cashiers  of  branch  banks  to  sign  and  issue 
bills.     The  application  was  not  granted.     The  president  states  *«  the  subject 
was  resumed  by  another  memorial,  dated  November  24th,  1S20."  See  copy 
of  the  memorial,  marked  3,  b,  in  which  it  is  stated,  *'  under  the  charter,  it  has 
been  doubted  whether  the  bank  has  power  to  authorize  the  issuing  of  notes 
not  signed  by  the  president,  and  countersigned  by  the  cashier.    The  labor  ^md 
the  time  necessary  to  sign  notes  for  the  bank,  and  all  its  branches,  are  ^nuch 
greater  than  either  of  those  officers  can  bestow  upon  that  object;  ap-»  hence 
the  bank  has  been  unable  to  put  in  circulation  a  sufficient  amoup-  of  notes 
of  the  smaller  denominations,  which  the  public  most  want,  an*  which  are 
best  calculated  to  serve  the  interest  of  the  bank.''     It  thcr^'^q^^sis  that 


[  Rep.  No.  460*  ]  '    3 

l^ower  be  given  to  the  parent  bank  to  appoint  one  or  more  persons  to  sign 
notes  of  the  smaller  denominations;  which  was  not  acted  upon. 

The  president  states  the  *<  application  was  again  renewed,  and  a  select 
committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives  reported  in  favor  of  allowing 
the  appointment  of  signers,  on  the  27th  of  February,  1823;  but  there  was 
no  action  of  the  House  upon  it.'*  And  he  refers  us  to  "Pamphlet,  vol. 
Viii,  No.  11.*' 

On  the  first  of  December,  1S26,  tl;ie  president  was  instructed  to  endeavor 
to  procure  the  necessary  change.  He  says  "  he  reported  on  the  27th  of 
February,  1827,  that  no  action  on  the  subject  would  take  place  at  that  ses- 
sion  of  Congress,  and,  accordingly,  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  Commit- 
tee on  the  Offices. '*     See  Doc.  3.  c. 

He  adds,  "  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Binney,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Wirt,  the 
Attorney  General,  was  taken  on  the  subject  of  issuing  branch  drafts."  See 
Doc.  3.  c. 

On  the  6th  of  April,  1827,  the  foHowing  communication  was  made  to  the 
board  of  directors:  **The  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was  referred, 
on  the  23d  of  February  last,  the  report  of  the  president  of  the  bank,  stating 
the  unsuccessful  result  of  the  application  to  Congress  for  an  alteration  of 
the  charter^  which  would  authorize  the  signature  of  notes  by  other  persons 
than  the  president  and  cashier,  report  that,  in  various  parts  of  the  Union, 
but,  more  especially,  in  the  southern  and  western  sections,  there  is  a  constant 
and  unceasing  demand  at  the  offices  for  the  smaller  denominations  of  notes, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  supply. '*  They  therefore  suggest  that  the  *<  dis- 
tant offices  should  be  instructed  to  draw  checks  on  the  cashier  of  the  bank 
for  smaller  sums  than  they  have  hitherto  been  in  the  habit  of  furnishing. 
In  order  to  save  the  labor  of  preparing  such  checks  at  the  offices,  as  well 
for  the  greater  security  of  the  bank  and  the  community,  it  has  been  deemed 
best  to  prepare  the  blank  forms  of  a  uniform  appearance,  and  to  distribute 
them  from  the  parent  bank.  Such  forms  have  been  accordingly  devised, 
and  are  now  submitted  to  the  board,  with  the  recommendation  of  the  com- 
mittee that  the  experiment  be  tried,  and,  if  found  useful  to  the  community, 
h^ permanently  adopted.'*     See  Doc.  3,  c. 

The  document  marked  3,  d,  is  a  correspondence  between  the  President 
of  the  bank  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  the  character  of  these 
branch  drafts,  which  has  already  been  printed  and  submitted  to  Congress. 

The  paper  marked  3,  e,  contains  instructions  to  the  branch  banks  as  to 
the  issue  of  branch  orders.  On  the  21st  of  April,  1827,  the  cashier  of  the 
parent  bank  writes  a  circular  to  the  respective  branches,  informing  them, 
among  other  things,  that  the  directors  have  <*  deemed  it  best  that  blank 
forms  of  an  uniform  appearance  should  be  prepared  with  skill  and  care  at 
the  parent  bank,  and  thence  distributed  to  such  of  the  southern  and  western 
offices  as  seem  to  stand  most  in  need  of  them,  or  to  be  able  best  to  employ 
them  usefully.  Enclosed  I  send  you  a  specimen  of  the  5  and  ^10  blank 
drafts  adopted.  After  being  numbered,  registered,  and  appropriated  here 
to  certain  offices,  a  supply  of  them  will  be  forwarded  as  soon  as  possible, 
wV.h  instructions  to  the  cashier  of  each  office  to  have  every  four  hundred 
drat^  in  succession,  and  as  they  may  be  wanted,  filled  in  the  order  of  some 
one  olScer  of  the  branch,  by  whom  they  must  be  endorsed  lengthwise,  and 
about  thv  middle  of  the  draft,  payable  to  bearer,  before  they  be  signed  by 
the  presiOvnt  and  cashier.  When  completed,  they  are  to  be  furnished  to 
the  customer  of  the  bank,  or  other  persons  who  may  wish  to  procure  them. 


4  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

The  entries  respecting  them,  both  here  and  at  the  branches,  \re  intended, 
for  convenience  sake,  to  be  analogous  to  those  of  branch  note\  Their  re- 
ceipt, under  the  denomination  of  branch  drafts, lis  to  be  similarly  acknow- 
ledged by  the  cashier,  and  in  duplicate  through  the  respective  Residents. 
They  are,  besides,  to  be  reported  on  the  weekly  state  of  the  officers  branch 
draft  paper  received,  used,  and  on  hand. 

"  And,  whenever  they  may  be  in  transitu  between  the  ofifices,  must  be 
so  noticed  at  the  foot  of  the  statement,  ]ike  other  packages." 

On  the  7th  of  January,  1S31,  a  resolution  passed  the  board  to  isuie  drafts 
of  the  denomination  of  20  dollars.  These  branch  orders,  when  discharged 
by  the  parent  bank,  are  again  re-issued  by  that  bank  when  it  has  no  small 
notes  of  its  own.  The  paper  marked  3,  f,  contains  a  statement  of  the 
amount  of  branch  drafts  issued,  on  hand,  in  circulation,  and  the  offices  from 
whence  issued.  By  this  table,  it  will  be  perceived  that  ^10,781,635  have 
issued;  §3,371,544  are  on  hand;  and  ^^7,410,090  are  in  circulation. 

The  foregoing  is  a  succinct  history  of  the  issue  of  branch  drafts.  Whether 
it  can  be  justified  under  the  charter  of  the  bank,  the  committee  will  leave 
to  the  better  judgment  of  Congress. 

The  third  case  is  the  selling  coin,  and  particularly  American  coin.  The 
attention  of  the  committee  was  drawn  to  this  subject  by  the  fact  that  the 
General  Government  had,  on  one  occasion,  to  pay  the  bank  two  per  cent 
on  ten  thousand  Spanish  dollars,  which  it  wanted  for  the  benefit  of  the  navy 
in  South  America.  To  an  interrogatory  put  to  the  president  on  this  sub- 
ject, he  replied:  "The  bank  is  authorized  to  deal  in  bullion.  It  buys  and 
sells  bullion.  All  foreign  coins  are  bullion.  Their  being  a  legal  tender 
does  not  make  them  the  less  bullion,  and  the  bank  having  bought  them  at 
a  premium,  sells  them  at  a  premium.  The  obligation  of  the  bank  is,  to 
pay  the  claims  or  it  in  coin,  American  coin,  or  legalized  coin;  and  if  the 
foreign  coin  is  worth  intrinsically,  or  commercially,  more  than  the  Ameri- 
can coin,  the  difference  in  value  must  be  worth  the  difference  in  specie,  and 
thefe  seems  no  reason  why  the  bank  should  sell  its  bullion  any  more  than 
its  bills  of  exchange,  at  less  than  their  value."  He  then  refers  the  committee 
to  a  correspondence,  marked  No.  4. 

Although  the  bank  acted  under  legal  advice,  it  may  be  well  questioned 
whether  foreign  coin  is  bullion.  The  constitution  gives  to  Congress  the 
right  to  regulate  its  own  and  foreign  coin;  when,  therefore,  the  latter  has  a 
value  prefixed  to  it  by  law,  and  is  suffered  to  be  used  with  that  regulated 
value,  in  like  manner  with  our  own  coin,  it  would  seem  not  to  have  lost 
the  name  and  character  of  coin,  and  is  made,  by  force  of  law,  what  it  would 
be  if  carried  through  the  mint,  and  subjected  to  the  condition  of  our  own 
coin;  and  therefore,  to  deal  in  it  as  a  commodity,  is  calculated  to  disturb  its 
legal  value,  and  render  at  least  that  portion  of  the  metallic  currency  uncer- 
tain and  fluctuating. 

If,  however,  the  committee  have  taken  a  wrong  view  of  this  subject,  so 
far  as  foreign  coin  is  concerned,  it  seems  by  the  statement  of  the  president 
of  the  bank,  to  be  virtually  admitted  that  our  own  coin  is  not  bullion,  and, 
therefore,  does  not  come  within  the  objects  of  trade  allowed  to  the  bank  oy 
the  9th  fundamental  rule  of  the  charter.  By  reference  to  the  statemoit  of 
specie  sold  by  the  bank,  marked  No.  24,  it  will  be  found  that  the*^""^  of 
§84,734  44  of  American  gold  coin  has  been  parted  with. 

The  fourth  case  is,  selling  stock  obtained  from  Government  u»der  special 
acts  of  Congress.  They  have  thought  it  their  duty  to  pre-ent  the  sub* 
ject  to  the  consideration  of  Congress. 


I  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  g 

it  is  nefcesjiary  hiere  to  observe^  that  the  charter  must  have  inlendietl  some 
^meaning  in  prohibiting  the  bank  from  dealing  in  stocks.  There  is>  perhaps^ 
no  subject  so  fruitful  in  speculations  as  stocks,  and  none  which  is  so  fluctu- 
ating and  liable  to  be  influenced  by  the  slightest  causes,  often  producing 
ruin  or  immense  fortunes  in  the  most  sudden  manner.  To  prevent  such  a 
great  moneyed  institution  then,  as  the  bank,  from  dealing  in  this  article^ 
which  its  vast  means  could  raise  and  depress  at  pleasure,  seems  to  have  been 
a  wise  provision  in  the  charter.  The  right  of  the  bank  to  acquire  or  sell 
stocks,  is  a  special  one;  it  must  be  done  by  virtue  of  a  law  of  Congress. 
The  charter  itself  provided  that  a  part  of  its  capital  might  be  paid  in  the 
stock  of  the  Government,  and  such  stock,  particularly,  might  be  disposed  of. 
But  the  committee  suggests  whether  this  will  apply  to  other  stocks  obtained 
by  virtue  of  a  subsequent  law  of  Congress,  unless  that  law  specially  confers 
the  power  to  dispose  of  it.  In  two  important  loans  obtained  from  the  Go- 
vernment since  the  charter  was  granted,  the  bank  has  parted  with  a  valuable; 
stock;  and  these  cases  will  illustrate  the  point  now  submitted  to  Congress.. 
While  the  committee  refer  to  the  transactions  of  the  bank  in  the  funded; 
<lebt  of  the  United  States,  for  the  purpose  above  mentioned,  they  also  have 
in  view  the  presentation  of  the  subject,  to  show  not  only  the  manner  of  dis- 
posing of  that  stock,  but  whether  it  was  not  contrary  to  the  express  under- 
standing with  the  Government  at  the  time  of  obtaining  the  stocks.  Fojt 
the  loan  of  g  4,000,000  of  5  per  cents,  made  in  1821,  and  the  5,000,000  of 
4i  per  cents,  made  in  December,  1824,  there  was  strong  individual  competi- 
tion, at  a  premium  for  a  part  or  the  whole,  against  the  bank;  yet,  the  bank 
hiid  a  preference  over  the  individual  ofiers,  upon  the  pdnciple  that  it  would 
be  more  advantageous  to  give  it  to  the  bank  at  a  reduced  rate,  and  partici- 
pate as  a  partner,  than  to  give  it  to  individuals  at  a  premium.  This  was  con- 
firmed at  the  Treasury.  The  president  of  the  bank,  in  a  letter  dated  15th 
December,  1824,  which  will  be  found  among  the  documentary  testimony 
after  saying  he  had  taken  the  whole  of  the  5,000,000  loan  at  par,  says,  * '  tnd> 
since  we  have  taken  the  loan  at  par,  on  the  distinct  ground  of  our  having 
the  means  of  doing  it,  it  would  be  advisable,  in  every  point  of  view,  not  to 
sell  any  of  the  Florida  loan  in  Boston."  By  a  statement  of  the  amount  of 
funded  debt  sold  by  the  bank,  marked  No.  6,  it  will  be  seen  that,  as  early 
as  June  and  July,  1825,  the  year  after  it  was  taken,  the  bank  began  to  sell 
this  stock,  and  continued  to  do  so,  sometimes  at  a  premium  and  sometimes 
at  a  loss,  up  to  the  27th  day  of  November,  1829,  on  which  day  they  had  dis- 
posed of  all  but  $  93,925  92,  and  that,  too,  at  a  loss  of  g  4,443  34,  notwith- 
standing  ofiers  were  made  by  individuals  for  a  large  amount,  at  a  premium, 
and  rejected  by  the  Government  upon  the  principle  before  stated.  The 
same  document  shows  that  there  was,  between  February,  1829,  and  Octo- 
ber of  the  same  year,  sold,  of  the  5,000,000  Florida  loan,  $  1,742,261,  at  a 
loss  of  $  17,661  09.  For  this  loan,  the  committee  are  not  aware  of  there 
being  any  offers  by  individuals  at  a  premium.  The  same  document  shows, 
that,  between  February,  1826,  and  February,  1832,  the  whole  of  the 
4,000,000  loan  of  5  per  cents,  of  1821,  has  been  disposed  of  at  a  premium  of 
§136,789  25.  The  premium  paid  for  which,  at  the  time  it  was  taken,  was 
proti<ied  for  in  a  semi-annual  appropriation  of  yS  60,000,  in  the  report  of  the 
1st  ol  July,  1821,  before  adverted  to.  By  these  operations,  it  will  be  ob- 
viously ierceived,  that,  if  the  bank  is  allowed  to  sell  stocks  acquired  by  spe- 
cial agreehgnts  with  the  Government,  it  can  secure,  by  speculations,  all  the 
advantages  vj^ich  the  Government  might  possess,  in  putting  up  its  loans  to 


6  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

the  highest  bidder.  It  not  only  destroys  competition,  but  takes  the  loan  of 
the  Government  from  other  individuals,  who  would  have  giyen  a  premium 
for  it,  and  which  the  Government  refuses,  because  it  expects  to  derive  a 
greater  profit  in  another  way,  but  in  which  it  may  be  defeated,  by  an  imme- 
diate sale  of  the  loan,  and  which,  if  the  right  to  sell  by  the  bank  is  acknow- 
ledged, might  have  been  made  directly  to  those  very  individuals  who  had 
just  offered  a  premium.  In  relation  to  the  four  million  loan  of  5  per  cents, 
of  1821,  Mr.  Cheves,  in  his  report  on  the  first  of  October,  1822,  saysj 
"  The  four  million  loan  of  five  per  cents,  are  longer  irredeemable  than  any 
other  stock  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  hence  probably 
this  stock  is  more  valuable  than  any  other  stock  of  the  United  States."  He 
also  says,  *«  the  more  the  bank  can  retain  of  this  stock,  the  better  for  the  in- 
stitution." In  the  whole  of  which,  the  committee  most  fuU^  concur j  for 
it  may  be  mentioned,  with  feelings  of  pride,  that  such  is  the  high  credit  of 
the  Government,  its  stock  is  better  than  specie,  and  would  be  to  the  bank, 
in  any  emergency,  precisely  the  same. 

The  committee  proceed  to  mention  the  5th  case,  which  is  making  dona- 
tions for  roads,  canals,  and  other  objects,  the  amount  of  which  is  $  4,620  00, 
as  will  appear  by  document  No.  7.  Two  of  the  largest  of  these  items, 
amounting  to  ^3,000,  are  for  turnpike  roads  made,  too,  after  the  General 
Government  had  declined  to  make  appropriations  for  similar  objects.* 

A  question  would  naturally  arise,  whether  the  public  funds  in  the  bank, 
for  that  institution,  is  expressly  founded  upon  the  principle  that  it  is  ne- 
cessary to,  and  constitutes  a  part  of  the  Treasury  ot  the  United  States,  can 
be  appropriated  to  objects,  indirectly,   by  the   officers  of  that  institution, 
Tvhen  the  Government  directly  refuses  to  expend  its  revenues  on  the  very 
jSame  objects.     The  committee  have  looked,  in  vain,  for  any  authority  in 
the  charter  to  give  away  the  money  of  the  stockholders.     If  the  charter 
,  contains  the  powers  by  which  the  bank  is  to  act,  and  they  are  to  be  strictly 
p  aij-sued,  there  is  then  no  grant  to  make  gratuities  for  any  object  whatever* 
The  consequences  of  the  exercise  of  such  a  right  might  be  fraught  with 
"veTy  great  injury  to  the  stockholders;  certainly  of  dangerous  interference 
in  the  rival  trade  of  difierent  sections  of  the  country,  and  of  pernicious  in- 
fluence upon  the  operations  of  the  Government. 

Tlie  committee  approach  the  last  ground,  which  is  the  building  houses  to 
rent  or  sell,  and  erecting  other  structures  in  aid  of  that  object.  They  will 
merely  present  the  fact  and  the  law,  and  leave  the  House  to  place  their  own 
.construction  upon  the  case. 

By  an  extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  board  of  directors,  communicated 
:to  the  Senate  on  the  12th  of  March  last,  the  following  facts  appear,  viz. 

-"  The  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was,  this  day,  reterred  a  letter 
to  ihe  president  from  George  W.  Jones,  agent,  dated  May  23d,  recom- 
mending to  the  bank  the  construction  of  two  canal  basins,  and  the  erection 
of  WAREHOUSES  around  one  of  them,  according  to  the  plan  submitted  by 
him,  recommend  to  the  board  the  adoption  of  the  following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  board  approve  of  the  formation  of  two  canal  basins 
at  Cincinnati,  proposed  by  Mr.  Jones;  one  of  them  to  be  on  square  np^n- 

*  The  President  furnished  this  statement  without  explaining  the  grounds  of  these  <^natiOHa 
no  explanation  having  been  particularly  required  of  him;  t  t      r  tV, 

It  is  possible  that  the  improvements  were  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  real -state  ot  the 
bank  and  upon  the  ground  that  such  donations  would  increase  the  value  of  tb'-  real  etftatc* 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  7 

her  fifty-five,  (55,)  and  the  other  one  to  be  on  the  square  of  ground  be- 
tween Walnut  ^nd  Vine  streets,  and  Canal  and  St.  Clair  or  Court  streets; 
and  that  he  be  authorized  to  erect,  forthwith,  warehouses  on  the  margin 
of  this  last  mentioned  basin,  not  exceeding  six  in  number,  either  in  one 
block  or  separately,  as  he  may  deem  most  for  the  interest  of  the  bank.'' 
These  six  warehouses  were  built.  It  is  also  understood,  says  the  same  ex- 
tract, that  several  other  houses  have  been  built  by  the  agent  at  Cincinnati; 
but  as  they  were  erected,  in  part,  by  contributions  in  labor  and  materials  by 
debtors  to  the  bank  who  had  no  other  means  of  payment,  and,  in  part,  by  di- 
rect disbursements,  no  accurate  statement  of  either  their  number  or  cost  is  on 
file.  The  agent  has  been  instru&ted  to  specify  these  details  in  order  to  com- 
plete this  return. 

In  reference  to  the  foregoing,  the  committee  believe  it  enough,  merely 
to  quote  the  following  provision  of  the  charter,  to  wit:  *^  The  land,  tene- 
iHpnts,  and  hereditaments,  which  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  said  corporation 
to  hold,  shall  be  onli/  sux^h  as  shall  be  requisite  for  its  iinmediate  accommo- 
dation^ in  relation  to  the  convenient  transactions  of  lisbusiness,  and  such  as 
shall  have  been  bona  fide  mortgaged  to  it  by  way  of  security,  or  con- 
veyed to  it  in  satisfaction  of  debts  previously  contracted  in  the  course  of 
its  dealings,  or  purchased  at  sales  upon  judgments  which  shall  have  been 
obtained  for  sv^h  debts.'' 

This  closes  the  view  of  the  committee  on  the  subject  of  the  violations  of 
the  charter. 

In  considering  the  second  general  head  as  to  any  circumstances  of  mis- 
management of  the  bank,  )''our  committee  have  fully  appreciated  the  deli- 
cate character  of  some  of  the  duties  assigned  them,  and  the  high  responsi- 
bility of -the  office  of  inspecting  the  books,  and  examining  into  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

In  discharging  that  trust,  they  have  not  felt  themselves  at  liberty  to  inquire 
into  the  private  concerns  of  any  individuals  of  any  denomination,  unless  the 
public  interest  was  involved  in  their  transactions  with  the  president  and  di- 
rectors of  the  bank.  The  investigation  was  ordered  by  the  House  under 
peculiar-  circumstances,  and  in  anticipation  of  a  debate  on  the  renewal  of  a 
charter  of  a  National  Bank,  whose  annual  operations  amount  to  two  or  three 
hundred  millions  of  money,  whose  influence  extends  to  the  remotest  parts 
©f  the  Union,  and  whose  connection  with  the  Federal  G-overnment  gives  it 
a  public  character.  Impressed  with  the  importance  of  the  great  variety  of 
interests  involved,  your  committee  have  executed  the  office  assigned  them, 
by  inquiring,  generally,  into  the  proceedings  of  the  bank,  not  only  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  its  powers  had  been  violated  or  abused  to 
the  injury  of  the  private  and  public  interests  of  the  country;  but,  with  a 
view  to  obtain  information  for  the  use  of  the  House,  and  to  suggest,  should 
Congress  determine  to  continue  a  National  Bank,  such  modifications  as  the 
proceedings  of  the  existing  institution  would  seem  to  have  rendered  neces- 
sary. 

Adhering  to  these  rules,  the  committee  believed  it  entirely  within  their 
province  to  inquire  whether  the  influence  of  the  bank,  acknowledged  by  all 
to  be  of  vast  control,  and,  if  improperly  directed,  of  dangerous  tendency, 
had  in«iHuated  itself  either  into  the  management  of  the  press,  or  the  direction 
of  the  Gchrernment.  This  could  only  Redone  by  the  examination  of  the 
transactions  of  the  bank  with  editors  and  public  functionaries.  And  here 
4he  committee  wish  ittob^- distinctly  understood,  that  they  do  not  pretend 


8  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

to  set  up  the  absurd  idea  that  editors  or  officers  are  excludigd  from  the  rights 
common  to  the  rest  of  the  citizens,  of  borrowing  money  w^ien  and  where 
they  please,  from  banks  or  individuals,  without  being  answerable^  in  the 
slightest  degree,  to  any  person  whatever.  But  while  this  admission  is  de- 
manded by  the  clear  rights  of  the  parties  to  whom  it  relates,  it  will  not  be 
denied,  that  if  they  obtain  more  favors  than  the  rest  of  their  fellow  citizens, 
it  is,  at  least,  a  just  cause  of  complaint  against  the  bank,  and  however  they 
may  be  innocent  of  any  improper  or  sinister  connection  with  that  institu- 
tion, it  does  not,  by  any  means,  disprove  the  fact,  that  some  other  influ- 
ence may  have  been  intended  to  operate  upon  their  minds,  wholly  unsus- 
pected by  them  at  the  time.  If,  therefore,  it  should  appear  that  these  in- 
dividuals receive  larger  loans  than  those  who  are  its  usual  customers;  that 
they  receive  these  loans  without  the  security  usually  acquired  under  circum- 
stances not  known  in  any  other  case;  it  would  seem  to  the  committee,  that 
instead  of  a  complaint  from  those  whose  transactions  with  the  bank  ha^e 
thus  been  investigated,  the  grievance  is  entirely  on  the  other  side.  Whether 
such  cases  do  exist,  the  committee  will  leave  to  the  better  judgment  of  the 
House  to  decide  upon  the  facts  which  they  have,  collected,  and  now  respect- 
fully submit  ' 

It  bad  been  repeatedly  alleged  that  the  bank  had  employed  its  funds  for* 
the  purpose  of  subsidizing  the  press,  and  the  charge  was  reiterated'during 
the  debate  upon  the  resolution   authorizing  this  in(juiry.     The  attention  of 
your  committee  was  particularly  drawn  to  this  subject  at  an  early  period  of 
their  examination  by  a  communication  from  an  editor  of  a  New  \ork  paper,, 
who  had  been  accused,  to  a  member  of  the  committee,  through  the  president 
of  the  bank.     The  evidence  relating  to  this  case  will  be  found  in  papers 
marked  Nos.  8  and  9,  and  in  which  are  presented  the  following^  facts.  On  the 
26th   of  March,  1831,  a  Mr.  Silas  E.   Burrows  applied  to  the  president  of 
the  bank,  and  informed  him,  in  the  language  of  the  president,  that  "  he  was- 
desirous  of  befriending  Mr.  Noah,  and  assisting  bim  in  the  purchase  of  a ^ 
share  in  a  newspaper;  and  he  asked  if  the  bank  would  discount  the  notes  of* 
these  parties,  adding,  that,  although  as  a  merchant  he  did  not  wish  to  appear 
as  a  borrower,  or  to  put  his  name  on  paper  not  mercantile,  yet  he  would, 
at  any  time,  do  so,  whenever  it  might  be  necessary  to  secure  the  bank.     I 
do  not  recollect,  (says  the  witness,  j  whether  he  then  mentioned  the  time 
which  the   notes  would  have  to  run.     The  committee  being  authorized  to> 
discount  any  paper,  the  security  of  which  they  might  approve,  agreed  to  do  s 
them.     As  Mr.  Burrows  was  going   out  of  town,  I,  (the  president  and  wit- 
ness,) gave  him  the  money  out  of  my  own  funds,  and  the  notes  were  after- 
wards put  into  my  possession.     They  remained  with  me  a  long  time,  as  I 
had   no  occasion  to  use  the  funds,  nor  was  it  till  the  close  of  the  year  that 
my   attention   was  called  to  them  by  the  circumstance  that  a  new  board  of 
directors  and  a  new  committee  of  exchange  would  soon  be  appointed,  the  same 
committee  which  made  the  loan  should  consummate  it.     I  had  seen,  also^ 
in  the  public   prints  many  reproaches  against  the  bank  for  lending  money 
to  printers  and  editors,  and  I  was  unwilling  that  any  loan  made  by  the  bank 
should  seem  to  be  a  private  loan  from  one  of  its  officers.     Having  no  use  for 
the  money,  it  would  have  been  perfectly  convenient  to  let  the  loan  remain 
as  it  wasj  but  I  thought  it  right  that  every  thing  done  by  the  bani  should 
always  fee  distinctly  known  and  avowed,  and  therefore  gave  tie  notes  to. 
the  chairman  of  the  committee,  Mr.  Thomas  P.  Cope,  who  entered  them 
on  the  books."    This  is  the  account  given  by  the  presideni^  himself  of  the 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  9 

transaction  in  ite  origin.  The  money,  ^15,000,  was  advanced  on  the  26th 
of  March,  the  notes  bear  date  ori  the  1st  of  April  thereafter,  and  were  ten  in 
number,  for  fifteen  hundred  dollars  each,  with  the  interest  added  on  as  they 
respectively  became  due,  which  was  on  the  1st  of  April  and  October  of  the 
years  1832,  '33,  '34,  '35,  '36,  and  amounted,  with  the  interest  thus  added, 
to  1517,975.  At  the  time  they  were  entered  on  the  books  of  the  bank,  on 
the  2d  of  January  last,  the  President  received  the  money  for  them.  These 
notes  were  placed  on  the  books  of  the  bank  at  this  time,  and  it  will  be  seen 
on  the  2d  of  March  they  vvere  withdrawn,  as  will  appear  hereafter.  On  the 
9th  of  August  last,  after  the  foregoing  transaction  had  taken  place,  J.  W". 
Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah  made  an  application  to  the  bank  for  a  loan  of 
g20,000,  accompanied  by  a  letter  from  a  gentleman,  formerly  a  director  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  to  the  President  of  the  bank,  in  the  following 
words:  ''I  cheerfully  forward  the  enclosed  as  requested.  I  see  no  reason 
against  this  application  being  treated  as  a  fair  business  transaction."  This 
was  accompanied  with  sundry  letters  of  Webb  and  Noah,  and  the  deposi- 
tions of  persons  in  their  service  as  to  their  solvency  and  ability  to  pay  the 
loan  requested,  all  of  which  will  be  found  marked  No.  9.  This  loan,  at 
six  months,  was  granted,  with  no  other  security  but  that  which  is  just  men- 
tioned, and  was  the  largest  loan  made  on  that  day .  On  the  1 6th  of  December 
following,  another  application  was  made,  by  these  same  parties,  for  a  loan  of 
^15,000,  which  was  granted,  for  six  months,  by  the  exchange  committee, 
without  any  additional  security  or  recommendation.  At  this  time,  there 
was  a  considerable  pressure  in  the  money  market,  and  many  notes  of  the 
citizens  of  Philadelphia  were  rejected.  It  was  one  among  the  largest  loans 
on  that  day.  These  loans,  together  with  the  loan  made  in  March  to  Bur- 
rows, amounted  to  the  sum  ofiS52,975,  which  consisted  of  notes  drawn  and 
endorsed  by  the  editors  only. 

The  committee  will  now  submit  the  facts  in  relation  to  the  manner  in 
which  this  loan  has  been  disposed  of,  first  premising  that  the  resolution  for 
inquiring  into  the  affairs  of  the  bank  was  introduced  into  the  House  on  or 
about  the  1 7th  of  February.  The  loan  of  August  was  reduced  sS2,000  at  its 
maturity,  on  the  10th  of  February  last.  On  the  2d  of  March  last,  Mr.  Silas 
E.  Burrows  obtained  from  the  exchange  committee,  discounts  to  the  amount 
of  thirty-two  thousand  four  hundred  and  forty-six  dollars,  being  the  largest 
sum  loaned  on  that  day,  and  while  many  notes  of  citizens  of  Philadelphia 
were  rejected.  That  the  notes  for  gl7,975,  payable  in  1832,  ^33,  '34,  '35, 
and  '36,  were  paid  and  withdrawn  by  him  on  the  2d  of  March,  without  the 
knowledge  of  Webb  and  Noah,  as  they  state.  On  the  14th  of  the  same 
month,  Burrows  obtained  another  discount  from  the  bank  of  ^14,150,  and, 
on  the  15th  of  the  same  month,  the  note  of  Webb  and  Noah  for  $15,000, 
loaned  them  on  the  16th  of  December  previously,  and  not  due  till  June 
next,  was  paid  ofi*  by  two  drafts  from  Webb,  obtained  at  the  United  States 
branch  bank  at  New  York,  accompanied  with  the  following  remarks,  con- 
tained in  a  letter  to  the  President  of  the  bank,  dated  New  York,  March 
11th,  1832,  aad  found  in  No.  9,  viz.  *«  Although  the  loans  to  us  by  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  are  purely  of  a  business  character,  and  made  upon 
statements  showing  the  necessity  of  the  accommodation  to  our  establish- 
ment, and  of  our  ability  to  meet  our  payments,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but 
the  enemies  of  the  bank,'asalso  our  political  opponents,  will  endeavor  to 
give  a  false  coloring  to  the  whole  transaction.  The  loan,  though  strictly 
defensible,  is  a  large  one,  and  the  amount  may  give  rise  to  the  charge  of 


10  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

indiscretion  on  the  part  of  the  directors.  This^  it  is  not  only  our  duty  but 
our  desire  to  prevent,  if  possible;  and  therefore,  with  some  little  inconve- 
nience to  ourselves,  we  have  made  arrangements  to  pay  the  note  of  §15,000 
in  the  course  of  a  few  days." 

The  evidence  of  the  President  of  the  bank  explains  the  character  of 
these  various  loans,  and  the  circumstances  which  induced  him  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  security,  and  to  make  these  advances;  which,  together  with  all  the 
testimony  and  correspondence  on  this  subject,  will  be  found  in  the  papers 
marked  No.  9. 

In  that  evidence,  it  is  stated,  by  the  testimony  of  Webb  and  Noah,  that 
they  knew  nothing  of  the  first  15,000  dollar  loan  made  by  the  President  of 
the  bank  to  Burrows;  that  Burrows  made  them  believe  the  jSl  5,000  were 
loaned  to  Noah  by  his  father,  and  that  he  had  his  father  present  to  carry  on 
that  transaction,  and  for  which  loan  Noah  allowed  Burrows  2i  per  cent., 
and  did  not  receive  it  all  for  some  months  after  giving  his  notes;  that  the 
notes  were  discounted  by  the  bank,  in  their  names,  without  their  knowledge, 
and  paid  off  in  the  same  way.  It  will  appear  by  the  testimony  of  Mr. 
Webb,  that  the  paper  of  which  he  is  the  editor,  made  two  publications  in 
the  latter  part  of  1829,  favorable  to  the  establishment  of  branches;  that, 
shortly  thereafter,  it  commenced  its  opposition  to  the  bank,  and  was,  for  six- 
teen months,  warmly  opposed  to  it;  and  that,  on  or  about  the  8th  of  April, 
1831,  it  changed  its  course  in  favor  of  the  bank.  Connected  with  this  fact, 
is  an  admission,  on  the  part  of  one  of  the  editors,  that,  before  the  first  loan 
was  negotiated,  he  held  a  conversation  with  a  gentleman  through  whom  the 
loan  was  then  negotiating,  (who  the  committee  know  to  be  Burrows)  in 
which  he,  Burrows,  urged  the  editors  (one  of  whom,  Webb,  had  expressed 
himself  in  favor  of  a  modified  re-charter)  to  advocate  an  unconditional  re- 
newal, "  but  expressed  great  satisfaction  at  learning  that  [one]  was  in  favor 
of  a  charter  under  any  circumstances." 

The  committee  will  state  they  were  anxious  to  obtain  the  testimony  of 
Burrows,  but  were  unable  to  do  it.  A  subpoena  was  issued  for  him,and  sent 
to  New  York,  to  which  the  marshal  returned  he  was  not  to  be  found.  It 
was  then  sent  to  Washington  city,  and  the  sergeant  at  arms  made  the  same 
return.  The  marshal  of  Pennsylvania  was  directed,  by  the  chairman,  to 
make  and  continue  a  search  for  the  witness  in  Philadelphia,  having  heard 
of  his  expected  arrival  in  that  place;  that  the  marshal  reported  to  the  chair- 
man that  he  ascertained  that  the  witness  had  arrived  in  that  place  on  Thurs- 
dnv,  the  5th  instant,  but  he  was  not  able  to  serve  the  process,  because  he 
could  not  be  found. 

To  an  inquiry  whether  there  were  any  other  instances  of  notes  being  dis- 
counted for  the  accommodation  of  any  merchant  and  trader,  at  I, '2,  3,  4, 
and  5  years'  credit,  unless  to  secure  a  debt  in  jeopardy,  there  was  presented 
to  the  committee  four  other  cases. 

On  the  3d  of  April,  the  committee,  by  resolution,  called  for  the  follow- 
ing statements  to  assist  them  in  the  elucidation  of^ certain  facts  which  had 
appeared  in  other  documents,  viz. 

1st.  A  tabular  statement  showing  the  aggregate  amount  of  notes  discount- 
ed and  still  due  the  bank,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  non-residents  of  Philadel- 
phia; which  will  be  found  marked  A. 

2d.  The  aggregate  amount  of  good  notes  offered  for  discount,  and  reject- 
ed by  the  board;  drawn  and  endorsed  by  residents  of  Philadelphia,  on  the 
following  days,  respectively;  9th  of  August;  16th  December,  1831;  2d  Jan- 
uary; 10th  February;  2d  and  14th  of  March,  1832$  24th  September,   and 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  11 

15th  October,  1830.  The  statement  marked  B,  will  show  the  amount  of 
notes  discounted;  but  the  officers  of  the  bank  State  their  inabihty  to  discri- 
minate between  those  that  are  good  or  otherwise. 

3d.  The  aggregate  amount  of  notes  dicountcd  on  personal  security,  and 
made  payable  more  than  six  months  after  date,  which  appear  to  be  only 
four  in  number,  besides  the  case  of  J.  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah. 

4th.  The  aggregate  of  notes  now  due  the  bank,  discounted  for  a  firm,  or 
the  partners  of  a  firm,  without  the  name  of  some  person  not  belonging  to 
the  firm  as  drawer  or  endorser,  distinguishing  in  each  of  the  above  state- 
ments the  amount  loaned  to  members  of  Congress,  editors  of  newspapers, 
or  persons  holding  offices  under  the  General  Government.  To  this  last  re- 
solution were  added  the  following  amendments,  viz.  **lst  A  statement  of 
the  loans  made  by  the  bank  and  its  branches  to  members  of  Congress,  edi- 
tors of  newspapers,  and  officers  of  the  General  Government,  and  the  terms 
of  such  loans.^'  *'2d.  And  the  names  and  amounts  of  payments  to  mem 
bers  of  Congress,  in  anticipation  of  their  pay  as  members  before  the  passage 
of  the  general  appropriation  bill.-"  "3d.  And  the  amount  of  money  due 
the  United  States,  and  on  deposite  in  the  bank,  after  deducting  therefrom 
the  sum  thus  advanced  to  those  to  whom  the  United  States  are  indebted." 
<'  And,  lastly,  a  statement  in  detail  of  the  amounts  paid  to  those  who  are 
now,  or  have  been  members  of  Congress  or  officers  of  Government,  since 
J 81 6,  for  services  rendered  to  the  bank,  stating  the  nature  of  the  service." 
For  the  information  sought  by  these  inquiries,  see  papers  marked  C.  Be- 
sides these,  t/tere  were  furnished  the  statementsof  loans  made  to  five  editors 
or  publishers  of  newspapers;  by  which  it  will  appear  that  the  accommoda- 
tions to  those  five  editors  were  upwards  of  ^110,000  previous  to  the  insti- 
tution of  this  inquiry. 

The  various  reports  which  have,  for  a  long  period  past,  charged  the  bank 
with  too  frequent  intercourse  with  brokers,  and  also  of  undue  favoritism  to 
certain  individuals,  as  well  as  the  large  transactions  which  exhibited  them- 
selves upon  many  documents  called  for  by  the  committee,  induced  them  to 
examine  particularly  the  accounts  of  the  firms  of  which  Mr.  Thomas  Biddle 
was,  and  is,  the  chief  partner  with  the  bank,  as  a  broker. 

Four  subjects  of  investigation  presented  themselves  in  relation  to  their 
transactions  with  the  bank. 

1st.  The  allowing  and  paying  interest  to  them  on  deposites. 

2d.  Relates  to  certain  loans  upon  the  pledge  of  stock,  and  the  discounting 
of  notes  made  to  T.  Biddle  by  the  President  or  others,  without  the  know- 
ledge of  the  board,  and,  on  part  of  them,  the  pledge  of  stock,  without  interest. 
The  committee  would  refer,  for  the  particulars  of  these  two  charges,  to  the 
papers  marked  No.  13. 

The  third  subject  is  the  amount  of  discounts  made  T.  Biddle,  and  the  rate 
of  interest.  The  document  marked  No.  14  will  show  the  amount  on  the 
15th  of  each  month,  from  the  15th  day  of  September,  1830,  to  the  15th  of 
February,  1832.  By  this  it  appears  f that,  on  the  15th  of  October,  1830, 
he  was  discounter  upwards  of  ^1,120,000,  and  has,  at  no  time  since, 
been  less  than  ^400,000.  The  committee  doubt  the  policy  of  such  large  ac- 
commodations to  individuals  or  firms,  at  any  time,  as  it  deprives  the  bank  of 
the  power  of  fulfilling  one  of  the  great  objects  of  its  institution,  which  is  to 
facilitate  trade  by  loans  in  time  of  pressure,  and  it  may  be  proper  to  add  that 
these  large  loans,  at  a  low  rate  of  interest,  in  times  when  money  is  plenty, 
are  usually  followed  by  over  trading,  which  produces  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ment  and  general  distress. 


12  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

By  a  statement,  entitled   "  Remittances  to  Europe,"  'marked  JNo.  16,  if 
appears  that  the  following  purchases  of  foreign   bills  were  made  of  Thomas 
Biddle  and  Co.,  drawn  by  them,  viz. 
1831. 


Oct.  14,  1  bill  at  60  days  sight, 

and  at  a  premium  o 

if  101  percts 

i.      (832,399   68 

"    14,  3    ** 

75  to  90,  and  105 

days    " 

lOi 

i( 

115,411    11 

<«    22,  13  « 

40  to  125 

((       i( 

11 

a 

592,000  00 

Dec.  10,  9     <' 

40  to  110 

a        (( 

10 

(( 

506,250  00 

1832. 

Feb.  14,  14  " 

40  to  105 

a        (c 

lOi 

it 

400,000  00 

''    14,3    " 

50  to  70 

i(         a 

11 

a 

148,000  00 

^1,794,060  79 

By  the  foregoing  statement,  it  appears'that  the  bank  purchased,  between 
the  14th  of  October,  1831,  and  the  14th  February,  1832,  of  T.  Biddle  and 
Co.  foreign  bills  to  the  amount  of  S  1,794,060  79. 

With  regard  to  these  large  loans,  the  committee  refer  to  the  statement 
marked  No.  19,  by  which  it  appears  that,  on  the  9th  of  April,  1832,  the 
total  amount  of  discounts  on  bills  and  notes  at  the  bank  in  Philadelphia,  was 
^7,939,679  52.  Of  that  sum,  more  than  two-thirds  were  loaned  to  ninety- 
nine  persons,  to  wit,  ^5,434,111.  More  than  »3,000,000  were  in  the 
hands  of  twenty-seven  individuals;  and  nearly  one-seventeenth  part  in  the 
hands  of  one  person.  The  committee  have  already  expressed  their  convic- 
tion that  these  large  accommodations,  to  a  few  individuals,  are  injurious  to 
trade  generally,  and  they  will  add  that  they  ought  always  to  be  made  by 
either  the  board  of  directors,  or  the  committees  empowered  by  them  for  that 
purpose.     For  an  explanation  of  this  subject,  see  papers  numbered  13  and  IS. 

Properly  connected  with  this  subject,  is  the  accommodation  extended  by 
the  bank  to  individuals  on  the  pledge  of  stock.  In  all  the  monthly  state- 
ments of  the  condition  of  the  bank,  prior  to  the  first  of  March  last,  there 
was  no  column  showing  these  loans.  In  that  month,  for  the  first  time,-  so 
far  •  as  the  committee  can  discover,  a  new  column  is  exhibited,  entitled 
**  loans  on  other  stocks,^'  and  which  appeared,  at  that  time,  to  have  been 
transferred  from  the  line  called  '^  bills  discounted  on  personal  security. ^^ 
This  change  was  made  in  consequence  of  a  call  for  stock  loans,  by  the 
House  of  Representatives.  A  statement  of  the  same  was  called  for,  marked 
No.  20,  which  exhibits  a  list  of  stocks  pledged,  consisting  of  Theatre  shares. 
Museum  stock.  Arcade  stock.  Railroad  and  Canal  stocks,  Coal  Company 
stock,  Real  Estate  in  Louisiana,  &c.  &c.,  amounting  to  the  sum  of 
(gl,7l3,297  34. 

The  various  transactions,  in  specie,  by  the  bank,  has  been  a  subject  of 
special  notice  by  the  committee,  and  various  statements  called  for,  show 
the  magnitude  of  them. 

The  first  statement,  marked  No.  21,  shows  the  amount  of  specie  exported 
by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  during  the  year  1831: 
To  London,  in  Mexican  coin,        .  -  -  -       jg255,000  00 

To  Paris,  do         do  -  -  620,000 

Do  in  gold,  ...  247,000 

Do         in  mixed  bullion,       «  -  180,000 


1,047,000  00 
(^1,302,000  00 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  i  13 

2d.     The  amount  of  specie  exported  since   1819,  will  be  found  in   the 
-statement  marked  No.  22. 

To  England,       -             -             -             -             -  -         2,598,357  00 

To  France,          -             -             -             -             -  -         2,257,398  50 


t,855,755  50 


Of  this  amount  there  was,  in  gold,  -  -  „         2,387,927  50 

in  bullion,      -  -  -  596,717  00 

in  silver,        -  -  -         1,871,111  00 


1,855,755  50 


3d.  The  amount  purchased  since  1824,  marked  No.  23,  shows: 

Of  silver,            -             -             -             -             -  -             605,850  00 

gold  coin,      -             -                                        -  -               17,596  00 

gold  bullion,                -              -             -             -  -             438,000  00 

$1,061,446  00 


4th.  The  amount  of  specie  sold  since  1817,  marked  No. 

24,  shows  it  to  be  .  -  -  _      g;5,184,910  29 


Of  which  there  was,  Jitnerican  gold,  -        84,734  44 

British,  French  and  Spanish,  48,291   35 
Silver,  -  5,051,884  50 

$5,184,910  29 


5th.  The  amount  of  specie  drawn  from  each  of  the  southern 
and  western  offices,  since  1820,  to  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  and  New  York,  marked  No.  2b, 
shows  the  total  amount  to  be  -  -  -  ^22,523,387  94 

Of  which  |f20,925,990  07  has  been  drawn  to  those  places 

since  the  1st  of  January,  1823,        -  -  -^20,925,990  07 


6th,  The  amount  of  specie  (in  the  same  statement)  sent  to 

the  southern  and  western  branches,  since  1819,  is  ^896,472  00 


The  premium  received  on  the  specie  sold,  is  -  -         97,140  56 

The  premium  paid  on  the  specie  purchased,  is  -  -         19,171   85 

^77,968  71 


What  profits  were  made  on  the  specie  exported,  the  committee  did  not 
call  for  documents  to  enable  them  to  ascertain.  It  must,  however,  from  th€ 
great  quantity  sent  away,  have  been  considerable. 


14  [  Rep.  No.  4«0.  ] 

The  committee  called  for  a  statement  of  all  the  specie  imported  by  the 
bank  from  abroad,  since  1S19;  but,  as  none  was  returned,  they  presun^e 
none  was  imported. 

What  proportion  of  the  gold  exported  was  American  coin,  the  committee 
have  not  before  them  the  means  to  determine;  it  was  expected  to  have  been 
given  in  the  statements,  but,  in  looking  into  them,  the  gold  exported  is  with- 
out a  designatory  name  :  it  is  believed,  however,  the  amount  is  considera- 
ble. 

In  examining  this  subject  minutely,  the  committee  find  that  large  amounts 
of  the  specie  have  been  drawn  from  the  oflSoe  at  New  Orleans.  Of  this  there 
can  be  no  complaint  ;  it  is  tJie  principal  depot  for  returns  of  goods  shipped 
to  Mexico,  which  are  almost  exclusively  paid  for  in  specie,  and  it  cannot  be 
expected  that  it  will  remain  there.  But  the  committee  suggest  whether 
the  withdrawal  of  the  specie  from  most  of  the  other  ports  of  the  country, 
and  substituting  paper  in  ils  stead,  might  not  be  highly  injurious  to  those 
sections  of  country  subject  to  its  operation. 

The  subject  of  the  bank's  furnishing  tills  of  exchange  for  the  trade  of 
India,  China,  and  South  America,  has  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
committee  by  document  marked  No.  26  ;  and  having  been  so  strongly  de- 
scribed as  affording  great  advantages  to  the  country,  in  the  triennial  report 
of  September  last,  as  "  economizing"  the  specie  of  the  country;  the  com- 
mittee have  felt  it  a  duty  to  examine  and  present  the  subject  to  the  conside- 
ration of  Congress  and  the  commercial  community,  believing,  as  they  do, 
that  there  is  something  delusive  in  the  operation.  The  result  of  their  exa- 
mination has  led  them  to  the  conviction  that  this  new  method  of  dealing  in 
bills  of  exchange,  does  not  <*economize"  the  specie  of  the  country  at  all.  It  is 
a  universal  law  of  drawing,  that  funds  must  either  go  before  or  follow  after  the 
draft  to  honor  it  at  maturity;  and  whether  it  goes  directly  or  circuitously,  the 
funds  to  discharge  it  must  sooner  or  later  arrive  at  the  place  of  payment.  These 
bills  are  to  be  paid  in  England;  but  they  go  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  be- 
fore they  reach  their  place  of  destination.  Instead,  therefore,  of  sending  the 
specie  directly  to  India  and  China,  as  formerly,  who  does  not  perceive  that 
it  must  now  be  sent  to  England,  the  country  upon  which  these  bills  are 
drawn,  there  to  meet  them  upon  their  arrival  at  the  place  where  they  are  to 
be  paid  ?  The  bank  consequently  becomes  the  shipper  of  the  spejcie,  to  pay 
its  bills,  in  place  of  the  merchant,  to  purchase  his  merchandise  in  the  East 
Indies.  It  is  simply  and  purely  nothing  but  a  change  of  the  destination  of 
the  sjoccie,  with  only  the  advantage  of  its  going  to  London. 

The  mode  in  which  these  bills  are  drawn  and  disposed  of  to  the  purchasers, 
having  twelve  months  to  run,  as  will  be  seen  by  a  copy  of  the  obligation  taken 
by  the  bank,  marked  No.  27,  the  committee  consider  of  doubtful  utility  to  the 
country.  The  legitimate  object  of  banks,  the  committee  believe  to  be,, ^rrtw/Z/zij- 
facilities,  notloaning  capital.  The  supplyingof  bills  appears  even  much  more 
objectionable  than  loaning  capital,  for  it  encourages  an  operation  which  com- 
mences and  ends  without  the  employment  of  any  capital  whatever,  and  is 
similar  in  their  character  to  respondentia  securities.  The  buyer  is  enabled, 
within  the  term  of  credit,  to  make  the  voyage,  dispose  of  his  goods,  and 
obtain  from  the  proceeds  the  funds  to  meet  his  obligation,  and  the  bank  to 
transmit  the  same  to  the  place  upon  which  their  bills  are  drawn,  (which  are 
at  six  months  sight,)  long  before  they  become  due.  It  would  seem  to  pro- 
duce a  greater  export  of  specie,  eventually, than  would  otherwise  take  place, 
if  the  operations  were  commenced  with  specie  and  not  with  bills  purchased 
in  the  manner  described;  for  the  merchant,  relying  upon  his  immediate  re- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  15 

sources,  would  not  engage  to  such  an  extent  in  the  business,  and  would  com- 
bine in  the  operation  much  of  the  produce  of  the  country,  whereas  relying 
upon  an  extensive  credit,  he  hazards  every  thing  on  the  success  of  the  en- 
terprise. It  is  a  species  of  speculation  in  trade,  leading  to  great  risks,  and 
certainly  terminating  in  overtrading — the  evils  of  which  the  country  is  now 
sorely  experiencing.  By  loans  of  a  similar  character  by  insurance  companies, 
providing  funds  for  traders  to  China,  Government  has  sustained  more  loss 
than  in  any  other  branches  of  trade. 

The  increase  of  the  number  of  branches  established  since  1823,  cannot  be 
passed  over  in  silence  by  the  committee,  and  deserves,  as  a  source  of  ex- 
tended influence  of  the  bank,  the  most  serious  consideration. 

In  some  few  instances,  where  new  branches  have  been  established,  per- 
haps they  may  have  been  called  for  by  the  community,  and  may  have  been 
useful  to  them  and  profitable  to  the  bank,  but,  in  most  of  the  cases,  the  com- 
mittee doubt  whether  they  were  called  for  from  public  utility,  and  their 
establishment  will,  in  the  end,  not  only  prove  unprofitable  to  the  bank, 
but  very  injurious  to  the  cpmmunities  among  which  they  are  located.  Mr. 
Cheves,  in  a  letter  of  the  27th  of  May,  1819,  to  Mr.  Crawford,  then  Se- 
cretary of  the  Treasury,  says  :  "  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  that,  with  the  pre- 
sent organization  of  the  bank,  it  can  never  be  managed  well.  fVe  have 
too  many  branches^  and  the  directors  are  frequently  governed  by  indivi- 
dual and  local  interests  and  feelings.  For  a  time,  we  must  bear  with  the 
branches,  but  I  hope  they  will  be  reduced." 

Again,  in  the  same  letter,  he  observes:  '^  the  real  and  original  evil  undef 
which  the  country  is  suffering  is  over-banking.  This  leads  to  excess  in 
trading,  manufacturing,  building,  and  speculating,  and  the  history  of  the  ill- 
judged  enterprises  which  have  been  undertaken  in  these  several  concerns, 
would  give  a  full  history  of  all  the  distresses  of  this  country,  excepting  a 
little  agricultural  distress  growing  out  of  the  inordinate  expectations  which 
the  others  excited."  These  opinions  fully  accord  with  the  views  of  the 
committee,  and  they  consider  them  as  peculiarly  applicable  to  the  present 
time,  as  exhibiting  similar  causes  now  operating  with  more  extended  force 
from  which  similar  effects  must  follow,  augmented  in  proportion  to  the  in- 
crease of  branches. 

The  stockholders,  at  the  triennial  meeting  on  the  1st  of  October,  1822, 
recommended  a  withdrawal  of  some  of  the  branches  then  existing,  in  these 
words,  "  In  taking  into  view  the  business  of  the  bank,  as  connected  with 
its  different  offices,  the  committee  think  it  right  to  recommend  to  the  conti- 
nued attention  of  the  President  and  directors,  the  necessity  of  withdrawing 
those  branches  which  are  found  to  be  unprofitable,  and  transferring  their 
funds  to  other  offices  which  shall  seem  to  require  additional  capital."  Since 
this  period  two  have  been  discontinued,  and  nine  others  have  been  esta- 
blished, as  per  triennial  report  of  1831.  These  opinions  of  Mr.  CheveSf, 
in  which  the  committee  have  concurred,  were  approved  by  the  stockhold- 
ers, as  will  appear  by  the  following  extract  from  their  same  report  in  1822. 
They  say,  "  they  take  great  pleasure  in  unanimously  declaring  that  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  bank  fully  realize  their  anticipations  as  expressed  at  their 
last  meeting  in  regard  to  the  President,  (Mr.  Gheves,)  who,  by  his  talents, 
disinterestedness,  and  assiduity,  has  placed  its  affairs  in  an  attitude  so  safe 
and  prosperous,  as  that  the  burthen  of  duty  devolving  upon  his  successor 
will  be  comparatively  light." 

The  committee  cannot  bat  ttiink  thiit,  had  the  succeeding  direction  of  the^ 


16  [  Kep,  No.  460.  ] 

bank  been  guided  more  by  the  opinions  and  wishes  of  the  stockholders,  as 
their  expressed,  and  gone  on  gradually  growing  with  the  growth,  and  in- 
creasing with  the  natural  wants  of  the  country,  great  sufferings  to  the  com- 
munity would  have  been  avoided. 

In  the  year  1819,  great  abuses  existed  in  the  branches,  of  which  Mr. 
Cheves  speaks,  without  reserve,  in  his  last  report  to  the  stockholders,  a8 
well  as  in  his  correspondence  with  Mr.  Crawford;  iand,  upon  casting  the  eye 
over  the  monthly  statements,  it  is  remarkable  to  observe  what  losses  have 
taken  place  at  the  branches  compared  with  the  mother  bank.  For  instance, 
on  the  1st  of  January  last,  the  loss  of  the  mother  bank,  on  a  capital  of  six- 
teen millions  and  a  half,  vvas,  in  round  numbers,  §328,000;  that  of  the  Bal- 
timore branch  was  $1,662,000,  on  a  capital  of  one  million  and  a  half,  so  that 
it  lost  more  than  its  capital;  that  of  the  Norfolk  branch  was  §229,000,  on 
a  capital  of  500,000,  losing  nearly  one  half  its  capital;  and  so  with  all  the 
rest  of  the  branches,  their  losses  are  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  capital, 
and  ten  times  greater  than  the  mother  bank,  according  to  the  amount  of  their 
respective  capitals.  These  losses,  however,  were  principally  incurred  prior 
to  1819.  The  proper  inference  to  be  drawn  from  these  facts,  is,  that  the 
worst  of  mismanagement  has  existed  in  the  branches. 

The  <*  Contingent  Fund"  has  claimed  the  attention  of  the  committee. 
The  object  for  which  it  was  originally  created,  and  the  original  amount  pro- 
vided, together  with  the  additional  appropriations  which  have  been  made  to 
it,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  same  have  been  applied  at  different  periods, 
will  all  be  explained  in  the  following  documents. 

The  report  of  the  board  of  directors,  in  July,  1821,  published  in  the 
gazettes  at  that  time,  marked  No.  28;  the  report  of  the  stockholders  at  the 
triennial  meeting  in  October,  1822;  the  report  of  the  Dividend  Committee, 
on  the  16th  January,  1823,  marked  No.  29;  a  statement  of  the  particulars 
of  the  debts  "considered  lost,"  marked  No.  30;  a  statement  of  the  sus- 
pended debt  and  real  estate,  with  the  probable  loss  thereon,  marked  No  31; 
the  statement  headed  "  Contingent  Fund^''^  marked  No.  32;  the  sales  of 
the  forfeited  bank  stock,  marked  No.  33;  and  the  dividend  reports  for  July, 
1829,  January  and  July,  1830,  January  and  July,  1831,  marked  No.  34. 
To  these  the  committee  refer  for  the  particulars  of  the  subjects  to  which 
they  relate,  in  connexion  with  the  **  Contingent  Fund.^^ 

The  committee  feel  it  their  duty  now  to  give  their  views  as  to  the  causes 
of  the  present  distress  in  the  trading  community,  and  which  they  fear 
may  greatly  increase.  It  is  an  acknowledged  principle  that  like  causes  in 
ALL  CASES,  TRODUCE  LIKE  EFFECTS;  and  as,  in  1819,  contraction  followed 
the  expansion  of  1817  and  1818,  so,  by  the  same  rule,  must  contraction  fol- 
low the  immense  expansion  of  1830  and  1831,  and  like  effects  and  conse- 
quences succeed.  To  illustrate  more  clearly  the  position,  and  bring  it  home 
to  the  mind  of  every  one,  the  following  table  of  the  state  of  the  bank  du- 
ring some  of  the  months  of  1818  and  19,  and  1831  and  1S32,  are  here  ex- 
hibited, embracing  the  items  from  which  direct  calls  upon  the  vaults  proceed, 
and  the  immediate  means  which  remain  to  meet  them,  viz.  The  first,  are, 
the  deposites,  circulation  and  debts  abroad,  not  on  permanent  loan.  The 
second,  the  specie,  funded  debt,  and  notes  of  other  banks.  The  amount  of 
each  will  be  found  under  their  proper  heads,  at  the  various  periods  men- 
tnoned. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


17 


a. 

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18  (  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

The  preceding  table  "fehows  that,  at  no  period  in  1819,  when  the  bank 
was  very  near  suspending  payment,  was  it  less  able  to  extend  relief  to  a  suf- 
fering commufiity  as  at  the  present  moment.  In  April  of  that  year,  the 
month  in  which  its  difficulties  were  the  greatest,  its  means  of  specie,  notes 
of  other  banks,  and  funded  debt  (which  could  have  been  turned  into  specie 
or  notes  of  other  banks)  amounted  to  upvvards  of  ten  millions  of  dollars; 
and  the  whole  demands,  which  could  come  against  it  in  the  same  month,  of 
circulation,  deposites,  and  debts  owing  abroad,  amounted  only  to  about  four- 
teen-millions.  But  the  committee  feel  bound,  in  candor  to  state,  that  this 
was  after  a  number  of  months  of  constant  contraction,  not  only  by  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  but  also  by  most  of  the  other  banking  institutions  of 
the  country,  where  a  general  exhaustion  had  been  produced.  It  was  on  the 
6th  April,  1819,  that  Mr.  Crawford,  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  writes 
to  Mr.  Cheves  thus:  "  It  is  even  doubtful  whether  it  is  practicable,  with 
all  the  exertions  which  it  is  in  your  power  to  make,  to  continue  specie  pay- 
ments through  the  year."  Under  the  same  date,  he  says,  **  My  impres- 
sion is,  that  the  safety  of  the  bank  can  only  be  effected  by  withdrawing 
nearly  the  whole  of  its  paper  in  circulation.  If  the  bank  does  this,  all 
other  solvent  banks  will  be  compelled  to  do  the  same.  When  this  is  ef- 
fected, gold  and  silver  will  be  introduced  into  the  country,  and  make  a  sub- 
stantial part  of  the  circulation,  and  enable  the  banking  institutions  gradually 
to  resume  their  accustomed  operations.  Whilst  this  is  effecting,  the  com- 
munity, in  all  its  relations,  will  be  greatly  distressed.  Considering  the  ex- 
tent of  the  suffering,  it  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  some  good  may  result 
from  it." 

The  committee  believe  that  the  course  of  operations  by  the  bank,  during 
the  years  1830  and  1831,  have  been  nearly  of  a  similar  character  to  those  of 
the  years  1817  and  1818.  Drafts  and  notes,  payable  at  distant  offices,  were 
then  freely  discounted  at  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  the  different 
offices.  Bank  notes  were  issued  by  the  bank  without  regard  to  the  wants 
of  the  community,  or  the  effect  upon  the  circulating  medium,  which  be- 
came depreciated,  driving  the  precious  metals  from  the  country;  and,  until 
the  reaction  had  operated  to  check  them,  led  to  extravagant  speculations, 
which  ended  in  ruin;  and  relief  was  not  obtained  until  the  circulation  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  had  been  reduced  to  about  4,000,000  of  dol- 
lars. Before  this  was  accomplished,  the  expedient  was  resorted  to  of  cur- 
tailing loans;  and,  while  they  were  doing  that,  they  continued  the  issue  of 
bank  notes,  thereby  continuing  the  evil  which  they  were  striving  to  avert 

What  is  the  state  of  the  Bank  now? 

On  the  1st  of  March,  (see  monthly  statement  marked  No.  35,)  the  bank 
had  ^6,800,000  specie,  ^2,840,000  notes  of  other  banks,  and  of  funded  debt 
none!!  making  an  aggregate  of  §9, 640,000  to  meet  its  circulation  of 
ig83,7 17,000,  deposites  $17,050,000,  and  foreign  debts  owing  i§l, 876,000, 
making  an  aggregate  of  ®42, 643,000;  and  this  evil  exists  while  a  reaction  or 
contraction  is  operating  to  a  considerable  extent. 

This  contraction  commenced  on  the  7th  of  October  last,  and  is  evidenced 
by  the  following  circular,  which  indicates,  beyond  all  doubt,  that  the  bank 
had  over  traded. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  19 

Circular. 

Bank  United  States, 

October 'I,  1831. 

Sir:  The  unusually  heavy  reimbursement  of  six  millions  of  funded  debt, 
which  was,  on  the  1st  instant,  advertised  by  the  Government  to  take  place 
on  the  1st  and  2d  days  of  January  next;  but  which,  according  to  a  subse- 
quent notice  from  the  Treasury  Department,  under  yesterday's  date,  may, 
it  appears,  be  demanded  of  the  bank,  by  the  public  creditors,  21  any  period  of 
the  present  quarter,  is  calculated  to  press  very  inconveniently  upon  the  par* 
ent  bank,  and  upon  the  office  at  New  \ork;  the  more  so,  from  our  uncer- 
tainty as- to  the  time  when  the  necessary  provision  must  be  made,  and  from 
the  prevailing  active  demand  for  money.  Be  pleased,  therefore,  so  to  shape 
your  business  immediately,  as  that,  without  denying  reasonable  accommoda- 
tion to  your  own  customers,  or  sacrificing  the  interest  of  your  office,  you  may 
throw,  as  early  as  possible,  a  large  amount  of  available  means  into  our  hands 
in  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  and,  at  the  same  time,  abstain,  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable, from  drawing  upon  either  of  those  points;  checks  and  short  drafts  on 
the  local  banks,  and  on  individuals,  will  prove  particularly  acceptable  for 
several  months  to  come,  and  whenever  direct  claims  of  that  kind,  on  those 
two  places  are  not  to  be  procured,  you  might  materially  aid  us  by  taking 
drafts  upon  the  large  cities  nearest  to  them. 

I  am,  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

Addressed  to  the  Cashiers  of  all  the  offices. 

Since  the  1st  of  September  last,  the  bank  has  diminished  its  means  to 
meet  the  demands  which  may  come  upon  it — 

First.   The  whole  of  the  funded  debt  which  it  then  held      S3,497,6S1  0&.- 
Second.  The  difference  between  the  specie  it  then  held  ^11,545,116  51 
And  the  amount  it  possessed  on  the  1st  April  -  -  •     6,799,753  63 


4,745,362  SS 
Making  an  aggregate  diminution  of  its  means  to  meet  its  momentary  de- 
mands, since  the  1st  of  September,  of  ^8,243,043  94,  while,  during  the 
same  period,  those  demands  have  increased  ^4,197,871  51,  viz.  the  circula- 
tion, deposites,  and  foreign  debt,  the  aggregate  of  which,  was,  on  the  1st  of 
September,  ^38,452,758  67,  and  on  the  1st  April  ^42,650,630  18.  The 
measures  and  the  effect  appear  to  be  similar  to  those  preceding  1819.  The 
extensive  discounting  of  domestic  bills  and  drafts,  payable  at  distant  branch- 
es, the  amount  being,  on  the  1st  of  April,  per  monthly  statement, 
g20,354,748  79.  The  orders  for  curtailing  at  ail  the  western  branches, 
and  the  curtailing  at  the  principal  offices  in  the  Atlantic  cities,  and  at  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  amount  of  which,  at  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  between  the  5th  day  of  January  and  the  29th  day  of  March,  is 
151,810,408  37;  at  the  office  of  New  York,  between  the  4th  day  of  January 
and  the  28th  day  of  March,  is  ^259,305  43;  at  the  office  of  Boston,  be- 
tween the  5th  daV  of  January  and  the  29th  day  of  March,  is  2^167,860  85; 
(and  that,  too,  on  a  discount  line  of  less  than  two  and  a  half  million  of  dol- 
lars;) at  the  office  of  Baltimo/e,  between  the  16th  of  January  and  the  2d  day 


20  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

of  April,  ;gl23,741  63,  and  on  a  discount  line  of  little  more  than  two  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  weekly  statement  of  those  offices  and 
the  Bunk  of  the  United  States,  marked  No.  36. 

The  most  remarkable  feature  which  presents  itself  to  the  view  of  the 
con)mittee,  connected  with  the  present  situation  of  the  bank,  and  the 
course  of  operations  upon  it  since  the  1st  of  September  last,  is  the  increase 
in  the  circulation  of  its  notes,  which  amounted,  on  the  1st  September,  to 
.;g22,399,447  52,  and  on  the  1st  April  to  S23717,44t  14,  making  the  in- 
crease of  v^l,317,993  62.  During  this  period,  the  bank  undertook  to  check 
the  exportation  of  specie  by  supplying  bills  at  such  a  rate  as  left  no  induce- 
ment for  individuals  to  ship  it;  to  do  which,  they  exhausted  all  the  fund? 
which  they  could  procure  from  every  source.  Over  g5, 000,000  were  re- 
mitted, as  per  statement  marked  No.  16,  and  still  left  them  with  a  debt  of 
more  than  $1,700,000  in  Europe  at  this  period.  The  cause  which  led  to 
that  necessity  yet  exists,  with  an  increase  to  the  extent  of  the  increase 
of  circulation,  and  but  for  a  decline  in  the  price  of  specie  in  Europe,  it 
would  still  continue  to  be  exported. 

The  committee  would  present  another  striking  analogy  between  the  situ- 
ation of  the  bank  in  April,  lS19,  and  its  present  condition.  At  the  first 
mentioned  period,  Mr.  Cheves  informed  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  that 
the  bank  could  not  pay  the  Louisiana  debt  of  three  millions,  without  nego- 
tiating a  loan  in  Europe,  and  two  millions  were  actually  borrowed  in  Europe, 
the  indulgence  of  the  Government  being  obtained  to  that  effect.  The  bank 
at  this  time  is  precijiely  in  the  same  situation;  it  has  asked  the  Government  to 
postpone  the  redemption  of  the  three  per  cents,  from  1st  of  July  to  1st  of  Oc- 
tober, and  has  assumed  the  payment  of  one  quarter's  interest  on  these  stocks, 
beting  substantially  equivalent  to  borrowing  seven  millions  of  the  Govern- 
ment's money  for  three  months. 

The  supplying  of  exchange  by  the  bank,  as  has  been  done  for  the  last  five 
months,  and  the  curtailing  of  discounts,  are  but  mere pallia/ives,  as  the  com- 
mittee fully  believe;  and  they  are  persuaded  that  no  measure  can  be  invented 
to  restore  a  sound  currency,  and  a  regular  state  of  things  generally,  and  give 
a  solid  and  pern>anent  value  to  property,  but  the  withdrawal  of  a  large  por- 
tion of  notes  now  in  circulation  by  the  bank,  which  wiil  compel  other  banks 
to  do  the  same. 

The  committee  will  liere  introduce  a  quotation  from  Mr.  Rush,  in  his 
Treasury  report  in  1S2S,  which  fully  accords  with  their  sentiments.  '*lt 
is  the  preservation  of  a  good  currency  which  can  alone  impart  stability  to 
property,  knd  prevent  those  fluctuations  in  its  value,  hurtful  alike  to  indi- 
vidual and  national  wealth."  Again,  h-e  says,  "this  advantage  the  bank 
has  secured  to  the  community,  by  conlining,  within  prudent  limits,  its  issues 
of  paper,  whereby  a  restraint  has  been  imposed  upon  excessive  importa- 
tions, which  are  thus  kept  more  withisk  the  true  wants  and  capacities  of  the 
country.'^  According  to  the  triennial  report  of  the  directors  to  the  stock- 
holders on  tlie  1st  ot  August,  1S28,  the  amount  of  circulation  then  was 
igl5,045,760  71;  and  on  the  1st  of  April  last,  as  before  stated,  it  was 
jS23,717,441  14;  presenting  the  astonishing  difference  of  ^510,671,680  43, 
inieas  than  four  years.  Can  this  be  considered,  according  to  the  sound  doc- 
trine of  Mr.  Rush,  conliiiing  its  issues  of  paper  within  prudent  limits, 
whereby  a  restraint  has  been  imposed  upon  excessive  importations?  That 
great  contractions  arv  injurious,  the  comniiitec  consider  they  have  adduced  an 
auttiority  that  cannot  well  be  doubted,andthata  great  one  is  now  in  operation 


[  Rep.  Nq.  460.  ]  21^ 

there  are  too  many  general  evidences  in  confirmation  of  the  fact,  to  be  re- 
futed. A  pai  ticular  one  will  suffice,  which  is  talcen  from  the  documents  called 
for  by  the  Senate,  and  presented  to  that  body  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury on  the  12th  day  of  March  last;  in  which  will  be  found  a  communi- 
cation from  the  President  of  the  bank,  stating  that  the  amount  of  branch 
notes  redeemed  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  at  Philadelphia,  during 
the  month  of  February  last  only,  to  be  iS726,000;  and  the  amount  redeemed, 
in  183f,  during  tlie  same  month,  was  only  iS368,910. 

In  a  letter  under  date  of  the  26th  of  March  last,  to  the  chairman  of  the 
'committee,  the  President  of  the  bank  says  "that  the  amount  of  branch 
notes  redeemed  at  the  New  York  office  during  the  year  1831,  was  «?5l3, 219,- 
635,  and  at  Philadelphia,  $5,398,800,  making  a  total  of  $1S,()18,435,  with 
an  increase  of  circulation  between  the  2d  of  February,  1831,  and  the  2d  of 
January,  1832,  of  more  than  six  millions  of  dollars,  as  per  monthly  state- 
ments, and  a  decrease  of  its  means,  between  the  2d  of  February,  1831,  and 
1st  of  April,  1832,  to  meet  immediate  demands,  of  more  than  twelve  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  viz . 

In  specie,  funded  debt,  and  notes  of  other  banks,  which,  at  the  first  named 
date,  amounted,  as  per  monthly  statements,  to  -  jS21,756,668   10 

And  the  last  to     -  -  -  -  -  9,640,000  00 


jSl2, 116,668   10 


Making,  as  just  stated,  a  diminution  in  the  active  means  immediately  ap- 
plicable to  the  extinguishment  of  its  debts,  of  considerably  more  than  half  of 
its  former  capacity,  to  effect  the  same  object. 

With  such  an  increase  of  issues,  and  the  influence  of  a  most  powerful  re- 
action now  operating  upon  the  fiscal  energies  of  the  country,  as  is  exhibited 
by  the  difference  of  the  redemption  of  branch  notes  at  the  periods  and 
places  abov^e  mentioned,  together  with  such  a  reduction  of  its  means,  to 
meet  its  engagements,  must,  we  fear,  compel  them  still  further  to  curtail 
their  accommodations. 

It  is  evident  from  the  circulars  addressed  to  the  branches,  and  correspond- 
ence with  them  since  October  last,  that  the  chief  object  of  the  bank  has 
been  to  sustain  itself.  The  statements  accompanying  this  report,  clearly 
proving  that  the  bank  has  not  increased  its  facilities  to  the  trading  commu- 
nity in  any  part  of  the  Union. 

The  Bank  of  the  United  States,  among  other  conditions  of  its  charter,  is 
bound  to  make  collections  of  the  public  revenue,  to  transfer  the  same,  or 
any  part  thereof,  from  one  point  to  another  that  may  be  required,  and  to 
make  any  and  all  payments  for  the  account  of  the  Government,  whether 
for  principal,  interest,  civil  list,  army,  navy,  pensions,  or  for  any  other 
purpose  whatever,  free  of  all  and  any  charges  for  such  services. 

For  performing  this  duty,  the*  bank  has  claimed,  and  has  received  from 
the  Treasury  Department,  and  the  country  generally,  for  some  years  past, 
merit  to  an  extent  that  could  not  have  been  surpassed  even  if  all  those  ser- 
vices it  performs  were  gratuitous.  This  and  other  circumstances  have  led 
the  committee  to  an  investigation  of  the  subject,  as  far  as  the  limited  time 
would  allow,  before  closing  their  labors,  to  see  how  far  the  bank  is  entitled 
to  the  credit  bestowed  upon  it,  and  to  what  extent  the  bank  has  aided  the 
Government  in  its  fiscal  operations  beyond  the  obligation  imposed  in  obe- 
dience to  its  charter. 


2^  [  Rep.  No.  469.  ] 

The  Government  in  its  collections  through  the  Bank  of  the  United  Stated, 
receives  nothing  but  specie  or  notes  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and 
makes  its  payments  in  nothing  else.  If  the  notes  of  State  banks  are  re- 
ceived by  the  bank  in  place  of  their  own,  it  is  a  private  matter  between 
such  banks  and  the  Bank  of  the  United  Slates,  and  one  with  which  the 
Government  does  not  concern  itself,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  is  too  watchful  and  vigilant  in  the  protection  of  its  own 
interests,  not  to  see  that  it  obtains  from  the  State  banks,  for  the  notes  thus 
taken,  specie  or  its  equivalent,  or  its  own  notes  in  exchange,  and  thereby 
be  provided  with  a  fund,  from  the  collection  of  the  revenue,  equal  in  value 
to  that  in  which  they  are  required  to  pay. 

The  largest  portion  of  the  revenue,  particularly  from  imports,  as  is  uni- 
versally known,  is  collected  in  the  Atlantic  cities,  north  of  the  Potomac. 
Those  cities  being  the  great  marts  of  supply  to  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
United  States,  and  places  to  which  remittances  centre  from  almost  every 
part  of  the  country,  creates  a  demand  for  funds  upon  them  from  nearly  evn 
ery  quarter  constantly,  and  generally  at  a  premium.  Therefore,  so  far  as 
the  bank  is  called  upon  to  transfer  funds  from  those  cities  to  other  places,  it 
becomes  a  matter  of  profit,  and  not  of  expense  to  it,  and  the  greater  the  dis^ 
tance  the  greater  the  premium;  and  the  larger  the  amount  thus  required  to 
be  transferred  by  the  Government,  and  the  greater  the  distance,  the. greater 
the  profit  and  advantage  to  the  bank. 

That  the  bank  has  aided  the  Government  thus  far,  the  committee  are  una- 
ble to  discover,  or  that  they  are  under  any  obligations  to  the  bank  for  those 
services,  they  are  also. at  a  loss  to  imagine.  How  far  the  bank  has  aided 
the  Government  in  its  fiscal  operations,  as  it  claims  to  have  done,  will  be 
seen  by  a  communication  from  the  President  of  the  bank  to  this  committee, 
hereafter  adverted  to  in  another  part  of  this  report;  and  also  in  a  report  of 
the  committee  of  the  stockholders  at  the  triennial  meeting  on  the  1st  Sep- 
tember, 1831,  in  the  following  words:  *'That  the  bank,  through  the  whole 
course  of  its  operations,  has  effectually  assisted  the  1  reasury  in  the  collec- 
tion and  distribution  of  the  public  revenue,  and  that,  of  late  years,  it  has 
been  signally  efficient  in  preventing  the  discharge  of  the  public  debt  from 
disturbing  the  operations  of  commerce,  or  the  value  of  pecuniary  invest- 
ments." 

Now,  the  committee  are  notable  to  discover  upon  what  principles  the  fore- 
going declaration  is  made.  By  referring  to  the  correspondence,  in  1S19, 
between  the  then  President  of  the  bank,  and  the  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  the  committee  discover  that  the  bank  was  then  applying  to  the 
Treasury  Department  to  aid  it  in  its  operations,  and  was  receiving  all  that  it 
could  promise. 

On  the  20th  March,  1S19,  the  President  of  the  bank  closes  a  communi- 
cation to  the  then  Secr^tar}-,  Mr.  Crawford,  thus:  *'  I  have  ventured  to  trou- 
ble you  with  those  views,  with  the  hope  that  you  will  pardon  the  liberty, 
and  with  the  conviction  that  if  you  can  serve  this  institution  in  any  of  them 
which  you  shall  deem  consistent  with  th;e  public  good,  you  will  feel  a  plea- 
sure in  doing  so."  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  closing  his  answer 
under  date  of  the  27th  March,  1819,  says,  "every  facility  which  it  is  in 
the  power  of  this  department  to  afford  the  bank,  in  its  efforts  to  support 
specie  payments,  and  restore  the  currency  to  a  natural  state,  may  be  confi- 
elently  relied  upon  " 

By  a  roferenee  to  a  statement  of  the  public  deposites  in  the  Bank  of  the 


[  Eep.  No.  460.  ]  '  23 

United  States  each  month,  from  March.  ISIS,  to  March,  1832,  inclusive, 
marked  No.  31,  it  will  be  seen  that,  from  the  1st  of  January,  1823,  up  to 
the  month  of  March,  1832,  there  has  been  only  one  period,  (November 
1825,)  when  the  public  deposites  did  not  exceed  four  millions  of  dollars^  in 
the  hands  of  the  bank,  and  they  frequently  amounted  to  eight,  nine,  ten, 
and  eleven,  and,  on  one  occasion,  to  twelve  millions  of  dollars. 

By  reference  to  document  marked  No.  38,  it  will  be  found  that,  since  the 
month  of  March,  1824,  at  all  the  different  periods  immediately  following 
the  redemption  by  the  Government  of  portions  of  its  funded  debt,  there  is 
no  one  time  when  the  bank  was  not  left  with  more  than  one  million  and  a 
half  of  dollars  of  public  deposites;  and,  in  many  instances,  with  four  and  five 
millions,  which  sums  were,  immediately  after,  increasing  by  the  constant 
accumulated  collection  of  the  public  revenue. 

The  bank,  as  it  collects  the  revenue,  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  that  it 
will  be  called  upon  by  the  Government  to  reimburse  it,  and,  in  all  cases  of 
redemption  of  the  funded  debt,  three  months'  notice  is  given  by  the  Treasu- 
ry of  such  intention.  With  such  notice,  and  with  proper  management  on 
the  part  of  the  bank,  the  committee  cannot  see  that  either  the  Government 
requires  any  aid,  or  that  the  community  can  be  affected  by  the  course  of  the 
operation. 

The  bank  has  its  legitimate  banking  capital  with  which  to  do  its  regular 
business,  and  accommodate  the  community.  As  it  collects  the  public  re- 
venue, it  is  enabled  both  to  avail  itself  of  the  advantage  of  employing  it  to 
its  own  benefit,  and  the  accommodatian  of  the  commercial  community  who 
principally  contribute  to  its  payment^  by  commencing  the  discounting  of 
business  paper,  payable  within  or  about  the  time  they  know  they  will  be 
called  upon  to  make  the  payments  on  account  of  the  Government;  and,  as 
they  gradually  approach  that  period,  they  must  also  shorten  the  period 
which  the  business  paper  has  to  run,  until  they  arrive  at  the  time  the  call 
from  Government  is  made  upon  them;  when  the  business  paper  will 
have  been  paid  off,  the  bank  then  pays  the  Government,  and  the  Govern- 
ment immediately  again  circulates  it  among  the  community. 

The  operation,  as  thus  described,  appears  to  the  committee  too  plain  and 
simple  to  require  any  further  illustration;  and  if  the  principle  is  sound,  and 
has  been  acted  upon  by  the  bank,  they  cannot  discover  in  what  manner  the 
operations  of  commerce  could  have  been  disturbed,  or  the  value  of  pecunia- 
ry investments  have  been  affected  by  the  payment  of  the  public  debt  by  the 
Government. 

But  if  the  bank  has,  as  the  public  revenue  has  accumulated  to  the  credit 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  gone  on  discounting  upon  it,  or  loaning  itout^ 
disregarding  the  period  when  they  would  be  called  upon  to  reimburse  it^ 
tlie  committee  can  readily  perceive  that,  when  that  order  arrived,  they 
would  be  found  not  only  deficient  in  preparation,  but  in  a  state  of  surprise,  and 
that  the  payments  would  first  embarrass  the  bank,  and  then  lead  it  to  press 
and  embarrass  the  commercial  community. 

From  the  observations  made,  and  the  examination  of  documents  during 
the  course  of  this  investigation,  the  committee  have  strong  reason  to  ap- 
prehend that  the  course  pursued  by  the  bank  has  been  upon  this  latter  prin- 
ciple.    If  so,  the  bank  has  incurred  a  high  responsibility. 

The  committee  believing  the  subject  of  the  late  postponement  of  a  por- 
tion of  the  3  per  cent,  stocks,  intended,  as  they  understood,  to  have  been 
paid  on  the  Ist  July  by  the  Government,  to  be  within  the  province  of  their 


24  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

inquiries.  And  believing,  also,  that  it  had  a  strong  connection  with  the  pre- 
sent state  and  situation  of  the  aff^iirs  of  the  bank,  and  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
abling them  to  form  a  correct  and  true  opinion  upon  that  subject,  they  made 
a  call  upon  the  President  of  the  bank  for  the  correspondence  in  relation  to 
the  postponement  of  that  payment  in  the  following  words:  "  will  you  please 
give  a  copy  of  the  correspondence  connected  with  your  application  in 
March  last,  requesting  a  suspension,  by  the  Government,  of  the  payment  of 
a  portion  of  its  debt  intended  to  have  been  made  on  the  1st  July  next,  or  a 
statement  of  the  arrangement  made  in  relation  to  that  subject;'^  which 
correspondence  was  communicated  by  the  President  of  the  bank,  with  the 
following  remarks: 

**  I  have  made  no  application  to  the  Government,  nor  have  I  requested  any 
suspension  of  the  payment  of  any  portion  of  the  public  debt. 

*'  The  inquiry,  I  suppose,  relates  to  this  circumstance:  I  received  a  let- 
ter from  the  acting  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  dated  the  24th  March,  1S32, 
informing  me  that  Government  was  about  to  issue  a  notice  on  the  1st  April, 
of  their  intention  to  pay,  on  the  first  July  next,  one  half  of  the  three  per 
cent,  stock,  and  to  do  it  by  paying  to  each  stockholder  one  half  of  the  amount 
of  his  certificate.     He  added, 

<<  If  any  objection  occurs  to  you  either  as  to  the  amount  or  mode  of  pay- 
ment,  I  will  thank  you  to  suggest  it.^' 

**  Thus  invited  by  the  Government,  in  a  communication  marked  "confi- 
dential," to  give  my  opinions  on  a  measure  contemplated  by  the  Government, 
I  felt  it  my  duty  to  express  my  views  of  its  probable  operation;  in  my  reply, 
therefore,  dated  29th  of  March,  I  stated  *  that,  so  far  as  the  bank  is  concerned, 
no  objection  occurs  to  me,  it  being  sufficient  that  the  Government  has  the  ne- 
cessary amount  of  funds  in  the  bank  to  make  the  contemplated  payments.' 
I  then  proceeded  to  observe,  that,  in  the  present  situation  of  the  commercial 
community,  and  with  a  very  large  amount  of  revenue^  (amounting  to  nine 
millions,)  to  be  paid  before  the  1st  of  July,  the  debtors  of  the  Government 
would  require  all  the  forbearance,  and  all  the  aid  that  could  be  given  them  ; 
and  that  the  payment  proposed,  by  creating  a  demand  for  the  remittance  of 
several  millions  of  dollars  to  European  stockholders,  would  tend  to  diminish 
the  usual  facilities  afforded  to  the  debtors  of  the  Government,  and  might  en- 
danger the  punctual  payment.  For  this  reason,  I  thought  it  for  the  interest 
of  the  Government  to  postpone  the  payment  till  the  next  quarter.  I  further 
stated  that  the  plan  of  paying  to  each  stockholder  only  one  half  of  his  loan, 
would  not  be  so  acceptable  as  if  his  whole  loan  were  repaid  at  once. 

"  Having  thus  performed  my  duty  in  giving  the  opinion  asked,  I  left  it,  of 
course,  to  the  Government  to  decide.  On  the  part  of  the  bank,  I  sought 
nothing,  I  requested  nothing.  After  weighing  the  circumstances,  the  Go- 
vernment were  desirous  of  adopting  the  measure,  but  the  difficulty  I  under- 
stood to  be  this:  that  the  sinking  fund  would  lose  the  quarter's  interest,  from 
July  to  October,  of  the  sum  intended  to  be  paid  in  July;  and  that  the  Go- 
vernment did  not  feel  itself  justified  in  making  the  postponement,  unless 
that  interest  could  be  saved,  but  that  it  would  be  made,  provided  the  bank 
would  make  the  sinking  fund  whole  on  the  1st  October.  To  this!  said,  that, 
as  the  bank  would  have  the  use  of  the  fund  during  the  three  months,  it 
would  consent  to  save  the  sinking  fund  harmless,  by  paying  the  three  months' 
interest  itself;  and  so  the  matter  stands. 

"Now  it  will  be  seen,  that  the  bank,  in  all  this,  has  had  not  the  least 
agency,  except  to  offer  its  opinion,  when  it  was  asked,  in  regard  to  a  mea* 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  25 

sure  proposed  by  the  Government;  and  then  to  oiTcr  its  aid  in  carrying  that 
measure  into  operation." 

The  committee  cannot  discover  any  ability  which  the  b.-ink  possesses,  or 
will  j)ossess,  to  give  increased  aid  to  the  public  debtors  in  the  payment  of 
the  nine  millions  of  dollars  falling  due  (as  is  said)  in  the  quarter  ending  with 
the  1st  of  July;  but,  on  the  contrary,  they  believe  that  such  is  the  situation 
of  the  bank  now,  and  such  will  be  the  demands  which  it  will  be  called  upon 
to  meet,  that  it  will  require  the  aid  of  all  the  accumulated  collections  for 
the  Government,  to  sustain  itself.  The  committee  are  fully  of  opinion,  that, 
though  the  bank  neither  ^*  sought"  for,  nor  <<  requested"  a  postponement  of 
the  payment  by  the  Government,  as  stated  in  the  declaration  of  the  presi- 
dent, yet  if  such  postponement  had  not  have  been  made,  the  bank  would 
not,  on  the  1st  of  July,  have  possessed  the  ability  to  have  met  the  demand, 
without  causing  a  scene  of  great  distress  in  the  commercial  community. 

The  committee  are  unable  to  discover  in  what  manner  the  bank  could 
afford  to  aid  the  Government  in  carrying  into  effect  the  measure  they  pro- 
posed, which  the  president  of  the  bank,  in  his  remarks,  speaks  of  having 
proffered  to  them.  All  that  the  Government  could  ask  of  the  bank  on  the 
1st  of  July,  or  at  any  other  time,  would  be,  to  pay  over  to  them  the  amount 
it  had  collected  for  their  account,  when  they  wished  to  employ  it — the  same 
as  a  principal  would  call  upon  his  agent  to  pay  to  him  moneys  which  he  had 
collected  for  his  benefit. 

By  document  marked  No.  39,  it  would  appear,  that,  on  the  13th  day 'of 
March  last,  the  bank  w^as  aware  of  the  intention  of  the  Government  to  pay 
off,  during  the  year,  a  great  portion  of  the  3  per  cent,  stocks;  and  the  sub- 
ject of  making  an  arrangement  with  the  holders,  was,  on  that  day,  referred, 
by  a  resolution  of  the  board,  as  follows: 

Resolved^  That  the  subject  of  the  communication  just  made  by  the  presi- 
dent, be  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Exchange,  with  authority  to  make, 
on  behalf  of  the  bank,  whatever  arrangement  with  the  holders  of  the  3  per 
cent,  stocks  of  the  United  States,  may,  in  their  opinion,  best  promote  the 
convenience  of  the  public,  and  the  interests  of  this  institution. 

This  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the  board,  nearly  two  weeks  before  they 
were  officially  informed  of  the  intention,  by  the  Government,  to  make  the 
proposed  payment  on  the  1st  of  July,  demonstrates  fully,  to  the  minds  of 
the  committee,  an  acknowledgment,  on  the  part  of  the  administration  of  the 
bank,  of  its  inability  to  meet  the  demands  which  the  contemplated  payments 
of  the  Government  3  per  cents,  would  bring  upon  it,  without  producing  the 
distress  before  alluded  to. 

In  a  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  from  the  president  of  the 
bank,  dated  the  29th  March,  1832,  marked  No.  40,  is  the  following:  <<  Ow- 
ing to  a  variety  of  causes,  but  mainly  to  the  greatamount  of  duties  payable  for 
the  last  few  months,  there  has  been  a  pressure  upon  the  mercantile  classes, 
who  have  been  obliged  to  make  very  great  efforts  to  comply  with  their  en- 
gagements to  the  Government.  That  pressure  still  continues,  and  it  may  be 
prolonged  by  the  same  cause — the  amount  of  duties  still  payable  during  the 
next  three  months;  this  state  of  things  seem  to  recommend  all  the  forbear- 
ance and  indulgence  to  the  debtors  which  can  be  safely  conceded.  The  in- 
convenience, then,  of  the  proposed  measure  is,  that  the  repayment  of  six  or 
seven  millions  of  dollars,  more  than  half  of  which  is  held  in  Europe,  may 
create  a  demand  for  the  remittance  of  these  funds,  which  would  operate  in- 
juriously on  the  community,  and,  by  abridging  the  facilities  which  the 
4 


86  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

debtors  of  the  Government  are  in  the  habit  of  receiving  from  the  bank,  may 
endanger  the  punctual  payment  of  the  revenue,  as  the  bank  would  necessa- 
rily be  obliged  to  commence  early  its  preparations  for  the  reimbursement  of 
SO  large  an  amount  of  public  debt. 

"  My  impression,  therefore,  is,  tbat  with  a  view  to  the  safe  and  punctual 
payment  of  the  public  revenue,  the  Government  would  be  benefitted  by 
postponing  the  proposed  payment  of  the  public  debt  to  another  quarter,  by 
which  time  the  country  will  sustain  less  inconvenience  from  demands  on 
foreign  account." 

The  committee  are  obliged  to  dissent  from  the  views  expressed  by  the 
president  in  the  foregoing  extract.  The  committee  cannot  believe  that  the 
pressure  which  has,  and  which  continues  to  exist  since  October  last,  is  attri- 
butable ^^  mainly  to  the  f^reat  amount  of  duties  payable  for  the  last  few 
TnonthsJ^  The  committee  believe  the  operations  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  offices  in  Brltimore,  New  York,  and  Boston, 
(the  four  principal  places  where  bonds  are  payable,)  during  the  last  quarter, 
furnish  evidence  to  the  contrary.  By  a  reference  to  the  weekly  statements 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  offices  at  Baltimore,  New  York,  and 
Boston,  from  July,  1831,  to  April,  1S32,  marked  No.  ^Q,  it  will  be  seen, 
that  the  amount  of  reductions  on  discounts  and  loans  at  those  four  largest 
commercial  cities,  during  the  last  quarter,  taking  the  maximum  amount  in 
January  last,  and  ending  on  the  1st  of  April,  is  §2,498,489  76,  or,  in  round 
numbers,  two  millions  and  a  half  of  dollars.  This  reduction  by  the  bank  and 
its  branches,  has  probably  compelled  a  similar  reduction  on  the  part  of  the 
State  institutions,  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  their  loans  in  each  of  those 
places.  In  this,  and  in  this  alone,  the  committee  are  fully  persuaded  is  to 
be  found  the  true  secret  of  the  pressure  which  has  existed,  and  does  still  ex- 
ist, operating  upon  the  commercial  community. 

That  this  pressure  will  continue  for  some  time  to  come,  the  committee 
fear;  for  the  expansion  has  been  so  great,  that  the  contraction  which  is  now 
in  operation,  cannot,  in  the  opinion  of  the  committee,  be  effectually  checked 
or  controlled,  without  a  necessary  curtailment  of  discounts. 

If  the  bank  possessed  the  ability  to  sustain  itself  without  curtailing  its 
discounts,  the  revenue  falling  due  the  present  quarter  might  be  collected, 
and  facilities  granted  during  the  time,  upon  the  principle  before  pointed 
out,  to  the  commercial  community,  and  disbursed  again  by  the  Government, 
w^ithout  any  inconvenience  being  caused  by  the  operation.  But  such  abili- 
ty the  committee  are  well  satisfied  the  bank  does  not  possess,  nor  can  it  at 
present  command.  Besides  the  diminished  means  of  the  bank  previously 
alluded  to,  through  the  loss  of  five  millions  of  its  specie,  its  foreign  ex- 
change and  other  resources,  one  of  the  great  difficulties  under  which  it  now 
labors  in  paying  the  public  debt,  is  its  being  compelled  to  receive  the  public 
revenue  in  the  Atlantic  ports,  in  a  currency,  to  wit,  branch  notes  and  drafts 
of  the  western  offices,  not  promptly  convertible,  and  to  pay  the  public  debt 
in  current  money. 

Without  a  large  abridgment  of  the  usual  accommodations,  which  will,  of 
course,  greatly  distress  the  community,  the  committee  are  under  the 
strongest  conviction  that  it  will  be  little  better  able  to  meet  the  pressure 
the  Government  payments  will  cause  on  the  1st  of  October,  than  they 
would  have  been  on  the  1st  of  July.  The  words  of  Mr.  Crawford,  in 
a  letter  dated  6th  of  April,  1819,  lo  the  president  of  the  bank,  the 
committee   consider  peculiarly  appropriate  here  to   introduce.      *^  Pallia- 


[  Rep.  No.  4G0.  ]  27 


atibns  may  prolong  the  existing  embarrassments,  and,  by  exciting  the  hopes 
and  fears  of  the  community,  aggravate  the  existing  evils,  but  cannot  in- 
fluence the  final  result.'' 

In  another  letter,  dated  the  9th  of  April,  1819,  to  the  same  gentleman, 
he  says:  '^  Banks,  in  order  to  secure  specie  payments,  must  approximate 
their  circulation  and  individual  deposites  to  a  sum  justly  proportioned  to  the 
amount  of  specie  in  their  vaults.  Any  thing  short  of  this,  will  keep  them  in 
a  precarious  state,  and  postpone  the  period  when  banking  operations  can  be 
safely  prosecuted  upon  ordinary  principles." 

When  an  institution,  with  investments  amounting  to  seventy-five  millions, 
commanding  the  foreign  and  domestic  exchange  of  the  country,  monopoliz- 
ing the  Government  deposites,  cannot,  at  the  moment  when  we  are  export- 
ing our  annual  crop  of  cotton,  amounting,  by  the  admission  of  the  president 
of  the  bank,  to  twenty  millions  of  dollars,  (but  really  nearer  thirty,)  trans- 
fer a  few  millions  of  its  funds  abroad  to  pa}^  the  Government  debt,  without 
embarrassing  its  operations,  and  serious!}^  distressing  traders,  is  there  not 
reason  to  believe  that  its  business  has  been  too  much  and  too  rapidly  ex- 
tended? 

In  the  late  letter  of  the  president  of  the  bank  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  of  the  29th  March  last,  there  is  the  following  postscript:  "As 
an  illustration  of  the  effect  of  the  measures  I  have  suggested,  I  may  men- 
tion that,  in  the  month  of  February  last,  the  collector  of  New  York,  with  a 
laudable  anxiety  to  protect  the  public  revenue,  applied  to  the  bank  to  au 
tliorize  an  extension  of  loans  in  that  city,  in  order  to  assist  the  debtors  ta 
the  Government.  This  was  prompty  done;  this  I  should  desire  to  do  again, 
as  the  payments  to  the  Government  during  the  next  quarter  will  probably 
be  very  large." 

Upon  a  reference  to  the  weekly  statement  of  the  office  at  New  York, 
from  July,  1831,  to  April,  1832,  before  alluded  to,  the  committee  find  no 
aggregate  increase  of  loans;  but,  on  the  contrary,  they  find  that  there  has 
been  a  reduction  in  the  amount,  viz.  the  amount  on  the  29th  February  be- 
ing less  than  on  the  2d  and  the  8th  days  of  the  same  month,  and  ^140,000 
less  on  the  28th  day  of  March,  than  on  the  29th  day  of  February  previous. 

By  examining  the  statement  No.  36,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  total  amount 
of  discounts  at  the  New  York  branch,  between  the  4th  of  October,  1831, 
and  the  28th  of  March,  1832,  were  actually  diminished  g468,447  17,  while, 
during  the  same  time,  the  bonds  paid  at  that  port  amounted  to  between  nine 
and  ten  millions  of  dollars. 

The  committee,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  precise  manner  in  which  the 
annual  election  of  directors  has  been  conducted,  called,  at  an  early  period  of 
the  investigation,  for  the  following  document,  viz.  "A  statement  of  the 
number  of  votes  given  at  each  annual  election  of  directors  since  that  of  1823, 
the  whole  number  of  votes  given,  the  number  given  in  person,  and  the  num- 
ber given  by  proxy,  and,  in  the  latter  case,  by  whom;"  which  statement  was 
not  furnished  the  committee,  but  the  statement,  marked  No.  41,  was  furnish- 
ed. This  shows  the  whole  number  of  proxies  to  be  4,533,  of  which  the 
president  holds,  exclusively,  1,436,  and,  as  a  trustee  in  conjunction  with 
others,  1,684,  which  gives  him,  without  intending  to  impugn  the  exercise 
of  the  power,  decidedly  a  preponderating  control  in  the  election  of  directors — 
a  power  which  was  never  contemplated  by  the  charter.  So  far  from  it,  that 
instrument,  as  well  as  subsequent  laws  passed  by  Congress,  have  studiously 
endeavored  to  prevent  the  very  mischief  which  this  accumulation  of  proxies 


:S8  [  Eep.  No.  460.  J 

in  the  hands  of  one  person  is  most  obviously  calculated  to  produce.  The 
charter  has  limited  the  votes  of  the  largest  stockholder,  no  matter  what  may- 
be the  number  of  shares,  to  the  number  of  thirty,  clearly  with  a  view  to 
prevent  the  whole  affairs  of  the  bank  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  few 
individuals.  It  is  too  powerful  an  engine  to  be  controlled  by  one  man  alone, 
and  this  must  be  apparent  to  the  good  sense  of  every  one;  yet,  notwithstand- 
ing this  restriction,  by  the  use  of  proxies,  individuals,  with  little  or  no  im- 
mediate interest,  can  perform  what  those  possessing  a  direct  and  deep  inte- 
rest are  prohibited  from  doing.  Connected  with  this  subject,  there  is  one 
which  ought  not  to  go  unnoticed.  The  charter  positively  requires  twenty- 
five  directors:  for  some  years  past,  as  appears  by  the  list  of  directors,  marked 
No.  42,  there  have  been  but  twenty-four — the  president  of  the  bank  holding 
the  appointment  from  the  Government  and  the  stockholders  at  the  same  time. 

The  majority  of  the  committee  cannot  pass  over  mentioning  the  subject 
of  the  sums  paid  for  printing.  By  reference  to  a  statement  furnished  the 
Senate  in  iMarch  last,  it  will  be  seen  that,  from  the  period  of  the  establish- 
ment of  the  bank,  after  the  year  1817,  up  to  the  year  1829,  the  sum  paid  for 
printing,  in  any  one  year,  has  not  exceeded  B867  19;  and,  in  some  years,  it 
has  been  reduced  as  low  as  iSl24  and  ^165  50.  But,  in  1830,  the  amount 
is  swelled  to  the  sum  of  $6,162  54;  and,  in  1831,  to  $9,187  94.  In  the 
year  1817,  the  year  in  which  the  bank  was  established  and  went  into  opera- 
tion, and  consequently  a  greater  expense  wat;  incurred,  the  expense  for 
printing  was  g3,226   15. 

What  circumstances  occurred  or  existed  during  the  years  1830  and  '31,  to 
require  such  an  unusual  increase  in  this  branch  of  expense  over  the  preceding 
years,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  its  business,  the  committee  have  been  unable 
to  discover,  though  they  called  for  the  accounts  under  this  head  of  expendi- 
ture, but  have  not  yet  received  them.  In  the  same  document  is  contained  the 
sums  paid  to  ^'attorneys,"  annually,  since  the  establishment  of  the  bank. 
This  subject,  owing  to  their  limited  time,  the  committee  were  unable  to  in- 
vestigate. Sufficient,  however,  came  to  their  knowledge  to  justify  the  be- 
lief that  the  sums  returned  as  having  been  paid  to  <*  attorneys,''  embrace  only 
what  was  paid  to  them  in  that  distinct  character;  that  the  sums  paid  to  so* 
licitors  and  coimsellors  for  the  bank,  aie  not  in  the  amount  given. 

The  committee  addressed  the  following  inquiry  to  the  president  of  the 
bank,  believing  that  it  involved  a  fact  which  will  be  useful  to  Congress  in 
its  future  legislation  on  the  subject  of  its  charter. 

*<Did  Mr.  Ellsworth,  or  any  one  else  of  the  State  of  Connecticut,  as  as- 
sessor of  taxes  of  that  State,  write  to  request  you  to  give  him  a  list  of  stock- 
holders belonging  to  that  State  for  the  purpose  of  taxing  them  according  to 
a  law  thereof?" 

The  president  replied:  <' In  December,  1829,  Henry  L.  Ellsworth,  of 
Hartford,  in  Connecticut,  addressed  a  letter  to  m.e,  requesting  to  be  furnish- 
ed with  a  list  of  the  stockholders  of  the  bank  residing  in  Connecticut,  for 
the  purpose  of  taxing  the  stock.  The  request  was  declined,  for  reasons 
■which  will  appear  in  the  correspondence  hereto  annexed;"  to  which  the 
committee  refer,  marked  No.  43. 

The  committee,  in  calling  for  various  statements,  have  collected  a  num- 
ber of  useful  documents  not  referrible  to  any  particular  head,  but,  as  contain- 
ing a  massf  of  useful  information,  they  present  them  to  the  House,  subject  to 
their  f.iture  order,  and,  if  found  necessary,  to  be  appended  to  this  report, 
when  it,  togetlier  wirii  the  papers  to  which  it  refers,  shall  be  published. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  29 

The  committee  feel  authorized  to  slaie  that  they  have  not  been  able  to 
give,  even  the  parent  bank,  that  investigation  which  its  extensive  opera- 
tions deserve^  much  less  the  branches, — in  some  of  which  there  have  been 
subjects  of  complaint,  but  which  they  have  been  compelled  to  abandon  for 
the  want  of  time. 

The  committee  that  investigated  the  affairs  of  the  bank  in  1S19,  when 
it  had  been  but  two  years  in  operation,  with  its  business  much  less  extended 
than  at  present,  were  engaged,  as  it  would  seem  from  the  records  of  that 
day,  from  the  30th  of  November  to  the  16th  of  January,  before  they  re- 
ported, and  then  they  had  not  made  as  thorough  an  examination  as  the 
transactions  of  the  institution  seemed  to  require.  At  the  present  time,  with 
a  greatly  enlarged  business  of  sixteen  years'  accumulation,  and  twenty-five 
branches,  whose  operations  have  been  charged  with  signal  instances  of  irre- 
gularity, the  bank  requires  a  much  more  minute  examination  than  the  com- 
mittee have  been  able  to  give  it. 

There  have  been  many  statements  called  for,  which  the  business  of  the 
bank,  and  the  shortness  of  the  time  allowed  for  the  investigation,  would 
not  admit  to  be  furnished.  The  committee  were  particularly  desirous  of 
ascertaining  how  far  the  payment  of  the  public  debt,  and  throughout  the 
whole  term  of  the  existence  of  the  bank,  affected  its  operations,  and  called 
for  all  the  resolutions  and  correspondence  relating  to  that  subject  since  1817, 
but  have  only  received  such  as  related  to  the  three  per  cent,  loan,  and  the 
circular  of  the  7th  of  October  last. 

On  the  subject  of  specie  payments,  domestic  and  foreign  exchange,  in- 
vestments in  public  debt,  by  the  bank,  in  1824  and  1825,  and  its  ability  to 
make  loans  to  the  Government,  the  influence  of  the  operations  of  the  bank 
upon  trade, — on  the  increase  of  the  paper  circulation  of  the  bank, — its 
agency  in  diminishing  or  enlarging  the  circulation  of  local  banks,  and  the 
means  of  permanenily  regulating  our  general  circulation,  so  as  to  prevent 
its  injurious  efiects  upon  the  trade  and  currency  of  the  country — all  matters 
of  vital  importance  in  the  re-organization  of  the  bank;  concerning  which, 
the  committee  submitted  a  number  of  inquiries  to  the  president  of  the 
bank,  who  has  not  been  able,  from  the  press  of  his  other  indispensable  du- 
ties, to  answer;  and  which  queries  are  appended  to  this  report.  The  inves- 
tigations, however,  which  have  been  made,  imperfect  as  they  were,  fully 
justify  the  committee  in  saying  that  the  bank  ought  not,  at  present,  to  be 
rechartered. 

It  is  obvious,  from  the  statements  submitted,  and  the  correspondence 
with  the  Treasury  concerning  the  public  debt,  and  the  fluctuations  of  the 
revenues  of  Government,  that  these  have  hitherto  essentially  affected  the 
general  circulation  and  operations  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  It 
would,  therefore,  seem  to  your  committee  to  be  most  judicious  not  to  act 
upon  the  question  of  re  chartering  that  institution,  or  of  chartering  any 
other  national  bank,  until  the  public  debt  shall  have  been  paid  off,  and  the 
public  revenue  shall  have  been  adjusted  to  the  measure  of  our  federal  ex- 
penditures. 


30  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

QUESTIONS    SUBMITTED    TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OP   THE    BANK  OP   THE  UNITED 
STATES,    BY  MR.   CAMBRELENG. 

Examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  on  the 
question  of  the  restoration  of  specie  payments  on  the  20th  of  Februa- 
ry, 1817,  a7id  the  agency  of  the  bank  in  accomplishing  that  object, 

1.  What,  in  your  opinion,  were  the  causes  which  enabled  the  banks  to 
resume  specie  payments  in  February,  1SI7? 

2.  Are  not  specie  payments,  and  a  specie  currency,  naturally  restored  in 
every  country  upon  the  return  of  peace  and  confidence,  after  trade  has  re- 
covered from  the  shock  of  the  first  reaction,  where  gold  and  silver  are  the 
only  lawful  tender,  and  where  banks  are  required  to  redeem  their  notes  in 
specie? 

3.  Suppose  that  specie  was,  in  January,  1815,  15  percent.  hig;her  than 
New  York  bank  notes,  and  that  it  fell  when  we  received  the  intelligence  of 
peace  to  2  per  cent,  premium;  what,  in  your  opinion,  produced  the  fall  in 
the  price  of  specie? 

4.  Supposing  specie  to  have  risen  in  October,  1815,  to  16  per  cent.,  and, 
in  January,  1S16,  to  20  per  cent,  in  New  York:  to  what  cause  would  you 
attribute  that  rise? 

5.  Would  not  the  heavy  importations  necessarily  flowing  into  the  country 
to  supply  a  market  exhausted  by  a  three  years'  war,  have  a  tendency  to 
raise  the  price  of  specie? 

6.  Suppose  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  directed  the  revenues 
of  the  country  to  be  received  in  Treasury  notes,  or  in  the  notes  of  such 
banks  as  would  exchange  their  paper  for  Treasury  notes;  what  effect,  in 
your  opinion,  would  it  have  upon  the  currency? 

7.  Supposing  the  notes  of  the  Baltimore  banks  to  be  20  per  cent,  below 
the  value  of  the  specie  paying  banks  of  Boston,  would  not  such  a  Treasury- 
order  substitute  the  depreciated  paper  o>  Baltimore  for  a  sound  currency, 
and  necessarily  raise  the  premium  on  specie,  and  was  not  that  order  the 
principal  cause  of  the  rise  of  specie  in  1815  and  1816? 

8.  Suppose  that  the  Government  negotiated  a  loan  after  the  war,  receiv- 
able in  Baltimore  bank  notes,  was  not  this  another  cause  which  produced 
the  rise  in  specie,  and  would  not  such  a  negotiation  also  affect  the  currency 
unfavorably? 

9.  What  was  there  to  prevent  the  State  banks  from  resuming  specie  pay- 
ments in  November,  1816,  when  specie,  in  New  York,  was  at  13  per  cent, 
premium,  being  1  percent,  lower  than  it  was  in  February,  1817,  when 
specie  payments  were  actually  resumed? 

10.  Had  they  disposed  of  their  Government  stocks,  could  not  the  banks 
have  resumed  specie  payments  at  any  time  after  November,  1816,  and  with 
facility? 

11.  Did  not  Congress  adopt  a  resloution,  on  the  30th  April,  1816,  re- 
quiring specie  payments  for  Government  dues,  and  was  not  the  bank  the 
agent  of  the  Treasury  in  executing  it? 

12.  Was  not  that  resolution  ^enforced  by  the  Government  with  a  revenue 
at  that  time  amounting  to  30  or  40  millions,)  the  immediate  cause  of  an 
earlier  resumption  of  specie  payments? 

13.  Suppose  that  the  experience  of  England  corresponded  with  our  own 
after  the  war,  and  that  the  price  of  gold  sunk  below  the  mint  price  four  and 
a  half  pence  per  ounce,  to  what  cause  would  you  att>ribute  that  fall? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  Si 

14.  Did  nat  the  Bank  of  England  notes,  which  had  been,  in  1814,  twen- 
ty-five per  cent,  below  the  value  of  gold,  rise,  in  1815,  to  within  two  and  a 
half  per  cent,  of  their  par  value? 

15.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  England  give  notice,  on  the  first  day  of  January, 
1817,  that  it  would  pay  off  a  million  sterling,  and  did  not  it  actually  com- 
mence paying  in  specie? 

16.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  England,  in  October,  1817,  give  a  further  notice 
that  it  would  pay  in  specie  all  its  notes  dated  prior  to  1817? 

17.  Did  it  not  continue  to  pay  in  specie,  although  the  restriction  act  had 
been  continued  by  Parliament  till  the  5th  of  January,  1819,  and  did  not  the 
bank  pay,  from  the  1st  of  January,  1817,  to  the  first  of  January,  1819, 
^6',75o,000  sterling  in  specie? 

IS.  Was  not  this  second  attempt  of  the  Bank  of  England  to  resume  specie 
payments  defeated  by  Parliament  in  prohibiting  them  from  paying  their  notes 
in  specie? 

19.  In  resuming  specie  payments  the  third  time,  did  not  the  bank  com- 
mence one  year  before  the  period  required  by  Mr.  Peel's  bill? 

20.  What,  in  your  opinion,  caused  the  rise  in  Treasury  notes,  which,  in 
December,  1814,  sold  in  Boston  at  twenty-five  to  twenty-seven  per  cent, 
discount,  and  on  the  10th  September,  1816,  at  two  per  cent. — and  in  Go- 
vernment stocks  from  fifty-five  to  one  hundred  dollars? 

21.  It  is  said  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  the  cause  of  the  re- 
sumption of  specie  payments,  and  that  the  State  banks  could  not  have  re- 
sumed them  without  the  aid  of  that  institution — are  these  your  opinions? 

22.  Were  not  the  Treasury  balances  transferred  from  the  State  banks  to 
the  United  States'  Bank  and  its  branches,  in  February,  1817,  and  not  the 
banks  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  reduce  their  balances,  by 
July,  1817,  about  five  millions  of  dollars? 

23.  Would  you  consider  the  transfer  of  these  balances  calculate<!  to  aid  the 
State  banks,  and  that  they  were  better  able  to  resume  and  to  sustain  specie 
payments  after  than  before  the  public  deposites  were  t|"ansferred  to  the  United 
States'  Bank  and  its  branches? 

24.  At  what  time  was  the  branch  bank  established  in  New  Yorkt^ 

25.  Did  not  the  branch  bank  owe  balances  to  the  city  banks  in  New 
York,  and  pay  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  dollars  for  interest  on  these  loans 
from  May  to  December,   1817? 

26.  Will  yon  explain  how  a  borrowing  bank  can  aid  a  lending  bank  in 
sustaining  specie  payments? 

27.  Was  not  the  capital  of  the  branch  bank  at  New  York,  on  the  2Sth  of 
May,  1819,  $245,287  81? 

28.  Co«ld  a  bank  with  such  limited  means  aid  the  banks  of  New  York, 
possessing  some  fifteen  millions  of  capital,  in  sustaining  specie  payments  at 
a  crisis  like  that  of  1819,  when  the  parent  bank  was  in  a  perilous  condition? 

29.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  on  the  28th  November,  1816, 
resolve  to  remit  to  the  holders  of  the  United  States' Bank  stock,  residing  in 
Europe,  their  dividends  free  of  expense,  and  was  that  arrangement  calculated 
to  aid  the  United  States'  Bank,  or  the  other  banks,  in  resuming  or  sustain- 
ing specie  payments? 

30.  Did  not  the  United  States'  Bank  commence  operations  by  discount- 
ing the  notes  of  its  stockholders  on  pledged  stock,  which  soon  amounted  to 
eleven  millions — by  receiving  three-fourths  of  its  second  instalment  in  the 
same  manner — by  increasing  its  discounts  in  the  first  fifteen  months,  to  an 


32  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

amount  exceeding  forty  millions  of  dollars,  and  by  throwing  into  circulationy 
in  about  the  same  time,  some  ten  millions  of  paper  money? 

31.  Was  not  such  an  administration  of  the  bank  calculated  to  produce  agi- 
tation and  disorder  in  the  currency,  to  disturb  the  business  of  other  banks, 
and  to  convulse  trade? 

82.  If  you  think  an  institution  thus  administered  was  an  efficient  agent  in 
restoring  or  sustaining  specie  payments,  will  you  explain  in  what  manner  it 
contributed  its  aid? 

33.  Did  not  the  bank  import,  between  the  30th  July,  1817,  and  the  5th 
of  November,    1S18,  ^§7,311,750  53,  in  specie? 

34.  Had  not  the  banks  resumed-  specie  payments  near  six  months  before 
the  arrival  of  any  of  these  importations? 

35.  Did  not  the  difficulties  of  the  bank  commence  in  July,  1818,  and  were 
they  not  at  their  crisis  in  March  and  April,  1819 — four  months  after  the 
bank  had  completed  its  specie  importations? 

36.  What  is  your  opinion  of  the  policy  of  using  extraordinary  means  to 
import  seven  millions  of  specie,  while  effectual  measures  are,  at  the  same 
lime,  taken  to  drive  it  out  of  the  country  faster,  by  increasing  the  loans  of 
the  bank,  and  its  notes  in  circulation,  upwards  of  fifty  millions  of  dollars? 

37.  Had  not  the  parent  bank  less  specie  in  its  vaults  after  it  had  linished 
its  importations  than  before  it  commenced  importing  specie? 

3S.  Did  not  the  bank,  at  the  commencement  of  its  difficulties,  in  July, 
1818,  and  again  on  the  9th  of  April,  1819,  adopt  resolutions  to  collect  the 
balances  due  from  the  local  banks;  and  did  these  measures  aid  the  State  banks 
in  sustaining  specie  payments? 

39.  Was  not  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  compelled  to  curtail  its  loans 
ten  millions,  its  circulation  five  millions;  to  incur  a  foreign  debt  of  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half,  besides  a  loan  of  two  millions  at  three  years'  credit;  to  ap- 
ply to  Government  for  relief  in  various  forms,  and  to  acknowledge  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  its  utter  inability  to  pay  the  Louisiana  debt  of 
three  millions,  without  a  loan  in  Europe? 

40.  Was  not  the  bank  indebted  to  Stephen  Girard  iSl 30,000,  which  it 
could  not  pay;  and  did  it  not  owe,  on  the  12th  of  April,  1819,  to  the  Phi- 
ladelphia bank?,  ^190,418  66,  with  but  $71,522  47  in  its  vaults? 

41.  Has  not  the  president  of  the  bank,  in  his  exposition  in  1822,  stated 
that  the  bank  was  saved  by  the  fortunate  arrival  of  ^250,000  in  specie  from 
Ohio  and  Kentucky? 

42.  Is  it  your  opinion  that  a  bank  thus  managed,  from  January,  1817,  to 
April,  1819,  could  have  essentially  contributed  to  aid  the  State  banks  ia 
resuming  and  sustaining  specie  payments? 


Examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on 
the  question  of  Domestic  and  Foreign  Ea:change,  and  its  agency  in 
equalizing  exchanges. 

1.  Is  it  not  an  advantage  to  the  bank,  that  almost  the  whole  of  our  reve- 
Hue  is  collected  in  the  ports  of  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and 
Boston? 

•  2.    Are  not  bills  on  these  four  cities,  particularly  New  York,  usually 
%vanted  by  traders  in  the  interior  as  remittances  for  merchskndise  ptjrehascd 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  33 

at  these  places;  and  are  not  bills  discounted  at  the  offices  in  these  cities,  on 
the  southern,  western,  and  interior  cities  and  towns? 

3.  Does  not  that  demand  for  bills  on  the  Atlantic  cilies  enable  the  bank 
to  sell  their  drafts  in  the  south,  west,  and  interior,  at  a  premium,  and  to 
discount  in  ihe  x\tlantic  offices  bills  and  notes,  payable  in  various  parts  of 
the  Union,  at  a  discount  beyond  the  amount  of  the  interest? 

4.  Do  not  these  commercial  operations  enable  the  bank,  not  only  without 
inconvenience,  but  with  profit,  to  transfer  a  part  of  the  funds  of  the  Govern- 
ment from  these  four  large  ports,  to  those  parts  of  the  Union  where  the 
public  service  requires  the  expenditure  of  its  funds? 

5.  Do  you  not  require  that  the  Government  should  give  you  notice  before 
any  transfer  of  its  funds  is  made,  and  how  long  a  notice  is  given? 

6.  Is  not  that  arrangement,  in  effect,  equivalent  to  a  loan  for  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  term  of  such  notice,  of  such  amounts  as  may  be  thus  trans- 
ferred ? 

7.  Is  not  the  use  and  transfer  of  five  and  twenty  millions  annually,  a 
source  of  profit  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States? 

8.  Is  not  the  profit  on  the  use  and  transfer  of  the  public  funds,  upon  the 
terms  now  enjoyed  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  more  than  equivalent 
to  an  interest  of  four  per  cent,  annually,  on  the  amount  of  Governmenft 
deposites? 

0.  What  do  you  suppose  to  be  the  greatest  amount  of  bills  of  exchange 
passing  in  any  one  month  between  the  various  cities  and  towns  of  the 
United  States? 

10.  What  is  the  greatest  amount  of  bills  of  exchange  discounted  in  anjr 
one  month  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  Stales,  and  all  its  offices? 

11.  Do  not  bills  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  always  sell  at  a  higher 
rate  than  private  bills?  if  not,  state  the  cases  where  they  are  equal. 

12.  Are  not  private  bills  betvyeen  different  parts  of  the  Union  sometimes 
sold  at  one,  or  even  two  per  cent,  below  the  bank  rates? 

13.  Does  not  the  bank  fix  a  tariff  in  foreign  or  domestic  exchange,  or 
both,'  at  which  they  will  take  just  as  much  as  it  may  be  for  their  interest 
and  inconvenience,  and  which  rate  differs  occasionally  one  to  two  per  cent, 
from  the  current  exchange  in  the  market? 

14.  Will  the  bank  at  all  times  buy  and  sell  exchange  at  the  current 
market  rates  among  traders,  or  at  any  rate? 

15.  Is  not  the  policy  of  the  bank  to  purchase  at  seasons  and  places,  whea 
and  where  it  may  be  favorable  to  purchase,  and  to  sell  at  others  when  it  i« 
for  the  interest  of  the  bank  to  do  so? 

16.  Does  the  bauKever  sell  at  a  discount,  or  buy  at  a  premium? 

17.  Does  it  not  usually  sell  at  a  premium,  and  buy  at  a  discount? 

18.  Does  not  the  difference  between  the  premium  and  the  discount  con- 
stitute the  brokerage  or  profit  ol  the  bank,  and  do  not  the  discount  and  pre- 
mium together  give  a  profit  to  the  bank  generally  from  one  to  two  per  cent.P 

19.  Ii.  the  business  of  buying  and  selling  exchange,  does  not  the  bank 
consult  the  intere-t  of  the  stockholders  more  than  the  interest  of  traders? 

20.  Are  you  acquainted  with  the  rates  of  exchange,  and  of  brokerage, 
charged  on  internal  bills  by  the  brokers  of  Great  Britain,  France,  Germany, 
Holland,  and  the  Hanse  towns?  If  you  are,  state  them. 

21.  Are  you  acquainted  with  the  rates  of  exchange  and  brokerage  be- 
tween Paris  and  Frankfort  on  the  Mayn,  Amsterdam,  Hamburgh,  Leipsig, 
Berlin,  Prague,  Munich  and  Vienna  ;  between  Paris  and  London,  JUondon 

5 


34  [  Rep,  No.  460.  ] 

and  Dublin,  Edinburgh  and  Liverpool?     If  you  are,  state  your  knowledge 
of  them. 

22.  Are  not  the  exchanges  in  Europe  usually  at  sight,  or  at  short  Fight  ? 

23.  Are  not  the  exchanges  in  which  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  gene- 
rally deal,  at  sixty  and  ninety  days,  and  four  months,  and  sometimes  six 
months  ? 

24  Does  it  not  give  an  important  advantage  to  the  Bank  of  the  United 
Slates,  to  unite  in  one  operation  the  business  of  discounting,  brokerage  and 
exchange? 

25.  Do  you  not  frequently  decline  purchasing  or  selling  bills  of  exchange, 
when  the  course  of  exchange  is  unfavorable? 

26.  Is  not  the  business  of  buying  bills  on  Europe  in  the  south,  and  selling 
them  in  the  north,  highly  advantageous  to  the  Bank  of  the   United  Slates  ? 

27.  Will  you  slate  the  highest  or  lowest  rates  at  which  the  bank  has  pur- 
chased bills  of  exchange  in  New  Orleans  upon  England,  in  the  year  1831, 
and  the  highest  and  lowest  rates  at  which  you  have  sold  the  same  bills  of  ex- 
change in  Philadelphia  and  New  York  ? 

28.  Does  not  the  difference  between  the  purchase  of  foreign  bills  in 
Charleston,  Savannah,  Mobile  and  New  Orleans,  and  the  sale  of  the  same  in 
the  north,  constitute  the  profit  of  the  bank  on  such  operations? 

29.  Cannot  the  bank,  by  curtailing  its  discounts,  produce  a  temporary  scar- 
city of  money,  deprive  traders  of  the  means  of  making  remittances,  and 
thereby  depress  exchange  when  it  wishes  to  purchase  ;  and  can  it  not,  on  the 
Other  hand,  discount  liberally,  and  raise  exchange  when  it  desires  to  sell  ? 

30.  Has  not  the  bank  repeatedly  raised  and  depressed  foreign  exchange 
one  per  cent,  in  a  week,  and  sometimes  in  less  time? 

31.  Do  not  the  exchange  operations  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
tend  to  diminish  the  number  of  those  who  deal  in  exchange,  and  consequent- 
ly to  diminish  that  competition  which  ultimately  equalizes  exchange  in  all 
Countries  where  trade  and  confidence  exist? 

3'2.  Suppose  the  bank  was  re&trjcted  to  buying  and  selling  domestic  ex- 
change at  par,  deducting  the  interest  only,  (according  to  the  practice  of  the 
banks  of  Scotland,)  would  it  not  continue  to  discount  bills  at  two,  three,  or 
four  months,  between  different  parts  of  the  Union,  as  it  now  does  ? 

33.  What  would  be  the  effect  of  limiting  the  discounts  of  a  National  Bank 
entirely  to  domestic  exchanges  on  such  a  plan  ? 

34.  What  was  the  average  amount  of  capital  employed  in  buying  and  sel- 
ling foreign  and  domestic  exchange,  and  what  was  the  aggregate  amount  of 
profit  on  that  business  in  1831? 


Examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on  the 
subject  of  branch  bank  notes  and  drafts. 

1.  Since  you  began  to  issue  branch  drafts,  it  appears  that  your  circula- 
tion has  increased  many  millions — do  you  think  it  would  have  increased  so 
rapidly  if  you  had  continued  to  issue  none  but  notes  signed  by  the  President 
of  the  bank? 

2.  Does  not  issuing  branch  drafts  and  notes  redeemable  at  your  interior  offi- 
ces, enable  you  to  sustain  in  circulation,  a  larger  amount  than  could  be  sustained 
If  your  notes  were  issued  and  redeemable  principally  at  the  offices  on  the  At- 
lantic? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  35 

3.  What  was  the  amount  of  notes  issued  from  the  offices  at  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  wliich  were  in  circulation  on  the  1st 
of  January  last,  and  what  the  amount  for  all  the  other  olHces? 

4.  When  overtrading  occurs,  from  whatever  cause,  does  it  not  draw  into 
the  large  revenue  ports  on  the  Atlantic  a  large  amount  of  these  interior  bank 
notes  and  drafts,  which  press  severely  upon  the  offices  at  Baltimore,  Phila- 
delphia, New  York,  and  Boston? 

5.  You  have  stated  to  the  committee  that  the  parent  bank  redeemed 
85,398,800,  and  that  the  branch  bank  at  New  York,  redeemed  ^13,219,635 
of  branch  riotes  and  drafts  during  the  last  year?  is  it  your  opinian  that  the 
branch  at  New  York  would  have  been  able  to  redeem  thirteen  millions  of  the 
notes  of  other  branches  in  one  year,  if  any  circumstance  had  occurred  tc  ex- 
excite  alarm? 

6.  If  the  offices  at  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  found  it  difficult 
to  pay  their  notes  inspecie,and  receive  these  branch  notes  for  revenue  in  1819, 
when  the  whole  circulation  of  the  bank  was  about  six  millions,  would  it  not 
have  been,  under  similar  alarm,  more  difficult  in  January  last,  with  a  circu- 
lation amounting  to  near  twenty  five  millions? 

7.  When  too  large  an  amount  of  tliese  branch  notes  press  upon  the  offices 
here  and  in  ^ew  York,  is  not  the  bank  compelled  to  curtail  its  facilities  to 
southern  and  western  traders? 

8.  So  long  as  the  bank  continues  to  enlarge  its  circulation  through  its  in- 
terior offices,  and  the  branch  at  New  York  is  bound  to  receive  the  whole  of 
these  branch  notes,  if  presented,  in  payment  of  revenue  bonds,  must  there 
not  be,  periodically,  a  pressure  on  that  branch,  which  must  re  act  on  all  the 
offices  in  towns  or  cities  trading  with  New  York? 

9.  Df.es  not  such  a  plan  of  general  circulation  inevitably  tend  to  disturb 
the  regular  course  of  trade,  by  occa'siunally  ol>l;ii;ing  the  bank  and  its  branches 
to  curtail  its  discounts  at  some  points,  and  enlarge  them  at  others,  and  by 
transferring  funds  between  branches,  iiot  according  to  the  wants  of  trade,  but 
the  necessities  of  the  bank  and  its  branches? 

10.  Will  you  explain  what  substantial  difference  there  is  between  the  pre- 
sent plan  of  circulation  and  redemption  of  the  branch  bank  notes,  and  an 
obligation  on  the  part  of  a  bank  in  Philadelphia  to  redeem  the  notes  of  ail 
the  country  banks  in  the  State  of  Peilnsylvania? 

11.  What  would  be  the  condition  of  such  a  bank  in  Philadelphia,  should 
the  country  hanks  issue  an  extraordinary  amount  of  bank  notes? 

12.  Was  not  the  branch  bank  at  New  York  compelled  to  receive  about 
seven  millions  of  the  notesefotherbranch.es  in  the  last  five  moniiis  of 
the  last  year,  ancl  was  not  its  specie,  in  the  same  months,  reduced  from 
$2y226,429   81  to  S664,GS6   64? 

13.  What  is  your  opinion  of  the  expediency  of  making  all  the  notes  issued 
by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  payable  nt  one  place? 

14.  Would  it  not  tend  to  diminish  the  aggregate  circulation  of  the  bank, 
and  prevent  any  extraordinary  or  sudden  increase  of  circulation,  and  would 
not  the  hank  have  greater  power  in  regulating  the  amount  of  its  general  cir- 
culation? 


36  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Examinafion  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  on  its 
investments  in  pitbtic  debt  in  1S24  and  \S'Zd;  arid  the  ability  of  the 
bank  to  make  loans  to  Government. 

1.  I  perceive  that,  between  June  1S24  and  June  1825,  the  bank  increased 
its  investment  in  funded  debt  from  about  ten  to  twenty  millions — do  you 
think»  that  the  bank  can  aid  Government  with  long  and  large  loans  with 
safety? 

2.  If  the  bank  had  not  employed  its  funds  in  Government  loans,  (without 
the  power  to  sell  the  stocks,}  would  it  not  have  been  better  prepared  to  meet 
the  crisis  you  have  referred  to,  growing  out  of  the  speculations  in  1825? 

3.  Would  the  bank  have  been  compelled  to  resort  to  the  expedient,  as  you 
have  stated,    of  procuring  a  temporary  loan  from  a  private  source  in  1825? 

4.  Had  the  same  investment  been'  made  during  war,  would  not  the  bank 
have  been  compelled  either  to  sell  its  stock  at  once,  or  suspend  specie  pay- 
ipents? 

5.  Is  there  not  a  material  diflerence  between  originally  investing  the  cap- 
ital of  a  bank  in  funded  debt,  and  subsequently  attempting  to  make  loans  to 
Government? 

6.  After  a  bank  is  in  operation,  its  capital  invested,  and  its  notes  in  circu- 
lation, how  can  it  make  long  loans  to  Government  without  curtailing  its 
discounts,  increasing  its  capital  by  a  new  subscription,  or  by  augmenting  its 
j^aper  money? 

7.  How  can  a  bank  continue  to  hold  such  loans,  and  make  dividends, 
lyithout  increasing  its  paper,  depreciating  the  currency,  forcing;  specie 
abroad,  and  suspending  its  payments  in  gold  and  silver? 

S.  When  a  bank  takes  a  loan  from  Government  for  the  purpose  of  selling 
it  to  fund-holders,  is  it  any  thing  better  than  a  mere  speculator  upon  Govern- 
ment? 

9.  So  long  as  the  Go\'^rnment  holds  an  interest  in  the  stock  of  the  bank, 
does  it  not  effectually  secure  a  monopoly  of  every  Government  loan  which 
Congress  authorizes  it  to  contract  for? 

10.  Would  not  competition  among  banks  and  fund-holders  secure  loans 
to  Government  at  the  lowest  rate  of  iriterest? 

11.  In  case  of  war,  will  you  explain  how  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
can  elFiciently  aid  Government  with  loans,  without  inevitably  suspending 
specie  payments,  and  substituting  a  paper  for  a  metallic  currency? 


Examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on  the 
injluence  of  the  operations  of  the  Bank  upon  trade. 

1.  Since  1816,  have  we  not  experienced  reactions  in  1818-19,  1825-26, 
1829-30  ;  and  has  not  the  demand  lor  money  been  increasing  since  October 
kst? 

2.  Are  not  such  reactions  in  trade  usually  attended  with  stagnation  of  in- 
dustry, bankruptcies  among  traders  and  manufacturers,  and  distress  among 
laborers  thrown  out  of  employment? 

3.  In  every  such  reaction,  does  not  a  large  amount  of  property  pass  from 
the  active  and  enterprising  to  the  wealthier  classes? 

4.  Are  not  countries  where  a  large  paper  circulation  is  substituted  for 
a  inetailic  currency  most  liable  to  these  distressing  fluctuations? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  37 

5.  Does  not  this  arise,  in  a  great  degree,  from  the  tendency  of  prices  where 
such  a  currency  exists  to  rise  higher  and  fall  lower,  than  in  countries  where 
the  price  of  labor  and  the  value  of  property  are  more  uniform  through  an 
unchanging  and  sound  currency? 

6.  Independent  of  the  various  incidental  causes  which  may  agitate  trade 
at  any  time  and  in  all  countries,  are  not  some  of  the  fluctuations  in  the  value 
of  property  of  all  kinds  exclusively  attributable  to  changes  in  the  revenne 
laws,  and  do  not  the  most  violent  arise  from  sudden  alterations  of  the  cur- 
rency, or  from  too  abrupt  an  expansion  or  contraction  of  bank  loans  and 
circulations? 

7.  If  a  bank  or  a  government  adds  ten  millions  suddenly  to  an  existing 
paper  currency,  and  as  suddenly  loans  it  to  trade,  will  it  not  injuriously  af- 
fect both  your  trade  and  your  currency?  ' 

S.  Is  there  any  substantial  difference  between  issuing  ten  millions  of  a 
new  paper  currency,  not  representing  capital,  and  arbitrarily  adding  that 
amount  to  the  value  of  your  metallic  currency  by  increasing  its  value  by 
law,  except  in  degree,  as  to  the  suffering  of  the  community? 

9.  Was  not  the  distress  of  ISIS  and  '19  caused,  or  its  severity  much  in- 
creased, by  the  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  between  Janu- 
ary, 1817,  and  October,  1818,  in  too  rapidly  loaning  more  than  forty  millions 
of  dollars,  and  in  increasing  our  general  circulation  upwards  of  ten  millions 
in  bank  notes? 

10.  Was  not  the  distress  much  increased  by  a  sudden  contraction  of  its 
loans  and  circulation,  between  July,  lSi8,  and  May,  1819? 

11.  Was  not  the  distress  of  1825  and  ^2G,  much  increased  by  the  change 
in  our  revenue  laws  in  1824,  by  the  increased  loans  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States — by  an  addition  to  its  circulation  between  the  1st  of  January, 

1824,  and   the   1st  of  July,  1825,   of  five  millions  of  dollars,   and  by  too 
rapidly  increasing  its  investment  in  funded  debt,  from  June,  1324,  to  June, 

1825,  from  ten  to  twenty  millions  of  dollars? 

12.  Supposing  the  speculations  and  reaction  of  1825,  ^2Q,  to  have  origi- 
nated in  England,  should  we  not  have  been  less  affected  by  it,  had  not  the 
circulation  and  funded  debt  of  the  bank  both  been  suddenly  doubled? 

13.  Was  not  the  distress  among  our  manufacturers  in  1829,  '30,  partly 
attributable  to  our  tariff  of  1828,  and  to  the  banks  increasing  its  circulation 
four  millions,  and  its  total  investments  five  millions,  from  June,  1828,  to 
June,  1830? 

14.  To  what  other  cause  than  the  operations  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  can  you  attribute  the  demand  for  money  \^hich  began  in  October 
last,  and  has  continued  to  the  present  time? 

15.  Was  it  not  the  natural  consequence  of  the  bank's  rapidly  increasing 
its  bank  note  circulation  from  the  1st  of  January,  1829,  to  the  1st  of  Janu- 
ary, 1831,  ten  millions,  and  its  total  discounts  in  thirteen  months,  to  the 
1st  of  January  last,  from  forty-one  to  sixty-six  millions  of  dollars? 

16.  Was  it  not  probable  that  an  increase  of  loans,  and  bank  notes,  cor- 
responding with  that  made  in  1817,  '18,  might,  in  1832,  be  followed  by 
consequences  similar  to  those  realized  in  1819? 

17.  Was  not  a  rapid  addition  of  twenty  five  millions  to  the  discounts  of 
the  bank,  and  a  sudden  transfer  of  loans  from  Government  to  trade,  calcu- 
lated inevitably  to  produce  general  overtrading?  ^ 

18.  Did  not  the  sudden  addition  of  ten  millions  to  our  bank  note  circula- 
tion affect  our  currency  unfavorablj^,  and  force  our  specie  abroad? 


38  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ]• 

19.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  lose,  between  the  1st  of  July 
and  the  1st  of  Jan>iary  last,  five  millions  of  its  specie? 

20.  Had  the  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  become  alarmed, 
as  in  July,  1818,  and  resolved  to  curtail  their  loans  extensively,  or  had  any 
political  or  commercial  event  occurred  to  produce  a  sudden  contraction  of 
the  expanded  circulation  and  loans  of  the  bank,  should  we  not  have  seen 
the  same  demand  for  its  specie,  and  the  same  commercial  distress  which 
the  bank  brought  upon  itself  and  the  country  in  1819.? 

21.  Did  not  the  President  and  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
•n  the  7th  of  October  last,  direct  a  circular  to  be  addressed  to  the  cashiers 
of  all  the  offices,  instructing  them  to  curtail  their  business,  and  to  favor  the 
offices  at  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  as  much  as  possible;  and  will  you  in- 
sert a  copy  of  that  circular  in  your  answer? 

22.  Were  not  similar  instructions  given  in  October,  November,  Decem- 
ber, January,  and  February;  and  did  not  the  demand  for  money,  which  the 
circular  states  to  have  been  ^< active,"  on  the  7th  October  last,  continue  lo 
increase? 

23.  Was  not  the  pressure  on  Louisville  and  Cincinnati  so  severse,  that,  on 
the  3d  of  March,  orders  were  given  not  lo  insist  on  the  proposed  reduction, 
but  to  proceed  to  accomplish  the  object  they  had  in  view  in  as  gentle  a  man- 
ner as  possible,  under  circumstances  so  distressing? 

24.  Did  not  the  President  of  the  bank  (Mr.  Cheves)  inform  the  Secreta- 
ry of  the  Treasury,  in  April,  1819,  that  the  bank  could  not  pay  the  Louis- 
iana debt  of  three  millions,  without  negotiating  a  loan  in  Europe  ;  was  not 
two  millions  actually  borrowed  in  Europe;  and  did  not  the  President  ask 
other  indulgencies  of  Government? 

25.  Has  not  the  bank  asked  Government  to  postpone  the  redemption  of 
the  three  per  cents,  from  July  to  October;  and  has  it  not  assumed  the  pay- 
ment of  one  quarter's  interest,  being  substantially  equivalent  to  a  loan  of 
six  or  seven  millions  lor  three  months,  made  by  the  Government  to  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States? 

26.  Had  your  loans  and  circulations  been  gradually  increased;  had  not 
near  twenty  millions  been  added  to  our  bank  note  circulation  since  1S24; 
and  had  not  your  fticilities  to  trade  been  extended  in  the  four  years  prece- 
ding the  first  of  January  last,  from  thirty-three  to  sixty-six  millions  of  dol- 
lars; do  you  think  the  bank  would  have  found  any  difficulty  in  transferring 
sufficient  funds  abroad  to  redeem  that  portion  of  the  three  per  cents,  which 
is  held  in  Europe,  and  which  might  not  have  been  re-invested  in  this  country? 

27.  When  an  institution,  with  investments  amounting  to  seventy-five  mil- 
lions, commanding  the  foreign  and  domestic  exchanges  of  the  country,  and 
monopolizifig  the  Government  deposites,  cannot,  at  the  moment  when  we 
are  exporting  our  annual  crop  of  cotton,  amounting  to  twenty  millions,  trans- 
fer a  fevv  millions  of  its  funds  abroad  without  embarrassing  its  operations, 
and  seriously  distressing  tmders;  is  there  not  reason  to  believe  that  its  busi- 
ness has  been  too  much  and  too  rapidly  extended.^ 

28.  Can  any  bank,  confining  itself  to  the  legitimate  business  of  a  banker, 
which  never  forces  its  loans  upon  trade,  or  its  notes  into  circulation  by  ex- 
traordinary means,  ever  be  compelled  to  curtail  its  loans,  or  to  ask  indul- 
gence from  its  creditors? 

29.  Do  you  not  consider  the  resolutions  of  the  board  of  directors,  in 
1830  and  '31,  to  make  long  loans  at  reduced  rates  of  interest,  on  pledges  of 
stock,   as  a  species  of  forced  loan;  and    the  expedient  of   issuing  branch 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  39 

drafts  from  the  branches,  ^  an  experiment  to  force  the  circulation  of  your 
bank  notes? 

30.  Did  not  the  bank,  by  adding  to  our  paper  circulation  near  fourteen 
millions  from  the  first  of  January,  182S,  to  the  first  of  January,  lS3iJ,  adopt 
the  most  effectual  measure  to  raise  our  foreign  exchange,  depreciate  our  cur- 
rency; enlarge  importations,  force  tlie  exportation  of  our  specie,  and  dimin- 
ish its  ability  to  meet  its  engagements  both  at  home  and  abroad? 

Has  not  the  present  state  of  trade  been  chiefly  produced  by  the  over- trad- 
ing of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  in  discounts  and  circulation,  and  in  en- 
larging the  total  amount  of  its  investments,  from  December,  1829,  to  June^ 
1831,  from  64^  to  77  millions  of  dollars? 


Exainination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on 
the  increase  of  the  paper  circulation  of  the  bank;  its  agency  in  di» 
minishing  or  enlarging  the  circulation  of  local  banks,  and  the  means 
oj  permanently  regulating  our  general  circulation  so  as  to  prevent 
its  injurious  effects  upon  the  trade  and  currency  of  the  country, 

1.  I  notice  that,  from  1823,  to  the  1st  January,  1832,  the  bank  had  increas- 
ed its  bank  note  circulation  from  about  four  and  a  half  to  twenty-four  and  a 
half  millions  of  dollars;  that  thirteen  or  fourteen  millions  of  this  increase 
occurred  between  the  1st  January,  1828,  and  the  1st  January,  1832,  and  that 
you  have  the  right,  by  your  charter,  to  extend  your  circulation  to  thirty-five 
millions — is  it  not  your  opinion,  that,  while  such  a  circulation  continues  and 
the  State  banks  exercise  a  similar  power,  our  paper  currency  must  fluctuate 
in  value,  that  sudden  demands  must  be  occasionally  made  on  our  banks  for 
specie,  and  that  our  traders  must  alternately  become  speculators  and  bank^ 
rupts  by  abrupt  changes  in  the  value  of  property? 

2.  Does  not  an  increase  of  gold  and  silver  throughout  the  world  tend,  in 
some  measure,  to  augment  prices  in  every  country? 

3.  Does  not  an  increase  of  bank  note  circulation,  or  of  any  other  paper 
substitute  for  a  metallic  currency,  tend  to  raise  prices  in  the  country  where  it 
is  issued  above  the  level  of  the  prices  of  the  world? 

4.  Suppose  the  entire  wealth  of  this  country  to  be  three  thousand  mil- 
lions, and  that,  by  increasing  our  paper  currency,  we  should  nominally  aug- 
ment the  value  of  property  ten  per  cent,  or  three  hundred  millions  of  dol- 
lars, would  not  the  speculations,  resulting  from  such  a  change,  inevitably^ 
and  very  considerably  increase  commercial  operations,  notes  of  hand,  bills 
of  exchange,  and  bank  notes  and  checks  of  every  kind  and  description? 

5.  When  we  increase  our  general  circulation,  by  an  increased  issue  of 
United  States'  Bank  notes,  are  not  our  local  circulations  simultaneously  aug- 
mented? 

6.  If  they  are  not  thus  increased,  and  if,  as  some  suppose,  our  general 
circulation  diminishes  the  aggregate  amount  of  our  local  circulations,  how 
do  you  account  for  the  following  facts  which  appear  from  the  returns  made 
to  the  State  Governments,  viz.  that  the  banks  in  Massachusetts,  between 
1823  and  1831,  had  increased  their  capital  from  11,650,000  to  21,439^800, 
and  their  circulation  from  3,145,010  to  7,739,317;  that  the  capital  of  the 
Slate  banks  in  New  York,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Pennsylvania^ 
has  increased  since  1817,  more  than  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  That  the 
increase  of  the  circulation  of  the  banks  in  these  States,  not  including  .the- 


40  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Philadelphia  banks,  was,  in  the  last  year,  abojjt  eight  millions:  That  the 
«ountry  banks  in  the  State  of  New  York  had,  between  the  1st  January, 
1830,  and  the  1st  of  January,  1832,  increased  their  circulation  from  3,974,345 
tp  8,622,277  dollars? 

7.  If,  as  is  supposed,  the  tendency  of  the  United  States'  Bank  is  to  di- 
minish State  bank  paper,  how  does  it  happen  that,  in  almost  all  the  States, 
the  local  circulations  have  been  doubled,  and,  in  some,  tripled  in  amount, 
Ince  the  bank  was  chartered? 

8.  If  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  with  its  capital  of  thirty-five  mil- 
^DS,  and  its  general  circulation  of  twenty-two  millions,  gives  an  impulse 
to  a  national  capital  of  three  thousand  millions,  does  it  not  inevitably  give 
an  impulse  to  banking,  as  well  as  all  other  operations,  and  must  not  these 
capitals  and  circulations  increase  with  all  others? 

9.  When  a  national  bank,  like  that  of  the  United  States,  expands  its 
loans,  circulation,  and  investments,  throughout  the  Union,  and  a  spirit  of 
speculation  is  excited  every  where,  are  not  sales  and  purchases  so  multi- 
plied, that  one  capital  is  frequently  represented  by  ten  notes  of  hand  at  the 
same  time,  and  does  not  this  speculative  increase  of  credits,  produce  an 
increase  of  banks? 

10.  Does  not  a  national  bank,  with  a  general  circulation,  excite  over- 
trading among  local  banks  as  well  as  among  merchants? 

11.  In  what  manner  can  a  national  bank  diminish  the  circulation  of 
^country  banks,  with  which  they  have  no  transactions,  except  by  reducing 
it9  own  circulation? 

12.  Are  not  bank  checks,  notes  of  hand,  and  bills  of  exchange,  capa- 
ble of  being  multiplied  to  an  indefinite  extent,  and  are  they  not  of  them- 
»elves  a  substitute  for  specie  and  bank  note  circulations? 

13.  If  no  bank  notes  were  authorized  by  the  General  or  State  Govern- 
ments, would  not  trade  soon  conform  itself  to  such  a  regulation  by  mul- 
tiplied expedients  to  dispense  with  the  use  of  them,  as  in  some  of  the 
most  commercial  countries  of  Europe,  where  bankruptcies  are  rare? 

14.  If  banks  were  restricted  to  dealing  in,  and  lending  capital  only, 
or  the  representative  of  an  existing  capital,  and  were  not  permitted  to 
manufacture  and  lend  the  representative  of  nothing  but  legislative  power, 
how  could  banks  ever  injure  trade  or  currency? 

15.  If  banks  were  restricted  to  their  legitimate  and  primary  object  of 
borrowing  and  lending  the  capitals  actually  existing  in  the  community, 
might  they  not  go  on  annually  enlarging  their  facilities  and  their  profits 
in  a  ratio  corresponding  with  the  annual  savings  of  labor  and  accumulations 
of  capital,  and  without  detriment  to  trade  or  currency? 

16.  If  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  its  branches  were  compel- 
i<pd  to  allow  an  interest  on  all  deposites,  public  and  private,  would  it 
not  draw  into  active  use  millions  of  capital  now  dormant,  and  compel 
every  State  bank  in  the  Union  to  adopt  the  same  plan  of  banking? 

17.  Would  not  such  a  measure  effectually  check  any  over  issues,  by 
compelling  the  banks  to  loan  the  large  amount  of  capital  upon  which  they 
were  obliged  to  pay  interest,  before  they  could  be  tempted  to  manufac- 
^ire  a  bank  note  capital  for  the  uses  of  trade? 

IS.  Would  it  be  practicable  for  banks  to  sustain  any  extraordinary  amount 
in  circulation,  when  their  notes  would  return  upon  them  as  fast  as  they 
were  issued,  because  the  holders  would  lose  the  interest  upon  them  while 
they  retained  them? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  41 

19.  Is  not  that  a  fallacious  pla^  of  banking,  the  object  of  which  seems 
0  be  to  save  interest  by  substituting  bank  notes  for  a  metallic  currency, 
vhile  a  portion  of  the  community  annually  lose  the  interest  on  five  times 
hat  amount,  composed  of  bank  deposites  and  dormant  capitals? 

20.  If  we  were  to  change  our  banking  system,  and  call  into  active 
ise  all  the  savings  of  labor,  the  profits  of  trade,  and  the  annual  accu- 
mulations of  income,  by  compelling  all  our  banks  to  allow  an  interest 
f  four  per  cent,  on  all  deposites,  is  it  not  probable  that  a  capital  would 
le  drawn  from  these  sources  for  the  uses  of  trade,  five  times  greater  than 
ny  amount  of  paper  money  which  all  the  banks  in  the  Union  could  posJ* 
ibly  sustain  in  circulation? 

21.  Were  we  to  adopt  that  system,  would  not  trade  safely  regulate  itself 
nd  keep  pace  with  the  annual  accumulations  of  capital;  and  would  not  ca- 
ital  increase  more  rapidly  than  it  now  does  under  a  banking  system,  which 
ubstitutes  the  paper  representative  of  power,  and  excludes,  from  the  active 
ses  of  trade,  a  much  larger  amount  of  the  real  wealth  of  the  country? 

22.  Were  all  the  banks  in  the  Union  compelled  at  once  to  become  bor- 
owers  of,  and  to  cease  manufacturing  capital,  could  not  the  change  be  ef- 
2cied  without  any  derangement  of  trade  or  currency? 

23.  Where  bankers  lend  their  own  money,  or  the  money  bf  others,  upon 
t^hich  they  pay  interest,  have  you  ever  n6ticed  that  extraordinary,  but  ima- 
inary,  deficiency  of  capital,  which  we  hear  of  periodically  in  every  coun- 
ry  where  banks  are  permitted  to  lend,  without  restriction  or  any  self-regu- 
iting  principle,  a  currency  manufactured  by  themselves? 

24.  May  not  a  bank  note  currency  be  safely  tolerated,  where  the  mass  ol 
our  capital,  for  the  active  uses  of  trade,  is  drawn  from  other  and  legitimate 
ources,  and  where  your  paper  circulations  must  necessarily  bear  but  a  small 
roportion  to  the  amount  of  your  deposites,  as  in  Scotland? 

25.  In  Scotland,  the  bank  deposites,  in  1826,  amounted  tc  about  24  mil- 
ions  sterling;  say,  in  our  money,  130  millions  of  dollars;  more  than  half 
f  which  amount  was  composed  of  deposites  in  sums  under  1,000  ^lollars; 
nd  drawn  from  the  laboring  classes;  its  circulation,  which  had  been  gradu- 
lly  enlarging  for  more  than  130  years,  was  about  three  and  one-third  mil 
ions  sterling;  equal,  in  our  money,  to  about  16  millions  of  dollars.  Sup 
ose  the  bank  deposites  of  Scotland  now  to  be  150  millions,  and  its  circula- 
ion  18  millions;  can  the  trade  of  Scotland  ever  suffer  from  reactions  while 
t  is  sustained  by  so  large  an  aggregate  of  real  and  active  banking  capital,  or 
ts  currency  ever  be  agitated  while  the  amount  of  notes  in  circulation  scaree- 
y  exceeds  one-tenth  of  the  amount  of  bank  deposites? 

26.  If  the  trade  of  Scotland  depended  as  ours  does,  not  upon  the  accu- 
mulations of  a  capital  which  never  diminishes,  but  on  a  capital  manufactur- 
d  by  five  hundred  banks,  and  which  diminishes  with  every  reaction,  and 
[lay  almost  vanish  with  a  panic,  would  not  Scotland  suffer  as  we  do,  and  as 
hey  have  frequently  done  in  England,  from  every  convulsion  in  the  money 
market? 

27.  Suppose  our  trade  was  sustained  by  deposites  equal  (in  a  ratio  to  those 
f  Scotland)  to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  and  facilitated  by  a  paper 
urrency  of  ninety  millions;  is  it  your  opinion  that  our  country  could  ever 
uffer  in  peace  or  in  war  from  a  scarcity  of  money  or  a  want  of  confidence? 

28.  If  we  were  to  oblige  our  banks  to  pay  an  interest  of  four  per  cent, 
m  all  deposites,  would  not  our  laborers,  mechanics,  traders,  farmers;  nay, 
11  our  productive  classes  become  lenders  of  capital  to  give  activity  to  trade 

6 


4£  [  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

and  enlarge  the  employments  of  labor;  ^nd  would  not  the  ability  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  to  facilitate  trade,  be  tripled  in  a  very  few 
years? 

29.  Is  not  the  Scotch  plan  of  banking  more  profita*)le  to  the  banks  and 
the  community  than  any  adopted  in  any  other  country? 

30,  If  this  plan  should  not  be  adopted  by  Congress  and  our  State  Legis- 
latures, would  not  redundant  circulations  be  effectually  checked  by  limiting 
dividends  to  six  per  cent.,  and  compelling  the  banks  to  divide  their  profits? 


C  Rep.  No,  460.  3  43 


DOCUMEI^TS 

ACCOMPANYING  THE 

REPORT  OF  THE  MAJORITY  OF  THE  SELECT  COMMITTEE, 
Relative  to  the  affairs  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 


No.  1.— [G.] 

ON  THE  SUBJECT  OP  USURY. 

Extract  from  the  minutes,  of  April  13,  1830, 

The  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was  referred,  on  the  5th  February 
last,  a  letter  from  the  honorable  Richard  M.  Johnson,  dated  31st  January 
last;  on  IGth  February,  a  letter  from  the  same  gentleman,  dated  ilth 
February,  together  with  a  letter  from  the  honorable  Judge  McLean, 
dated  10th  February  last,  report: 

That,  having  examined  the  files  of  the  bank,  and  procured  additional  in- 
formation from  the  office  at  Louisville,  they  find  the  facts  relating  to  the 
application  of  Colonel  Johnson  to  be  as  follows: 

On  the  12th  October,  1820,Thomas  Wilson,  late  cashierof  this  bank,  be- 
ing then  on  a  visit  of  inspection  to  the  western  offices,  made  an  agreement 
with  Cave  Johnson  and  Thomas  D.  Carneal,  by  which  they  received  §30,000 
of  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  then  owned  by  this  bank,  and  gave 
their  notes,  dated  on  12th  October,  1820 — one  for  ^30,000,  payable  in  three 
years,  and  three  for  Si, 800  each  payable,  respectively,  in  one,  two,  and 
three  years,  being  for  the  interest  on  the  note  of  iS30,000;  all  which  notes 
were  secured  by  a  deed  of  trust  covering  the  real  estate  of  Cave  John- 
son and  T.  D.  Carneal.  This  debt  was  gradually  reduced,  by  successive 
payments,  till  it  now  stands  at  the  sum  of  ^17,000  due  in  the  month  of 
September,  1829,  for  which  sum,  with  interest,  Thomas  D.  Carneal  and 
J3enjamin  Johnson,  of  Mississippi,  executed. their  five  several  notes,  payable 
in  from  one  to  five  years,  with  interest,  which  are  held  as  collateral  securi- 
ty>  and  if  not  paid  at  maturity,  as  they  fall  due  respectively,  the  bank  may 
proceed  forthwith  to  a  sale  of  the  remaining  mortgaged  property. 

Under  these  circumstances,  Thomas  D.  Carneal  and  Cave  Johnson  have 
applied,  through  the  honorable  R.  M.  Johnson,  requesting  that,  as  the  notes 
of  the  Rank  of  Kentucky  which  they  received  from  this  bank  were,  at  the 
time  of  making  the  contract,  much  depreciated  below  their  nominal  value, 
they  may  now  receive  a  credit  on  their  engagements  to  the  bank  equal  to  the 
amount  of  that  depreciation. 

The  committee  are  entirely  satisfied  that,  in  the  whole  of  this  transaction, 
the  bank  and  all  its  officers  acted  with  the  most  perfect  good  faith;  that  the 
parties  to  whom  the  notes  of  bank  were  delivered  knew  perfectly  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  notes  at  the  time  of  receiving  them;  that  the  long  credit  origi- 


44  [  Rep.  No.  4^0.  ] 

nally  of  three  years,  since  protracted  for  a  large  part  of  the  debt  to  a  period 
of  from  nearly  ten  to  fourteen  years,  was  a  great  and  unusual  accommoda- 
tion to  the  borrowers,  who,  they  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  have  derived  from 
it  all  the  advantages  they  anticipated.  The  committee  are  further  of  opin- 
ion that  these  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky  were  originally  received  by 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  at  their  par  value,  on  account  of  the  Govern- 
ment or  of  individuals,  and  that,  although  suffering  at  the  time  of  making  this 
contract  under  a  temporary  depreciation,  yet  if,  instead  of  being  lent  to  these 
parties,  they  had  been  retained  by  this  bank,  they  would  ultimately  have 
been  paid  in  full,  with  interest,  in  specie  or  its  equivalent,  as  all  the  other 
notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky  have  since  been  paid.  The  committee  are, 
also,  of  opinion  that,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  the  present  ap- 
plicants have  lost  their  claim  on  the  bank,  certainly  at  law,  and  probably  in 
equity,  for  the  allowance  now  requested.  They  have  not,  however,  thought 
it  necessary  to  pursue  that  inquiry,  because  they  knew  that  the  board  would 
never  resist  any  well  founded  claim  on  merely  technical  objections,  nor  per- 
mit any  want  of  form  to  prevent  them  from  doing  substantial  justice;  and 
the  committee  have,  accordingly,  considered  this  case  as  an  original  question 
which  they  are  called  upon  to  decide  by  the  liberal  principles  of  a  court  of 
equity.  Examining  all  the  circumstances  of  the  transaction  by  this  stand- 
ard, the  committee  have  reached  the  conclusion  that,  when,  on  the  12th 
October,  1820,  Cave  Johnson  and  T.  D.  Carneal  delivered  to  the  bank  their 
obligations  for  S35,400,  and  obtained,  in  exchange,  not  the  notes  of  this 
bank,  but  the  depreciated  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  they  did  not  re- 
ceive a  legal  equivalent  for  their  engagements  to  the  bank;  that  the  claim  of 
the  bank  upon  them  should,  theretorc,  be  reduced  to  the  actual  value  of  what 
they  did  receive;  and  that  their  present  proposal  to  obtain  a  credit  hf  the 
difference  between  the  real  and  the  nominal  value  of  the  notes  of  the  Bank 
of  Kentucky  at  that  time,  which  credit  should  be  applied  to  the  payment  of 
their  other  debts  to  the  bank,  ought  to  be  acceded  to.  They,  therefore,  sub- 
mit the  following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  cashier  of  the  office  at  Louisville  is  hereby  instructed 
to  ascertain,  from  respectable  brokers,  merchants,  or  others,  the  exact  depre- 
ciation of  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky  at  Louisville,  on  the  18th  day 
of  October,  1820;  and  to  calculate,  by  that  standard,  the  difference  between 
the  par  value  and  the  price  on  that  day  of  the  notes  of  the  said  bank  which 
were  delivered  to  Cave  Johnson  and  Thomas  D.  Carneal,  as  a  consideration 
for  their  notes  to  this  bank,  dated  on  that  day,  for  the  sum  of  ^35,400. 
The  amount  of  this  difference,  with  the  interest  thereon  until  the  day  when 
the  same  shall  be  so  ascertained,  the  cashier  will  pass  to  the  credit  of  the 
said  Cave  Johnson  and  Thomas  D.  Carneal,  in  payment  of  such  other  lia- 
bility to  the  bank  of  the  said  Cave  Johnson  or  Thomas  D.  Carneal,  either 
joint  or  several,  as  this  board  may  hereafter  select  for  that  purpose. 

Extract  from  the  minutes,  of  July  9,  1830. 

A  letter  to  the  cashier  from  J.  Harper,  cashier  of  the  office  at  Lexington, 
dated  the  29th  of  April  lastj  one  to  ihe  same,  from  P.  Benson,  cashier  of 
the  office  at  Cincinnati,  dated  the  Sth  of  May  last;  two  to  the  same,  from  E. 
Shippen,  cashier  of  the  office  at  Louisville,  dated  the  Sth  and  llih-of  May 
last;  and  one  to  the  same,  from  Herman  Cope,  agent,  Cincinnati,  dated  the 
10th  of  May  last,  being  all  in  reply  to  the  cashier's  letter  of  the  19lh  of 


[  Rep,  No.  460.  ]  45 

April  last,  communicating  a  resolution  o(  this  board  of  the  13th  of  the  same 
month,  in  relation  to  a  credit  to  be  allowed  to  Cave  Johnson  or  to  T.  D. 
Carneal,  were  read:  whereupon,  the  two  following  resolutions  were,  on  mo- 
tion, adopted: 

1st.  Resolved^  That  the  agent  at  Cincinnati  be  authorized  to  apply  to  the 
debt  of  WilliaiYi  Steele,  T.  D.  Carneal,  and  William  Lytle,  due  to  that  agen- 
cy, a  credit  of  four  thousand  eight  hundred  dollars,  together  with  the  inter- 
est accruing  upoii  that  sum  from  the  12th  day  of  October,  1820,  being  the 
ascertained  difference  at  Louisville  of  sixteen  percent,  between  the  nominal 
and  current  value  of  ^30,000  of  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  on  that 
day  paid  to  Cave  Johnson  and  T.  D.  Carneal,  at  par,  by  the  office  at  Louis- 
ville, and  agreed  to  be  allowed  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  last  named  par- 
ties, by  a  resolution  of  this  board,  adopted  on  the  13th  day  of  April  last. 

2d.  Resolved,  Tiiat  the  agent  at  Cincinnati  be  instructed  to  charge  the 
amount  of  the  said  credit  to  the  account  of  losses  chargeable  to  the  contin- 
gent fund  at  that  agency. 

Extract  from  the  minutes^  October  15,  1S30. 

A  letter  t;o  the  cashier,  from  Herman  Cope,  agent,  Cincinnati,  dated  the 
7th  instant,  expressing  his  satisfaction  at  the  confirmation  by  this  board,  on 
the  24th  ultimo,  of  the  agreement  made  by  him  with  Ambrose  White, 
without  any  modification  of  the  terms  of  the  said  agreement;  requesting, 
also,  that  the  loss  of  S7,608,  recently  incurred  by  the  concession  of  this 
bank  to  T.  D.  Carneal  and  Cave  Johnson,  at  Louisville,  the  settlement  of 
which  was  transferred  to  the  agency  at  Cincinnati,  should  be  charged  to  the 
contingent  fund  on  the  books  oi  the  parent  bank,  was  read. 


In  the  month  of  February,  1822,  the  office  had  on  hand  an  amount  of 
notes  issued  by  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  and  which  had  been  received  by  the 
office  at  their  nominal  specie  value,  paitl}'^  on  account  of  the  United  States, 
and  partly  in  payment  of  debts  to  the  office.  They  were,  in  fact,  equiva- 
lent to  specie  to  the  office,  as  the  Bank  of  Kentucky  periodically  paid  inter- 
est to  the  office  on  the  amount  of  its  debt,  and  finally  discharged  it  in  full, 
En  specie.  In  February,  1822,  however,  they  were  at  a  depreciation,  and 
the  office  did  not  re-issue  them.  Under  these  circumstances,  an  application 
was  made  to  the  office  by  William  Owens,  to  borrow  a  sum  of  money,  he 
agreeing  to  take  these  notes,  which  Mf,  Owens  stated  would  answer  as  well 
as  specie  the  purpose  to  which  he  meant  to  apply  them,  which  was  the  pay- 
ment of  a  debt  due  by  him,  and  to  which  purpose,  it  is  believed,  he  did,  in 
fact,  apply  them.  The  loan  w^as,  however,  refused  on  his  first  application 
for  it  in  February,  1822,  from  doubts  of  his  solidity;  but,  in  consequence  of 
recommendations  in  his  favor,  and  after  repeated  solicitations  by  him,  the 
loan  was  finally  made  to  him  on  a  credit  of  three  years,  when  an  order  was 
given  to  him  upon  the  Bank  of  Kentucky  for  ^2,900,  part  of  the  balance  then 
due  to  the  office,  and  bearing  interest;  and  the  residue  of  the  loan,  to  wit, 
^  1,100,  was  paid  to  him  in  the  notes  of  the  bank.  The  public  exhibits  of 
the  affairs  of  that  bank,  it  is  stated,  did,  at  that  time,  show  its  ultimate  ability 
to  pay  in  specie  its  notes  and  deposites,  and,  in  about  six  months  after  the 


46'  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

loan  in  question,  it  actually  paid  in  specie  the  whole  amount  actually  due  to 
the  office,  in  which  would  have  been  included  the  amount  loaned  to  Owens, 
with  interest  at  6  per  centum,  had  not  that  loan  been  made. 

When  the  loan  became  due,  the  sureties  of  Mr.  Owens,  in  order  to  relieve 
themselves,  raised  the  objection  that  the  borrower  had  not  received  a  full 
equivalent  for  his  contract.  The  case  came  before  the  Supreme  Court  on  a 
demurrer,  which,  of  course,  excluded  the  consideration  of  many  of  the  facts 
just  stated. 

Such  is  the  statement  of  the  case  as  furnished  from  the  office  at  Lexing- 
ton, for  the  information  of  the  present  president  and  directors,  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  particulars  until  it  became  a  subject  of  litigation.  How  far 
the  knowledge  of  these  facts  might  have  affected  the  judgment  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  had  they  been  submitted  to  that  tribunal,  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
jecture; but,  what  is  of  far  more  importance  than  the  pecuniary  considera- 
tion involved  in  the  case,  they  seem  to  relieve  the  bank  from  the  reproach 
of  either  intentional  violation  of  the  law,  or  of  oppression  to  the  iniiividual. 

The  second  case,  and  the  only  one  which  came  before  the  board  of  di- 
rectors of  the  bank,  was  that  of  Cave  Johnson  and  T.  D.  Carneal,  of  which 
the  circumstances  were  as  follows: 

On  the  I2th  October,  IS' 0,  Thomas  Wi'son,  then  cashier  of  the  bank,  be- 
ing on  a  visit  of  inspection  to  the  western  offices,  made  a  loan  to  Cave  John- 
son and  T.  D.  Carneal,  of  $30,000  of  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky, 
for  which  they  gave  their  notes  on  a  long  credit.  These  notes  were  paid 
in  part,  and  the  debt  was  reduced  to  about  $  17,000,  when  the  j)arlies  ap- 
plied, in  February,  1830,  to  the  board,  stating  that  as  these  notes  of  the  Bank 
of  Kentucky  were,  at  the  time  of  their  receiving  them,  at  a  depreciation, 
they  thougtit  they  ought,  injustice,  to  have  a  reduction  of  their  debt  on  that 
account.      The  board  acceded  to  tiieir  request. 

The  committee  to  whom  the  application  was  referred,  reported  **  that,  un- 
der all  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  transaction,  the  present  appli- 
cants have  lost  their  claim  on  the  bank,  certainly  at  law,  and  probably  in 
equity,  for  the  allowance  now  requested.  They  have  not,  however,  thought 
it  necessary  to  pursue  that  inquiry,  because  they  know  that  the  board  would 
never  resist  any  well  founded  claim  on  merely  technical  objections,  nor  per- 
mit any  want  of  form  to  prevent  them  from  doing  substantial  justice;  and 
the  committee  have  accorilingly  considered  the  case  as  an  original  question 
which  they  are  called  upon  to  decide  by  the  liberal  principles  of  a  court  of 
equity."  The  board  then  decided  that  the  difference  between  the  nominal 
and  the  current  value  of  these  5  30,000  on  the  12th  Ociober,  1820,  should 
be  ascertained,  and  that  sum,  with  interest  at  6  per  cent,  should  be  refunded 
to  the  claimants.  This  was  accordingly  done  The  depreciation  was  found 
to  be  iS  4,800;  the  interest  on  this  sum  from  12th  October,  1820,  was  8  2,808; 
and  this  sum  of  ^7,608  was  repaid  to  the  claimants.  In  this  case,  the  board, 
it  will  be  perceived,  endeavored  to  repair  any  unintentional  wrong  wliich 
might  possibly  have  been  committed  by  any  of  its  agents.  That  there  was 
no  disposition  to  oppress  these  parties,  may  be  inferred  as  well  from  the  facts 
themselves,  as  from  the  acknowledgment  of  their  agent,  the  honorable  R. 
M.  Johnson,  who,  in  answer  to  a  letter  communicating  the  resolution,  wrote, 
on  10th  April,  1830: 

<'  The  resolution  contains  precisely  the  proposition,  which  I  consider  cor- 
rect and  proper,  and  meets  the  equity  of  the  case.  I  cannot  express  the 
high  sense  of  obligation  I  feel  to  the  board  for  the  liberality  which  they 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  2  47 

have  manifested  on  this  occasion,  and,  in  fact,  on  all  others,  so  far  as  I  have 
a  personal  knowledge  of  them,  and  goes  far  to  destroy  the  maxim,  or  rather 
the  common  saying,  that  banks  have  no  souls.'' 
The  third  case  is  that  of  a  loan. 


Extract  from  the  minutes^  January  26,  1822. 

<<  A  letter  from  the  cashier  of  the  office  at  Louisville,  addressed  to  the 
president  of  the  bank,  dated  the  10th  instant,  was  read,  and,  on  motion,  it 
was 

'*  Ordered,  That  the  office  at  Louisville  be  authorized  to  loan  in  Kentucky 
Bank  notes,  the  sum  of  ^  10,000,  payable  in  one,  two,  and  three  years,  for 
the  acceptances  of  Kobert  &  Samuel  Neilson  &  Co.,  of  New  York,  endorsed 
by  Thomas  Neilson  &  Co.,  of  Petersburg,  Virginia." 

Extract  from  the  minutes^  March  5,  1822. 

'«  A  letter  from  Robert  Neilson,  dated  March  4,  1822,  to  the  president, 
renewing  the  proposition  made  by  Mr.  H.  NeiUon,  of  Louisville,  Ken- 
tucky, was  read;  whereupon,  it  was 

■  «  Resolved,  That  the  loan  of  S  20,000,  in  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky, 
be  granted  on  the  terms  now  proposed,  provided  that,  in  addition  to  those 
terms,  insurance  shall  be  constantly  kept  on  the  steamboat  Paragon,  and  that 
the  policies  shall  be  assigned  to  the  office  at  Louisville,  and  deposited  in  that 
office.'' 

Extract  from  the  minutes,  March  S,  1822. 

"  A  letter  from  Robert  Neilson.,  dated  March  6,  1822,  was  read;  the 
board  approved  the  mode  in  which  he  proposes  to  make  insuratice  on  the 
steamboat  Paragon;  and  it  was 

"  Ordered^  That  the  loan  of  t  20,000,  in  Kentucky  Bank  notes,  be  grant- 
ed when  the  terms  shall  be  complied  with." 


No.  2.     < 

USURY    IN    DOMESTIC  EXCHANGE. 

This  is  presumed  to  arise  from  confounding  two  things  distinct  in  them- 
selves, but  necessarily  blended  in  the  same  operation. 

When  a  person  lends  money  to  another,  payable,  for  instance,  in  Philadel- 
phia at  the  end  of  sixty  days,  he  charges  the  usual  interest  for  the  loan;  but, 
if  the  money  is  to  be  repaid  not  in  Philadelphia,  but  in  some  distant  place, 
the  lender  calculates  the  cost  of  bringing  back  his  money  to  Philadelphia, 
and  charges  that  in  addition.  The  first  is  the  rate  of  interest;  the  second  is 
the  rate  of  exchange.  Thus,  a  discount  re-payable  in  Piflladelphia,  would 
be  one  per  centum;  a  discount  re-payable  in  Lexington,  mio;ht  be  1|  per 
centum:  here  is  H  per  centum  charged  for  60  days,  but  this  is  not  usury;  it 
is  the  rale  of  exchange  added  to  the  rate  of  interest.  The  purchase  of  the 
bill,  however,  forming  one  operation,  the  distinction  is  not  perceivable.  A 
person  who  sells  a  bill  at  60  days  payable  in  London,  charges  11  per  cent.; 
this  is  exchange,  and  no  one  believes  it  usury.      As  far  as  the  bank  is  con- 


48  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

cerneil,  its  whole  operations  have  tended  to  depress  the  rate  of  exchange, 
so  that  where  formerly  a  person  who  sold  a  hill  from  one  place  on  another^ 
was  obliged  to  pay  8  or  9,  or  10  per  centum,  he  now  pays  only ^  per  cent.; 
sometimes  not  so  much,  often  nothing  whatever. 


No.  3. 

ON   THE   SUBJECT  OP  BRANCH  DRAFTS. 

The  inability  of  the  bank  to  furnish  the  amount  of  circulat- 
ing medium,  which  it  was  created  to  supply,  became  apparent  at 
an  early  period.     In  a  year  after  its  organization,  the  directors 
See  copy  of  presented  a  memorial  to  Congress,  dated  the  9th  of  January, 
thememonal.   1818,  requesting  that  an  alteration  might  be  made  in  the  char- 
ter so  as  to  authorize  the    president  and  cashiers  of  the  several 
branches  to  sign  the  notes  issued  by  those  branches. 
See  copy  of      The  subject  was  resumed  by  another  memorial,  dated  Novem- 

thatpartofthe  ber   24th,  1S20,  requesting  authority  to  appoint  signers  to  the 
memorial    re-  ^^^gg^  /  1^1  o 

lating  to  notes.       rr«i  i«      .-  .  .  ,  , 

The  application  was  again  renewed,  and  a  select  committee  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  reported  in  favor  of  allowing  the 
Pamphlets  vol.  appointment  of  signers  on  the  27th  of  February,  1823,  but  there 
8,  No.  11.        ^vas  no  action  of  the  House  upon  it. 

Extract  from      On  the  1st  of  December,  1826,  the  president  was  instructed 

minutes  of  that  to  endeavor  to  procure  the  necessary  change. 

"^""Extractfrom     ^^  reported,  on  the  27th  of  February,  1827,  that  no  action  on 

minutes  of  that  the  subject  would  take  place  on  that  session  of  Congress;  and, 

(       day.  accordingly,  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the 

Offices. 

Copy  of  that      The  opinion  of  Mr.  Binney,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Wirt,  the 

opmion.  Attorney  General,  was  taken  on  the  subject  of  issuing  branch 

drafts. 
Extract  from      The  Committee  reported  on  the  subject,  recommending  the 
the  minutes  of  [g^ue  of  branch  drafts. 

Copies  of  cor-       ^he  Secretary  ol  the  Treasury,  on  the  7th  of  January,  1828, 
rcspondencc.   requested  information  with  respect  to  these  drafts.     He  was  an- 
swered on  the  10th  of  January,  1S2S,  with  a  full  explanation  of 
the  whole  subject.     He  replied  on  ,the  21st  of  January,   1828, 
that  he  had  "  felt  no  hesitation  in  directing  that  such  drafts  be 
taken  In  payments  to  the  United  States. '^ 
Copiesofthese      Instructions  to  the  offices,  in  regard  to  the  issue  of  the  branch 
letters.  drafts,  in  letters  of  the  cashier,  dated  April  21,  1827,  June  14, 

182".,  January  7,  1831,  and  February  2,  1831. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  49 

No.  3,  a. 

To  the  honorable  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  in  (    rtrrress  assembled: 

The  memorial  of  the  President  ana  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Respectfully  showeth: 

That,  inasmuch  as  the  **  Act  to  incorporate  the  subscribers  to  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,"  requires  that  the  bills  or  notes  which  may  be  issued  by 
order  of  the  said  corporation,  shall  be  sijriu  >  by  the  president,  and  counter- 
signed by  the  principal  cashier,  it  has  bet...  found  impracticable  to  supply, 
in  any  reasonable  degree,  the  required  circulation  from  the  bank  and  its 
pumerous  ofBces  of  discount  and  deposite,  and  that,  in  the  frequent  trans- 
mission of  large  sums  to  distant  offices^  fully  prepared  for  circulation,  the 
corporation  has  been  exposed  to  very  serious  hazards,  and  incurred  great 
expense  in  the  precautions  employed  to  guard  against  casualties,  and  that 
these  difficulties,  hazards,  and  expenses  must  greatly  increase  with  the 
growth  and  expansion  of  the  establishment;  that  the  arts  employed  in  coun- 
terfeiting bank  notes  have  attained  an  alarming  degree  of  perfection,  thr 
effects  of  which  can  only  be  counteracted  by  the  frequent  cancelling  and  re- 
newing of  the  bank  issues  with  new  devices  and  checks,  which  it  will  be 
utterly  impossible  to  effect  under  the  existing  provision;  that,  in  order  to 
remedy  these  evils,  your  memorialists  respectfully  beg  le.ive  to  suj^gest  the 
expediency  of  authorizing  the  corporation  to  dispense  with  the  signatures  of 
the  president  and  cashier  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  to  the  notes  in- 
tended to  be  issued  from  the  offices  of  discount  and  deposite,  in  order  that 
the  same  may  be  transmitted,  without  risk,  to  the  several  offices,  there  to 
receive  the  signatures  of  their  respeciive  presidents  and  cashiers,  and  to  be 
impressed  with  new  and  distinctive  devices  and  check:*,  by  which  the  circu- 
lation may  be  supplied,  varied,  and  renewed,  from  time  to  time,  with  in- 
ci-eased  facility,  security,  and  utility  to  the  corporation  and  the  public. 

Your  memorialists,  therefore,  in  behalf  of  ^'^the  President,  Directors,  and 
Company  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  ^States/''  respectfully  solicit  the  assent. 
of  Congress  to  the  alterations  and  amendments  herein  suggested,  in  such  form 
as  your  wisdom  may  dictate. 

B}'  order,  and  in  behalf  of  the  President  and  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States. 

W.  JONES,  President, 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

January  9,  18 IS. 


No.  3,  Ix 


Extract  from  the  memorial  of  the  President  audi  Directors  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  24th  November,  1820. 

"  Third.  Under  the  charter  it  has  been  doubted  whether  the  bank  has 
power  to  authorize  the  issuing  of  notes  not  signed  by  the  president,  and 
countersigned  by  the  cashier.  The  labor  and  the  time  necessary  to  sign 
notes  for  the  bank  and  all  its  branches,  are  much  greater  than  either  of  those 
officers  can  bestow  upon  that  object;  and  hence,  the  bank  has  been  unable 
to  put  in  circulation  a  sufficient  amount  of  notes  of  the  smalJer  deuoimina- 
7 


50  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

tions,  which  the  public  most  want,  and  which  are  best  calculated  to  serve 
ikte  interest  of  the  bank.  If  authority  were  given  to  the  board,  from  time 
to  time,  to  appoint  one  or  more  persons  to  sign  notes  of  the  smaller  denomi- 
nations at  the  parent  bank,  under  the  superintendence  and  direction  of  the 
board  and  its  principal  officers,  there  would  be  no  public  risk,  and  it  would 
afford  all  the  aid  which  your  petitioners  desire  on  the  point/' 


No.  3,  c. 

Extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Board  of  Direct  ors,  23d  Feb,,  1827. 

The  President  reported,  verbally,  to  the  board,  that,  in  pursuance  of  the 
authority  given  him  by  a  resolution  of  the  1st  December,  1826,  he  had  em- 
ployed every  means  in  his  power,  as  well  by  correspondence  as  by  personal 
representations,  made  during  his  late  visit  to  Washington,  to  the  Committee 
of  Ways  and  Means,  to  obtain  a  favorable  report  upon  the  application  for- 
merly made  to  Congress  by  this  bank  for  permission  to  have  its  notes  signed 
by  other  persons  than  its  president  and  cashier,  but  that  it  was  now  fully 
ascertained  that  no  bill  for  effecting  that  desirable  object  would  be  brought 
forward  at  the  present  session      Whereupon,  it  was,  on  motion, 

Resolved,  That  the  subject  of  the  report  just  made  by  the  President,  be 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Offices. 


Bank  of  the  United  States,  March  22;  1827, 

Gentlemen:  I  am  instructed  to  ask  your  professional  opinion  on  the  fol- 
lowing subject: 

The  several  officers  of  this  bank,  especially  those  at  a  distance,  are  in  the 
habit  of  drawing  checks  on  the  bank  for  the  accommodation  of  the  commu- 
nity in  its  exchange  operations.  These  checks,  from  the  nature  of  the  bu- 
siness they  are  designed  to  facilitate,  as  well  as  from  the  labor  of  multiply- 
ing them,  and  the  hazard  of  their  being  counterfeited,  have  generally  been 
for  large  sums.  It  is  proposed,  with  a  view  to  the  more  general  accommo- 
dation of  the  community  and  the  bank,  that  the  offices  should  be  instructed 
to  issue  these  checks  for  smaller  sums,  such  as  twenty,  ten,  and  five  dollars, 
whenever  requested  by  the  dealers  with  those  offices;  and,  in  order  to  relieve 
the  offices  from  the  burden  of  preparing  them,  to  transmit,  from  the  bank, 
the  blank  forms  of  the  checks,  wanting  only  the  signatures  of  the  proper 
persons  at  the  respective  offices.  With  a  view  to  the  prevention  of  coun- 
terfeits, and  the  security  of  the  bank  as  well  as  the  public,  it  is  further  pro- 
posed, that  the  general  appearance  of  these  checks  should  be  uniform^  and 
approaching,  as  near  as  their  different  natures  will  permit,  to  that  of  the 
notes  of  this  bank,  to  which  the  community  is  now  habituated;  and,  also, 
that  they  should  be  signed,  not  by  the  cashiers  alone,  as  the  checks  are  at 
present,  but  by  both  the  presidents  and  cashiers  of  the  respective  offices. 

This  statement,  with  the  accompanying  form  of  the  proposed  check,  is 
now  submitted  to  your  judgment;  and  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  give 
your  opinions,  whether  this  plan  is  or  is  not  within  the  constitutional  power 
of  the  bank,  and  whether  there  occur  to  you  any  objections,  either  of  law 
or  expediency,  to  prevent  the  adoption  of  it 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  &c., 

N.  BIDDLE,  Pres't 
Pan'l  Webster  &  H.  Binney,  Esqrs. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  51 

Philadelphia,  March  23,  1S27. 

I  have  considered  the  questions  submitted  in  Mr.  Biddle's  letter  of  the 
22d  instant,  and  am  of  the  following  opinion: 

As  there  is  no  substantial  difference  between  the  checks  or  drafts  here- 
tofore drawn  at  the  different  offices  upon  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
and  those  which  it  is  proposed  hereafter  to  draw,  the  difference  being  in  ap- 
pv^arance  more  even  than  in  form,  there  c;m  be  no  legal  objection  to  them, 
which  does  not  apply  to  every  thing  of  this  nature  that  has  been  done  by 
the  present  Bank  of  the  United  States,  by  the  former  bank,  and  by  almost 
all  the  banks  in  Ihe  country:  checks  or  drafts  of  a  similar  description  be- 
tween banks  and  their  branches,  and  between  independent  banks,  have  been 
eiieval  with  these  institutions  in  the  United  States. 

If  the  former  practice  has  been  lawful,  so  must  the  proposed  practice  be; 
for,  whether  the  drafts  be  for  large  sums  or  small,  whether  they  are  sign- 
ed by  one  officer  or  more,  and  whether  they  have  the  external  appearance 
of  a  bank  note  or  otherwise,  must  be  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference,  and 
entirely  within  the  competency  of  the  bank  to  regulate  at  its  pleasure. 

That  the  former  practice  is  without  objection,  is  to  be  inferred  from  its 
f(  ng  continuance.     It  is  a  practice,  moreover,  within  the  powers  of  every 
Kinking  corporation,  for,  in  this  way  only,  can  the  intercourse  of  a  bank  and 
its  offices,  and  the  exchange  operations  between  banking  institutions,  be  ad- 
equately prosecuted,  and  consequently,  unless  restrained  by  charter,  every 
bank  is  competent  to  empower  its  officers  to  draw  such  drafts  or  checks  upon 
its  funds,  wherever  situated,  and   to  bind  the  corporation   to  the  holder  for 
their  due  honor.     It  is  an  ordinary  banking  operation,  to  which  their  gene- 
lal  faculties  are  perfectly  competent.     A  restraint  upon  the  exercise  of  this 
J  ower,  is,  I  believe,  without  example  in  the  charter  of  any  bank;  certainly 
I    am  unable  to  discover  such  in  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  UnitccJ 
States.     Whether  it  is  within  the  power  of  the  corporation  to  issue  *'bllfs 
or  notes  promising  the  payment  of  money  to  any  person  or  persons,  his  cr 
their  order,  or  to  bearer,''  unless  signed  by  the  president,  and   countersign- 
ed by  the  principal  cashier  or    treasurer,  is  not  the  present  inquiry.     The 
affirmative  provision  in  the  12th  fundamental  article,  which  gives  such  bills 
or  notes,  though  unsealed,  a  particular  effect,  has  no  reference,  I  conceive, 
to  checks  or  drafts  drawn  at  the  offices  upon  the  bank.     It  is,  perhaps, 
owing  to  the  practice  only  of  the  various  banks  in  the  country  under  this 
clause,  that  a  doubt  has  arisen  whether  it  is  lawful  for  these  corporations  to 
issue  such  notes,  signed  and  countersigned   by  other  officers;  but  the  argu- 
ment of  practice  is  at  least  equally  cogent  to  show,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  clause  has  never  been  supposed  to  prohibit  checks  and  drafts  signed  by 
officers  of  the  branches,  and  drawn  upon  the  principal  bank.      I  am  unable 
to  discover  any  legal  objection  to  the  plan  proposed,  and,  since  it  will  facili- 
tate the  exchanges  of  the  country,  and  secures  the  public  and  the  bank  from 
frauds,  it  seems  to  me  as  expedient  as  it  is  lawful. 

HOR.  BINNEY. 

I  concur  entirely  in  this  opinion. 

DANL.  WEBSTER. 

I  can  see  no  possible  legal  objection  to  the  practice  above  stated,  and  con- 
cur entirely  in  the  opinion. 

WM.  WIRT. 


52  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Extract  from  the  minutes  of  Spril  6,  1827. 

Ti;e  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was  referred,  on  the  23d  February 
last,  the  report  of  the  President  oi  the  bank  stating  the  unsuccessful  re- 
sult of  the  application  to  Congress  for  an  alteration  of  the  charter,  which 
♦Tould  authorize  the  signature  of  notes  by  other  persons  than  the  President 
4nd  Cashier,  report; 

That  it  is  found,  by  long  experience,  to  be  impracticable  for  any  one  per- 
son, whose  general  duties  require  constant  attention,  to  sign  the  necessary 
tnimberof  notes  for  the  nineteen  different  establishments  of  this  bank,  and 
txiat  great  inconvenience  is  thus  sustained  by  the  community  as  well  as  the 
institution.  In  various  parts  of  the  Union,  but  more  especially  in  the  south- 
ern and  western  sections,  there  is  a  constant  and  increasing  demand  at  the 
offices  for  the  smaller  denomination  of  noteS;  which  it  is  impossible  to  sup- 
ply. The  committee  are  under  the  impression  that  this  inconvenience  to 
C;C  community  might,  in  some  degree,  be  remedied,  and  additional  facilities 
afforded  to  the  customers  of  the  bank,  if  the  distant  offices  were  instructed 
to  draw  checks  on  the  cashier  of  the  bank  for  smaller  sums  than  they  have 
hitherto  been  in  the  habit  of  furnishing.  In  order  to  save  the  labor  of  pre- 
iparing  such  checks  at  the  offices,  as  well  as  for  the  greater  security  of  the 
bank  and  the  community,  it  has  been  deemed  best  to  prepare  the  blank 
forms  of  a  uniform  appearance,  and  to  distribute  them  from  the  parent  bank. 
Such  forms  have  been  accordingly  devised,  and  are  now  submitted  to  the 
board  with  the  recommendation  of  tiie  committee  that  the  experiment  be 
Ulcd,  and,  if  found  useful  to  the  community,  be  permanently  adopted.  For 
this  purpose  they  offer  the  following  resolution: 

Resolved^  That  blank  drafts  on  the  cashier  of  the  bank  for  five  and  ten 
dollars  each,  in  the  form  of  which  a  specimen  accompanies  this  report,  be 
prepared  and  forwarded  to  such  of  the  western  and  southern  offices  as,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  officers  of  this  bank,  may  first  employ  them  usefully, 
*vlih  instructions  to  furnish  them  to  the  customers  of  the  bank,  or  other 
persons  who  may  wish  to  procure  them. 


Extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  December  1,  1826. 

Mr.  Cope  offered  the  following  resolution,  which  was,  on  motion,  adopted: 

fesolved,  That  the   President  of  the  bank   be  authorized   to  use  his  best 

endeavors  to  obtain  the  passage  of  an  act  of  Congress,  permitting  the  notes 

of  this  bank  to  be  signed  by  any  two  of  its  assistant  cashiers  in  lieu  of  the 

president  and  cashier. 


No.  3,  d. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Jamtary  10,  1828. 

Sir  J  I  had  the  honor,  on  the  7th  instant,  of  receiving  your  letter  of  the 
4 til,  stating  that  instructions  have  been  requested  from  your  department,  by 
Xjoe  of  the  receiving  officers  of  the  United  States,  relative  to  the  receipt  of 

9 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  59 

drafts  or  checks  issued  by  the  offices  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  Stales  upon 
the  bank  at  Philadelphia,  and  payable  at  the  respective  offices,  and  requesting 
that  the  character  of  these  drafts  may  be  so  far  explained  as  to  enable  the  de- 
partment to  judge  whether  they  may  be  legally  received  in  payment  to  the 
United  States. 

I  am  instructed,  by  the  board  of  directors,  to  give  you  the  m6st  precise 
and  detailed  information  on  that  subject,  and  accordingly  hasten  to  execute 
that  duty. 

You  are  aware  that  an  expression  in  the  charter  of  the  bank  has  been  con- 
strued as  implying  that  the  notes  issued  should  be  signed  by  the  president 
and  cashier.  Had  the  question  now  been  an  original  one,  there  would  per- 
haps have  been  little  difficulty  in  deciding  that,  as  the  corporation  might  cotv 
tract  obligations  in  various  modes,  the  phraseology  of  the  charter  did  not 
exclude  the  issues  of  notes  signed  by  other  officers  than  the  president  and 
cashier.  In  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  comparativelv  small  is- 
sues of  notes  placed  the  supply  more  within  the  power  of  these  officers;  and 
the  new  bank,  adopting  the  construction  which  prevailed  under  the  old, 
commenced  a  similar  practice.  It  was,  however,  easily  perceived  that  this  in 
terpretation  would  greatly  impair  the  usefulness  of  the  bank,  but,  having  been 
adopted,  it  was  deemed  inexpedient  to  depart  from  it  without  a  previous  n^ 
plication  to  Congress;  and,  accordingly,  the  board  of  directors  have  more 
than  once  presented  the  subject  to  the  consideration  of  that  body.  At  the 
last  session,  a  request  to  authorize  the  signature  of  notes  by  other  officers' 
than  the  president  and  cashier  were  submitted  to  the  Committee  of  Way? 
and  Means  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  was  not  so  fortunate  as  to 
obtain  the  approbation  of  a  majority  of  the  committee.  Having  thus  fulfill^ 
ed  its  duty  to  the  Government,  to  the  community,  and  to  itself,  bv  a  full  e**- 
position,  to  the  proper  authority,  of  the  inconveniencies  by  which  all  were 
affected,  and  perceiving  no  prospect  of  avoiding  them  but  by  its  own  re- 
sources, the  institution  found  itselt  in  a  position  where  it  became  necessary 
either  to  renounce  the  great  purposes  of  its  creation,  or  to  seek  among  its 
other  acknowledged  powers  the  means  of  accomplishing  them. 

It  was  one  of  the  favorite  objects  in  establishing  the  bank,  and  one  of  the 
best  uses  expected  from  it,  to  supply  a  circulating  medium  which,  by  lis 
equal  value  and  its  general  diffusion,  should  generally  supercede  the  depre- 
ciated and  multifarious  currencies  which  had  prostrated  the  credit  of  the 
country.  This  medium,  the  bank  was  willing  and  anxious  to  supply.  Bui 
the  object  was  defeated  by  the  absolute  and  physical  impossibility  of  pre- 
parmg  the  notes  agreeably  to  the  prevailing  interpretation  of  the  charter. 
It  is  a  fact  which,  when  it  is  stated,  is  proved,  that  it  is  not  in  the  power  oC 
any  human  being,  whose  time  is  occupied  as  that  of  the  president  and  cash'ei; 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  must  necessarily  be,  in  the  daily  dqtie^  p^ 
administration,  which  they  can  neither  suspend  nqr  delegate,  to  superadd  the 
mechanical  labor  of  signing  notes  fqr  i\\e  bank  and  its  nineteen  branchoji. 
The  state  to  which  the  institution  was  reduced  for  the  want  of  notes,  will  be 
apparent  from  a  report  of  a  committee  made  during  the  past  year. 

After  stating  that  the  constructioi-^  of  the  charter,  requiring  the  signature 
of  the  president  and  cashier  to  all  the  notes,  "  renders  itentirely  impractica- 
ble for  these  officers  to  furnish  the  necessary  supply  for  the  bank  and  lis, 
nineteen  offices,"  the  report  proceeds; 

"Of  this,  no  stronger  evidence  is  necessary  than  the  fact,  that,  gince  the 
foundation  of  the  bank^  the  whole  number  of  notes  of  ^5  issued^  amounts  to 


54  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

^1,576,000.  This  inconvenience  has  recently  become  more  sensible  than 
heretofore.  Soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  bank,  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  notes  were  prepared,  but  as,  during  several  successive  years,  the  cir- 
culation diminished  to  one  half  ot  its  former  amount,  there  remained  a  large 
stock  on  hand;  and  since  the  adoption  of  the  present  system,  (of  issuing  on- 
ly its  own  notes,  and  not  those  of  State  banks,)  the  bank,  in  addition  to  the 
«ew  issues,  was  enabled  to  use  the  previous  accumulation  of  notes  which  had 
been  withdrawn  from  circulation.  In  advancing  now  to  an  amount  of  cir- 
culation more  than  double  that  of  1822,  this  stock  has  been  necessarily  ex- 
bausted  so  that  the  demand  having  outgrown  the  power  of  supplying  it,  the 
stock  of  notes  has  diminished  to  a  most  inconvenient  extent.  This  will  be 
evident,  from  the  fact,  that  several  of  the  offices  are  almost  entirely  desti- 
tute of  the  smaller  denomination  of  notes,  and  that  no  one  is  possessed  of  an 
adequate  supply."  Thus,  according  to  the  latest  returns,  the  office  of  Ports- 
niouth  had  on  hand  only  2  notes  of  S5;  Providence,  only  8;  Fayetteville, 
102;  Mobile,  9;  Lexington,  44;  Pittsburg,  165;  Louisville  is  without  a 
single  five  dollar  note;  and  the  parent  bank  has  only  180.  It  appears, 
further,  that  the  whole  amount  of  this  denomination  now  on  hand  at  the 
bank  and  all  the  offices,  is  about  ^100,000;  and  of  SlO,  about  ^500,000. 

To  remedy  this  evil,  the  officers  of  the  bank  might  have  adopted  the  use 
of  a  fac-simile.  But  to  this  there  were  the  insuperable  objections,  that  the 
signature  was  not  in  fact,  what  it  professed  to  be,  the  manual  execution  by 
the  officer  in  the  accustomed  form;  that  it  was  less  safe  for  the  community, 
since  no  imitation,  however  perfect,  can  equal  the  natural  freedom  and  fresh- 
ness of  an  original  signature;  and  that  the  detection  and  punishment  of  for- 
gery might  possibly  not  be  as  easy  or  effectual.  The  board,  therefore,  after 
•nuch  consideration,  resorted  to  another  expedient,  which  they  considered 
free  from  every  objection,  either  of  law  or  propriety.  Of  the  right  of  the 
bank  to  use  it,  there  existed  no  doubt;  but,  in  adopting  a  new  measure,  it 
was  thought  most  prudent  to  proceed  with  great  caution,  and  to  obtain  the 
sanction  of  the  highest  professional  authorities.  The  subject  has  according- 
ly been  submitted  to  Mr.  Binney,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Wirt,  who,  as 
the  annexed  correspondence  will  show,  concurred  in  opinion,  that  they 
<<  were  unable  to  discover  any  legal  objection  to  the  plan  proposed;  and  since 
it  will  facilitate  the  exchange  of  the  country,  and  secure  the  public  and  the 
bank  from  frauds,  it  seems  as  expedient  as  it  is  lawful."  The  plan  is  simply 
this:  the  offices  are  in  the  constant  habit  of  drawing  checks  on  each  other  and 
on  the  parent  bank;  and  it  was,  therefore,  thought  that  when  an  office  was  un- 
able to  supply  notes  signed  by  the  president  and  cashier  of  t})e  bank,  they 
fnight  furnish,  to  those  who  wished  them,  small  drafts  instead  of  small  notes; 
In  order,  moreover,  to  secure  uniformity  in  the  general  appearance  of  all 
paper  issued  by  the  institution,  the  blank  drafts  are  made  to  resemble,  as  near 
as  possible,  ordinary  bank  notes,  and  the  entire  control  of  the  issues  of  them  is 
preserved  by  having  them  all  prepared  and  registered  at  the  bank  itself,  and 
forw-arded  for  distribution,  wanting  only  the  signatures  of  the  presidents  and 
cnshiers  of  the  offices.  In  the  meantime,  the  signing  of  the  smaller  de- 
nominations of  notes  by  the  president  and  cashier  of  the  bank  continues  as 
fast  as  their  other  avocations  permit;  and  the  issue  of  branch  checks  are  li- 
mited to  notes  of  the  denomination  of  five  and  ten  dollars,  and  chiefly  confined 
to  those  offices  in  the  southern  and  western  States,  where  the  demand  for  the 
smaller  kind  of  currencies  was  greatest,  and  the  benefits  of  them  more  ex- 
tensively felt.     The  enclosed  specimens,  which,  when  you  have  no  further 


I    Rep.  No.  460.  ]  55 

occasion  for  them,  you  will  have  the   goodness  to  return,  will  best  show 
their  nature  and  their  resemblynce  to  the  other  notes  of  the  bank. 

The  result  has  so  far  been  highly  satisfactory;  our  information  from  every 
quarter  concurring  in  the  fact,  that  these  drafts  have  been  eagerly  sought  by 
the  community,  and  used  as  substitutes  for  the  depreciated  currencies  of  the 
neighborhood  in  which  they  circulate. 

Having  thus  explained  the  history  and  the  nature  of  these  branch  drafts, 
I  have  only  to  add,  that,  as  a  material  part  of  the  design  in  issuing  them  was 
to  facilitate  the  collection  of  the  public  revenue,  they  are  placed  on  the  same 
footing  of  negotiability  as  the  notes  signed  by  the  president  and  cashier  of 
the  bank;  and  that,  if  received  on  account  of  the  Government,  they  effectual- 
ly bind  the  bank,  and  will  be  paid  in  the  same  manner  as  notes  of  similar 
denominations  signed  by  the  president  and  cashier  of  the  bank  now  are,  or 
hereafter  may  be,  paid. 

Whether,  under  these  circumstances,  it  is  expedient  to  receive  them,  is  a 
question  for  the  exclusive  consideration  of  the  department. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President 

Hon.  Richard  Rush, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Washington. 


Treasury  Department, 

January  21,  1828. 
Sir:  I  have  had  the  honor  to  receive  your  letter  of  the  10th  instant,  with 
its  enclosures.  As  you  state  that  the  amount  of  any  of  the  drafts  to  which 
it  refers,  which  may  be  received  on  acoount  of  the  United  States,  will  be 
paid  in  the  same  manner  as  notes  signed  by  the  president  and  cashier 
of  the  bank,  I  have  felt  no  hesitation  in  directing  that  such  drafts  be  taken 
in  payments  to  the  United  States. 

The  specimens  which  accompanied  your  letter  are  herewith  enclosed. 
I  have  the  honor  to  remain, 

Very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

RICHARD  RUSH. 
Nicholas  Biddle,  Esq. 

President  of  the  Bank  U.  S. ,  Philadelphia, 


No.  3.,e. 

instruction  to  branches  as  to  the  issue  op  branch  drafts. 

Extract  from  the  minutes,  %dpril  6,  1827. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
held  April  6,  1827,  the  following  resolution  was,  on  motion,  adopted,  viz. 

Resolved,  That  blank  drafts  on  the  cashier  of  this  bank^  for  five  and 
ten  dollars  each,  in  the  form  of  which,  a  specimen  accompanies  this  report, 
be  prepared  and  forwarded  to  such  of  the  western  and  southern  offices,  as,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  officers  of  this  bank,  may  first  employ  them  usefully,  v/itli 
instructions  to  furnish  them  to  the  customers  of  the  bank,  or  other  persons 
who  may  wish  to  procure  them. 


56  [  Rep.  No,  460.  ] 

( Circular. ) 

Bank  United  States,  .^jonV  21,  1827. 

Sir:  The  board  of  directors,  aware,  from 'long  experience,  how  imprac- 
ticable it  is  ior  the  president  and  cashier  of  this  bank,  whose  general  du- 
ties require  almost  constant  attention  to  sign  the  necessary  number  of  notes 
for  its  nineteen  different  establishments,  and  how  much  inconvenience  is  thug 
sustained  by  the  community  as  well  as  by  the  institution,  more  especially  in 
the  southern  and  western  parts  of  the  Union,  where  an  incessant  and  grow- 
ing demand  for  the  smaller  denomination  of  notes  cannot  be  adequately  met, 
have,  in  their  earnest  desire  to  find  a  remedy  for  the  existing  deficiency  of 
accommodation  to  the  public  and  to  customers  of  the  bank,  resolved  to  make 
the  experiment  of  instructing  t!iO  distant  offices  to  furnish  checks  upon  the 
cashier  of  this  bank  in  greater  number,  and  for  smaller  sums,  than  have  been 
habitually  drawn  for;  and,  in  order  to  save  the  labor,  time,  and  difficulty,  of 
preparing,  in  a  suitable  manner,  such  checks  at  the  offices,  as  well  as  for  the 
greater  security  of  the  bank  and  the  community,  they  have  deemed  it  best 
that  blank  forms  of  a  uniform  appearance  should  be  prepared,  with  skill  ami 
care,  at  the  parent  bank,  and  thence  distributed  to  such  of  the  southern  and 
western  offices  as  seem  to  stand  most  in  need  of  them,  or  to  be  able  first  to 
employ  them  usefully. 

Enclosed,  I  send  you  a  specimen  of  the  S5  and  ^10  blank  drafts"adopt- 
ed.  After  being  numbered,  registered,  and  appropriated  here  to  certain  of- 
fices, a  supply  of  them  will  be  forwarded  as  soon  as  possible,  with  instruc- 
tions to  the  cashier  of  each  office  to  have  every  four  hundred  drafts  in 
succession,  and  as  they  may  be  wanted,  filled  in  to  the  order  of  some  one 
officer  of  the  branch,  by  whom  they  must  be  endorsed  lengthwise,  and 
about  the  middle  of  the  draft,  payable  to  bearer,  before  they  be  signed 
by  the  president  and  cashier;  when  completed,  they  are  to  be  furnished  to 
the  customers  of  the  bank,  or  other  persons,  who  may  wish  to  procure 
them. 

The  entries  respecting  them,  both  here  and  at  the  branches,  are  intended, 
for  convenience  sake,  to  be  analoi^^ous  to  those  of  branch  notes.  Their  re- 
ceipt under  the  denomination  o^  branch  drafts  is  to  be  similarly  acknow- 
ledged by  the  cashiers,  and,  in  duplicate,  through  the  respective  president?. 
They  are,  besldps,  to  be  reported  on  the  weekly  st^te  of  the  office  as  branch 
draft  paper  received,  used,  and  on  hand;  and  whenever  they  may  be  in 
transitu  between  the  offices,  must  be  so  noticed  at  the  foot  of  the  statenr»ent, 
like  other  packages. 

Each  office  cashier  will  be  required  to  advise  the  parent  bank,  regularly, 
of  their  dates,  and  of  the  clerk  by  whom  filled  up.  He  will  also  be  in- 
structed to  send,  previously  to  their  emission,  to  the  first  assistant  cashier  of 
this  bank,  and  to  all  the  cashiers  at  the  offices,  the  signatures  of  the  presi- 
dent and  himself,  together  with  the  signatures,  endorsement,  figures,  and 
mode  of  writing  the  months,  of  every  other  officer  whose  hand  is  to  appear 
upon  the  drafts.  Such  notice  being  given,  the  officer  may  be  varied  from 
time  to  time,  provided  the  filling  in  of  each  hundred  in  the  series  of  num- 
bers be  completed  by  a  single  person.  Should  the  cashier  find  it  conveni- 
ent or  expedient  to  sign  twice  himself,  his  name  and  the  date  may  be  written 
in  the  body,  and  <*payto  bearer''  on  the  back  of  the  draft  by  another 
officer. 

Yours  respectfully, 

W,  Mcll/VAINE,  Cashier, 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3 


57 


Bank  United  States,  June  14,  1827. 
Sih:  Apprehensive  that  you  may  possibly  be  awaiting  positive  instruc- 
tions from  me  to  issue  the  branch  drafts  lately  tran.smilled  to  you  by  Mr. 
Andrews,  and  which  were  intended  to  be  used  at  your  ofSce  as  soon  as  they 
could  be  prepared  in  the  manner  prescribed  in  my  circular  of  the  2 1st  April 
last,  I  think  proper  to  remove,  as  soon  as  possible,  any  misconception,  on  j^our 
part,  that  may  have  arisen  from  a  different  interpretation  of  the  terms  of  that 
leUer. 

I  am,  &c 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 


Extract  from  the  minutes,  Janunry  7,  1831. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
held  January  7,  1831,  the  following  resolution  was,  on  motion,  adopted: 

Resolved,  That  all  those  offices  of  the  bank  which  now  issue  five  and  ten 
JOiiar  branch  drafts,  in  pursuance  of  the  resolution  of  this  board  of  the 
6th  day  of  April,  1827,  be  authorized  to  issue  similar  drafts  of  the  deno- 
mioatioa  of  §20,  under  the  instructions  of  the  officers  of  this  bank. 


Extract  of  a  circular,  dated 

Bank  United  States,  February  2,  1831. 
The  offices  now  using  ^5  and  $10  branch  drafts  will  be  supplied,  as  soon 
practicable,  with  3  20  branch  drafts  of  like  form  and  of  superior  .-xecution, 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 


No.3,f: 
Statement  of  Branch  Drafts  issued,  on  hand,  and  in  circulation. 


^ 

Issued- 

On  hand- 

In  circula- 
tion. 

^_      3 

Office,   Pro\-idence 

$90,115 

$61,420 

$28,695 

Norfolk      - 

406,120 

172,000 

234,120 

.^^:„  2 

Faretterille 

€42,860 

83,140 

559,720 

Max.  7 

CharleHton 

266,315 

40,3v>0 

226,015 

A|Kil    ( 

4Savaiinah  • 

889,095 

255,785 

633,310 

Mar.  2. 

Mobile 

710,000 

65,540 

644,460 

3t 

>'ew  Orleaiis 

1,442,565 

686,495 

756,090 

tfj 

Na-tcbez      - 

615,945 

427,265 

188,680 

n 

St.t»oiiig    - 

318,000 

86,765 

231,235 

%i 

Na-bhviiJe   r 

1,081,930 

409,040 

672.990 

49 

Louisiilie  - 

729,330 

271,790 

457,540 

April    % 

LexiniTtoD  -              -              r 

1,403,950 

571,000 

832,950 

Mar.  » 

Cincinnati  - 

64J,320 

16,410 

623,910 

27 

|*ittsburgh  - 

5.57,540 

.,. 

557,540 

IJKll     5 

BuffiJo       . 

?70,330 

100,640 

269,490 

2 

Utica 

417,995 

66,430 

351,565 

u 

^urlingtoi? 

1 

199,205 

57,325 

141,880 

$  10,731,635 

$3,371,545 

$  7,4i0,O9O 

The  above  ar^unt  represents  the  gross  sum  of  branch  drafts  in  circulation;  the  amouqt  on  hand 
a^  the  b2Jik  and  i'j  several  offices;  and  the  a.iapunt  in  transitu  between  them  is  not  deducted 
3  ' 


5S  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  4. 
on  the  subject  of  the  value  of  foreign  gold  as  bullion. 

Treasury  Department, 

nth  September y  1830. 

Sir:  In  the  month  of  November  last,  750  doubloons  were  sent,  by  the 
collector  at  Key  West,  to  Charleston,  to  be  deposited  to  the  credit  of  the 
Treasurer,  but,  as  the  office  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  at  that  place, 
would  not  take  them  at  the  rate  that  the  collector  expected,  they  were  de- 
posited specially  to  the  credit  of  the  Treasurer.  The  collector  having  now- 
consented  that  they  shall  be  taken  at  the  intrinsic  value,  I  have  to  request 
that  you  will  be  pleased  to  give  the  necessary  instructions  to  that  office  to 
have  the  amount  placed  to  the  Treasurer's  cash  account  accordingly. 

I  am,  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
N,  BiDDLE,  Esq., 

President  oj  the  Bank  U.  S, , 

Fhiladelphia, 


Bank  United  States, 

September  2\y  IS 30. 

Sir:  I  had  yesterday  the  honor  of  receiving  your  letter  of  the  17th  ii- 
stant,  requesting  that  the  office  at  Charleston  should  be  instructed  to  receive, 
at  their  intrinsic  value,  seven  hundred  and  fifty  doubloons,  deposited  there 
specially  by  the  collector  at  Key  West.  It  will  accordingly  be  instructec  so 
to  receive  them.  These  doubloons,  however,  possess  a  value  in  commirce 
above  their  intrinsic  or  mint  value,  and,  if  they  are  of  full  weight  and  vaue, 
I  should  think  it  just  to  the  Govei'ument,  or  the  collector,  to  allow  apre- 
mium  of  two  per  cent,  that  being  the  highest  price  which  the  bank,  atpre- 
sent,  gives  to  other  depositors  of  gold.  Such  an  authority  would  be^iven 
by  this  mail,  but,  lest  there  might  possibly  be  some  reason,  unknown  o  me, 
for  mentioning  the  rate  of  the  intrinsic  value,  I  shall  defer  it  until  I  h've  the 
pleasure  of  knowing  whether  it  will  be  acceptable  to  you.    In  the  mesi  time, 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  your's, 

N.  BIDDLE,  Freident. 
Honorable  Samuel  D.  Ingham, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury ^  Washington^  1).  C, 


Treasury  Departme?'') 

23d  Septemer,  1830. 

Sir:  In  answer  to  your  letter  of  the  21st  instant,  I  have-O  state  that, 
as  doubloons  possess  a  value  in  commerce  higher  than  their  iprinsic  or  mint 


•      [  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  §9 

value,  it  will  be  satisfactory  that  they  be  creel  ited  hy  the  bank  at  such  higher 
value.  In  authorizing  them  to  be  credited  at  their  "  intrinsic  value/'  the 
collector,  no  doubt,  meant  to  indicate  that  :hey  ought  not  to  be  taken  at 
less. 

I  am,  respectfullv, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
N.  BiDDLE,  Esq., 

President  of  the  Bank 

United  States,  Philadelphia, 


Bank  United  States, 

September  2Sy  1S30. 

Sir:  I  transmit  you,  annexed,  a  copy  of  a  let'.er  lately  received  by  the 
President  of  the  bank  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who,  in  a  subse- 
quent letter,  states  that  the  collector  at  Key  West,  in  authorizing  the  dou- 
bloons to  be  credited  at  their  intrinsic  value,  meant,  no  do  ibt,  to  indicate  that 
they  ought  not  to  be  taken  at  less  than  their  mint  value.  This,  according 
to  law,  is,  you  are  aware,  only  84  cents  per  pennyweigl.t,  but  the  Director 
of  the  Mint,  in  his  report  of  1827,  says  that  the  gold  coins  of  Spain,  Mexico, 
and  Colombia,  of  their  present  standard,  may,  it  is  believed,  be  justly  made 
a  legal  tender  at  84-4-  cents,  which  price  you  are  authorize  I  to  allow  for  the 
deposite  referred  to;  thus  makingeach  doubloon,  weighing  17  dwts.  8§  grs., 
worth  about  Sl4  62  cents  intrinsically.  In  addition  to  8  .i  cents  per  dwt. 
you  may  allow  a  premium  of  two  per  cent.,  being  the  same  with  that  which 
we  have  just  been  paying  to  brokers  for  large  amounts  of  Auierican  goKl  of- 
fered by  them  to  the  bank,  and  which,  at  the  present  rates  of  foreign  ex- 
change, we  consider  a  liberal  price. 

I  am,  &c., 

WM.  McILVAIISE,  Cashier. 

P.  Bacot,  Esq., 

Cashier  of  B,  U.  S.  Charleston. 

P.  S.  In  reply  to  your  inquiry,  contained  in  the  postscript  \o  your  letter 
of  14th  instant,  to  the  second  assisting  cashier,  I  have  to  express  my  wish 
that  the  whole  of  the  small  final  dividend  from  J.  0.  Johnson's  estate  should 
go  to  the  credit  of  the  standing  debt,  as  being  far  the  greatest,  and  standing 
most  in  need  of  diminution. 


160 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  ] 

No.  6. 


STATEMENT  OP  THE  AMOUNT  OF  FUNDED  DEBT  SOLD  BY  THE  BANK  EACH 
YEAR,  BETWEEN  1824  AND  1831,  INCLUSIVE;  THE  COST  OF  THE  SAME, 
AND  THE  AMOUNT  IT  PRODUCED. 

Sales  of  4i  per  cent,  -stock  of  1825;  loan  of  five  millions. 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Rate  of 

Rate  of 

Amount 

Am'nt 

pre'm. 

disc'nt. 

of  pre'm. 

disc'nt. 

i&lb. 

JuiTe      7 

Gen.  Lafayette    -             -             - 

120,000 

par 

July      6 

S.  Clapier             ... 

25,451  69 

1  pr.  ct. 

. 

254  52 

.       7 

T.  Newman        ... 

12,000 

par 

13 

T.  &  J,  G.  Biddle 

6,000 

par 

14 

Do            -             -             «- 

4;ooo 

par 

16 

T.  Newman        -             ,             - 

4,000 

par 

18 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.  $14,S00 

- 

par 

u 

R.  Willing           -           35,966  38 

<^0  7PB   SS 

19 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

1,500 

par 

22 

Do            -           10,000 
Office,  New  York            2,900 

12,900 

par 

50 

Aug.     6 

Do    Baltimore 

500 

7 

Do     Boston     -             -             - 

7,710 

i 

« 

33  55 

15 

Do         do         -             - 

640 

i 

„ 

3  20 

23 

Do         do        - 

20,000 

par 

_ 

82  17 

24 

Do         do         - 

4,900 

i 

_ 

24  50 

26 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &•  Go.     - 

12,000 

- 

27 

Office,  Boston     - 

6,200 

i 

_ 

31 

29 

Do         do         - 

4,000 

i 

- 

20 

Sept.     3 

Do         do        - 

6,464  58 

i 

- 

32  32 

5 

Do         do         - 

1,800 

^ 

- 

9 

14 

Do         do         - 

1,200 

i 

- 

6 

(( 

Do     Baltimore 

1,000 

par 

16 

Do         do         - 

1,000 

par 

19 

Do    Boston     -             -             - 

1,800 

h 

. 

9 

Oct.       1 

Sundries              -           79,074  40 
G.  Mcintosh       -           16,400 
J.  R.  Black          -              7,950  35 

103,424  75 

par 
par 
par 

3 

Office,  New  York       187,000 
Sundries              -             4,370  97 

191  370  97 

par 
par 

5 

Office,  Boston     -           19,500 
Do     New  York        20,000 
Sundries               -         151,836  90 

191,336  90 

par 
par 
par 

4 

Office,  New  York         16,000 
Sundries               -                710  44 

16,170  44 

par 
par 

6 

Office,  New  York         32,209 
Sundries               -         529,153  50 

KfiO  QftO     -lO 

par 
par 

7 

Office,  Boston      -          41,185 
M.  A.  Bunce        -              200 
Allowed   H.   Hutchins 

for  services  in  effecting 

exchange  of  bills  for  4^ 

stock  for  sun'y  persons  1,213  25 
Sundries              -            7,050 

00^,00^    J\J 

49,648  25 

par 
par 

par 
par 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— -Continued. 


61 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Rate  0- 

R.ate  of 

Amount 

Am'nt 

pre'm. 

disc'nt. 

of  pre'rn. 

disc'n.t' 

1825, 

.' 

Oct,      8 

E.  &  J.  Perot       - 

$12,870 

par 

Office,  New  York 

29,400 

-f 

par 

Sundries               ■« 

50,656  35 

. 

par 

B.  Wohileben     - 

1,600 

- 

par 

Mary  Stokes 

1,300 

- 

par 

i 

Cashire,  B.  U.  S.  att'y 

2,853  53 

_ 

pay 

B.  auenet 

2,600 

- 

par 

J.  Black 

n,ooo 

113,279  88 

par 

10 

Office,  Boston     - 

14,300 

- 

par 

E.  &  J.  Perot       - 

6,350 

« 

par 

NixoH  &  Willing,  ass 

2,403  41 

- 

par 

Sundries 

18,400 

41,453  41 

par 

11 

B.  Rush 

1,700 

par 

D.  Lenox  &  others 

10,903  11 

- 

par 

J.  Dillon 

400 

„ 

par 

J.  Black 

3,000 

^ 

par 

Sundries              ■« 

10,200 

26,203  11 

par 

12 

Jane  Alley 

700 

par 

T.  Smith 

1,400 

. 

par 

Perot,  E.  &  J.      - 

4,000 

. 

par 

■ 

Office,  Boston     - 

9,271   19 

_ 

par 

L.  Custis 

1,000 

. 

par 

W.  P.  Custis      . 

3,500 

_ 

par 

Sundries 

22,640  60 

42,511  79 

par 

13 

R.  W.  McClellan 

4,500 

. 

par 

J.  Gourin 

600 

_ 

par 

Sybella  P.  Wilson 

500 

5,600 

par 

! 

H 

W.Rush,  jr. 

350 

par 

Office,  Boston      - 

20,100 

pant 

Esther  Lear 

100 

« 

par 

: 

Sundries 

12,213  06 

32,763  06 

par 

15 

Office,  New  York 

14,000 

. 

pasr 

B.  Bache 

300 

_ 

par 

J.  King  - 

10,000 

_ 

par 

• 

Female  Asylum  - 

268 

_ 

par 

J.  Delamater 

1,000 

25,568 

par 

! 

17 

B.  Ctuenet 

300 

- 

par 

■ 
■ 

S.  &  J.  Nevins    • 

25,000 

25,300 

par 

■ 

18 

S.  Keith 

3,000 

par 

Sundries 

2,850 

- 

par 

Office,  New  York 

16,000 

- 

par 

ipr.ct. 

. 

40> 

Do             do 

6,100 

• 

par 

M.  C.  Jenkins     - 

2,216  67 

, 

par 

J.  Ross  - 

800 

_ 

par 

J.  Kemper 

100 

. 

par 

: 

R.  Willing,  ex'r. 

950 

32,016  67 

par 

19 

Office,  New  York 

40,000 

• 

k 

, 

50 

Do            do 

15,000 

- 

par 

Mary  Gerlin 

500 

- 

par 

64 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued, 


Date, 

To  whom  sold, 

Principal. 

Rate  of 

Rate  of  Amount 

Amount 

pre'm. 

disc'nt 

of  pre'm 

of  disc'nt. 

1828. 

■ 

May  9 

T.  &  J.  G,  Biddle 

- 

8,000 

- 

i 

-^ 

20 

19 

Do 

, 

2,000 

^ 

i 

. 

5 

21 

Office,  N.  Y.,  P.,  W, 

K.,  &Co.- 

7,300 

par 

com'n^ 

- 

18  25 

22 

L.  Francis 

- 

200 

par 

23 

S.  Hutchins 

- 

3,400 

par 

31 

A.  Sesoigne 

- 

500 

par 

June  6 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 

- 

19,500 

- 

» 

- 

48  75 

11    C,  J.  IngersoU     - 

- 

1,396  51 

par 

12    Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 

, 

17,207 

» 

- 

43 

14   J.  Clarkson 

» 

1,570  29 

par 

16    Sundries 

, 

3,300 

par 

18 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

- 

20,000 

par 

21 

Prime,  W,,  K.,  &  Co. 

- 

10,784  85 

- 

j» 

- 

26  96 

July  1 

Sundries 

,    , 

134,044  58 

par 

2 

J.  White,  cash'r 
Estate,  J.  Steele 
E.  Taylor 
A.  De  Chardonary 

10,890  14 
1,000 
1,750 
3,369  09 

17,009  23 

par 
par 

par 

3 

W.  McKnight    , 
Ed.  W.  Bingham 
Am.  Pearce,  ex'r 
J.  Cuthbertson    - 
S,  Harbeson 

6,200 

75,954  01 

5,500 

500 

3,600 

91,754  01 

par 
par 
par 
par 
par 

5 

L,  R.  Bailey 

-> 

1,350 

par 

7 

A,  E.  Murcken   - 

■, 

4,500 

par 

8 

S.  Graham 

. 

1,100 

par 

9 

J.  Black 

E.  Ashburnham  - 

19,094 
1,000 

20,094 

par 
pur 

10 

Office,  Boston     - 
A.  Riley 

42,000 
600 

42,600 

par 

11 

J.  Steele  &  Trustee 

756  60 

par 

T.  Hulme 

25,000 

25,756  60 

par 

14 

D.  Caldwell 

P.  Debbos 

W.  Miller  and  others 

954  54 
2,000 
27,443  05 

qn  307    59 

par 
par 
par 

15 

Zadock  Thomas 

.. 

2,000 

par 

■ 

16 

Office,  Boston     •• 

_ 

3,700 

par 

17 

Do       Charleston 
J.  Keating 

11,368  IS 
1,100 

12,468  18 

par 

22 

Wm^  Miller  and  otliers  -             ■<  \ 

8,000  00 

. 

i 

, 

SO 

24 

Office,  Boston     - 
J.  Sawer 
Theresa  Wood   - 
G.  A.  Welkey    . 

2,200 
2,280  07 
iOO 

870 

5,450  07 

par 
par 
par 
par 

25 

S.  Lutze, 
J.  Steele,  jr. 
Sunday  school     • 

]!,300 
SOO 

700 

2,600 

par 
par 
par 

28 

Office,  Boston     - 

G,100 

- 

par 

* 

J.  Robertson 

500 

6,600 

par 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued. 


65 


Date. 


1828, 
July  29 


31 

Aug.  2 

5 

6 

7 


15 


n 


16 


17 


To  whom  sold. 


W.  Kelby 
Office,  Boston     - 
C.  McKenzie 

Office,  Boston     - 
J.  King 

Office,  New  York 
Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 
T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 
Office,  Boston 

Do  do 

J.  J.  Rodrigue     - 
Prime,  W.,K.,&  Co. 

C,  M.  Fennel      - 
T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

Office,  Charleston 
E.  Bringhurst 
Office,  Boston     - 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 
N.  Wain 

C.  &  S.  Wistar  - 
Office,  Boston 
Jul.  Scott 


1,665  35 

5,000 

1,800 


10,000 
944  09 


2,200 
2,800 
6,100 


200 
10,000 


101 
5,000 


20,000 
3,333  34 


20,500 
200 


Office,  Washington 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.  - 

Office,  Boston     -  15,400 

C.Yeates  -  1,574  tO 


Darby  Lyx 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

J.  Chew  - 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

S.  Straught 

Office,  Boston 

J.  Shoemaker     - 

R.  Pierpont 
Mary  Rogers 

W.  Custis 
Office,  Boston    - 
G.  Matthurs 
J.  Shields 


26,000 
19,500 


3,000 
1,200 


500 
600 
500 


S.  Hutchins        -  480 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle  35,000 

Office,  New  York         26,000 


R.  Porter  -  800 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.    25,752  76 


1 8'  James  Craig 
9 


1,000 


Principal. 


8,465  35 
500 

1,000 
50,000 
17,172  60 


10,944  09 


11,100 


10,200 
500 


5,101 


23,333  34 
500 


20,700 

1,082  06 
29,576  17 


16,974  10 

500 
10,000 
14,450 
25,000 

400 


45,500 


4,200 
2,000 


1,600 


61,480 


26,552  76 


Rate  of 
pre'm. 


par 
par 
par 

par 
par 

par 

par 

par 
par 
par 

par 


par 
par 
par 


par 

par 
par 


par 

par 
par 

par 

par 

par 
par 
par 

par 
par 

par 


Rate  of 
diac'nt. 


par 
par 


Amount 
of  pre'm. 


Amount 
ofdisc'nt. 


125 
25 


25 


5.0 


25 
6»5)) 


65  '^ 


M 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  J 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued. 


Date. 

To  whon>  sold. 

Principal. 

Rate  of 

Rate  of 

Amount 

Amount 

pre'ra. 

disc'nt. 

ofpre'm. 

of  disc'nt. 

1828. 

Sep.  18 

Ann  Craig          -             1,000 

- 

par 

C.  Sarmiento      -               800 

2,800 

par 

Oct.    2 

E.  Taylor 

1,000 

par 

3 

E.  Ashburner      -           ,-            ■ 

1,000 

par 

4 

J.  Clarksoii,  jr.   - 

200 

par 

11 

Wm.  Mcllvaine,  trustee  - 

151  25 

par 

17 

J.  B.Neagle       - 

1,050 

par 

21 

R.Porter 

415  60 

par 

24 

Office,  Boston     - 

13,000 

* 
par 

25 

Do        do          -           13,000 
Orphans'  co't,  Kent  co.    3,000 
C  umm'g  &  Lockw'd,ex'rs  1 ,000 

17,000 

par 
par 
par 

30 

Office,  Boston    -            -         '  - 

12,500 

par 

31 

Do        do          - 

1,000 

par 

Nov.lO 

M.  Ambercombie  &  H.  J.  Hutch- 
ins,  executors  -            -            - 

800 

par 

12 

Office,  Charleston            6,782  20 

- 

par 

P.,  Ward,K.,&Co.       19,361  91 

26,144  11 

par 

13 

M.  Alexander     -            -            - 

400 

par 

15 

Office,  Boston     - 

200 

par 

29 

Ligoigne             -               500 

» 

par 

Prime>  W.,  K.,  &  Co.    10,000 

•• 
10,500 

~ 

" 

49  94 

Dec.  1 

T.  Shields           -               300 

- 

par 

Office,  Norfolk   -          10,000 

. 

. 

- 

25 

W.  Mcllvame,  in  trust         18 

10,318 

3 

J.  Brewen,  of  England    - 

7,626  74 

par 

4 

M.  Miller 

1,000 

par 

11 

Office,  Baltimore 

2,000 

par 

12 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.      - 

25,000 

15 

Do 

1,100 

16 

H.  J.  Hutchins,  trustee 

14,532 

par 

17 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

100,000 

1 

- 

250 

19 

Office,  Boston     -           -            - 

25,365 

par 

26 

Prime,  W.,K.,&  Co.     - 

16,213  52 

disco'nt 

on  sun 

dry  sales 

to  this 

date 

. 

249  75 

31 

1829. 
Jan.  2 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

100,000 

- 

i 

- 

250 

Plant.  &  Mec.  b'k,  S.C.  62,500 

^ 

par 

D.  Caldwell        -               200 

-  ■ 

par 

Office,  Baltimore           10,928  IS 

- 

par 

J.  C.  Clay,  jr.      -               478 

- 

par 

W.McKnight    -            2,050 

76,156  13 

par 

3 

J.  Humphreys    -            1,300 
A.  de  Chardonnay           3,130  91 
Abm.  Peace,  ex'r            1,000 

5,430  91 

par 
par 
par 

S 

A.  Bradley          -               600 

- 

G.Widdifield     -         .     400 

1,000 

6 

Baring  and  others,  ex'rs 

of    3-5    estate,   W. 

Bingham         -          33,163  14 

• 

>  P.  Ashb^nl        -           4,500 

- 

i;  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued. 


67 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Rate  of 

Rateo 

Amount 

Amount 

pre'm. 

disc'nti 

'of  pre'm. 

ofdisc'nt. 

1S29. 

Jan.   6 

T.  &J.  Perry      -             1,012 

Wm.  Mcllvaine,  in  trust     131  90 

38,807  04 

- 

h 

- 

€6 

7 

D.  P.  P.  Harigues         11,777  64 
Office,  Baltimore                216 
B.  Cluenet           -             3,000 

14,993  64 

par 
par 
par 

8 

Office,  Charleston 

11,492 

par 

9 

Do          do        - 

73,729  80 

par 

13 

AnnPemberton  -                578  26 
J.Bacon,  trustee                 811  27 

1,589  53 

par 
par 

16 

T.  &  J.  Perry     - 

350 

par 

19 

J.  C.  Clark  &  5n.  Razer,  tr. 

2,200 

par 

21 

J;  Brown              -           50,000 
Office,  Baltimore                67!  04 

50,671  04 

par 

1 

' 

500 

22 

Over  issned,  Charleston,  bth 

1 

26 

Wra.  Mcllvaine,  in  trust 

183  37 

m 

1 

. 

1  37 

27 

N.F.  Parrot 

600 

par 

29 

Office,  Baltimore 

3,000 

par 

Feb.  S 

Do          do        - 

2,350 

9 

N.  Kendly 

500 

- 

. 

- 

5 

10 

Office,  Boston     - 

4,732 

par 

12 

G.  Prim  -            -            .            - 

1,400 

- 

. 

- 

14 

21 

J.  Clarkson 

101 

- 

_ 

- 

1 

26 

Jas.  Black 

3,868 

- 

_ 

- 

33  29 

Mar.  7 

Geo.  Oakly,  adm'r. 

3,030 

. 

- 

- 

30 

10 

A.  CarUle 

1,100 

- 

- 

- 

11 

12 

Office,  Boston     - 

300 

par 

13 

Gen.  Bernard      -            1,212 

„ 

_ 

. 

12 

ii 

Wm.  Mcllvaine  -               500 

1,712 

- 

» 

* 

S 

16 

R.  Porter 

404 

. 

- 

- 

4 

18 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle          40,000 

. 

- 

. 

399  25 

Prhne,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.   10,302  2^ 

. 

- 

- 

m 

103  02 

50,302  29 

April  2 

T.&J.Perry      - 

1,037  59 

■. 

- 

- 

•     10  27 

9 

Office,  Boston      - 

500 

i> 

„ 

- 

5 

16 

T.W.Rogers     - 

3,000 

» 

. 

- 

30 

17 

W.  Mcllvaine     -               350 

Do             intrust        136  15 

486  15 

- 

- 

" 

4  86 

20 

W.  P.  Custis      -            4,040 

. 

• 

, 

40 

P.  LorriUard       -          14,128  90 

- 

- 

- 

. 

139  89 

18,168  90 

23 

W.  P.  Custis       - 

2,020 

* 

. 

^ 

20 

S4 

P.  Provenchew,  sec.         1,804  20 

^ 

. 

. 

17  86 

1 

R.  Porter            -               621  75 

- 

- 

_. 

. 

6  15 

J.  Lybrund         -              900 

3,325  95 
500 

- 

- 

- 

9 

25 

At  Boston 

. 

. 

. 

3  75 

29 

G.  Green,  Boston          46,000 

- 

- 

- 

- 

675 

S.  Harbeson        -            1,010 

• 

. 

. 

„ 

10 

W.  H.  Keating  -               404 

- 

- 

- 

m 

4 

46,404 

May  2 

Sarah  Hutchinson,  in  trust 

100 

« 

m 

• 

1 

n 

8.  &  J.  JMeviflfs    - 

25,000 

•- 

- 

' 

319  50 

6S 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  j 
STATExMENT  No.  6— Cantinued. 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Rate  of 

Rate  of 

Amount 

Amount 

pre'm. 

Uisc'nt. 

of  prc'm. 

ofdisc'nt. 

1829. 

May  16 

At  Boston 

- 

6,000 

- 

. 

- 

30 

■18 

A.  W.  Kennedy,  et  al. 

in  trust    - 

650 

- 

- 

- 

6 

June  3 

Wm.  Mcllvaine  - 

- 

263  IS 

- 

- 

. 

2  68 

4 

At  Boston 

1,500 

- 

- 

3  75 

At  New  York     - 

4,959  52 

6,459  52 

- 

~ 

49  59 

S 

E.  S.  Patterson   - 

202 

•- 

- 

- 

- 

2 

Boston    - 

6,000 

6,202 

■• 

~ 

• 

13  5© 

11 

Boston    - 

- 

6,350 

- 

- 

. 

11  26 

12 

S.  &  J.  Nevins    - 

- 

10,000 

- 

- 

_ 

125 

13 

Boston    - 

2,000 

- 

- 

« 

- 

3 

S.  &  J.  Nevins,  &Q). 

5,000 

7,000 

- 

- 

' 

62  50 

15 

H.  J,  Hutchins    - 

- 

1,847  55 

- 

- 

_ 

IS  47 

July   1 

Samuel  Tait 

- 

3,131 

" 

- 

- 

31 

2 

_             .             - 

v 

138  25 

- 

- 

- 

1  ts 

6 

R.Wood  &  S.O.H.Bane8by410 

" 

- 

- 

5  12 

At  Boston 

12,053 

12,463 

" 

" 

- 

120  53. 

16 

Washington 

- 

1,500 

- 

- 

- 

15 

27 

New  York 

- 

26,380  98 

^ 

- 

- 

263  81 

Aue.  6 

T.  Biddle 

- 

3,420  89 

. 

-   ■ 

- 

42  67 

8 

At  New  York     - 

. 

5,000 

. 

-■ 

_ 

50 

11 

Do 

2,000 

- 

- 

- 

20 

12 

Do 

9,250 

. 

- 

- 

92  50 

14 

Do 

- 

186  05 

. 

. 

_■ 

1  86 

22 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 

- 

2,180  65 

- 

- 

- 

21  81 

Sep.  11 

At  New  York     - 

- 

21,500 

- 

- 

- 

215 

Oct.    3 

Do 

2,612  77 

Do 

26  39 

2,639  16 

" 

•  - 

- 

26  53 

Nov.lO 

J.  Delafield 

- 

25,000 

par 

27 

W.  G.  Buckner  ■ 

25,000 

par 
at999,0 

^5prl00 

4,906,074  08 

5,669  32 

10,309  6& 

' 

Disco 

unt 

5,869  32 

4,440  34 

Sales  0/41  per  cent,  stock — loan  of  5  millions,  1824,  act  24th  May. 


1829. 

■ 

Feb.  11 

AtWashington  -            -             - 

473,601  15 

- 

- 

- 

4,735  01 

July    1 

Planters'  and  Mechan- 

ics' bank,  Charleston  50,000 

- 

- 

- 

- 

500 

J.  Cowper,  Norfolk         6,610  21 

56,610  21 

" 

~ 

- 

66  10^ 

3 

A.  D.  Chardonnu             7,493  67 

> 

. 

- 

- 

93  67 

E.  &  J.  Perot       -             6,000 

12,493  67 

- 

♦ 

- 

62  5a 

6 

N.  Kennedy        -               500 

- 

- 

• 

• 

6  25 

At  Boston           -        271,462  15 

271,962  15 

- 

- 

~ 

2,564  62 

8 

Ait  Charl«9t*n     - 

100,000 

- 

- 

-■ 

1,000 

[  Rep.  No,  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued. 


69 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Rate  of  Rate  of 

Amount 

Amount 

^ 

pre'm. 

disc'nt 

of  disc'nt 

of  disc'nt. 

1829. 

JuJy   9 

At  Boston 

14,600 

_ 

„ 

« 

, 

146 

P.  Ashburn  &  others 

6,860 

_ 

_ 

« 

« 

68 

T.  Biddle 

100,000 

121,460 

- 

- 

- 

1,247  50 

10 

At  Boston 

- 

1,000 

.   _ 

. 

- 

10 

11 

Do 

- 

10,400 

„ 

. 

- 

96  21 

13 

Do 

8,350 

. 

_ 

. 

- 

75  50 

At  Washington  - 

14,247  47 

22,597  47 

- 

— 

- 

142  47 

14 

Boston 

- 

6,000 

_ 

. 

- 

53  25 

15 

Nevins    - 

10,000 

_ 

_ 

- 

- 

125 

L.  W.  Tazewell,  N.  Y 

.  40,000 

« 

» 

. 

_ 

400 

Baltimore 

18,600 

68,600 

- 

- 

232  50 

18 

Wm.  Mcllvaine,  trust 

183  83 

. 

_ 

^ 

- 

1  83 

Boston    - 

750 

933  83 
10,000 

- 

- 

- 

6  19 

20 

Do 

_ 

_ 

- 

. 

S2  50 

21 

M.  Keily 

- 

202 

_ 

. 

~ 

2 

22 

At  Charleston 

2,380  22 

par 

J.  Black 

2,525 

4,905  22 

- 

- 

.  ~ 

27 

23 

At  Boston 

. 

8,200 

_ 

. 

- 

64  59 

24 

N.J.Kennedy    - 

250 

-. 

„ 

_ 

- 

2  50 

Boston    - 

6,600 

6,850 

- 

- 

** 

50  34 

25 

Charleston 

- 

150 

par 

28 

Do 

. 

600 

par 

29 

N.  Kennedy 

_ 

100 

. 

- 

1 

30 

Boston     - 

- 

18,922  84 

_ 

. 

- 

132  56 

Aug.  3 

Do       - 

- 

2,000 

_ 

_ 

- 

12  76 

5 

Charleston 

- 

1,000 

par 

6 

Boston     - 

- 

1,000 

. 

- 

10 

7 

N.  Kennedy 

- 

100 

. 

- 

1 

10 

Boston    - 

12,900 

- 

_ 

„ 

- 

129 

W.  Miller  &  others 

19,401  69 

32,301  69 

- 

- 

*' 

194 

12 

R.  Willing,  &c.  - 

15,842  69 

_ 

_ 

_ 

- 

158  40 

Washington 

14,141  41 

29,984  10 

- 

- 

" 

141  41 

13 

S.  B.  Lear,  of  Washington 

4,593  59 

_ 

. 

- 

45  92 

15 

T.  Cadwalader,  ex'r 

- 

1,194  79 

. 

- 

. 

11   94 
3  09 

17 

Rev.  J.  Kemper  - 

309  33 

. 

- 

. 

Marg.  Turner     - 

800 

« 

_ 

_ 

.. 

8 

At  Boston 

1,000 

2,109  33 

- 

-    ■ 

- 

10 

18 

P.  Conrad 

1,020  20 

- 

_ 

. 

10  20 

0.  Trade  De  Bella 

2,679  90 

3,700  10 

- 

- 

- 

26  80 

19 

P.  Calliole 

- 

9,090  90 

- 

- 

. 

90  90 

21&24 

At  Boston 

. 

26,000 

_ 

.    _ 

" 

260 

T.  Biddle 

- 

100,000 

_ 

_ 

. 

1,247  50 

25 

At  Boston 

- 

6,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

60 

26 

Baltimore 

_ 

1,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

10 

31 

Boston 

- 

22,800 

. 

_ 

- 

228 

Baltimore 

- 

17,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

170 

Sep.  2 

Do 

- 

14,500 

„ 

« 

_ 

181  25 

3 

Boeton 

- 

500 

- 

-     ■ 

- 

5 

70 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued. 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

1              1 
Rate  of,  Rate  of'  Amount 

Amount 

pre'm. 

disc'nt. 

of  pre'm. 

of  disc'nt. 

1829. 

Sep.   4 

S.  Andrews 

. 

200 

• 

„ 

. 

2 

7 

At  Boston 

500 

. 

. 

_ 

_ 

5 

C.  Evans 

2,800 

3,300 

- 

- 

- 

28 

8 

J.  B.  Neagle 

- 

404 

- 

. 

" 

4 

10 

C.  Evans  &  others 

909 

_ 

_ 

9 

Boston    - 

9,S30  30 

10,739  30 

- 

- 

98  25 

11 

Do 

- 

3,000 

- 

- 

~ 

30 

12 

A.  Finley 

- 

550 

. 

_ 

5  50 

14 

T.  Biddle 

70,000 

. 

_ 

^ 

- 

700 

Boston    - 

58,184  71 

T 

. 

. 

. 

581  84 

Baltimore 

3,500 

131,684  71 

- 

- 

- 

35 

15 

T.  Cadwalader    - 

- 

1,000 

. 

- 

_ 

10 

16 

At  New  York      - 

- 

867 

_ 

. 

„ 

8  67 

17 

Wm.  Miller 

- 

28,652  66 

- 

- 

. 

286  52 

19 

Charleston 

- 

2,300 

par 

21 

New  York 

- 

1,870 

. 

- 

13  70 

22 

Charleston 

- 

4,300 

par 

28 

C.  Sarmiento 

- 

3,030  30 

. 

_ 

30  3© 

30 

T.  Biddle 

80,000 

- 

- 

- 

800 

1,742,261  01 

at  989 

864  pr. 

$100 

17,661  09 

Sales  of  5  per  cent,  stock — loan  of  5  millions. 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal, 

Premium. 

1826. 

Feljruary     6 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle       .            -            -            - 

3,113  36 

156  9J 

8 

S.  Straught   -             - "           - 

400 

20 

11 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle       -  .          - 

50,000 

1,870 

13 

Do                     ,            .            .            . 

20,000 

847  75 

13 

Mary  Mcllvaine        -             -             .             . 

2,000 

90 

23 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle      -            ,            -            . 

20,000 

748 

J.  B.  Mcllvaine          -             -             -     •        . 

3,000 

120 

20 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle      -            -            .            . 

76,000 

3,410  98 

25 

R.Porter       .            -             -             -             . 

1,500 

67  50 

March         9 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.            -            - 

10,000 

374 

10 

Mary  Mcllvaine         .... 

500 

22  50 

15 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Oo. 

10,000 

374 

17 

Do                    -            .            ,            , 

50,000 

1,870 

Office,  Boston            .            -            -            - 

10,000 

400 

18 

Prime,  W.  ,K.,  &  Co. 

42,000 

1,570  SO 

April           7 

Office,  Boston            .... 

60,000 

2,400 

11 

R.  Porter 

1,909  30 

90  70 

1827. 

October     15 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle      .            .            -            . 

9,500 

829  11 

1828. 

November  12 

Prime,  W.,K.,&  Co. 

32,900 

2,473  09 

April           9 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle      ..... 

5,000 

311  69 

May           19 

Do                „            .            .            , 

?j000 

516  15 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  3 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued 


71 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal 

Premium; 

1828 

May 

21 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 

1,000        ) 

June 

6 

Ditto                 .... 

1,000        } 

349  27 

12 

Ditto                 .... 

4,092  17  ) 

18 

T.  8c  J.  G.  Biddle      .            .            .            - 

6,500 

372  78 

21 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 

4,501  50 

204  24 

July 

14 

J.Bailey        ..... 

3,500 

210 

August 

6 

Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co. 

1,200       ] 

8 

Ditto                 .... 

1,000 

Sd 

Ditto 

35,296  99  \ 

2,620  21 

September  4  | 

Ditto                 ,            ,            .            . 

6,470 

17 

Ditto 

1,721        J 

October 

30 

Office,  Baltimore       .            -            -            - 

5,000 

300 

1829 

January 

9 

Do    Boston            .... 

50,000 

2,500 

13 

Do     Baltimore      .... 

33,843  77 

1,692  19 

17&22  1 

Do        do- 

8,000 

400 

30 

Wm.  Burke                -            -            -        "     - 
Prime,  W.,  K.,  &  Co.             -            - 

8,265  05 
7,261  73 

434  95 

February 

17 

Arnold  Myers             .             .             -             . 

500 

25 

March 

18 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle      .... 
Premium  on  sales  7,261  73,  by  P.,  W.,  K.,  & 

10,000 

423  88 

Co.,  in  trust,  30th  January 

_ 

344  02 

April 

6 

At  Boston      .            .            .            .            - 

50,000 

1,750 

17 

Alex'r.  Elmsie           -            - 

24,000 

840 

22 

J.  White,  cash'r        .            -            -            . 

1,000 

45 

June 

1 

At  Boston      .            .            -            -            . 

5,000 

214  58 

Jnly 

1 

Planters'  and  Mechanics'  bank,  Charleston    - 

55,529  21 

1,943  52 

John  Brown  -            -            .            -            - 

90,587  42 

905  87 

Matthew  Lawler 

20,840 

208  40 

J.G.  Roch 

91,108  32 

911  08 

Wm.  Stevenson        .... 

11,500 

115 

Baltimore       ..... 

5,000 

Isaac  Harvey,  jr.,  &c.             -            -            - 

15,400 

154 

Wm.  Strawbridge    -            -            -            . 

900 

9 

2 

Roman  Catholic  Society,  St.  Joseph  - 

1,500 

t5 

Mary  Cornell          '  -     _       - 

300 

3 

Theoph's  Harris        -            .            -            ." 

15,800 

158 

Wm.  Mcllvaine         -            .            .            - 

600 

6 

Wra.Y.Byrch          .            .            -            . 

3,708  53 

37  QS 

3 

E.  &  J.  Perot            .... 

105,150 

1,051  50 

J.G.Koch 

10,400 

104 

6 

Sundries        - 

51,900 

519 

John  Brown  -            -            -            - 

4,000 

40 

Arthur  Harper           -            - 

17,000 

170 

P.  Beck,  jr.,  trustee     •            .            -            . 

3,500 

is 

Pa.  Ins.  Co.  - 

6,000 

60 

John  Potter  -            -            -            .            . 

50,000 

500 

Arnold  Meyers          -            .            .            - 

5,200 

52 

At  Boston     -            -            -            - 

134,000 

fi,690 

C.McLeod   -            -            - 

300 

3 

H.  Binney,  et  al.,  in  trust 

9,538  40 

95  38 

Jane  R.  Roberts        -            - 

200 

2 

7 

Chas.  Chauncey        .... 

2,000 

20 

E.  MarshaU  ..... 

7,000 

70 

Cath.Moss   -            .            .            -            . 

9,000 

90 

C.  J.  IngersoU  &  W.  J.  BeJi  - 

176  90 

1  77 

D.  W.  Francis,  in  trust         -            «            . 

6,662  68  ) 
13,500        I 

«01  61 

R.  Willing,  ex'r,  in  trust       r 

A,  A.  Brown     ;        .            -           -           - 

4,d00 

9fe 

72 


'  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued. 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Premium. 

July 

8 

R.  Willing,  ex'r 

8,931  70 

89  30 

M.  Chapman  and  J.  Bacon 

10,891  09 

108  91 

Neal  Fanan  -             -             -             -             - 

11,000 

110 

Wm.  Boyd  and  S.  Lewis 

320 

6  40 

9 

Thomas  Biddle          .             .             -             . 

70,000 

1,048  50 

Wm.Hembcll            -             -             -             . 

22,206 

222  06 

Andrew  Thompson   - 

1,000 

10 

M.  Smallwood            .             •             -             . 

553  92 

11  08 

B.  Rush        ...            -            - 

100 

2 

At  New  York             .             -            .             - 

45,498  69 

796  21 

10 

Ditto                    .... 

80,302  10 

1,536  02 

11 

W.  Howell,  in  trust  .            -            -            - 

425 

8  50 

J.  &  S.  Perot             -            - 

40,905 

409  05 

13 

Ann  Watson              .            .            .            - 

200 

4 

J.  P.  Espy 

1,200 

24 

E.  S.  Patterson           -             .             -             . 

2,000 

20 

At  New  York           -            .        -    . 

6,000 

120 

16 

Ditto      .            .            .            -            - 

5,000 

100 

17 

Ditto      .            -            -            -            - 

35,000 

700 

18 

At  Boston      -            -            -            '       ,     - 

20,000 

700 

20 

New  York            .... 

19,438  31 

388  77 

Boston      -             -             .             -             - 

5,000 

175 

E.  S.Burd            -             - 

103,865  66 

1,632  97 

21 

J.  J.  Schum  -             -            -             -            - 

599  52 

14  93 

C.  Chauncoy               -             -             -    *         - 

3,850 

96  25 

Adel.  Sesoigne           .... 

6,000 

60 

22 

At  New  York            -            -            -            - 

18,120  68 

364   12 

23 

Ditto      .            -            .            -            - 

32,985  24 

659  70 

24 

R.  Loxley,  et  al.        - 

7,200 

ISO 

T.W.Morris            .            .            -            . 

1,000 

25 

At  Boston      -            .            -            .|           - 

45,000 

900 

25 

Ditto        -            -            - 

250 

8  75 

T.W.Morris             .             .             -             . 

40,928  48  ) 
300       5 

1,030  71 

Wm.  Strawbridge      -             - 

27 

At  Boston      .            .            .            -            - 

5,098  17 

178  43 

New  York           .... 

6,543  80 

163  59 

Boston     .            .            -            -            - 

•       19,000 

475 

29 

New  York            .... 

'    1,800 

45 

Cash'r  Bank  U.  S.,  attorney  for  foreigners     - 

33,691  26 

1,010  74 

30 

At  New  York            "            "            "            ' 

2,300 

57  50 

31 

Boston     .            .            -            -            - 

45,700 

1,307  48 

August 

3 

E.  &J.Perot             .            .            .            . 

6,600 

198 

4 

At  Boston      -            -            - 

2,542  25 

73  43 

5 

Martin  Scott-             .... 

2,000 

60 

6 

J.  Hambleton,  U.  S.  N. 

4,987 

149  61 

7 

At  Boston     .            .            -            -            - 

1,000 

30 

8 

New  York           .            .            -            . 

5,367  03 

161  01 

10 

Baltimore              .... 

5,545 

166  36 

Boston     .             -            -             -             - 

«,000 

150 

11 

Ditto      .            .            -            -            - 

7,100 

213 

New  York           .            .            .            , 

7,787  98 

142  38 

13 

Ditto      .            .            .            -            . 

1,000 

30 

17 

Ditto      .            .            -            -            . 

17,982  14 

540  20 

Boston     -            -            -            -            - 

5,000 

150 

18 

Ditto      .-.--- 

4,000 

120 

, 

20 

Ditto      .            r            -            -            - 

5,000 

150 

T.  P.  Morris             .... 

1,000 

30 

22 

At  Boston      -            -            .            -            - 

3,500 

105 

25 

Ditto      -            - 

2,809 

34 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.   6— Continued. 
Sales  of  5  per  cent,  stock — loan  of  4  millions. 


73 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Premium. 

1^29. 

, 

August      25 

New  York    ----- 

§9,319  42 

$279  58 

Pha3nix  Insurance  Company 

15,000 

450 

27 

Law.  Lewis  -             -             -             -             - 

,  2,500 

75 

30 

Wm.  Mcllvainc         -             -             .             . 

2,200 

66 

Se})tembcr   1 

At  Baltimore              -             .             -             . 

8,100 

243 

August      31 

Boston      -             .             .             .             - 

1,000 

30 

September  2 

Charleston            -             -             .             . 

7,330  S3 

293  23 

5 

New  York           .... 

12,000 

360 

8 

Boston      -             -             -             -             - 

5,000 

150 

9 

New  York           -            -            .            - 

20,000 

600 

10 

Ditto                 J            .            _            . 

2,000 

60' 

11 

Ditto                 -            • 

3,930 

117  90 

Charleston            _             .             .             . 

5,000 

200 

N.  Y.,  P.,  W.  R.  &  Co. 

30,789  73 

923  69 

12 

New  York 

14,500 

435 

14 

T.  Biddle 

5,173  81 

155  21 

15 

At  Boston     -            -            -            -            - 

23,000 

690 

16 

New  York           -            -            -            . 

8,347  56 

250  43 

Premium  on' sales  at  Baltimore,  1st  July 

_ 

175 

17 

Phosnix  Insurance  Company 

22,000 

660 

19 

At  Boston      -             -             -    '         - 

25,009  58 

750  28 

30 

T.  Biddle       .-■-.- 

20,000 

600 

October        3 

At  Baltimore              .             .             -             . 

9,000 

275 

10 

Short  Cr.,  N.  Y.,  15th  August 

73 

31 

At  New  York            -             -             -             . 

G,780 

203  40 

November  10 

J.  Delafield,  cash'r     -             -             -             - 

25,000 

1,000 

December    5 

W.  G.  Buckner         .... 

25,000 

1,000 

2,599,974  01     ■ 

70,938  40 

Sale  by  Barings,  March  12,  1823       - 

141,400 

4,705  56 

$2,741,374  01 

$66,232  84 

At  10,24 

1  60  per  $100 

RECAPITULATION. 

Sales  of  4^  per  cent,  stock,  1825,  loan  of  five  millions,  act  26tli  May,  $4,906,074  08 

Do                     do       1824,                  do                 act  24th  May,  1,742,261  01 

Sales  of  5  per  cent,  stock,  loan  of  four  millions,        -             -             -  2,741,374  01 


Sales  of  5  per  cent.  stock- 

-loan  of  J 

^ottr  millions. 

1S3U. 

January      13 

In  New  York 

- 

224,500 

1,225 

February     8 

Ditto 

_ 

2,620 

157  20 

9 

Boston    -            -            - 

. 

1,000 

60 

■k 

Ditto     - 

- 

18,000 

990 

iB' 

New  York 

. 

250 

13  75 

I^B                 20 

Boston    -            -            - 

. 

1,000 

56  25 

H 

Ditto     - 

- 

•  10,000 

563  89 

H 

Ditto     -            -             -     ^ 

. 

11,000 

623  33 

H        ^^ 

Corporation  of  Washington 

. 

159,170 

7,958  50 

^llarch         2 

At  New  York 

. 

220 

12  73 

6 

Ditto 

- 

10,000 

550 

15 

Boston 

- 

40,000 

2,333  34 

10 


74     V 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  6— Continued, 


Date. 

To  whom  sold. 

Principal. 

Premium. 

March        18 

By  Prime,  W.  R.,  8c  Co. 

10,000 

r)77  40 

April            7 

At  New  York 

180,000 

9,150 

9 

Do                    -            .            .            . 

50,000 

2,750 

June           15 

To  Corporation  of  Washington 

217,806  85 

15,246  48 

October        2 

Do 

42  99 

1  96 

1831. 

July           16 

At  New  York            ,            ,            .            . 

47,000 

2,937  50 

18 

Do                     -            -            .            - 

60,000 

3,757  74 

25 

Do                     ,            ,            .            . 

70,000 

4,550 

October       4 

Do                     .... 

4,500 

225 

10 

Boston     -            ,            -            -            . 

1,900 

123  50 

14 

To  T.  Blddlo  &  Co. 

137,416  55 

6,527  26 

1832. 

February  23 

At  Baltimore             .            ,            .            . 

2,200 

115  50 

$4,000,000 

$136,789  25 

= 

RECAPITULATION  OF  4i  PER  CENT.  STOCK. 

4 J  per  cent,  sold,  act  26th  May,       -  ,  ,  -  $4,906,074  08 

Do  do  24th  May,       -  .  -  .  $1,742,261  01 

Add  this  amount  to  former,  and  deduct  it  from  the  latter,  be- 
ing an  error  in  naming  the  stock  when  sold,  -  -  2,737  2,737 


1831,  October  30,  amounts  paid  off  by  U.  S., 


4,908,811  08    1,739,524  01 
91,188  92    3,260,475.  99 

5,000,000         5,000,000 


No.   7. 

Donations, 

Quesiioji.  What  is  the  amount  of  donations  made  by  the  bank  for  road^i, 
and  other  purposes? 

1817— October  3,  To  the  Phoenix  Hose  Company,  -          §  100 

ResoUilion       ditto,  •  50 

Washington    ditto,  -  50 

Assistance  Fire  Company,  -  50 

Fellowship      ditto,  -  50 

Vigilant           ditto,  -  50 

Fame                ditto,  -  50 

South  wark      ditto,  -  50 

Philapelphia   ditto,  -  50 

Neptune  Hose  Company,  -  50 

Columbia         ditto,  -  50 

Relief  Fire  Company,  -  50 

Perseverance  Hose  CoirpaDy,     -  50 

Philadelphia  ditto,  -  50 


1818— March  13, 
it 
a 
<( 
<( 

^*      April  J  7, 

(( 

^*      May  19, 

n 

**       Jinea, 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  7 

1818 — June        2,  To  the  Resolution  Fire  Company,  -  50 

1823— Febr'y    7,       <«       Fire  Company  of  Cincinnati,  1000 

feet  of  hose. 
1824— Febr'y  27,       **       Vigilant  Fire  Comply,  Pittsburg,  100 

1828 — March  11,        '*        New  York  police  officers,  -  50 

1829 — Dec'r    22,       "        Frankfort  and   Lexington  Turn- 
pike Company,  -  -       1,500 
1830 — Febr'y  .  9,       "•     Repairing    and    improving    Main 

Cross  street,  Lexington,  Ky.    -  50 

<*        August  30,        <<        Cincinnati,  Columbus,  and  Woos- 

ter  Turnpike  Company,  -        1,500 

1831— Febr'y  U,       «       Canal     Commissioners    of    Ohio, 

100  feet  of  square  ground  in 
the  northeast  part  of  Cincin- 
nati, valued  at  -  -  620 


^4,620 


No.  S. 


Letter  from  Jauics  PFatson  Webb  to  the  honorable  C.   C,  Camhrelengy 

Philadelphia. 

[Private.] 

New  York,  March  19,  1832. 

Deau  Sir:  Yesterday's  southern  mail  brought  us  the  intelligence  that  a 
committee  had  been  appointed,  by  the  Speaker,  to  examine  into  the  affairs 
of  the  United  States'  Bank,  and  that  you  are  a  member  of  this  committee. 
I  have  viewed  the  discussion  on  this  subject  with  perfect  indilierence,  and, 
if  ap.y  thing,  rather  wished  for  a  commiiLee  to  be  appointed,  believing,  as  I 
did,  that  it  would  prove  to  be  a  measure  favorable  to  tlie  rechartering  of  the 
bank.  But  Mr.  Burrows  called  yesterday,  and  made  me  acquainted  with 
a  fact  which  may  be  misconstrued,  and  wiiich  induces  me  to  address  you  ou 
this  subject. 

When  Noah  purchased  the  half  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  he  borrow- 
ed 815,000  of  the  father  of  Silas  E.  Burrows,  and  §5,000  of  Mr.  Stewart, 
to  effect  that  purchase.  For  the  815,000  borrowed  through  Burrovvs  of 
his  father,  Noah  gave  ten  notes  of  ^1,500,  and  interest  on  each,  which  notes 
1  endorsed.  The  S5,000  of  Mr.  Stewait  was  a  similar  transaction.  I  now 
learn  from  Mr.  Burrows,  that,  in  January,  he  wanted  money,  and  had 
these  notes  discounted  in  the  United  States'  Bank  on  some  collateral  se- 
curity; that,  consequently,  he  did  not  endoj-se  them;  and  that  they  now 
stand  upon  the  books  of  the  bank  simply  as  our  paper  discounted!  .  A  mo- 
ment's reflection  will  show  you  how  itnporlant  it  is  that  this  matter  should 
be  properly  understood,  both  on  account  of  the  bank,  and  the  reputation 
of  Mr.  Noah  and  myself.  To  my  knowledge,  Mr.  Burrows  received  a 
commission  of  2h  per  cent,  for  procuring  this  money  for  Noah;  and  if 
your  committee  are  to  touch  this  matter  in  any  way,  I  ask  of  you  as  a 
friend,  and  1  'emand  of  you  £S  the  representative  from  this  city,  that  Bur- 
rows and  mvK.  -be  called  before  you  to  testify  cTq  oath  to  the  uature  of 
this  transaction. 


76  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

You  will  find,  on  the  books  of  the  bank,  that  we  have  been  accommodated 
with  the  means  of  carrying  on  our  concern;  but  this  I  am  perfectly  \Yilling 
should  be  known  to  the  world,  as  it  would  redound  to  the  credit  of  the 
bank — do  us  no  injury — and  cover  with  shame  out  local  institutions.  I 
would  tell  you,  and  prove  it,  too,  that,  at  the  time  of  our  espousing  the  re- 
charter  of  the  United  States'  Bank,  we  had  ^13,500  of  accommodation  in  the 
City  Bank  alone,  on  the  endorsement  of  Mr.  Stewart;  that  we  had  a  large 
similar  accommodation  for  nearly  two  years  from  this  one  institution;  that, 
in  consequence  of  our  favorable  opinions  of  the  United  Stakes'  Bank,  they 
made  us  pay  up  every  penny  of  our  accommodation,  and  threw  out  our  note 
with  Mr.  Stewart's  endorsement;  that  the  Manhattan  and  National  Banks 
pursued  the  same  course;  and  that,  in  consequence,  we  were  cut  of  from  our 
usual  resources  of  obtaining  those  accommodations  to  which  the  amount  of 
our  capital  emploj'ed,  and  the  extent  of  our  business  entitled  us,  and  which  we 
surely  did  not  sacrifice  by  publishing  a  newspaper.  We, were  literally  pro- 
scribed by  our  local  institutions:  and  when,  in  August,  (five  months  after  our 
course  in  relation  to  the  bank  had  been  changed,)  it  became  necessary  to 
raise  funds,  we  laid  the  case  before  Walter  Bowne,  expressed  our  desire  to 
obtain  the  necessary  facilities  from  the  United  States'  Bank,  and  obtained 
his  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  Biddle.  He  hnew^  and  you  know,  that 
when  three  of  our  local  institutions  threw  out  a  note  for  ^2,500,  v/Ith  Mr. 
Stewart's  endorsement,  it  was  literally  saying  *'go  to  the  United  States' 
Bank — you  are  opposed  to  us,  and  we  will  not  accommodate  you."  V^'^e 
had  no  other  alternative,  I  went  to  Philadelphia,  and  gave  to  Mr.  Biddle 
a  full  and  perfect  history  of  our  paper,  and  asked  for  a  loan  of  ^20,000.  It 
was  granted.  And  in  February  it  became  due.  We  paid  on  it  $2,000,  or 
10  per  cent,  and  between  five  and  six  hundred  dollarsdiscount  on  the  re- 
maining ^18,000,  and  gave  our  note  for  that  amount  at  six  months. 

There  is  nothing  in  our  accommodation  with  the  bank  which  is  not  of  a 
business  character,  and  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  asked  for,  can 
do  us  no  injury,  and  must,  at  the  same  time,  redound  to  the  credit  of  that 
institution.  If  you  examine  the  books,  you  will  perceive  that  the  notes  dis- 
counted for  Burrows  are  drawn  by  Noah,  and  endorsed  by  me;  while  those 
for  the  paper  are  drawn  by  Noah  and  myself,  and  endorsed  by  James  Wat- 
son Webb'&  Co.  If  Burrows  and  myself  were  both  dead,  this  difference 
would  show  the  difibrent  character  of  the  transactions. 

But  my  object  in  getting  before  the  committee  would  not  be  confined  to 
the  explaining  of  this  transaction.  I  would  proceed  to  vindicate  myself  fur- 
ther. I  would  tell  you,  and  through  j^ou,  the  people,  that  I  always  have 
been  in  favor  of  re-chartering  the  United  States'  Bank;  that  the  first  article' 
whichever  appeared  in  our  columns  was  written  in  Washington  about  a 
month  previous  to  the  message  of  1829;  that  it  was  inserted  in  our  columns 
during  my  absence  from  the  city,  or  without  my  examination;  that  I  disap- 
proved of  it,  its  arguments,  and  conclusions;  that  I  never,  in  my  life,  wrote 
a  line  against  the  bank,  but  that  I  permitted  r.nd  sanctioned  articles  against 
it  because  we  had  become  committed;  because  the  President  had  assailed  it, 
and  because  I  was  under  the  erroneous  impression  that  it  was  prostituted  to 
the  advancement  of  Henry  Clay  to  the  Presidency.  I  became  convinced 
that  this  was  not  the  case,  and  I  eagerly  seized  upon  the  expression  of  a 
Jackson  Legislature  in  Pennsylvania,  upon  the  danger  of  embroiling  the  two 
States,,  (the  folly  of  which  Mr.  Van  Buren  now  suffers  under,)  and  the  going 
out  of  Tylee,  and  coming  in  of  Noah,  to  take  the  course  which  I  was  per- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  77 

suaded  would  best  subserve  the  interests  of  the  people,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
accord  fully  with  my  own  opinions.  I  would  assure  you,  under  the  solem- 
nity of  an  oath,  as  I  now  do  on  my  honor,  that  I  did  not  even  dream  of  an 
accommodation  from  the  United  Stales'  Bank  after  Noah's  purchase;  nor  is 
it  probable  that  we  would  ever  have  required  one,  if  the  local  banks  had 
given  us  those  facilities  to  which  we  were  justly  entitled,  and  which  we 
were  driven  to' seek  elsewhere.  I  repeat,  that  if  we  are  to  be  referred  to  in 
the  report  of  your  committee,  I  am  entitled  to  full  opportunity  of  explana- 
tion, or  you  must  accept  of  the  statements  here  made.  If  this  matter  comes 
before  the  public  without  being  fully  explained,  vve  will  not  only  be  assailed 
by  the  opponents  of  the  bank,  but  the  enemies  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  of 
General  Jackson,  will  make  every  exertion  to  injure  our  influence,  and  de- 
stroy our  establishment.  We  ask  nothing  hut  justice,  when  we  object  to 
any  ex  parte  report,  and  to  you  we  look  both  personally  and  politically  for 
such  a  course  of  conduct  as  will  secure  to  us  a  fair  hearing,  without,  in  any 
way,  screening  us  from  the  just  responsibility  of  our  conduct. 

Your  friend  and  obedient  servant, 

.IAS.  WATSON  WEBB. 


No.  9. 

ON  THE  SUBJECT  OF  LOANS  TO  WEBB  AND  NOAH, 

Examination  of  James  Watson  Webb, 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  you  one  of  the  editors  of  the  New 
York  Courier  and  Enquirer? 

Answer.     1  am. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  At  what  time  did  you  make  your  arrange- 
ment with  M.  M.  Noah  to  associate  him  with  you  in  the  concerns  of  that 
paper.^ 

Answer.  Between  20th  March  and  1st  April,  1831,  as  near  as  I  can 
recollect. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng-  Was  M.  M.  Noah's  name  introduced 
into  the  paper,  and  afterwards  taken  t)ut? 

Answer.     It  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Who  were  the  partners  in  the  firm  of 
James  Watson  Webb  &  Co.? 

Answer.     Myself  and  M.  M.  Noah. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  M.  M.  Noah  negotiate  a  loan  to  ena- 
ble him,  in  part,  to  purchase  a  share  of  the  paper?  If  he  did,  state  what 
you  know  of  it,  and  of  ten  notes  given  by  him  with  your  endorsement, 
which  were  afterwards  discounted  at  the  Bank  of  the  United  Stales,  and 
withdrawn. 

Answer.  Mr.  Noah  did  negotiate  a  loan  of  ^15,000  to  enable  him  to 
purchase  ih.e  interest  of  D.  E.  'Fylee  in  the  Courier  and  Enquirer.  That 
loan  was  made  by  a  gentleman  in  Connecticut,  and  negotiated  by  a  gentle- 
man in  Nev/  York,  who  received  a  commission  of  two  and  a  half  per  cent. 
It  was  paid  in  different  instalments,  between  1st  April  and  15th  November, 
1S3I.  The  security  given  by  Mr.  Noah  was  ten  notes  with  my  endorse- 
ment, v/hich,  I  understand,  have  since  been  discounted  at  the  Bank  of  the 


78  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

United  States  for  the  benefit  of  the  individual  who  received  the  two  and  a 
half  per  cent,  commission  for  negotiating  the  loan.  I  know  nothing  of  their 
having  been  subsequently  withdrawn. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreieng.  There  appear  to  have  been  two  notes, 
one  for  $20,000,  and  the  other  for  ^15,000,  discounted  by  the  bank  on  the 
9th  August,  an^'  16th  December,  1331.  Were  these  notes  on  account  of 
the  paper?     If  they  were,  state  what  you  know  of  them. 

Answer.  They  were  discounted  for  the  credit  of  Mr.  Noah  and  myself, 
for  the  ordinary  and  extraordinary  expenses  of  our  business.  At  the  time 
we  applied  for  the  first  loan,  we  had  been  refused  the  ordinary  business  fa- 
cilities in  two  of  the  banks  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  one  of  those  banks 
not  only  refused  to  discount  a  note  for  i52,500,  but  compelled  us  to  pay  up 
all  our  accommodation  paper,  which,  in  April,  1S31,  amounted,  I  think,  to 
more  than  ^13,000.  We  then  applied  to  another  bank,  with  Mr.  Stewart 
as  endorser,  and  our  note  was  thrown  out.  It  never  had  been  our  intention 
to  apply  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  for  a  loan,  but,  attributing  the  re- 
fusal by  the  local  banks  to  the  course  pursued  by  the  paper  in  reUition  to  the 
recharter  of  the  United  States'  Bank,  we  deemed  it  but  proper  that  that 
bank  should  render  us  the  necessary  accommodation.  With  this  view,  we 
applied  to  Walter  Bowne,  esq.  for  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Biddle;  and,  on 
his  representation,  and  the  statements  made  by  me,  to  which  I  beg  leave 
to  refer,  we  procured  the  amount  required,  from  this  bank.  I  will  add, 
that,  in  March,  183 1,  our  accommodation  paper  in  New  York  amounted  to 
nearly  ^30,000,  all  of  which  was  paid  at  and  about  the  time  we  were  com- 
pelled to  apply  for  a  loan  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

Question.  Did  you  make  any  application  for  a  loan  to  the  branch  bank 
at  New  York? 

Answer.     No,  we  did  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Was  the  letter  forwarded  by  Mr.  Bowne  to 
Mr.  Biddle  enclosed  in  his  letter  to  him  of  5th  August? 

Answer.  The  letter  of  August  5,  1S31,  written  by  Mr.  Noah  to  Mr. 
Bowne,  was,  as  I  understood,  forwarded  by  mail  by  Mr.  Bowne  to  Mr. 
Biddle.  The  statements  in  relation  to  our  resources,  I  handed  to  Mr.  Bid- 
die  at  the  time  of  making  the  application  for  a  loan.  Mr.  Noah  was  request- 
ed by  me  to  ask  Mr.  Bowne  to  inspect  ihe  books  of  the  Courier  and  En- 
quirer, its  receipts  and  expenditures,  and  then  make  a  statement  to  Mr.  Bid- 
dle; but  I  believe  Mr.  Bowne  declined  doing  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreieng.  You  have  referred  to  an  accommodation 
of  upwards  of  ^13,000;  was  there  no  other  name  on  that  paper  but  your's 
and  Mr.. Noah's? 

Answer.  The  accommodation  referred  to  was  to  Colonel  Tylee  and  my- 
self, with  Mr.  Stewart's  endorsement.  The  first  note  thrown  out  by  the 
bank  was  of  the  same  character,  and  the  subsequent  ones  were  drawn  by 
Mr.  Noah  and  myself,  and  endorsed  by  Mr.  Stewart. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreieng.     Is  not  Mr.  Stewart  a  very  wealthy  man? 

Answer.     He  is. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  What  was  your  reason  for  requesting  Mr. 
Bowne  to  recommend  your  application  to  the  president  of  the  bank? 

Answer.  Because  Mr.  Bowne  is  a  gentleman  of  high  character,  and  of 
the  same  political  principles  as  the  editors  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer. 
We  supposed  his  recommendation  would  receive  from  tiie  president  of  the 
bank  the  attention  to  which  it  was  entitled,  and  his  known  integrity  would 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  79 

prevent  the  supposition  that  our  application  was  other  than  one  of  ordinary 
business  nature.  It  was  so  considered  by  us  and  Mr.  Bowne.  From  the 
nature  of  the  charges  made  against  the  editors  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
and  the  subsequent  refusal  of  the  local  banks  to  accommodate  us,  it  became 
necessary  that  any  application  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  should  be 
made  with  more  than  ordinary  precaution,  and  therefore  it  was  that  we 
wished  our  affairs  investigated,  and  the  loan,  if  a  safe  one,  recommended  by 
Mr.  Bowne,  who  then  was,  and  still  is,  the  mayor  of  the  city  of  New 
York. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  is  the  value  of  your  newspaper  esta- 
blishment, as  nearly  as  you  can  estimate  it? 

Answer.  It  is  impossible  to  state  the  value  of  the  paper.  I  have  invest- 
ed in  my  portion  of  it  upwards  of  ^30,000,  and  if  any  person  were  to  offer 
me  at  this  time  $  70,000  for  my  interest,  and,  at  the  same  time,  become  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  debts  of  the  paper,  I  would  not  accept  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  is  your  estimate  of  the  annual  income 
of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  making  the  usual  deduction  for  bad  debts? 

Answer.  I  think  the  receipts  from  October  I,  1831,  to  October  1,  1832, 
will  not  fall  short  of  $  75,000;  possibly,  they  will  exceed  that  sum.  I  found 
this  estimate  on  the  receipts  of  the  year  preceding,  and  the  subsequent  in- 
crease of  business. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  For  how  much  did  Colonel  Tylee  sell  his 
half  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer? 

Answer.  For  ^20,000,  and  the  amount  charged  him  on  the  books  for 
advances  made  to  him,  which  v;as  about  iS  4,800. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng?  What  are  the  annual  expenditures  of  your 
establishment? 

Answer.  They  are  now  much  greater  than  formerly.  From  October, 
1831,  to  October,' 1832,  they  will  probably  be  between  40  and  g  50,000. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  When  did  you  withdraw  the  note  for 
$  15,000,  dated  December  16,  1831,  at  six  months? 

Answer.    We  paid  "the  note  for  $  15,000  on  15th  March,  1832. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  It  appears  that  the  ^15,000  loan  was  dis- 
charged by  two  drafts  from  the  cashier  of  the  branch  bank  at  New  York; 
will  you  explain  this  transaction? 

Answer.  I  purchased  these  drafts  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  remit- 
tance. The  money  was  not  furnished  by  the  bank,  or  any  person  connect- 
ed with  it,  nor  was  1  solicited  to  pay  and  withdraw  the  note  at  the  time  I 
did. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Was  not  your  paper  opposed  to  the  bank  prior 
to  April  1,  1831,  and  did  it  not  advocate  the  rechartering  of  the  same  after 
that  dale? 

Answer.  Our  paper  has  always  been,  and  is  now,  opposed  to  the  renewal 
of  the  present  charter.  From  30th  November,  1829,  to  about  April,  1831, 
being  a  period  of  16  months,  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  did  warmly  oppose 
the  rechartering  of  the  bank.  I  have  no  recollection  of  ever  having  written 
and  published  a  line  against  the  institution,  but  I  certainly  sanctioned 
nearly  all  the  attacks  upon  it  that  appeared  in  our  columns.  I  have  always 
been  in  favor  of  an  United  States'  Bank,  and,  although  I  considered  the  right 
of  establishing  branches  without  the  sanction  of  State  authorities,  and  "with- 
out the  liability  of  being  taxed  by  the  same,  as  State  institutions,  a  danger- 
ous power,  yet,  up  to  the  30th  November,  1829,  our  columns  contained 


so  [  Rep.  No.  460.  1 

nothing  but  what  was  friendly  to  the  institution.  On  30th  November, 
1829,  an  editorial  article,  the  whole,  or  a  part  of  which  I  have  reason  to 
believe,  was  written  in  the  city  of  Washington,  made  its  appearance  in 
our  columns  without  my  knowledge  or  consent.  That  article  was  not  only 
hostile  to  the  bank,  but  questioned  its  constitution^ility.  It  did  not  meet 
my  approbation,  nor  did  it  express  my  sentiments,  but,  believing  as  I  did, 
that  the  institution  was  prostituted  to  the  support  of  the  political  views  of 
Mr.  Clay;  and  the  President  of  the  United  States  having  shortly  after 
called  the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  subject  of  the  recharter,  I  consented 
that  it  should  be  attacked  as  improperly  interfering  in  the  politics  of  the 
country,  and,  consequently,  obnoxious  to  the  censure  of  the  people.  Our 
associate  editor,  Mr.  James  G.  Bennett,  who  avows  himself  hostile  to 
all  banks,  assailed  the  institution  almost  daily,  and  wrote  many  para- 
graphs which  I  censured  at  the  time,  notwithstanding  my  then  conviction 
that  the  bank  was  interfering  in  the  politics  of  the  day,  and  espousing  a 
cause  hostile  to  that  we  advocated.  A  variety  of  circumstances,  but  prin- 
cipally the  movement  in  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  composed  almost 
exclusively  of  the  friends  of  General  Jackson,  produced  a  change  in  my  sen- 
timents in  relation  to  the  political  character  of  the  institution.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  an  institution  of  the  kind,  was  discussed  by  able 
pens,  and,  although  always  favorable  to  such  an  institution,  this  discussion 
not  only  strengthened  my  opinions,  but  satisfied  me,  beyond  the  shadow  of 
doubt,  that  a  modified  recharter  of  the  present^  institution,  or  the  establish- 
ment of  one  similar  to  it,  was  absolutely  necessary  for  the  preservation  of 
the  currency  of  the  country,  and  for  the  protection  of  our  commercial  inter- 
ests. A  resolution  had  been  introduced  into  our  Legislature,  and  laid  upon 
the  table,  declaring  that  the '^present"  charter  ought  not  to  be  renewed. 
This  produced  considerable  excitement  in  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania, 
then  in  session;  and  I  foresaw,  that  if  our  Legislature  passed  a  resolution 
against  the  bankj  the  Legislature  of  PenYisylvania  would  pass  one  in  its  fa- 
vor. This,  as  I  thought,  would  produce  a  collision  between  the  two  States, 
and,  although  sick  at  the  time,  and  confined  to  my  room,  I  addressed  a  let- 
ter to  Charles  L.  Livingston,  esq.  the  present  Speaker  of  the  House  of  As- 
sembly of  New  York,  then  a  member  of  that  body  from  the  city  of  New 
York,  pointing  out  the  dangers  which,  in  a  political  point  of  view,  were  to  be 
apprehended  from  passing  the  resolution  then  before  the  Legislature,  and 
urging,  in  strong  terms,  the  withdrawal  of  it  by  the  mover,  or,  if  he  would 
aot  do  that,  then  the  necessity  of  permitting  it  to  lie  quietly  on  the  table. 
In  that  letter,  I  stated  my  firm  conviction  that,  although  the  present  charter 
was  .objectionable,  yet,  a  similar  institution,  or  the  present  charter,  modified 
by  a  provision  that  branches  should  only  be  established  by  consent  of  the 
States,  with  their  capital  subject  to  the  same  taxes  as  our  local  institutions, 
was  absolutely  necessary.  I  authorized  him  to  exhibit  my  letter  to  the 
gentleman  who  introduced  the  resolution,  who  was  well  known  to  me,  and, 
in  the  event  of  his  not  withdrawing  it,  or  suffering  it  to  lie  on  the  table,  I 
advised  him  (Mr.  Livingston)  to  move  for  a  modification,  approving  of  a 
recharter  properly  restricted.  Mr.  Livingston  replied  to  this  letter,  by  stat- 
ing that  the  mover  of  the  resolution  was  not  then  in  Albany,  and  that  it  was 
not  probable  he  would  ever  call  it  up.  He  agreed  with  me^  substantially,  in 
my  views,  and  concluded  by  saying  that  it  had  been  introduced  into  the 
House  without  any  concert  among  the  leading  democratic  members  of  that 
body;  that,  if  called  up,  he  should  move  to  postpone  it,  or  so  modify  it  as 
to  correspond  with  his  views  of  the  subject. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  81 

About  this  time,  my  sickness  created  considerable  alarm;  my  life  was 
generally  despaired  of,  and  our  establishment  requiring  more  funds,  my 
father-in-law,  (Mr.  Stewart,)  proposed  to  advance  me  ^10.000,  provided 
Colonel  Tylee  would  raise  and  put  into  the  paper  the  same  amount,  which 
would  enable  us  to  get  along  comfortably.  I  made  the  proposition  to  Col- 
onel Tylee,  but  he  objected.  He  said  it  was  not  convenient  for  him  to  da 
so;  that  the  business  did  not  accord  with  his  habits  and  pursuits^  anci  ex- 
pressed a  determination  to  sell  out.  He  had  some  conversation  with  Mr. 
Noah,  Mr.  Bennett,  and  Mr.  Haskin,  and  they  partially  agreed  to  purchase; 
but  when  I  was  apprised  of  their  intentions,  I  gave  them  notice  I  should 
object,  unless  they  brought  into  the  capital  of  the  concern  at  least  ^10,000. 
This  they  could  not  accomplish,  and  the  negotiation  ended.  Shortly  after- 
wards it  was  again  renewed,  and  Mr.  Noah  expressed  his  belief  that  he 
could,  through  a  friend,  raise  the  whole  amount  required  to  effect  the  pur- 
chase, if  I  would  make  out  a  statement  of  the  concern,  and,  from  that  state- 
ment, the  loan  should  appear  to  be  a  safe  one.  While  this  negotiation  was 
pending,  I  went  to  Albany,  and,  while  there,  strongly  urged  upon  our  imme- 
diate friends  the  danger  of  calling  up  the  resolution  against  the  United 
States'  Bank,  in  consequence  of  the  feeling  exhibited  by  the  Legislature  of 
Pennsylvania.  I  understood  from  Judge  Marcy,  our  present  senator  in 
Congress,  from  our  Secretary  of  State,  and  from. our  Comptroller,  from  Mr. 
Livingston,  and  others,  that  neither  of  them  had  been  consulted  on  the  pro- 
priety of  introducing  the  resolution,  and  they  were  unanimously  in.the  opin- 
ion it  ought  not  to  be  called  up.  I  also  learned  from  an  authentic  source, 
that  a  gentleman,  who  is  said  to  be  much  concerned  in  local  bank  stock  spe- 
culation, had  made  application,  but  without  success,  to  different  members 
of  the  House  to  introduce  a  similar  resolution;  but  there  was  little  doubt 
but  it  had  been  introduced  at  his  suggestion,  and  that  the  persons  connected 
with  the  Mechanics  and  Farmers' Bank,  the  editor  of  the  Argus,  and  others 
connected  with  ihem  in  stock  speculations,  were  determined  to  push  it 
through,  at  all  hazards,  as  a  political 'question.  I  was  satisfied  that  these 
men  sasv  the  objections  politically  to  doing  so,  and  I  could  not  resist  the  con- 
clusion that,  if  tijey  persevered,  it  would  be  from  interested  motives,  at  the 
risk  of  bringing  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  into  collision*  1  then  openly 
opposed  such  a  proceeding,  and  returned  to  Nevv  York.  Before  I  went  to 
Albany,  I  mentioned  to  the  gentleman  through  whom  Mr.  Noah  was  negO' 
tiating  his  loan,  and  to  Mr.  Noah,  that  I  was  prepared  to  advocate  a  modi- 
fied recharter  of  the  bank,  and  the  nature  of  the  letter  I  had  written  to  Mr. 
Livingston.  Mr.  Noa*!T  staled  his  fears  of  the  effects  of  sucli  a  course  on 
the  reputation  of  the  ])aper,  and  s:dd  he  questioned  the  constitutionality  of 
the  bank  unless  located  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  admitted  its  utility. 
The  gentleman  referred  to  urged  our  advocating  an  unconditional  recharter, 
but  expressed  great  satisfaction  at  learning  that  I  was  in  favor  of  a  charter 
under  any  circumstances.  "On  my  return  from  Albany,  I  was  more  than 
pver  satisfied  of  the  necessity  of  a  United  States'  Bank  to  prevent  the  local 
banks  from  controlling  the  politic^  of  the  State,  and  so  expressed  myself 
both  in  public  and  private;  and  the  fi)llowing  extracts  from  an  editorial  arti- 
cle in  relation  to  the  establishment  of  a  branch  at  Bullalo,  published  in  our 
columns  29th  September,  182.0,  will  prove  that  the  idea  of  hostility  to  the 
bank  by  owners  of  stock  in  our  local  institutions,  was  not  of  recent  date, 
and,  i.'istead  of  originating  in  the  movements  at  Albany,  was  thereby  mere- 
ly confn'med. 

II 


82  [  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

Extracts  from  editorial  article  in  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  29th  Septem- 
ber, 1S32,  headed  ''Branch  Bank  at  Buffalo:'' 

*^The  location  of  a  United  States'  branch  bank  at  Buffalo,  in  the  western 
district  of  New  York,  is  a  very  important  movement  in  every  point  of  view. 
So  far  as  relates  to  the  business  and  interests  of  Buffalo,  it  will  no  doubt  be 
advantageous,  and  give  a  new  impulse  to  its  trade  and  enterprise.'* 

"What  effect  this  branch  bank  is  to  have  on  the  nevv  and  old  banks  in  the 
country,  or  in  favor  of,  or  against  the  new  system,  as  adopted  by  the  last 
Legislature,  we  have  no  means  of  judging.  It  is  altogether  natural  to  ex- 
pect, that  men  interested  in  other  banks  chartered  by  the  State,  and  allowed 
to  take  seven  per  cent. ,  will  not  be  satisfied  with  an  institution  that  asks  no 
more  than  six  per  cent.  The  whole  matter  of  the  Buffalo  branch  bank  is, 
however,  in  the  nature  of  an  experiment,  and  it  will  require  some  time  to 
judge  of  its  acts,  intentions,  operations,  and  benefits." 

Believing,  as  I  do,  that  the  object  and  desire  of  the  committee  is  simply  to 
arrive  at  facts,  whether  for  or  against  the  bank,  I  have  embodied  in  this  re- 
ply much  that  could  not  have  been  drawn  forth,  except  by  questions  which 
would  have  partaken  of  the  character  of  insinuations  against  my  integrity, 
and  which,  consequently,  I  .should  have  respectfully  declined  answering. 
For  the  information  of  the  committee,  I  will  now  add,  that,  at  the  time  the 
gentleman  referred  to  urged  our  advocating  an  unconditional  recharter,  nor 
at  any  other  time,  did  he  or  any  other  person  promise  or  insinuate,  directly 
or  indirectly,  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  would  make  us  loans  or  ac- 
commodations of  any  kind  or  description  whatever.  As  I  have  stated,  we 
never  entertained  the  idea  of  applying  for  such  loans  till  many  months  there- 
after, when  our  local  banks  refused  to  discount  good  paper  for  us,  and,  as  I 
believed,  (whether  correctly  or  not,  I  cannotsay)  becausevve  advocated  the 
rechartering  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  When  we  did  apply  for  a 
loan,  it  was  without  the  knowledge  or  advice  of  the  individual  referred  to, 
and  I  am  not  aware  that,  even  at  this  moment,  he  is  apprized  of  our  having 
received  any  accommodation  from  the  bank. 

I  will  also  state,  for  the  information  of  the  committee,  that  I  am  satisfied, 
in  my  own  mind,  he  did  not  act  as  the  agent  of  the  bank  in  making  the  loan 
to  Mr.  Noah,  and  for  the  following  reasons:  In  the  first  place,  I  presume, 
he  would  not  then  have  received  a  commission  of  two  and  a  half  per  cent. ; 
and,  secondly,  the  money  in  such  case  would  have  been  forthcoming  when, 
required;  but,  instead  of  that  being  the  case,  he  gave  his  and  his  father's  pa- 
per at  short  dates;  which  was  not  paid  when  due,  which  my  father-in-law, 
Mr.  Stewart,  cashed,  and  one-third  of  which  was  replaced  by  his  notes  at 
sixty  days,  and  six  months,  because  he  could  not  raise  the  funds  at  the  lime 
he  had  agreed  on. 

I  have  said  I  believe  the  article  in  our  paper  of  30th  November,  1829, 
was,  in  part  at  least,  written  at  Washington.  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  add, 
that  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  written  with  the  knowledge,  or 
expressed  the  views  of  the  then  Secretary  of  State.  From  an  intimate  know- 
ledge of  his  character,  I  am  convinced  he  would  not  have  approved  of  such  a 
proceeding. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  You  have  referred  to  your  notes  with  Mr. 
Stewart's  endorsement  having  been  thrown  out  by  the  local  banks;  state 
what  banks  you  refer  to. 

Answer.     The  City  Bank  and  the  National  Bank. 


[  Ref).  No.  460.  ]  83 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Can  you  state  who  are  the  presidents  of 
those  banks? 

Answer.  Albert  Gallatin  is  president  of  the  National  Bank,  and  Isaac 
Wright,  president  of  the  City  Bank.  I  do  not  attribute  to  these  gentlemen, 
nor  to  any  gentlemen  in  particular,  the  rejection  of  our  paper.  I  only  know 
that  our  notes  were  rejected;  although  the  security  offered  was  abundantly 
good.  I  believe  in  all  our  local  institutions,  notes  are  thrown  out  if  any  two 
of  the  directors  dissent,  and  frequently  if  only  one  objects;  and  they  are 
not  required  to  assign  their  reasons.  I  do  not  charge  that  our  paper  was 
rejected  because  .we  advocated  a  recharter  of  the  bank,  but,  in  the  absence 
of  any  other  seemingly  good  cause,  1  attributed  it  to  that,  and  acted  accord- 
ingly. 

It  may  be  proper  to  add  to  the  statements  I  have  made,  that,  since  we  pro- 
cured the  loan  of  20,000  dollars  from  bank,  we  jiave  added  to  the  property 
/of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  boats,  press,  and  types,  which  have  cost  us 
upwards  of  $19,000,  and  that  the  whole  amount  of  accommodation  from  the 
bank  at  this  time  is  but  ^18,000,  which  will  h\l  due  in  August  next. 

I  have  said,  in  one  of  my  previous  examinations,  that,  from  a  variety  of 
circumstances,  1  was  satisfied  that  the  gentleman  who  negotiated  the  loan  for 
Mr.  Noah  did  not  act  as  the  agent  of  the  bank.  I  will  now  add  that  he 
informed  Mr.  Noah  that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  go  to  Connecticut  for 
his  father  and  the  money.  After  a  few  days,  he  apprised  us  that^iis  fathei- 
had  arrived,  and  we  were  invited  to  his  house,  where  we  were  introduced 
to  his  father.  The  ten  notes  drawn  by  Mr.  Noah,  and  endorsed  by  me, 
were  given  to  him,  and  the  paper  of  his  father,  endorsed  by  himself,  was 
received  in  return.  There  were  three  acceptances  for  i54,875  each,  the  two 
and  a  half  percent,  commission  being  deducted,  and  all  of  them  fell  due  in 
April.  As  I  have  before  said,  they  were  not  paid  at  maturit}^  and,  on  the 
10th  May,  as  I  subsequently  understood,  the  last  of  these  acceptances,  which 
had  then  been  due  sometime,  was  exchanged  for  two  notes  at  sixty  days 
and  six  monihs,  drawn  by  the  negotiator  of  the  loan,  and  endorsed  by  a  mer- 
chant on  Pearl  street,  and  the  one  at  60  days  sold  immediately  thereafter 
to  a  brok*  in  Wall  street.  1  have  understood  from  the  gentleman  within 
the  last  month,  that  this  money  was  loaned  by  his  father;  that  he  was  in 
want  of  funds  in  January  last,  that  he  went  to  Connecticut,  procured  these 
notes,  and  had  them  discounted  at  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  upon  some 
collateral  security. 

The  following  are  extracts  from  the  articles  of  agreement  between  Mr. 
Noah  and  myself;  • 

*<  Article  5th.  In  case  of  disagreement  between  said  Webb  and  Noah  in 
relation  to  the  course  to  be  pursued  by  the  paper,  or  on  any  other  matter 
or  thing  growing  out  of  the  connexion  hereby  formed,  it  is  agreed  that  such 
difference  shall  be  submitted  to  Alexander  L.  Stewart,  whose  decision  shall 
be  binding  upon  the  parties.'' 

*^  Article  7th.  All  notes  given  for  the  benefit  of  the  concern,  shall  be 
drawn  and  signed  jointly  and  severally  by  the  said  Webb  and  Noah." 

*'  Article  10th.  No  dividend  or  division  of  profits  shall  be  made  until  an 
actual  surplus  of  money  accrues  not  required  for  the  carrying  on  and  con- 
dutiting  of  said  newspaper. 


84  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Examination  of  Nicholas  Biddle. 

Questions  by  Mr.  Canibreleng. — Are  you  a  member  of  the  exchange 
committee? 

Answer. — I  am.  By  the  by-laws  of  the  bank,  I  am  ex-officio  a  member 
of  every  committee. 

Question. — Are  the  discounts  authorized  by  that  committee  laid  before 
the  directors  for  their  approval  or  rejection? 

*dns2ver. — Not  necessarily,  nor  generally,  except  for  information.  They 
are  acted  upon  definitely  by  the  committee. 

Question., — What  is  the  usual  credit  of  notes  of  hand  discounted  by  the 
bank? 

•Answer. — It  varies  with  the  state  of  business,  there  being  no  rigid  limit. 
Sometimes  it  is  four  montlis,  occasionally  six;  sometimes  the  committee  of 
exchange  is  invested  with  very  ample  powers  in  regard  to  loans,  when  the 
length  of  the  loans  is  left  entirely  to  their  discretion.  They  have  had  such 
powers  for  the  last  twenty  months,  under  the  following  resolutions.  The 
first  was  passed  on  the  9th  of  July,  1830,  and  authorized  the  committee 
**to  loan  on  the  collateral  security  of  approved  public  stock,  large  sums  of 
money  at  a  rate  of  discount  not  lov/er  ihan  five  per  cent."  The  second  was 
passed  on  the  17th  of  September,  1830,  and  authorizes  them  to  make  such 
loans  on^tocks  ov  other  approved  security,  at  a  rate  of  interest  not  less  than 
four  and  a  half  per  cent."  Under  these  resolutions,  the  length  of  the  loans 
was  left  to  the  committee. 

Question. — Is  it  usual  for  the  bank  to  discount  a  note  where  the  drawer 
and  endorser  are  partners  in  the  same  concern,  without  an  additional  name? 

Jlnswer. — I  think  it  has  been  frequently  done.  The  rule  of  the  bank 
that  the  name  of  a  firm  shall  be  considered  as  a  single  name,  is  not  con- 
strued to  prevent  the  discount  (o  an  individual  of  a  firm,  where  the  firm 
itself,  or  another  individual  of  the  firm,  is  either  the  drawer  or  the  endorser. 
If  the  board  were  satisfied  of  the  security,  they  would  not  require  another 
name.  *  -^ 

Question. — Is  it  usual  for  the  bank  to  discount  notes  where  both  the  draw- 
ers and  endorsers  reside  out  of  the  State,  without  requiring  the  name  of  one 
responsible  man  in  Philadelphia,  whose  standing  is  known  to  the  directoi's, 
unless  where  the  debt  is  secured  by  collateral  security? 

Jlnswer. — It  is  frequently  done.  The  board  would  not  require  a  name 
here  if  they  were  satisfied  with  the  security.    • 

Question. — Do  you  recollect  any  instance  where  the  bank  discounted  for 
any  merchant  or  trader,  a  note  drawn  by  one  ])artner,  and  endorsed  by  an- 
other? 

Jlnswer. — I  cannot  recall,  at  this  moment,  any  particular  case,  but,  as  I 
have  already  stated,  I  tlnnk  it  has  been  frequently  done. 

Question. — Is  it  usual  for  the  bank  to  discount  notes  of  hand  for  persons 
residing  out  of  the  Stale,  wlien  fair  notes,  drawn  by  residents  in  Philadel- 
phia, are  rejected,  and  when  there  is  a  pressure  on  the  money  market? 

Answer. — In  that  case,  every  application  would  stand  on  its  own  merits; 
there  would  be  a  preference,  but  not  an  exclusive  preference,  for  Philadel- 
phia paper.  Under  the  resolutions  I  have  just  mentioned^  a  wider  latitude 
of  discretion,  as  to  time  and  place,  was  authorized. 

Question. — Has  there  not  been  a  pressure  on  the  money  market  ever  since 
October  last? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  85 

Answer, — There  has  been  a  greater  demand  for  money  since  that  time. 
Questions  by  Mr.    Clayton. — Since  the  1st  of  October  last,  have  you  not 
been  compelled,  at  various  times,  to  throw  out,  as  it  is  termed,  good  paper? 
Jinswer. — Sometimes  we  have. 

Question. — Is  not   the  latitude  given  the  exchange  committee  in  conse- 
qence  of  the  pressure,  in  some  degree  lessened? 
Answer. — That  is  a  matter  for  their  discretion. 

Questions  by  Mr.  CambreJeng. — Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  dis- 
counting of  M.  M.  Noah  and  J.  W.  Webb's  note,  endorsed  by  J.  W.  Webb 
and  Co.  for  $20,000,  on  the  9th  of  August,  1831,  nt  six  months?  If  so, 
state  the  circumstances  of  that  loan. 

Answer. — The  application  for  this  loan  was  made  by  J.  W.  Webb,  in 
person,  who  brought,  besides  statements  of  his  affairs,  a  letter  from  Walter 
Bowne,  mayor  of  New  York.  These  Vv^ere  ail  submitted  to  the  board,  and 
the  application  granted. 

Question. — Had  you  any  other  security  for  that  loan? 
Answer. — No.  -^ 

Question. — Was  thef)artnership  between  Webb  and  Noah  known  to  you? 
Answer. — I  had  no  knowledge  of  it,  except  what  the  papers  exhibited  by 
Mr.  Webb  communicated. 

Question. — Did  you  make  any  inquiries  of  either  of  the  directors  of  the 
parent  bank  residing  in  New  York,  or  of  the  branch  there,  as  to  the  stand- 
ing of  Noah  and  Webb? 

Answer. ^-^o.  We  are  not  in  the  habit  of  making  such  inquiries,  par- 
ticularly in  a  case  where  the  parties  exhibit  a  statement  of  their  affairs. 

Question. — Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  discounjU)f  a  note  for  ^15,000, 
dated  the  13th  of  December,  1831,  drawn  by  J,  W.  WTbb  and  M.  M.  Noah, 
and  endorsed  by  J.  W.  Webb  &  Co.? 

Answer. — That  also  was  a  case  of  personal  application  by  J.  W.  Webb, 
accompanied  by  statements. 

Question. — Was  that  discount  made  by  the  exchange  committee,  and 
was  there  any  collateral  security? 

Answer. — It  was  done  by  the  exchange  committee,  by  virtue  of  the  re^ 
solutions  already  mentioned,  and  there  was  no  collateral  security.  The 
notes  have  since  been  paid  in  full. 

Question. — Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  discount  often  notes  vv^hich 
appear  on  the  domestic  exchange  book  to  have  been  discounted  for  J.  W. 
Webb,  amounting,  in  the  aggregate,  to  ^17,975,  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah,  and 
payable  in  April  and  October,  1832,  3,  4,  5,  6? 

Answer. — These  notes  were  discounted  by  the  exchange  committee,  un- 
der the  resolutions  just  referred  to.  They  were  done  at  the  request  of  Mr. 
Silas  E.  Burrows,  of  New  York.  Mr.  Burrows  had,  some  time  before, 
brought  me  a  particular  letter  of  introduction  from  an  old  friend,  Mr.  Mon- 
roe, the  Ex-President.  ,  Mr.  Burrows  hnd  been  very  liberal  to  Mr.  Monroe 
in  his  pecuniary  misfortunes,  and  he  had  recently  received  from  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  particular  thanks  and  commendations  tor  his 
generous  conduct  towards  a  Russian  ship  of  war.  I  understood  him  to  be 
a  very  rich  merchant,  of  kind  and  benevolent  disposition,  and  constantly 
engaged  in  doing  acts  of  liberality.  In  one  of  his  visits  to  Philadelphia,  he 
said  he  was  desirous  of  befriending  Mr.  Noah,  and  assisting  him  in  the  pur- 
chase of  a  share  in  a  newspaper,  and  he  asked  if  the  bank  would  discount 
the  notes  of  these  parties,  adding  that,  although  as  a  merchant  he  did  not  wish 


86  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

to  appear  as  a  borrower,  or  to  put  his  name  on  paper  not  mercantile,  yet 
he  would  at  any  time  do  so  whenever  it  might  be  necessary  to  secure  the 
bank.  I  do  not  recollect  whether  he  then  mentioned  the  time  which  the 
notes  would  have  to  run.  The  committee  being  authorized  to  discount  any 
paper,  the  security  of  which  they  might  approve,  agreed  to  do  them.  As 
Mr.  liurrows  was  going  out  of  town  I  gave  him  the  money  out  of  my  own 
funds,  and  the  notes  were  afterwards  put  into  my  possession.  They  re- 
mained with  me'foralo/ng  time,  as  J  had  no  occasion  to  use  the  funds,  nor  was 
it  till  the  close  of  the  year  that  my  attention  was  called  to  them,  by  the  cir- 
cumstance that,  as  a  new  board  of  directors  and  a  new  committee  of  exchange 
would  soon  be  appointed,  the  said  committee  which  made  the  loan  should 
consummate  it.  I  had  seen,  also,  in  the  public  prints  many  reproaches 
against  the  bank  for  lending  money  to  printers  and  editors,  and  1  was  un- 
willing that  any  loan  made  by  the  bank  should  seem  to  be  a  private  loan 
from  one  of  its  officers.  Having  no  use  for  the  money,  it  would  have  been 
perfectly  convenient  to  let  the  loan  remain  as  it  was;  but  I  thought  it  right 
that  every  thing  f^one  by  the  bank  should  always  be  ^listinctly  known  and 
avowed,  and  I  therefore  gave  the  notes  to  the  chairman  of  the  committee, 
Mr.  Thomas  P.  Cope,  who  entered  them  on  the  books. 

On  the  2d  day  of  March  Mr.  Buri*ows  called  at  the  bank,  and  paid  the 
notes.  I  ought  to  add  that  the  loan  was  made  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Bur- 
rows, and  that  neither  I  nor  an}'  of  the  committee  had  ever  seen  Mr.  Noah 
or  Mr.  Webb,  or  had  any  communication  with  them,  director  indirect,  about 
the  loan.  It  was  made  on  the  credit  of  Mr.  Burrows,  who  afterwards  paid  it. 
\i^^Qiieslion  by  Mr,  Clayton. — By  whom  were  the  notes  made,  and  to  whom 
payable?  "• 

^inswer, — ^They  were  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah,  and  endorsed  by  J.  W. 
Webb. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambrehng, — Had  you  any  written  obligation  from 
Burrows  with  regard  to  his  responsibility  for  this  loan? 

t/Jnswer. — No.  We  relied  on  his  assurance,  which  he  has  since  fulfilled 
by  paying  the  notes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng. — Do  thfey  not  appear  on  the  domestic 
exchange  book  as  having  been  discounted  for  J.  W.  VVebb? 

Answer. — They  of  course  took  the  same  form  in  the  book  in  which  they 
originally  were  drawn. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng. — Did  not  the  exchange  committee  dis- 
count notes  for  S.  E.  Burrows,  on  the  2d  and  I4th  of  March,  amounting  to 
upwards  of  i540,000? 

Answer. — I  do  not  know  the  amount.  The  books  before  the  committee 
will  show  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.-— Htx^  S.  E.  Burrows  ever  obtained  a 
discount  froni  the  bank  previous  to  the  2d  of  March  last,  except  the  one 
you  have  referred  to? 

Answer. — 1  think  he  did.  The  books  will  however  show,  as  I  am  not  sure. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas. — On  what  day  did  you  pay  the  iS 1 5,000  to 
Silas  E.  Burrows? 

Answer,— On  the  26th  of  March,  1831. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  87 

Loans  io  Messrs.  Webb  «§•  Noah, 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton. — Will  you  please  look  upon  the  discount  book 
for  the  offering  day  of  the  9th  of  August,  and  16th  of  December,  1831,  and 
on  the  2d  of  January,  1832,  and  say  whether  Webb's  and  Noah's  loa'ns  are 
not  considerably  larger  than  any  made  on  those  respective  days?  And  whe- 
ther many  small  notes  offered  by  citizens  of  Philadelphia,  of  undoubted 
solvency,  were  not  rejected  on  the  two  last  mentioned  days? 

Will  you  please  answer  the  same  question  with  regard  to  Silas  E.  bur- 
rows' loans  on  the  2d  and  14th  March? 

•.^nstver. — I  have  looked  over  the  discount  book  for  the  purpose  requested, 
and  collect  the  following  results: 

•  All,  or  nearly  all  of  the  notes  offered  on  the  9th  day  of  August,  1S31, 
were  discounted.  The  ^qw  exceptions,  must  have  been  owing  to  the  want 
of  confidence  in  the  offerers:  two  of  whom,  I  observe,  have  since  failed. 
The  loan  to  Messrs.  Webb  &  Ncah  was  the  largest  offering  on  that  day. 

On  the  16th  of  December,  1831,  the  loan  to  Messrs.  Webb  &  Noah  was 
not  the  largest  discounts  made  on  that  day.  I  perceive  that  many  notes 
were  rejected  on  that  day.  Whenever  there  is  an  active  demand  for  mo- 
ney, applicants  offer  many  notes:  and,  although  a  portion  of  their  offering 
is  rejected,  they  thus  often  obtain  as  much  as  they  expect  or  want. 

In  regard  to  the  2d  of  January,  1832,  I  have  explained  to  the  committee 
that  I  had,  some  time  previous,  given  t|^e  amount  out  of  my  own  funds; 
and  the  placing  them  upon  the  books  on  that  day  created  no  new  claims  on 
the  bank,  and  did  not  interfere  with  the  ordinary  discounts:  for  I  did  not 
use  any  part  of  it  for  a  long  time;  much  of  it  not  ufttil  withiij  a  few  days 
past,  and  some  of  it  I  believe  still  remains  in  the  bank. 

The  domestic  bills  discounted  for  S.  E.  Burrows,  on  the  2d  and  14th  of 
March,  being  done  in  the  intervals  between  the  board  days,  did  not  affect 
the  loans  of  those  board  days,  more  especially  as  a  large  portion  of  them 
was  actually  paid  back  into  the  bank  to  take  up  the  notes  of  Messrs.  Webb 
and  Noah;  so  that,  to  the  amount  of  them,  it  was  the  substitution  of  short 
business  paper  for  those  loans. 


There  are  upon  the  books,  in  relation  to  these  loans  to  Webb  and  Noah,  in 
every  place  where  they  appear,  certain  erasures,  certain  interlineations,  certain 
entries  in  different  ink,  and,  in  one  place,  a  mistake  as  to  a  name.   For  instance: 

1st.  On  the  pay  list  for  February  14,  1832,  the  names  <<  Webb,  J.  W. 
and  M.  M.  Noah,"  are  interlined,  and  then  scratched  out.     . 

2d.  On  the  same  book  for  March  6,  the  name  of  Silas  E.  Burrows  is  in- 
terlined, and  the  reference  to  the  page  in  black  ink  instead  of  red,  which  is 
the  character  of  the  rest. 

3d.  On  the  same  book  for  March  13,  the  amount  of  J.  W.  Webb's  loan,, 
is  first  marked  33,000,  and  then  27  written  over  33. 

4th.  On  the  discount  book  for  August  9,  1831,  the  loan  for  $20,000  is  en- 
tered in  a  different  handwriting,  and  different  ink  from  the  other  entries. 

5th.  In  the  same  book  for  December  16,  the  entry  of  the  loan  of  iSl5,000, 
is  in  different  ink,  and  the  name  of  W.  W.  Wall,  iaterlined,  appears  for  M. 
M.  Noah? 

There  seenafl  to  be  some  inaccuracj  Id  the  expresMon  that  "  wherever 


88  [  Eep.  No.  460.  ] 

these  loans  appear,  there  are  certain  erasures,  certain  interlineations,  and 
certain  entries  in  different  ink.'^ 

These  loans  appear,  for  instance,  on  the  pay  list  since  the  9th  of  August, 
1831,  and,  of  course,  have  been  on  the  list  more  than  sixty  times.  Now,  the 
pnly  alleged  errors  are  two  in  number; 

1st.  That  on  one  occasion,  on  the  14th  of  February,  1832,  the  names  of 
^<  Webb,  J.  W.  and  M.  M.  Noah,"  are  interlined,  and  then  scratched  out. 
In  regard  to  this,  the  clerk  who  made  the  entry  has  already  explained  to 
the  committee  that  he  put  down  these  names  on  his  pay  list,  believing  that 
the  notes  ought  to  stand  in  the  names  of  both  those  parties,  whereas  he 
found  that  they  ouglit  to  be  in  the  nam.e  of  "Webb,  J.  W."  alone;  and 
perceiving  that  the  two  names  were  superfluous,  he  passed  his  pen  through 
them,  but  did  not  scratch  them  out. 

The  2d  is,  that  on  the  13th  of  March,  1832,  the  amount  of  J.  W.  Webb's 
loan  is  first  marked  33,000;  and  then  27  written  over  33. 

Now,  both  these  entries  are  perfectly  correct.  The  13th  of  March  was 
on  Tuesday,  the  day  of  the  meeting  of  the  board.  The  pay  list  was  a« 
usual  made  up  the  daj^  before,  that  is,  on  Monday,  and  it  truly  represented 
the  loan  at  $33,000;  but  Mr.  Webb's  letter  of  the  12th  of  March,  now  be- 
fore the  committee,  enclosing  a  draft  for  $6,000,  arrived  in  the  course  of  the 
mail  on  Tuesday  morning  before  the  meeting  of  the  board;  and,  in  order  to 
present  to  the  baord  the  true  state  of  the  debt,  now  reduced  by  $6,000, 
th©  figures  33  were  changed  to  27,  the.  only  possible  way  of  representing  the 
fact,  as  it  would  have  been  equally  useless  and  impracticable  to  prepare  a 
new  pay  list  for  the  board  that  morning. 

.  These  are  the  only  i\^p  eases  stated,  as  being  on  the  pay  list.  Then,  with 
regard  to  the  (fiscount  book,  the  statement  is,  that  the  note  for  $520,000  on 
the  9lh  of  August,  1831,  is  entered  in  a  different  handwriting  and  ink  from 
the  other  entries. 

The  reason  of  this  is  obvious:  the  discount  book  consists  of  notes  offered 
for  discount  on  the  day  preceding  the  discount  day;  and,  of  course,  no  note 
not  so  offered  is  on  that  book.  Now,  this  loan  of  ^§20,000  was  asked  for  in  a 
letter  read  to  the  board  at  its  meeting  on  the  9th  of  August,  and,  the  board 
having  agreed  to  make  the  discount,  the  note  was  not  offered  until  after  the 
board  adjourned;  and  therefore  could  not  be  on  the  book  previously  prepar- 
ed for  the  meeting  of  the  board.  There  are  three  clerks  who  work  on  the 
discount  books,  and  any  one  of  them  to  whom  the  note  was  given  by  the 
first  assistant  cashier,  would  enter  it  on  his  book.  In  the  present  instance, 
it  was  the  chief  clerk  who  made  this  entry  in  the  book  which  one  of  his  as- 
sistant clerks  had  prepared  the  day  before.  This  c'nief  clerk  writes  a  dif- 
ferent hand  from  his  assistant  clerk,  and  uses,  probably,  a  different  inkstand. 

The  next  is,  that  the  entry  of  $15,000  in  December  16,  is  in  different  ink, 
and  the  name  of  W.  W.  Wall-,  interlined,  appears  for  M.  M.  Noah. 

The  clerk  who  made  this  entry  has  already  explained  to  the  committee, 
that,  not  being  familiar  with  the  name  or  the  signature  of  M.  M.  Noah,  he 
thought  it  was  W.  W.  Wall,  and,  accordingly,  so  put  it  down.  There  re- 
mains only  the  statement,  that,  on  the  pay  list  for  March  6,  1832,  the  name 
of  Silas' E.  Bui^rows  is  interlined,"  and  the  reference  to  the  page  is  in  black 
ink,  instead  of  red,  which  is  the  character  of  the  rest. 

The  clerk  Who  prepared  the  pay  list  has  already  explained  this  to  thecom- 
^mittee  in  a  very  clear  maimer;  he  makes  up  his  pay  list  on  the  morning  of 
the  day  preceding  the  discount  day,  copying  the  names  from  the  list  of  the 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ]  89 

previous  discount  day.  If,  in  the  course  ot  that  day,  any  discount  Is  made, 
50  that  a  new  name  must  be  introduced,  as  the  list  is  alphabetically  arranged, 
in  order  to  place  it  under  its  appropriate  letter,  he  must  use  a  smaller  hand 
writing.  Thus,  in  the  case  alluded  to,  having  written  his  column  of  names 
alphabetically,  when  the  discount  was  subsequently  made  to  Mr.  Burrows, 
in  order  to  bring  it  under  the  letter  B,  he  was  obliged  to  write  it  in  a  smaller 
hand  between  two  other  names.  This  can  scarcely  perhaps  be  called  an  in- 
terlineation, being  unconnected  with  the  lines  between  which  it  is  inserted, 
but  merely  a  writing  in  a  smaller  hand  for  want  of  space.  The  difference 
in  the  color  of  the  ink  is  to  be  accounted  for  in  the  same  way.  In  making 
up  the  general  pay  list,  the  column  of  figures  representing  the  page  in  the 
credit  book,  where  the  details  of  each  account  are  to  be  found,  is  in  red  ink 
in  order  to  attract  notice.  But  afterwards,  when  a  new  name  is  accidentally 
introduc  ed,  the  clerk  has  probably  not  thought  it  necessary,  after  writing 
the  name  in  black  ink,  to  change  his  pen  and  his  ink  in  order  to  write  the 
three  figures  in  the  adjoining  column. 


**Did  you  consider  the  loans  made  to  James  Watson  Webb  &  Co.,  fair 
business  transactions,  such  as  you  could  not  refuse  without  subjecting  the 
bank  to  the  imputation  of  indulging  political  partiality?  State  fully  the 
views  and  considerations  on  which  you  voted  in  favor  of  these  loans." 

I  certainly  consider  them  as  fair  business  transactions,  or  I  should  not  have 
consented  to  them.  At  the  request  of  the  committee,  I  will  explain  the 
reasons  of  that  opinion. 

If,  in  making  loans,  every  transaction  was  perfectly  safe,  and  every  bor- 
rower perfectly  good,  banking  would  bp  an  easy  office;  but  as  men  general- 
ly borrow  to  employ  the  funds  in  some  profitable  pursuit,  subject,  of  course, 
to  vicissitudes,  all  that  can  be  expected  in  making  loans  is  a  fair  and  reason- 
able caution  as  to  the  situation  and  prospects  of  the  borrower.  Tried  by 
these,  the  only  true  tests,  I  think  the  loans  in  question  are  unexceptionable. 
The  first  was  done  by  a  board  of  directors,  consisting,  besides  the  presiding 
officer,  of  six  gentlemen,  Mr.  Lippincott,  Mr.  Fisher,  Mr.  Bohlen,  Mr. 
Neff,  Mr.  Piatt,  and  Mr.  Willing,  merchants  and  men  of  business,  with  no 
partiality  towards  the  applicants,  with  whom  none  of  them  were  in  the  least 
acquainted.     The  grounds  of  their  judt>;ment  may  be  thus  stated: 

In  making  ordinary  loans,  the  board  judge  by  the  general  standing  of 
parties,  without  any  examination  of  their  affairs.  But  in  this  case,  the  par- 
ties began  by  an  exhibition  of  their  whole  situation.  This  was  forwarded 
by  Walter  Bowne,  esq.,  the  mayor  of  the  city  of  New  York,  where  the 
applicants  resided,  who,  in  addition  to  his  being  personally  known  and  res- 
pected by  all  the  members,  had  been  one  of  the  oldest  directors  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  and,  for  many  years,  sat  at  the  board  round  which  the 
directors  were  then  assembled.  In  this  letter,  he  says,  *<I  cheerfully  for- 
ward the  papers,  and  I  see  no  reason  against  this  application  being  treated 
as  a  fair  business  transaction."  He  does  not  expressly  say  that  it  ought  to 
be  granted,  because  he  transmits,  at  the  same  time,  some  of  the  materials 
on  which  the  directors  were  to  form  their  owii  judgment;  to  which  others 
were  added  by  Mr.  Webb.  But  when  an  old  director  of  the  bank  forwards 
cheerfully  an  application  to  his  ancient  colleagues,  which  he  says  should  be 
treated  as  a  fair  business  transaction,  it  implies  certainly  no  responsibility, 
12 


90  [  Rep.  No.  460.  1 

for  he  could  not  be  expected  to  assume  any;  but  it  may  be  well  regarded  as 
a  declaration,  that,  were  he  still  a  member  of  the  board,  he  would  sanction 
it.     Under  these  auspices,  the  board  proceeded  to  consider  it. 

One  of  the  parties  had  been  appointed  by  the  President  and  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  to  a  confidential  and  lucrative  post  under  the  Government. 
Thejother  had  already  invested  ^33,000  in  the  paper,  and  his  father-in-law, 
Mr.  Stewart,  whose  letter  accompanied  the  application,  was  known  to  be  a 
wealthy  man.  Both  were  considered  men  of  talents  and  peculiar  aptitude 
for  thebusiness  in  which  they  were  engaged.     Then  what  was  that  business? 

It  was  the  conducting  of  the  largest  newspaper  in  the  country,  requiring, 
of  course,  considerable  means,  and  giving  employment  to  a  great  mass  of 
active  industry.     Its  situation  was  represented  to  be  this: 
Mr.  Webb  declares  that  there  are  3,300  daily  subscribers,  at  i^lO,     33,000 
2,300  others,  at  an  average  of  jgt 4, 50,        -  .  -  .     io,350 

275  yearly  advertisers,  at  S  30,     -  -  -  -  -      8,250 

310  days' advertising,  at  55  per  day,         -  -  -  -     17,050 

Making  68,650 

Deducting  from  this,  10  per  cent,  on  the  daily  subscrip- 
tions and  advertisements,  (of  which  about  ^  is  paid  in 
advance,)  say   -  -  -  -  -  ^5,830 

and  20  per  cent,  on  the  other  subscribers,  say      -  -    2,070 


7,900 


There  remains  a  gross  income  of  -  -  -  60,750 

The  annual  expenses  are  stated  at  -  -  -  35,000 

Leaving  a  nett  annual  income  of    •  -  -  -  ^§25,750 

This  statement  is  confirmed  by  the  affidavits  of  the  book-keepers  and  the 
pressmen  of  the  establishment. 

The  total  value  of  the  paper  was  thus  stated: 

J.  Watson  Webb,  had  invested  in  it  ^33,000,  for  which  ^40,000  had 
been  ofiered,  provided  the  other  half  could  be  had  for  ^25,000;  this  he  de- 
clined, but  it  is  mentioned  to  prove  that  the  whole  might  have  been  sold  for 
$65,000. 

Then  it  was  an  improving  establishment. 

It  had  owed  a  debt  to  the  bank  of  ^15,000,  which  it  had  paid  off  in 
April  and  May,  1831,  out  of  the  collections  of  the  last  six  months,  which 
had  amounted  to  ^20,000. 

It  had,  in  1829,  owed  a  total  debt  of  jg29,000,  which  it  had  since  paid  off. 

And,  at  the  present  moment,  its  outstanding  claims  were  more  than  its 
debts  by  jglO,000;  for  its  responsibilities  and  means  stood  thus: 
Outstanding  debts  in  the  country,  more  than  g25,000,  of  which 

could  be  collected  on  presentation  of  bills,        -  -  -  ^10,000 

Due  in  New  York  more  than  four  months'  subscription,  which, 

with  the  unpaid  arrears  of  the  last  six  months,  may  be  safely 

estimated  at-  -  -  -  -  -  -     20,000 

And  the  property  owned  by  the  applicants  amounted  to  -  -       8,000 

38,000 
While  the  whole  amount  of  debts  was     -  -  .  -     28,000 


Leaving  an  excess  of       -..---     10,000 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  91 

That  they  had  been  deemed  worthy  of  credit  in  New  York,  appeared 
from  two  facts: 

1st.  That  the  banks  of  New  York  had  lent  them  815,000,  which  they 
had  repaid. 

2d.  That  the  respectable  mercantile  house  of  J.  L.  &  J.  Joseph  &  Co., 
a  firm  well  known  to  the  directors,  had  lent  them  ^20,000,  which  had  been 
repaid  out  of  the  profits  of  the  establishment,   as  these  gentlemen  them- 
selves certify,  in  a  document  accompanying  the  papers. 

Finally,  they  had  no  accommodation,  direct  or  indirect,  out  of  any  bank. 
The  case  then  stood  thus: 
Here  are  two  persons  of  skill  in  their  profession,  engaged  in  an  esta- 
blishment, of  which  the  capital  is  -  -  -    1^65,000 
The  gross  income,             ------     60,750 

The  expenses,      -  -  -  -  -  -  -     35,000 


And  the  nett  income,        ------     25,750 

In  conducting  sUch  a  business,  where  the  receipts  are  semi-annual,  and 
the  payments  daily  and  weekly,  they  naturally  require,  like  other  men  in 
business,  some  credit. 

They  accordingly  apply  to  borrow  ^20,000.  They  wish  to  borrow  it, 
not  to  pay  preyious  debts,  not  to  spend  it  on  objects  unconnected  with  their 
business,  but  for  the  purpose  of  employing  it  all  in  a  way  to  increase  the 
profits  of  the  concern  itself,  by  procuring  a  new  press  and  enlarging  their 
means  of  obtaining  early  commercial  information,  and  thus  make  the  paper 
more  valuable.  Now  the  statements  may  be  presumed  to  present  the  most 
favorable  aspect  of  the  case,  from  the  sanguine  temper  in  which  men  are 
prone  to  estimate  their  own  professions  and  prospects,  yet,  unless  they  were 
wholly  fallacious,  the  board  saw  enough  in  them  to  warrant  the  loan.  It 
was  further  justified  by  the  event,  for  when  the  note  fell  due,  ^3,000  were 
paid  off*  at  a  time  when  the  demand  for  money  induced  many  other  debtors 
to  ask  for  renewals  in  full  of  their  notes. 

So  much  for  the  loan  of  (g 20,000. 

The  other  rested  on  the  same  principles,  with  this  addition.  The  parties 
stated,  that  owing  to  the  part  which  they  had  taken  in  regard  to  the  bank, 
they  had  been  deprived  of  their  usual  accommodations  in  their  business, 
whatever  might  be  the  reason.  The  fact  of  an  abridgement  of  these  facili- 
ties furnished  a  reason  for  extending  the  loan,  in  addition  to  the  belief  of 
its  safety;  which  was,  that,  by  so  doing,  any  hazard  to  the  original  loan 
might  be  prevented,  and  the  best  evidence  of  its  security  is,  that  the  parties 
have  since  repaid  the  loan. 

In  regard  to  the  other  loans,  which  appear  in  their  names,  they  were 
given  without  any  knowledge  of  their  being  discounted  at  the  bank. 

They  were  done  a,t  the  request  of  a  person  of  undoubted  solidity,  which 
has  been  proved  in  the  most  decisive  way  by  the  actual  payment  of  the  notes. 
That  they  were  intended  to  aid  Mr.  Noah,  the  drawer  of  the  notes,  in  pur- 
chasing a  share  in  a  newspaper,  was  stated  at  the  time,  but  that  formed  no 
objection  to  them.  He  borrowed  money,  as  thousands  borrow  money  every 
day,  to  employ  it  in  his  active  business.  If  Mr.  Noah  had  himself  applied 
to  the  bank  for  a  loan  to  buy  a  share  in  a  newspaper,  and  the  security  was 
satisfactory,  the  purpose  of  the  loan  would  have  made  no  difference.  Nine- 
tenths  of  the  loans  of  the  bank  probably  are  made  to  persons  to  buy  some- 
thing, or  to  pay  for  something  already  bought.     Men  borrow  to  buy  a  share 


92  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

in  a  ship,  a  share  in  a  cargo,  a  share  in  a  bank,  a  share  in  a  canal;  why  not 
a  share  in  a  newspaper?  The  bank  had  no  difficulty  about  the  loan,  because 
it  was  thought  secure,  nor  about  the  object,  because  that  was  not  the  concern 
of  the  bank.  It  does  not  inquire,  and  does  not  care  where  its  money  goes. 
Its  only  anxiety  is,  that  it  should  come  safely  back,  and  whether,  in  the  inter- 
val, it  is  employed  by  a  merchant  or  a  farmer,  or  a  lawyer  or  an  editor,  is 
a  matter  of  which  it  takes  no  cognizance. 

On  the  whole,  when  loans  are  made,  as  they  must  necessarily  be,  subject 
to  all  the  casualties  of  human  affairs,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  before  hand,  which 
is  safe,  and  which  is  hazardous,  until  the  result  decides.  Now,  on  this  occa- 
sion, these  loans  possess  at  least  one  justification,  that  by  much  the  greater 
part  of  them  are  repaid,  and  that  the  whole  responsibilities  of  the  parties 
amounts,  now,  to  only  ^18,000.  In  respect  to  loans  generally  to  editors  of 
newspapers,  the  bank  proceeds  on  the  principle  of  knowing  no  classes  of 
citizens,  and  proscribing  none.  Even  with  this  rule,  its  situation  in  regard 
to  such  loans  is  a  little  peculiar;  from  the  nature  of  their  occupations,  edi- 
tors engaged  in  the  discussion  of  matters  of  national  concern,  have  general- 
ly expressed  opinions  in  regard  to  the  bank,  and  their  dealings  with  the 
bank  render  it  difficult  to  escape  censure.  When  an  editor  friendly  to  the 
bank  applies  for  a  loan,  if  it  is  granted,  it  is  ascribed  to  favoritism ;  if  it  is  re- 
fused, the  party  naturally  thinks  it  ingratitude.  When  an  editor  opposed  to 
the  bank,  applies  for  a  loan,  if  it  is  granted,  it  is  deemed  an  attempt  to  in- 
fluence him,  while,  if  it  is  refused,  it  is  called  a  persecution  on  account  of 
his  free  opinions.  The  bank  has  endeavored,  in  these  matters,  rather  not  to 
deserve  reproach  than  to  escape  it.  In  reply  to  that  part  of  the  inquiry 
which  relates  to  politics,  I  believe  that,  if  in  granting  the  loans  in  question, 
there  was  insensibly  blended  with  the  mere  business  considerations,  any  po- 
litical feeling,  it  was  probably  this:  That  charged  as  the  bank  habitually 
is,  with  hostility  to  the  present  administration,  it  was  due  to  the  interests  of 
the  stockholders  to  correct  so  unfounded  an  impression,  when  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity occurred  of  giving  accommodation  to  those  who  were  considered  as 
the  most  strenuous  and  efficient  supporters  of  that  administration. 

The  directors  of  the  bank  understand  too  little  of  the  subject  to  attempt 
to  adjust  the  balance  of  accommodation  to  political  parties,  nor  have  I  my- 
self ever  had  even  curiosity  sufficient  to  notice  it  until  the  inquiry  of  the 
committee  has  suggested  it.  But  undoubtedly,  as  the  committee  cannot  fail 
to  perceive,  by  far  the  greatest  amount  of  loans  to  editors,  is  to  the  friends 
of  the  present  administration,  and  a  large  portion  of  that  to  the  decided  op- 
ponents of  the  bank.  This  is,  of  course,  accidental;  but  the  accident  shows 
the  absence  of  all  disposition  to  favoritism,  and  it  adds  to  the  evidences,  that 
the  bank  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  neither  for  any  administration,  nor  against 
any  administration. 


Question  by  Mr,  Thomas. — When  J.  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah  made 
application  for  two  loans,  one  of  ^20,000,  on  the  9th  of  August,  1831,  and 
the  other  on  the  16th  of  December,  1831 ,  for  j^  15,000,  did  you,  or  any  member 
of  the  exchange  committee,  apprize  the  board  of  directors  that  J.  W. 
Webb's  notes,  with  M.  M.  Noah  as  endorser,  for  ^17,975^  had  been  dis- 
counted by  the  exchange  committee  prior  to  the  9th  of  August? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  93 

*^nswer.—''So.  It  was  not  necessary  to  apprize  the  committee;  becanse 
the  committee  had  made  the  loan  themselves,  before  making  that  of  the 
16th  December;  nor  was  it  necessary  to  apprize  the  board  on  the  9th  of 
August;  because,  though  it  had  been  agreed  to,  it  had  not  then  been  con- 
summated, and  it  might  suit  Mr.  Burrows  to  pay  it  off  before  it  was  charg- 
ed to  the  bank.  It  was  granted,  too,  on  a  security  altogether  distinct  from 
the  responsibility  of  the  parties  then  before  the  board  on  the  9th  of  August. 


Testimony  of  Albert  Gallatin* 

National  Bank,  New  York,  nth  April,  1832. 

Dear  Sir:  I  enclose  my  deposition  in  relation  to  the  discount  applied 
for  by  Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah.  I  had  not  the  slightest  recollection  of  the 
fact  when  your  letter  reached  me,  and  know  now  nothing  further  conc€:rn- 
ing  it,  than  as  it  appears  on  the  record.  But,  speaking  generally,  bank  di- 
rectors cannot,  without  injury  to  the  institution  entrusted  to  their  care,  state 
the  reasons  why  they  reject  notes  offered  for  discount 
I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

With  great  respect,  dear  sir. 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

ALBERT  GALLATIN. 
The  Hon.  A.  S.  Clayton,  Chairman,  ^c,  Washington. 


In  compliance  with  a  resolution  of  the  committee  appointed  by  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  investigate  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  dated  **  Philadelphia,  April  12,  1832;"  the  under- 
signed, president  of  the  National  Bank  of  the  city  of  New  York,  declares 
and  deposes  as  jfoUoweth,  viz. 

That  it  appears  by  tlie  register  of  notes  offered  for  discount  to  the  said 
National  Bank,  that  a  note  of  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  of  James 
Watson  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah,  with  an  endorser,  was,  on  the  26th  of 
July,  1831,  offered  to  be  discounted  by  the  said  J.  W.  Webb,  and  that  the 
said  application  was  refused;  but,  for  what  reason  is  not  recollected  by  the 
undersigned,  and  may  not  have  been  known  to  him  at  the  time,  as  two  ne* 
gatives  are  sufficient  to  reject  a  note,  and  no  director  is  bound  to  assign  his 
reasons. 

That  neither  of  ihe  two  parties  aforesaid  ever,  has  obtained  any  loan  or 
discount  from  the  National  Bank;  nor  does  it  appear  by  any  record,  or  is  it 
recollected  by  any  officer  of  that  institution,  that  any  application  to  that  effect 
was  made  other  than  that  above  mentioned;  but  that  notes  offered  so  late  as 
the  morning  of  a  discount  day  are  not  always  entered  on  the  offering  book; 
and  that  no  record  was  kept  of  the  notes  not  actually  discounted,  which, 
during  a  portion  of  the  year  1831,  were  offered  to  a  committee  authorized 
to  discount  on  other  days  than  the  regular  discount  days. 

And  that  James  Watson  Webb  aforesaid,  has  had  an  account  with  the 
National  Bank  from  the  thirtieth  day  of  July,  1831,  to  this  day;  during 
the  whole  of  which  time  he  has  always  had  a  balance  to  his  credit,  and 
which,  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  July,  1831,  amounted  to  one  thousand 
five  hundred  and  seventy-four  dollars  and  thirty-five  cents. 

ALBERT  GALLATIN. 

New  York,  \lth  April,  1832. 


94  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

City  and  county  of  New  York^  ss. 

On  this  seventeenth  day  of  April,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty- 
two,  before  me  personally  appeared  Albert  Gallatin,  the  above  subscribed, 
and,  being  by  me  duly  sworn,  saith  that  the  above  deposition  is  true. 

THOS.  WM.  TUCKER, 

Commissioner  of  Deedsy  ^"C, 


Testimony  of  Isaac  Wright, 

New  York,  Ath  month  18,   1832. 
Respected  Friend:  I  received  thy  letter  of  the  13th  instant,  enclosing 
a  resolution  from  the  Committee  of  Investigation  of  the  Bank,  requesting 
me  to  reply  what  application  James  Watson  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah  had 
made  to  the  City  Bank  for  loan,  &c. 

The  reply  I  now  enclose,  which  I  hope  will  be  satisfactory. 

With  respect,  thy  friend, 

ISAAC  WRIGHT. 
A.  S.  Clayton. 


I,  Isaac  Wright,  president  of  the  City  Bank  of  New  York,  being  duly 
afiQrmed,  deposeth  and  saith,  that,  on  the  second  day  of  July,  eighteen  hun- 
dred and  thirty-one,  a  note  was  offered  for  discount  at  the  City  Bank,  by 
James  Watson  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah^  and  endorsed  by  Robert  Stewart, 
for  two  thousand  dollars,  at  four  months,  and  rejected;  that  the  reason  for  its 
rejection  is  unknown  to  me;  that  a  single  negative  of  the  board  is  sufficient 
to  cause  the  rejection  of  any  offered  for  discount;  and  that  no  reason  for  the 
rejection  of  a  note  is  required.  That  the  above  mentioned  note  appears  to 
be  the  only  one  offered  by  them  since  the  first  of  April,  eighteen  hundred 
and  thirty-one.  Though  others  may  have  been  offered  and  rejected,  as 
paper  is  frequently  presented  to,  and  acted  on,  by  the  board  of  directors; 
which,  if  rejected,  does  not  appear  on  the  offering  book  of  the  bank. 

James  Watson  Webb  had  discounted  at  the  City  Bank  two  notes,  each 
for  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  endorsed  by  Robert  Stewart,  dated  May  twenty- 
sixth,  eighteen  hundred  and  thirty-one:  both  paid  when  due. 

M.  M.  Noah  had  a  note  discounted  for  eight  hundred  and  thirty-six 
dollars;  renewed  July  eleventh,  for  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars, 
renewed  Ogtober  the  thirteenth,  for  six  hundred  and  seventy-five  doI» 
lars,  endorsed  by  J.  L.  Joseph,  and  renewed  January  the  twelfth,  eighteen 
hundred  and  thirty-two,  for  six  hundred  dollars,  endorsed  by  Daniel  Jack- 
son; which  are  all  the  notes  that  appear  on  the  books  of  the  bank.  This 
note  of  M.  M.  Noah  is  the  balance  of  a  note  discounted  for  his  private  ac- 
count, before  he  had  any  connexion  with  J.  \N.  Webb;  and  1  understood 
the  two  notes  abovementioned,  of  J.  W.  Webb,  were  for  his  private  ac- 
count    Those  two  notes  were  20  and  25  days  each. 

ISAAC  WRIGHT. 

New  York,  Ath  month  llth,   1832. 

City  and  county  of  New  York,  ss. 

On  the  seventeenth  day  of  April,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thir- 
ty-two, before  me  personally  appeared  Isaac  Wright,  the  above  subscribed, 
and,  being  by  me  duly  affirmed,  deposed  and  said  that  the  allegations  con- 
tained in  the  above  deposition  are  true. 

THOS,  WM.  TUCKER, 

\  Commissioner  of  Deeds,  ^*c. 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  ]  95 

Ttstiinony  of  Mordecai  M.  Noah, 

New  York,  ^pril  Sth,  1832. 

To  Judge  Clayton,  Chairman,  and  the  members  of  the  Committeefor 
examining  into  the  ajfalrs  of  the  United  States^  Bank. 

Gentlemen:  On  the  return  of  Mr.  Webb  from  Philadelphia,  I  learnt 
from  him  this  morning,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  sum  of  ^15,000  had  been 
loaned  by  the  president  of  the  bank  to  Mr.  Silas  E.  Burrows,  on  my  paper, 
endorsed  by  Mr.  Webb;  and  he  suggested  that  Burrows  had  represented  that 
fee  obtained  the  loan  to  enable  me  to  purchase  the  moiety  of  the  Courier  and 
Enquirer  establishment,  formerly  owned  by  Colonel  Daniel  E.  Tylee.  Jus- 
tice to  myself  requires  that  no  time  should  be  lost  in  correcting  a  statement 
calculated  to  do  me  an  injury,  by  a  plain  statement  of  facts  as  they  occurred. 
Colonel  Tylee  finding  that  his  duties  as  cashier  of  the  Savings  Bank  of  this 
city  prevented  a  proper  attention  to  the  concerns  of  the  paper,  announced 
his  intentions  to  dispose  of  his  interest,  and  offered  it  to  sundry  persons. 
The  friends  of  the  paper,  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  that  interest  passing 
into  the  hands  of  a  person  opposed  to  its  political  course,  and  desirous  that 
Mr.  Webb  should  have  associated  with  him  a  partner  entertaining  similar 
political  views,  and  personal  regard,  proposed  to  me  to  purchase  Colonel 
Tylee's  interest;  and  Mr.  Stewart,  the  father-in-law  of  Mr.  Webb,  offered 
to  loan  me  $5,000  in  the  furtherance  of  such  views.  Being  on  terms  of 
intimacy  with  Mr.  Silas  E.  Buripows,  I  mentioned  the  circumstance  to  him, 
and,  believing  that  he  possessed  facilities,  proposed  that  he  should  loan  me 
^15,000  to  effect  the  purchase,  on  condition  that  ten  per  cent,  should  be 
paid  every  six  months,  with  interest,  until  the  whole  was  liquidated.  He 
told  me  that  his  mercantile  operations  were  extensive,  and  that  he  could  not 
well  take  that  swm  from  his  capital,  but  that  he  approved  of  the  purchase, 
and  would  apply  to  his  father  in  Connecticut  for  a  loan  to  that  amount.  In 
a  few  days  he  informed  me  that  he  was  going  to  Connecticut  for  his  father, 
and  subsequently  that  his  father  had  arrived  in  town,  and  invited  me  to  meet 
him  at  his  house  in  Bleecker  street,  where,  after  much  preliminary  conversa- 
tion and  arrangements,  I  gave  my  notes  to  Mr.  Burrows,  senior,  endorsed 
by  Mr.  Webb,  and  a  commission  of  2^  per  cent,  to  Mr.  Burrows,  junior, 
nd  received  from  from  Mr.  Burrows,  senior,  his  paper,  which  was  subse- 
quently cashed  by  Mr.  Stewart,  the  father-in-law  of  Mr.  Webb.  It  was  not 
for  six  months  after  negotiating  this  loan  that  the  final  payment  was  made 
by  Mr.  Burrows.  Judge,  therefore,  of  my  astonishment  at  having  heard  it 
suggested  that  that  sum  in  money  was  loaned  by  Mr.  Biddle,  for  my  use, 
when,  throughout  the  negotiation,  the  name  of  the  United  States'  Bank 
was  not  even  mentioned;  and  I  never,  for  a  moment,  suspected  that  the  loan 
emanated  from  any  other  source  than  Mr.  Enoch  Burrows  of  Connecticut. 
If  any  reference  to  this  transaction  is  made  in  your  report  to  Congress,  you 
will,  gentlemen,  see  the  justice  due  to  me  in  making  this  explanatory  state- 
ment part  of  that  report;  and  if  it  is  to  be  referred  to  without  this  explana- 
tion— this  utter  denial  of  any  knowledge  of  the  supposed  agency  of  the 
bank  in  the  purchase;  I  ask  the  privilege  of  being  called  before  you  to  con- 
firm the  statement  I  now  make  under  oath. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

M.  M.  NOAH. 


96  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

P.  S. — April  9. — Since  writing  the  foregoing,  I  have  deemed  it  expedi- 
ent to  present  the  statement  at  once  in  the  shape  of  an  affidavit. 

City  of  New  York,  ss. 

M.  M.  Noah,  being  duly  sworn,  doth  say  that  the  foregoing  statement  is 
true,  to  the  best  of  his  recollection,  knowledge,  and  belief. 

M.  M.  NOAH. 

Sworn  before  me,  this  9th  day  of  April,  1832. 

ALFRED  COLVILL, 

Commissioner  of  Deeds. 


Copy  of  a  letter  from  W,  Bowne  to  N.  Biddle. 

New  York,  Jiugust  5,  1831. 

Dear  Sir:  I  cheerfully  forward  the  enclosed,  as  requested.    I  see  no  rea- 
son against  this  application  being  treated  as  a  fair  business  transaction. 

I  am,  sincerely,  yours, 

WALTER  BOWNE. 
To  Nicholas  Biddle,  Esq.  Philadelphia. 


[Private.] 

5th  JJugust,  1S3I. 

Dear  Sin:  Will  you  send  the  enclosed  to  Mr.  Biddle,  with  such  friendly 
suggestions  as  may  accomplish  the  object  in  view?  The  loan  can  be  safely 
made,  or  I  would  not  recommend  it.  As  Mr.  Webb  leaves  to-morrow,  will 
you  have  the  goodness  to  let  it  go  on  by  this  day's  mail? 

Very  truly,  your's,  M.  M.  NOAH. 

Mr.  Bowne. 


New  York,  .August  5,  1831. 

Dear  Sir:  We  are  about  making  considerable  improvements  in  the  esta- 
blishment of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  such  as  building  a  pilot  boat  for  the 
exclusive  use  of  the  office  in  boarding  ships  for  news,  also  procuring  a  double 
cylinder  press  to  deliver  3,000  sheets  per  hour,  enlarging  the  paper,  and 
placing  the  whole  concern  on  a  footing  corresponding  with  its  increasing  pa- 
tronage and  circulation.  To  accomplish  these  objects,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  raise  a  loan  ori^20,000;  and,  as  our  receipts  are  semi-annual,  we  wish  the 
payments  of  such  loan  to  be  made  in  the  same  way:  for  example,  ten  per 
cent,  every  six  months,  with  interest,  until  the  entire  amount  is  liquidated; 
which  will  make  the  payments  out  of  the  profits  of  the  concern,  without  ad- 
ding to  the  capital  invested.  Our  local  banks  are  unwilling  to  accommodate 
us  at  these  periods;  besides,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  our  local 
institutions  are  rather  coldly  disposed  towards  us,  since  the  paper  took  the 
course  it  did  relative  to  the  resolution  of  Morehouse  on  the  United  States' 
Bank,  concerning  which  you  and  I  conversed  at  the  time.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, I  have  advised  Mr.  Webb  to  negotiate  a  loan  of  ^20,000  with 
the  United  States'  Bank,  founded  on  a  frank  statement  of  the  concerns  of 


I   Rep.  No.  460.  ]  97 

the  establishment;  to  proceed  to  Philadelphia,  and  see  Mr.  Biddle  in  person, 
and  state  what  are  his  views.  In  the  furtherance  of  this  object,  I  shall  be 
much  indebted  if  you  will  give  Mr.  Webb  a  letter  to  Mr.  Biddle,  or,  if  you 
prefer  it,  make  such  representations  to  him  as  you  are  warranted  by  facts, 
with  a  view  of  promoting  the  object  contemplated. 

The  Courier  and  Enquirer  does  not  owe  a  dollar  to  any  bank.  We  paid  all 
our  accommodation  paper,  amounting  to  about  ^15,000,  in  April  or  May, 
from  the  last  six  months'  collections,  wWch  exceed  vig20,000.  It  must  be  ap- 
parent that  any  business,  the  expenses  of  which  exceed  ^35,000  annually, 
requires  banking  facilities  to  enable  capital  to  be  judiciously  employed.  I 
will  instance  the  case  of  printing  paper,  of  which  we  purchase  ^16,000  per 
annum,  at  six  and  nine  months'  credit,  yet  have  seven  per  cent,  deduction  for 
cash.  The  time  allowed  to  pay  off  the  loan  will  be  a  great  accommodation, 
nevertheless,  we  shouM  not  like,  for  that  accommodation,  to  pledge  the  pa- 
per to  any  course  relative  to  the  rechartering  the  bank;  nor,  indeed,  would 
such  pledge  be  required  of  us.  Mr.  Webb  made  a  publication  of  his  views  in 
April  on  that  subject,  and  the  paper,  if  induced  to  take  any  part,  will,  at 
least,  go  as  far  in  favor  of  the  bank  as  he  mentioned  at  that  time.  We  wish 
to  place  it  on  the  footing  of  a  business  transaction,  in  common  with  other  cus- 
tomers of  the  institution. 

I  am,  dear  sir,  very  faithfully,  yours. 

M.  M.  NOAH. 
Walter  Bowne,  Esq. 


Copy  of  a  letter  from  Ji,  L,  Stewart  to  J,  W.  Webb, 

New  York,  August  5,  1831. 
Dear  Watson:  As  you  consider  my  opinion  in  relation  to  the  rechartering 
of  the  United  States'  Bank  may  be  of  some  importance  to  you  in  negotiat- 
ing a  loan,  you  are  at  liberty  to  say  that  I  was  always  friendly  to  the  old 
Bank  of  the  United  States;  tliat  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  of  the  great  benefits 
which  the  country  experiences  from  the  present  institution,  in  consequence 
of  the  salutary  influence  which  it  exercises  upon  our  circulating  medium;  and 
that,  as  you  well  know,  I  always  have  been  decidedly  of  opinion  that  it 
should  be  rechartered. 

Yours,  affectionately,  A.  L.  STEWART. 

James  Watson  Webb. 


Statement  by  J.  W,  Webb  relative  to  the  Courier  and  Enquirer, 

The  constant  and  steady  increase  of  our  subscription  list,  has  rendered 
our  subscribers  so  numerous  that  we  cannot  print  all  our  papers  at  a  suffi- 
ciently early  hour  in  the  morning.  We  are  compelled  to  keep  our  press 
open  always  until  two,  and  frequently  till  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
waiting  for  our  boats  with  foreign  news,  ship-news,  &c. ;  all  the  morning 
papers  in  the  city  then  go  to  press  about  the  same  hour,  and  all  of  them  use 
the  same  description  of  press.  It  follows,  of  course,  that  our  circulation  be- 
ing nearly  two  hundred  per  cent,  greater  than  either  of  the  others,  we  are 
compelled  to  serve  a  majority  of  our  subscribers  at  a  later  hour  than  our  co- 
13 


98  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

temporaries.  To  obviate  this,  we  propose  purchasing,  immediately,  a  press 
which  will  work  two  thousand  sheets  per  hour,  (the  one  we  now  use  works 
about  eleven  hundred,)  and  which  will  cost  us  ^4,000;  we  also  intend  col- 
lecting news  exclusively  for  ourselves,  and  must  purchase  a  pilot  boat,  and 
row  boat,  which  will  cost  about  i^3,500,  and  for  our  current  business,  we  re- 
quire an  accommodation  of  about  ^12,000. 

We  ask,  therefore,  a  loan  from  the  United  States'  Bank  of  ^^20,000,  on 
the  joint  and  several  notes  of  James  Watson  Webb  an^  M.  M.  Noah,  paya- 
ble 10  per  cent,  with  interest  at  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  every  six  months. 

JAMES  WATSON  WEBB  &  Co. 

Philadelphia,  August  8,  1831. 


Statement  1, 

The  amount  due  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  in  the  country  exceeds  j^25,000, 
of  which  sum,  there  can  be  collected  on  the  presentation  of  bills  ^10,000 

There  is  now  due  in  the  city  of  New  York,  more  than  four  months 
subscription,  and  advertising,  which,  with  the  amount  of  the 
last  six  months'  business  remaining  unpaid,  may  be  safely  es- 
timated at-  -  -  -  ...  -     20,000 

We  have  property  worth  at  least  -  -  -  -  .       8,000 


38,000 
The  whole  amount  of  debts  due  by  the  paper  is  less  than  -  -     28,000 


10,000 


In  June,  1829,  we  owed  upwards  of    -  -  -     $26,000 

Our  property  and  debts  were  worth  only  -  3,000 

23,000 


33,000 


So  that,  in  little  over  two  years,  we  have  cleared,  and  all  but  realized, 
^33,000;  as  the  amount  of  good  debts  due  the  concern  exceeds  the  amount 
I  have  named. 

J.  W.  W. 


144  quires  X  24  =  3,456,   less   the   exchanges,    &c.,    say    3,300 

daily  subscribers  at  SIO  .  .  -  >  -     $33,000 

275  yearly  advertisers  at  $40  per  annum,  but  being  calculated  in 

the  above  at  $30  -  -  -  -  -  -         8,250 

310  days  advertising,  at  $55  per  day      -  -  -  -       17,050 

58,300 
About  \  of  the  whole  amount  is  paid  in  advance,  yet  deduct  for 

bad  debts,  ten  per  cent,  on  the  whole  amount  -  -         5,830 

52,470 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  99 


104  quires  semi-weekly  x  24=2,496,  lessexchanges,&c.,  * 

say  2,300,  at  ^4  and  g5  per  annum,  average  $4  50       ;gl 0,350 
Deduct  20  per  cent  for  bad  debts         -  -  -         2,070 


8,280 


60,750 
Annual  expenses  -  -  -  -  -  -       35,000 

^25,750 


Note. — I  have  invested  in  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  upwards  of  ^33,000, 
besides  my  present  responsibilities.  No  partner  could  come  into  the  con- 
cern with  me,  and  change  the  course  of  the  paper  on  any  question  wh  h  had 
been  broached  in  its  columns j  consequently.  Colonel  Tylee  found  a  difficult 
ty  in  selling  his  half  of  the  proprietorsjiip.  He  asked  ^25,000;  and,  al- 
though he  could  not  procure  that  much,  under  the  circumstances  mentioned, 
he  was  told  that  his  interest  would  be  taken  at  ^25,000,  provided  mine  could 
be  procured  at  §40,000,  and  he  was  authorized  to  offer  me  that  sum.  He 
did  so,  and  I  rejected  it.  I  do  not  placef  any  specific  value  on  my  interest  in 
the  establishment,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  dispose-of  it;  and  I  only  refer  to 
this  fact,  to  show  that  the  whole  would  have  sold  in  March  last,  for  §65,000, 
the  purchasers  to  take  it  as  it  was,  with  its  debts,  and  also  its  property,  with 
the  amount  due  it. 

We  have  not,  at  this  moment,  one  dollar  of  accommodation,  directly  or 
indirectly,  out  of  any  bank.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add,  that  in  no  time 
of  my  life  has  a  note  of  mine  fallen  due  without  being  promptly  met.  I 
deem  it  a  duty  to  be  thus  frank  and  explicit,  because  it  is  not  presumed  that 
you  can  be  acquainted  with  these  circumstances,  and  there  might  be  some 
delicac}'^  experienced  in  making  the  inquiries. 

One  reason  why  I  think  my  publication  in  relation  to  the  United  States' 
Bank  has  had  an  influence  on  our  city  banks,  is  this:  after  an  accommoda- 
tion of  §2,500  had  been  refused  in  the  bank  where  we  kept  our  account,  the 
cashier  of  which  had,  for  two  years  previous,  a  standing  order  to  give  me 
^10,000,  without  submitting  it  to  the  board,  and  to  which,  at  the  time,  I 
did  not  owe  a  dollar,  I  was  told  that  there  would  not  be  any  difficulty  in  pro- 
curing an  accommodation  at  the  Farmers  and  Mechanics'  Bank  in  Albany. 

JAMES  WATSON  WEBB. 

-^'^^ 

City  and  county  op  New  York,  .w. 

John  Thomas,  pressman  in  the  office  of  the  ''Morning  Courier  and  New 
York  Enquirer,''  being  duly  sworn,  says  that  he  prints  one  hundred  and 
forty-four  quires  of  paper,  daily,  for  the  Daily  Courier  and  Enquirer,  and  one 
hundred  and  four  quires  semi-weekly,  for  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  for  the 
country. 

JOHN  THOMAS. 

Sworn  to  before  me,  this  fifth  day  of  August,  1831. 

NIEL  GRAY, 
Commissioner  of  Deeds. 


100  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Thos  A.  Williams  and  Edward  S.  Howard,  book-keepers  in  the  office  of 
the  Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer,  being  duly  sworn,  say,  that 
the  transient  advertising  of  the  paper  from  the  1st  April  last,  to  this  date, 
has  exceeded  fifty  dollars  per  day^  of  which  amount,  the  average  of  cash 
advertisements,  is  ^10  ^^^  per  day,  and,  that  the  advertising  patronage  of 
the  paper  is  apparently  increasing;  also,  that  the  collections  on  account  of 
subscriptions  and  advertising  during  the  same  period,  exceed  ^20,000 

THOMAS  A.  WILLIAMS, 
HOWARD  S.  EDWARD. 

Sworn  to  before  me,  this  4th  day  of  August,  1831. 

R.  RIKER,  Recorder. 
10th  April,  to  1st  August,  less  than  4  months,  ^20,875. 


Thomas  A.  Williams  and  Edward  S.  Howard)  book-keepers  in  the  office 
of  the  Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer,  being  duly  sworn,  depose 
and  say,  that,  in  the  month  of  May,  1831,  two  hundred  and  ninety-six  per- 
sons became  subscribers  to  the  Daily  Courier  and  Enquirer,  in  the  month 
of  June,  one  hundred  and  forty-nine,  in  the  month  of  July,  one  hundred 
and  eighty-three,  and  during  the  first  three  days  in  August,  twenty -five;  and 
that  the  withdrawals,  and  names  stricken  from  the  subscription  list  during 
the  same  period,  for  non-payment,  amount  to  two  hundred  and  thirty-five, 
leaving  a  nett  gain,  from  the  1st  of  May  to  the  3d  of  August,  oifour  hun- 
dred and  eighteen  daily  subscribers. 

THOMAS  A.  WILLIAMS, 
EDWARD  S.  HOWARD. 

Sworn  to  before  me,  this  4th  day  of  August,  1831. 

R.  RIKER,  Recorder. 


We  certify  that  we  loaned  the  New  York  Enquirer,  at  difiexent  periods 
in  the  years  of  1827,  1828,  and  1829,  upwards  of  ^20,000,  wlHtch  sum  was 
repaid  from  the  collections  of  said  newspaper  establishment. 

TH.  &  S.  JOSEPH  &  Co. 

New  York,  August  6,  1831. 


Copy  of  a  lettef  from  James  TVatson  JVebb  to  N.  Biddle. 

Mansion  House,  Philadelphia, 

Friday  evenings  December  16. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  just  arrived  from  Washington,  and  find  here  the  in- 
closed from  Mr.  Noah.  I  feel  mortified  at  the  necessity  of  again  asking 
you  for  a  loan,  but  the  circumstances  under  which  the  application  is  made 
must  be  my  apology.  It  certainly  does  appear  that  our  local  institutions, 
guided  by  their  attachment  for  one  per  cent.,  are  determined  to  Jet  us  feel 
their  power;  but  this  is  our  misfortune,  rather  than  our  fault.  The  safety  of 
an  additional  loan  to  us  may  be  summed  up  in  one  general  view  of  the  sub- 
ject.   Our  business  compels  us  to  have  in  possession  about  230,000  of  availa- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  101 

ble  property,  and  doing  all  our  business  at  six  months'  credit,  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  we  must  have  at  all  times  due  to  us  in  the  city,  of  good  debts, 
from  twenty  to  forty  thousand  dollars.  I  have  a  very  large  cash  capital  in- 
vested in  the  paper,  and  it  is  certain,  that  but  for  my  publication  in  relation 
to  the  United  States'  Bank,  1  might  now  be  withdrawing  a  portion  of  that 
capital,  and  depend  upon  the  character,  standing,  and  credit  of  the  paper,  for 
the  necessary  business  of  facilities;  as  it  is,  we  cannot  get  credit  for  a  dollar. 
If  our  paper  manufacturers  and  those  who  deal  with  us  cannot  raise  money 
upon  our  notes,  no  matter  by  whom  endorsed,  it  follows  that  we  are  totally 
without  credit. 

In  this  emergency,  we  look  to  your  bank,  and  we  do  it  with  confidence. 
We  come  not  as  insolvents,  or  persons  without  visible  means,  but  we  come 
with  the  evidence  that  the  loan  will  be  perfectly  safe,  and  because  we  are  de- 
nied facilities  elsewhere  in  consequence  of  espousing  your  cause.  'Tis  true, 
we  did  so  unsolicited,  and  it  is  equally  true  we  do  nothing  more  than  advo- 
cate my  own  sentiments;  but,  in  my  opinion,  this  does  not  alter  the  case. 
Your  business  is  to  loan  money,  and  if  our  security  is  ample,  you  must 
agree  with  me  that  the  United  States'  Bank  is  bound,  in  good  faith,  to  do 
what  our  local  institutions  would  have  done,  and  most  cheerfully  did  so,  un- 
til I  published  my  statement  in  relation  to  rechartering  the  bank  with  cer- 
tain restrictions.  This  was  in  April  last,  and  from  that  time  we  have  not 
had  a  penny  from  them.  Finding  that  we  do  not  want  their  aid,  they  now 
endeavor  to  reach  us  through  those  with  whom  we  do  our  ordinary  business. 
The  case  requires  no  comment. 

In  consequence  of  my  finding  the  enclosed  letter  here,  I  will  not  leave 
town  until  Monday,  and,  in  order  that  you  may  have  the  subject  fully  before 
you,  I  submit  it  to  you  to  night.  I  flatter  myself  that,  under  the  circumstan- 
ces, the  only  question  with  the  bank  will  be  the  nature  of  the  security.  I, 
of  course,  would  prefer  having  the  accommodation  on  our  own  paper,  but 
if  that  cannot  be  done,  then  1  am  prepared  to  give  a  bill  of  sale  or  mort- 
gage on  all  the  enumerated  property,  except  the  press,  estimated  at  ^^2,000, 
and  the  types,  &c.  now  in  use.  These  we  shall  not  want  after  the  first  of 
January,  and  it  is  obvious  that  the  interest  of  the  concern  requires  they 
should  be  disposed  of  while  they  have  a  certain  affixed  value.  I  will  ob- 
serve, in  relation  to  the  value  of  the  articles,  that  Mr.  Noah  has  received  his 
data  from  my  principal  book-keeper,  is  obvious  to  me;  he  (Noah)  knowing 
nothing  about  them.  The  schooners,  press,  boats,  types,  &c.  are  all  per- 
fectly new,  and  I  know  that  he  has  properly  stated  the  cost,  the  purchases 
having'been  made  by  me.  I  will  call  on  you  at  11  o'clock  to-morrow. 
Your  friend  and  obedient  servant, 

JAS.  WATSON  WEBB. 

P.  S.  In  looking  over  what  I  have  written,  I  find  that  I  have  pressed  the 
subject,  perhaps,  too  much.  I  have  written  as  I  felt  on  reading  the  enclos- 
ed, and  as  I  think  you  must  feel.  You  must,  therefore,  make  the  necessar}^ 
allowance.  We  have  been  y^ry  badly  used  by  our  local  institutions,  and  I 
feel  it.  Their  refusing  us  an  accommodation  I  consider  nothing,  but  to 
strike  at  us  through  a  third  party  to  effect  our  credit  was  disgraceful.  The 
time  will  come  when  we  will  requite  the  service.  W. 

To  N.  BiDpLE,  Esq. 

President  United  Slates^  Bank, 


102  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Copy  of  a  letter  of  M,  M,  Noah  to  J.  TV.  fVehb. 

New  York,  \2th  Dec.  1831, 

Dear  Webb:  1  ordered  the  schooner  Courier  and  Enquirer  to  come 
into  the  Hook  during  the  severe  weather,  and  the  Mary  Ann  to  be  dis- 
charged, but  it  cannot  be  done  until  the  term  of  service  of  the  latter  has  ex- 
pired. In  this  heavy  weather  it  is  difficult  to  board  a  ship  off  the  high- 
lands: when  the  new  schooner  is  afloat,  she  can  keep  the  sea  in  rough  times. 
Greele  and  Elliot,  our  paper  contractors,  have  just  called,  to  say  that  our 
notes,  with  their  endorsements,  have  been  rejected  in  bank,  on  the  avowed 
ground  of  scarcity  of  money,  and  necessity  of  curtailment  into,  &c.  &c.  hut 
on  inquiry,  I  find  that  the  notes  of 'Dvvight,  Hale,  and  others,  are  prompt- 
ly discounted.  It  is  useless  to  disguise  the  fact,  that  the  President's  mes- 
sage, connected  with  the  views  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  rela- 
tion to  the  United  States'  Bank,  have  brought  down  upon  us  the  hostility  of 
the  local  banks.  In  a  conversation  with  Mr.  White,  of  the  Manhattan  Bank, 
I  perceived  that  he  felt  very  sore  at  the  course  we  had  taken,  and  insisted 
that  we  had  abandoned  the  express  wishes  of  our  political  friends,  and  that 
there  was  sufficient  funds  in  the  local  banks  to  answer  all  the  emergencies 
of  the  country,  without  rechartering  the  United  States'  Bank.  The  Argus 
and  its  friends,  although  very  much  cut  down  at  the  course  of  things  at 
Washington,  are  secretly  at  work  to  cut  off  our  supplies.  In  this  situation, 
we  must  look  exclusively  to  the  United  States'  Bank  for  any  and  every  facili- 
ty. The  moment  our  local  banks  refuse  to  discount  our  paper  with  the 
name  of  such  a  house  as  Greele  and  Elliot,  all  credit  ceases  at  once.  This 
they  know  full  well,  and  they  intend  to  punish  us  by  preventing  our  receiv- 
ing the  usual  and  necessary  facilities  under  any  circumstances.  I  have  seen 
Mr.  Stewart  on  the  subject,  and  he  advises  an  application  for  a  further  loan 
from  the  United  States'  Bank.  He  says  he  is  prepared  to  advance  you  half 
of  the  necessary  cash  capital,  but,  at  the  same  time,  thinks  that  a  concern  like 
ours,  in  which  so  much  real  capital  is  already  invested,  which,  at  all  times 
has  nearly  thirty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property  in  the  office,  and 
which,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  business,  (giving  credit  for  six  months,) 
must  always  have  between  twenty  and  thirty  thousand  dollars  of  the  best 
description  of  debts  due  in  the  city,  should  have  a  credit  equal  to  its  wants. 
He  thinks,  and  facts  sustain  the  opinion,  that  as  our  course  in  relation  to 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  has  drawn  upon  us  the  hostility  of  the  local 
banks,  and  checked  our  usual  facilities,  that  the  United  States'  Bank  is 
bound  to  accommodate  us,  so  long  as  we  satisfy  them  we  are  abundantly 
able  to  meet  our  engagements.  By  obtaining  an  additional  loan  of  §15,000, 
we  will  be  independent  of  all  the  local  institutions,  and  the  bank  will  be  our 
8ole  creditor. 

On  the  20th  of  this  month,  we  will  have  in  our  office,  and  connected  with 
it,  the  following  property: 

One  news  schooner  and  equipments,  bought  in  September  last,      ^4,530 
One  news  schooner  of  95  tons,  equipping  for  service,     -  -       7,550 

Note. — i^2,000  cash  has  already  been  advanced  on  account  of  this  ves- 
sel, and  g»l,000  will  be  paid  on  the  16th,  leaving  but  g4,550  unpaid. 
One  double  cylinder  Napier  press,         -  -  -  -     ^4,000 

One  single  do  do  contracted  to  be  sold  to 

the  Albion,  ......      2,000 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  103 

One  fount  of  news,  and  one  fount  of  advertising  type,  now  lay- 
ing in  cases,  to  be  used  on  the  1st  January,   -  -  -       3,400 
Types,  fixtures,  &c.  now  in  use,             -             -             -  -       3,000 
Small  news  boats,  all  new,         *            -             -             -  -  650 
Lease  of  58  Wall  St.  6  years,  which  brings  i^3,000  per  annum. 
We  pay  in  rent,            -             -             -            650 

2,350 

6  years 


;gl4,100 
But,  with  all  improvements,  costs  us    -  -  -  -       5,200 


^30,330 
Of  the  ^15,000  additional  loan  to  be  asked,  we  will  appropriate  i^4,550 
to  pay  the  balance  on  pilot  boat,  and  then  we  have  of  new  valuable  xnd  un- 
incumbered property,  what  would  bring  under  the  hammer  to-morrovv, 
more  than  ^30,000,  besides  the  whole  of  our  business  for  the  last  three 
months,  and  at  least  g20,000  of  debts,  which  we  are  now  collecting.  We 
must  have  money  in  consequence  of  the  course  taken  by  our  local  banks, 
and  if  the  United  States'  Bank  will  not  give  it  to  us  on  our  own  notes  paya- 
ble 10  per  cent,  every  six  months,  give  them  a  mortgage  on  the  whole,  or 
any  part  of  the  foregoing  described  property,  with  the  right  to  keep  it  in- 
sured. The  lease  alone  is  nearly  worth  what  we  require,  but  there  can  be 
no  objections  to  mortgaging  presses,  types,  boats,  and  any  or  all  the  pro- 
perty, should  it  be  required.  I  do  not  think  the  bank  will  ask  it.  Situated 
as  we  are,  we  must  be  put  on  a  footing  that  will  enable  us  to  meet  our  op- 
ponents boldly,  and  we  must  not  stop  to  calculate  ofi  the  sacrifices  required. 
You  can  have  no  difficulty  in  satisfying. Mr.  Biddle  that  there  is  a  neces- 
sity for  the  bank  exercising  a  liberal  feeling  towards  us,  assured  that  they 
will  be  entirely  safe  in  affording  us  additional  facilities,  and  that,  had  we  ab- 
stained from  fighting  their  battles,  we  should  have  required  no  aid. 

I  enclose  you  an  affidavit  of  our  principal  clerks,  showing  the  increase  of 
business,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  establishment.  It  may  be  useful  to  you. 
I  enclose  also  a  note  to  be  used,  but,  should  the  bank  require  the  mortgage, 
you  can  use  the  signature  of  the  firm. 

A  few  words  in  relation  to  the  branch  at  Albany.  Olcott  and  Co.  declare 
that  no  person  of  credit  or  capital  ask  for  the  branch:  the  bank  can  show  to 
the  contrary.  I  am  advised  that  a  great  petition  can  be  got  up  in  its  favor. 
Now,  as  to  the  time  of  its  establishment.  If  it  is  done  after  the  session  com- 
mences, the  lobby  may  push  on  an  excitement,  which  may  lead  to  the 
adoption  of  strong  resolutions  in  the  Legislature;  if  the  establishment  of  the 
branch  is  postponed  until  after  the  Legislature  rises,  it  may  happen,  if  Con- 
gress recharters  the  bank  at  the  present  session,  that  the  establishment  of 
branches  without  the  consent  of  States,  may  be  prohibited:  it  will  be  then 
too  late  for  the  Albany  branch.  If  it  is  established  now,  it  may  be  in  tran- 
quil operation  before  any  progress  is  made  in  legislative  business. 

The  lobby  have  started  Otis  for  Speaker.  But  more  of  this  anon.  Your 
family  are  all  well,  and  there  is  nothing  new. 

Very  truly  yours, 

M.  M.  NOAH. 


104  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Copy  of  deposition  of  book-keepers  of  Courier  and  Enquirer. 

State  op  New  York,  > 
City  of  New  York,      J  ^^* 

Thomas  A.  Williams  and  Edward  S.  Howard,  book-keepers  irl  the  office 
of  the  Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer,  being,  duly  sworn,  doth 
say,  that  from  the  first  day  of  April  last,  to  the  present  date,  2,857  (two 
thousand  and  eight  hundred  and  fiity-seven)  persons  have  become  subscribers 
to  the  said  newspaper,  daily  and  country,  and  that  1,156,  (eleven  hundred 
and  fifty-six)  (one  thousand  one  hundred  and  fifty-six)  have  withdrawn 
during  said  period. 

THOMAS  A.  WILLIAMS, 
EDWARD  S.  HOWARD.  ^ 

New  York,  1 3th  December,  1831. 

Sworn  before  me,  the  13th  day  of  December,  1831. 

FRANC  IS  IL  LOU, 

Commissioner  of  Deeds,    * 


Copy  of  a  letter  from  J,  W.  Webb  to  N.  Biddle. 

Office  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
New  York,  dth  February,  1832. 

Sir:  Enclosed  is  a  certificate  of  a  deposite  for  $2,549,  which  you  will 
please  carry  to  the  credit  of, 

Your  obedient  servants, 

.      JAMES  WATSON  WEBB  &  Co. 
N.  Biddle,  Esq. 


Copy  of  a  letter  from  J.  W,  Webb  to  N.  Biddle, 

New  York,  March  11,  1832. 

Sir:  Although  the  loans  to  us,  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  are 
purely  of  a  business  character,  and  made  upon  statements  shewing  the  ne- 
cessity of  the  accommodation  to  our  establishment,  and  of  our  ability  to 
meet  our  payments,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  the  enemies  of  the  bank,  as 
also  our  political  opponents,  will  endeavor  to  give  a  false  coloring  to  the 
whole  transa^ion.  The  loan,  though  strictly  defensible,  is  a  large  one,  and 
the  amount  may  give  rise  to  the  charge  of  indiscretion  on  the  part  of  the 
directors.  This  it  is  not  only  our  duty,  but  our  desire,  to  prevent  if  possible, 
and  therefore,  with  some  little  inconvenience  to  ourselves,  we  have  made 
arrangements  to  pay  the  note  of  $15,000  in  the  course  of  a  few  days. 

I  beg  you  to  explain  to  the  board  of  directors  the  cause  of  this  determi- 
nation, and,  at  the  same  time,  assure  them  of  our  grateful  recollection  of  their 
kindness  at  a  moment  when  our  local  banks  refused  to  continue  their  accom- 
modation, and  one  bank  alone  compelled  us  to  pay  ^13,500,  without  renew- 
ing or  discounting  a  dollar  for  us,  after  our  expressing  an  opinion  favorable 
to  a  modified  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  105 

The  contemplated  payment  will  leave  but  the  note  of  jSl  8,000.  We  have 

no  account  with  any  other  bank,  and  the  following  are  the  resources  of  the 

paper,  independent  of  our  private  means. 

Six  years'  unexpired  lease  of  No.  58y  Wail  street,  worth,  at 

lowest  calculation,          ----..  y^  10,000 
News  schooner  Courier  and  Enquirer,  launched  in  January, 

and  with  36  ton?  pig  iron  on  board  as  ballast,  cost         -             -  8,650 
News  schooner  Eclipse,  new  in  September  last,  which,  with 

ballast,  cost  us  about      -----_  4,7CO 

Five  new  small  boats,  all  built  since  September  last,               -  750 

New  font  of  type,  which  cost  in  Januar}^,      -             .             -  3,260 

New  double  cylinder  press,  which  cost  in  January,    -             -  3,200 

Old  single  cylinder  press,  for  which  we  are  offered  $1,900,    -  2,000 

Office  property,  job  office,  presses,  type,  &.c.  &c.        -            -  3,000 


^35,570 
We  have  nearly  nine  thousand  subscribers  on  our  books,  and 
collect  semi-annually.     On  the  1st  day  of  April,   there  will    be 
due  us  in  the  city  of  New  York,  of  good  debts,  a£  least,  -        25,000 


$60,570 


We  consume  annually  about  $22,000  worth  of  paper,  and  the  expenses 
are  in  proportion,  and  hence  the  necessity  of  large  banking  facilities. 
^  Sincerely  your  friends, 

S|r  And  obedient  servants, 

J  AS.  WATSON  WEBB  &  Co. 

N.  BiDDLE,  Esq., 

President  of  the  Bank  United  States. 


Copy  of  a  letter  from  J.  JV,  JVebb  to  N.  Eiddle. 

New  York,  Monday,  March  12,  1832. 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  enclose  you  a  draft  for  ^6,000,  and  will  probably 
send  you  one  to-morrow;  which,  with  the  one  now  enclosed,  will  meet  the 
note  of  ^15,000,  dated  December  13th,  1S31. 

Respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

JAS.  WATSON  V/EBB. 
To  N.  BiDDLE,  Esq.  Philadelphufy 

President  of  the  Bank  of  tl^e  United  States, 


Copy  of  a  letter  from  J.  W.  Webb  to  N.  Biddle. 

New  York,  March  14,  1832. 

To  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States: 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  of  enclosing  you  a  draft  for  ^S,800,  which,  with  the 
amount  enclosed  on  the  12th  instant,  ^6,000,  will   be  sufficient  to  meet  oui* 
14 


106  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

note  payable  on  the  15th  June,  In  making  a  payment  of  10  per  cent,  on  our 
first  note,  a  small  error  occurred  in  the  calculation  of  interest,  which  please 
instruct  your  cashier  to  correct  by  deducting  the  amount  from  the  sum  no\v 
enclosed,  and  permit  the  trifling  balance  which  will  then  remain  to  be  placed 
to  the  credit  of  James  Watson  Webb  &  Co. 

Permit  me  again,  sir,  to  express  our  sense  of  the  accommodation  which  we 
liave  received  from  the  institution  over  which  you  preside,  and  believe  me, 
sincerely.  Your  obliged  and  obedient  servant, 

JAS.  WATSON  WEBB. 


C. 

STATEMENTS   FURNISHED    IN   ACCORDANCE    WITH    THE    RESOLUTION  OF   THE 
COMMITTEE  OP  THE  3d  APRIL. 

No.  1.  The  aggregate  amount  of  good  notes  offered  for  discount  and  re- 
jected by  the  board,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  residents  of  Philadelphia,  on  the 
following  days  respectively:  9th  August,  16th  December,  1831;  2d  January, 
10th  February,  2d  and  14th  March,  1S32;  24th  September,  and  15th  Octo- 
ber, 1830. 

Statement  A  exhibits  those  particulars. 

No.  2.  The  aggregate  amount  of  notes  discounted  and  still  due  the  bank, 
drawn  and  endorsed  by  non-residents  of  Philadelphia.  «?|^ 

Statement  B  exhibits  those  particulars. 

No.  3.  Aggregate  amount  of  notes  discounted  on  personal  security,  and 
made  payable  more  than  six  months  after  date. 

The  committee  is  already  in  possession  of  a  document  showing  the  amount, 
with  the  specification,  of  the  only  notes  in  the  bank  made  payable  more  than 
six  months  after  date. 

No.  4.  Aggregate  of  notes  now  due  the  bank,  discounted  for  a  firm^  or 
the  parties  of  a  firm,  without  the  name  of  some  person  not  belonging  to  the 
firm  as  drawer  or  endorser,  distinguishing  on  each  of  the  above  statements 
the  amount  loaned  to  members  of  Congress,  editors  of  newspapers,  or  per- 
sons holding  oiSces  under  the  General  Government. 

Without  knowing  the  names  of  all  the  parties  to  every  firm,  it  is  imprac- 
ticable to  ascertain  in  what  particular  cases  the  endorser  or  drawer  may  be 
connected  with  the  firm;  and  the  officers  of  the  bank  have  not  the  requisite 
information  for  that  purpose. 

No.  5.  Loans  to  members  of  Congress,  editors  of  newspapers,  and  of- 
ficers of  the  Government,  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  its 
branches,  as  far  as  is  known. 

Statement  C  will  give  this  information. 

No.  6.  The  names  and  amounts  of  payments  to  members  of  Congress,  in 
anticipation  of  their  pay  as  members,  before  the  general  appropriation  bill, 
and  the  money  due  United  States,  and  on  depositeinthebank,  after  deduct- 
ing therefrom  the  sum  thus  advanced  to  those  to  whom  the  United  States  are 
indebted. 

We  have  no  means  at  the  bank  of  ascertaining  the  amount  of  these  ad- 
vances.   They  can  be  had  at  the  branch  at  Washington. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  107 

No.  7.  A  statement  in  detail  of  the  amounts  paid  to  those  who  are  now, 
or  have  been,  members  of  Congress  or  officers  of  Government,  since  1816, 
for  services  rendered  to  the  banic,  stating  the  nature  of  the  service. 

Statement  D  will  furnish  this  information. 


A. 

TAe  aggregate  amount  of  good  notes  offered  for  discount^  and  rejected 
by  the  board,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  residents  of  Philadelphia,  on  the 
Jolloioing  days,  respectively:  Qth  *^iignsty  and  I6th  December,  1831/ 
2d  January,  lOth  February ,  2d  and  lAth  March,  1832;  2^th  Septem- 
ber, and  loth  October,  1830. 

The  following  are  the  amounts  of  notes  offered  and  rejected  on  those 
several  days.  Whether  they  were  good  notes,  it  is  impossible  for  the  offi- 
cers of  the  bank  to  say,  as  the  reasons  cf  their  rejection  were  known  only 
to  the  board  of  directons: 

1830.  September  24, ^6,312 

1831.  August  9, 6,842 

December  16,       -         -         -         -         -         -  82,181 

1632.    January  3, 200,623  ' 

February  10, 162,353 

March    2, 164,631 

13,  .-.-..-  148,255 


B. 

STATEJVIEJVT,  showing  the  aggregate  amount  of  notes  discounted  and  still  due 
the  bank,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  non-residents  of  Philadelphia, 

Payable  at  Boston,  -  -  -      .  - 

New  York,  -  •  -  - 

Baltimore,  -  -  •  - 

"Washington,  -  -  -  - 

Norfolk,  -  -  - 

Charleston,  .  -  -  - 

Savannah,  -  -  -  - 

Mobile,  .... 

New  Orleans,  - 

St.  Louis,  •  -  -  - 

Louisville,  .  -  -  - 

Cincinnati,  .  -  -  - 

Burlington,  ...  - 


^7,687  44 

138,257 

55 

16,476 

81 

14,900 

578 

39 

2,464 

75 

3,664 

61 

12,208 

21 

51,275# 

1,C32 

51 

1,117 

16 

10,448  45 

4,480 

§265,190 

88 

108 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  ] 


j\0.  10. — LOANS  TO  EDITORS. 

Jesper  Harding, 


• 

Payer. 

Discounter. 

Due. 

1831. 

December 
1832. 
January 

SO, 

J.  Locken, 

- 

285 

May 

2. 

6. 

E.  Cummlskey,     - 

. 

284  97 

1  • 

8. 

( ( 

Sjioddart  St  A.,       - 

• 

367  81 

4  4 

8. 

<  1 

13, 

L.  Johnson, 

. 

397  40 

♦  « 

5. 

( i 

17'. 

W.  C.  llolton,       . 

— 

285 

April 

17. 

i  1 

G.  Giiier, 

600 

. 

«  4 

18. 

i  1 

20, 

J.  Laval,    - 

„ 

450 

4  ( 

20. 

t  ( 

24, 

T.  W.  L.  •'reeman, 

. 

257  67 

4  4 

26. 

t  < 

2r, 

13ennt  tt  8c  Walton, 

1,240  05 

- 

«  • 

29. 

t  * 

H.  H.  Lindsay,      - 

» 

320 

4   4 

29. 

t  ( 

31, 

C.  Peters 

. 

153  70 

4  <      , 

26. 

I  ( 

H.  H.  Lindsay,      - 

250 

May 

2. 

February 

3. 

Hennett  &  W.,      - 

833 

- 

4  4 

5. 

i  1 

J.  Faye,     - 

•. 

2U0 

*  * 

5. 

1 1 

l[.  H.  Porter, 

. 

220 

4  ( 

5. 

1 « 

10, 

Bennett  &  W.,      - 

880 

_ 

(  4 

12. 

4   < 

Henjumin  Kennedy, 

- 

200 

4  4 

12. 

«  « 

S.  F.  Bradford,      - 

• 

873  47 

4  4 

5. 

t  t 

W.  B.  Holton,       . 

. 

200 

4  » 

12. 

<  • 

17. 

T.  T.  Snii'ey, 

• 

260 

4  4 

19 

t  « 

24, 

James  Locken, 

, 

2U3 

4  4 

26 

(  « 

Kvan  Levis,           -             * 

^ 

356  86 

4  4 

26. 

*• 

E.  Cummiskey,     - 

. 

225 

4  4 

24. 

t  ( 

John  Lavul, 

^ 

500 

4  < 

25. 

t  1 

28, 

Do.                     - 

. 

1,260 

4  4 

31. 

March 

2. 

Do. 

. 

630     . 

June 

5 

t  ( 

IT.  }\.  L'ndsay, 

„ 

350 

C  4 

4 

1 1 

J.  G.  Colesberry,  - 

„ 

350 

4  ( 

2. 

1 1 

6, 

JohnLuvul, 

_ 

1,000 

4  1 

8 

*  1 

John  Hill, 

_ 

361  58 

July 

8 

<  t 

9, 

H.  H    Porter, 

250 

. 

May 

10 

<  i 

J.  Mclvevvan,  jr., 

• 

293  19 

July 

10 

i « 

Bennett  8c  W.,      - 

1,008 

. 

June 

9 

i  ( 

13, 

L.  Jotiuson, 

431  25 

. 

July 

12 

« t 

16, 

VV.  Foulke, 

6,OoO 

6,01)0 

Septem'r 

19, 

C  ( 

John  Laval, 

, 

1,440 

June 

19. 

i  1 

Bennett  8c  VV.,       - 

800 

„ 

« » 

16 

t  i 

20, 

W.  B.  Holton,       -  . 

^ 

687 

4  4 

20. 

'  1 1 

J.  H.  Jackson  8c  Co. 

„ 

463 

July 

19. 

t  • 

23, 

J.  McKewan,  jr., 

. 

276  45 

June 

25 

•  i 

William  Brown,  pr.. 

_ 

::40  71 

'« 

25 

i  t 

2r, 

Bennett  8c  W.,       - 

419  26 

. 

4  4 

28, 

"• 

J.  G.  Colesberry,  - 

_ 

350 

4  4 

27 

«•• 

20, 

J.  H.  Jackson  8c  Co., 

_ 

483 

July 

29, 

4   4 

30, 

John  L  ival. 

„ 

750 

4  4 

3. 

4  4 

M.  Slokes, 

_ 

230 

4  < 

3 

(  ( 

T.  T.  Smilffv, 

• 

200 

4  4 

1 

April 

2, 

U.li    Li.uls'y,      - 

430 

July 

4. 

( 1 

c, 

Bennett  &  W., 

^ 

432  50 

t  ( 

8. 

4  4 

M.  Stokes.     - 

„ 

281  18 

August 

8. 

.4  ( 

W..B.  Holton, 

_ 

3U0 

July 

7. 

»  4 

S.  C.  A.kin5on,  pr.. 

_ 

230 

June 

6. 

4  C 

10, 

J  .  McKewan,  jr  , 

_ 

560 

July 

11. 

4   ( 

14, 

J.  11.  Jackoun,  8c  Co.,       - 

- 

566  66 

A  ugust 

12. 

1^12,461  56 

^24  455  15 

The  loan  o:'  §6,00J  is  ssoired  by  mortgagee.     The  olherj  have  been  discounted  in  the 
course  of  his  busjiess. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  109 

Loans  to  Robert  Walsh. 

832.                                                                          Payer.  Discounter. 

January  13.  H.  S.  Tanner,  -             -             -  $^50 

March    23.  Carey  &  Lea,  -             -             -  500 

*<         27.  P.  Hoffman,  ...  791   72 

April         3.  J.  W.  Walsh,  -             .     5,0C0  5,000 

The  three  first  are  business  discounts. 

The  fourth  is  a  loan,  of  which  Mr.  Walsh's  father  was  understood  to  be 
the  original  borrower  in  May,  1830,  by  a  draft  of  Robert  Walsh  on  his 
father,  in  Baltimore;  at  the  death  of  the  elder  Mr.  Walsh,  the  loan  was  con- 
tinued until  the  settlement  of  his  large  real  estate  could  be  made,  and  the 
note  then  took  its  present  shape:  being  a  note  of  Robert  Walsh,  endorsed 
by  J.  W.  Walsh,  of  Baltimore,  the  acting  representative  of  the  estate  of  the 
elder  Mr.  Walsh. 

Mr.  Robert  Walsh  has  had  no  other  discount  in  the  bank,  except  occa- 
sionally small  notes,  never  exceeding,Jprobably,  in  the  whole,  two  thousand 
^  dollars,  at  any  one  time:  nor  has  any  discount  ever  been  given  on  account 
of  his  Gazette. 


Loan  to  Duff  Green, 

The  loan  to  Mr.  Duff  Green  was  made  under  the  following  circumstances: 

He  was  the  printer  to  Congress,  and  had  to  provide  materials  for  execut- 
ing his  work  by  the  meeting  of  Congress.  But,  as  the  Government  does  not 
make  advances,  he  wished  to  raise  the  funds  by  giving  drafts  on  the  Clerk 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  accepted  by  him,  and  also  a  mortgage  ou 
some  real  estate. 
•  The  amount  of  the  loan  requested  was  S.80,000. 

The  proposal  came  througli  the  honorable  Joseph  Hemphill,  who,  in  his 
letter,  remarks,  "  I  said  that,  perhaps,  in  his  case  the  bank  might  feel  a  deli- 
capy  lest  it  might  be  supposed  that  they  were  courting  an  editor  opposed  to 
the  institution;  though  I  did  not  think  that  even  that  circumstance  would 
have  the  least  inffuence  over  the  bank.  He  replied  that  it  would  be  best  there 
.should  be  no  misunderstanding,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  he  has  alluded 
to  the  future  course  of  his  paper." 

The  allusion  in  Mr.  Green's  letter  to  Mr.  Hemphill,  was  as  follows: 
«  It  may  be  proper  to  add,  that  no  accommodation  given  by  the  bank  will 
induce  me  to  alter,  in  any  respect,  the  course  which  my  paper  has  pursued 
in  relation  to  it." 

My  answer  to  Mr.  Hemphill  was  as  follows: 

'  Philadelphia,  February  10,  1831. 

My  dear  Sir:  1  have  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  your  letter  of  the  8th 
insant,  enclosing  a  letter  from  Mr.  Green,  expressing  his  wish'  to  borrow, 
from  the  bank,  twenty  thousand  dollars.  I  will  submit  it  to  the  board  at 
their  next  meeting.  In  the  mean  time,  I  can  only  say  that  it  will  receive 
from  them  a  kind  and  respectful  consideration  as  a  matter  of  business,  with- 
out looking  to  the  past  or  the  future.  The  bank  is  glad  to  have  friends  from 
conviction;  but  seeks  none  from  interest.  For  myself,  I  love  the  freedom 
of  the  piijss  too  much  to  complain  of  its  occasional  injustice  to  mej  and  if  the 


no 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


loan  be  made,  it  shall  be  with  a  perfect  understanding — to  be  put  into  the 
note  if  necessary — that  the  borrower  is  to  speak  his  mind  about  the  bank 
just  as  freely  as  he  did  before,  which  I  take  to  be  <<  ample  room  and  verge 
enough.'* 

With  great  regard,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE. 
Honorable  Joseph  Hemphill, 

House  of  Representatives,  PVashington,  D»  C. 

The  board  authorized  the  loan  for  1^20,000;  which  has  since  been  reduced 
to  ySlO,000,  at  which  it  now  stands. 

The  reduction  has  been  made  by  a  payment  in  cash. 
The  account  now  stands  as  follows: 

Loan  to  Duff  Green, 
1832— Jan'y  31,  L.  Washington,  jr. — Payer,  10,000— Discounter,  10,000 


Branch  Bank  at  RicJimond, 
Thomas  Ritchie,  2  notes, — Payer,  2 ^^00,-— Discounter,  8,000. 


^t  Philadelphia. — Gales  and  Seaton. 

1831. 
August  12,     -    - 

Payer. 

Discounter. 

J.  F.  Webb,    . 

2,815 

2,875 

October  14,     -     - 

Do. 

3,000 

T.  Donoho,      -' 

3,000 

3,000 

1832, 

January  20,     -     - 

Do. 

2,500 

2,500 

Feb'y     17,    -    - 

Do. 

3,000 

11,375 

11,375 

*dt  office  of  Washington. 

4  notes — Payers,  10,095 — Discounters,  0950 — and  one  domestic  bill  of 
exchange,  of  which  they  dive  payers  g>900. 

^t  Philadelphia.— W.  IV.  Seaton, 

Discounter, 
1831 — April  19,  H.  J.  Weightman,  and>  ._  ___ 

L.  Coyle,  Trustees,      5  '  .      '        "         10,000. 

The  debt  at  Philadelphia  has  arisen  thus:  They  are  appointed,  by  Con- 
gress, to  priftt  a  work  of  great  extent,  and  have  to  provide  materials  for  ex- 
ecuting it  until  Congress  makes  appropriations.  These  appropriations  are 
to  be  received  by  trustees,  and  their  acceptances  of  the  drafts  of  the  parties, 
in  addition  to  the  personal  security  of  the  borrowers,  form  the  security  of 
the  loans. 

The  debt,  at  Washington,  is  understood  to  be  the  remainder  of  a  large 
loan  paid  off  by  them,  and  is  secured  by  rtal  estate. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


No.  12. 


id  STATEMENT  of  the  specie,  on  hand,  at  the  Bank  U.  States, 
between  the  1st  of  October,  1825,  and  the  1st  of  Aprit,  1826,  at  each 
period  of  the  week  on  which  the  statement  is  made  up,  also  the  amoxmt 
due  to  and  from  the  State  banks  on  the  settlements  for  each  of  those 
days,  during  the  same  period 


c 

Date. 

Specie  on  hand. 

Due  by  State 

Duo  to  State 

banks. 

banks. 

1825,  October       3       - 

$1,251 ,650  33 

$489,358  42 

$404,389  84 

6       - 

1,240,481  85 

432,957  90 

699,647  18 

10       - 

1,204,778  53 

371  ,880  70 

736,528  50 

13       - 

1,201,105  46 

312,389  65 

752,106  24 

17       - 

811,898  09 

409,439  4& 

714,585  64 

20       . 

757,431  24 

327,075  51 

1         582,823  59 

24       . 

756,610  52 

326,874  46 

501,109  23 

27       - 

767.302  97 

370,217  73 

.503,282  46 

31       - 

655,443  93 

500,117  63 

331,905  78 

Kovembcr  3       - 

749,881  71 

522,001  49 

293,314  49 

7       - 

868,611  64 

464,737  66 

251,796  31 

10       - 

895,134  02 

481,279  28 

243,902  63 

14       - 

863.283  87 

398,246  S3 

163,367  10 

17       - 

845,898  56 

543,632  54 

158,595  33 

21       - 

842,878  27 

658,821  32 

171,259  4<J 

24       - 

846,132  39 

443, C 35  68 

204.211  89 

28       - 

843,646  07 

465,340  81 

211,923  90 

December    1       - 

828,567  90 

455,573  IS 

238,643  26 

5 

815,667  45 

378,904  99 

191,717  77 

8 

813,724  09 

367,113  27 

274,459  96 

.      12       - 

675,505  19 

393,174  22 

226,708  43 

15       . 

899,878  11 

358,791  01 

222,111  04 

19       . 

949,040  89 

434,839  54 

272,013  36 

22       - 

947,965  63 

415,158  41 

284,958  33 

26       - 

949,206  28 

442,864  57 

281, 4i5  51 

29       - 

948,921  96 

377,610  30 

303.407  64 

J826,   January      2       - 

943,247  31 

373,607  25 

356,676  52 

5 

925,676  79 

393,339   11 

488,357  85 

9        - 

933,267  77 

393,008  46 

633,826  02 

12       - 

931,313  21 

246,953  54 

520,150  S3 

16       - 

912,506  33 

314,934  56 

598,162  03 

19       - 

911,093  74 

346,362  00 

617,761  42 

23       - 

752,134  36 

350,595  26 

477,883  98 

26        - 

742,655  82 

305,013  66 

488,651  33 

30       - 

710,296  89 

349,355  25 

461,654  34 

February     2 

730,512  72 

375,133  39 

447,262  10 

6       - 

727,577  92 

399,303  64 

476,654  41 

9       - 

726,470  01 

360,454  52 

493,824  36 

13        - 

733,233  94 

423,592  44 

482,466  85 

16       - 

740,549  99 

381,897  83 

491,066  71 

20       - 

739,457  01 

457,209  41 

416,333  93 

23       . 

741,742  34 

462,338  11 

415,081   12 

27       . 

758,621  49 

520,257  5S 

379,609  97 

March         2 

762,659  65 

507,961  08 

370,449  93 

6       - 

759,697  12 

516,118  70 

373,822  16 

9       - 

833,081  88 

487,787  74 

369,124  99 

13       - 

831,776  20 

530,136  89 

383,223  01 

16       - 

851,666  57 

511,865  10 

376,838  85 

20 

849,875  99 

025,802  09 

373,794  48 

23       - 

851,112  45 

706,317  50 

.381,482  08 

27        - 

846,489  73 

707,353  34 

343,703  85 

30       . 

1,026,110  34 

6G1 .285  09 

327,350  10 

112  [  Rep.  No.  460.  2 

No.  la. 
Loans  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co. 

Exaviination  of  Thomas  Wilson, 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Were  you  formeily  Cashier  of  tliis  Bank? 
"When  did  you  enter,  an''  when  leave  the  Bank? 

Answer.  I  was.  I  think  it  was  1819.  during  Mr,  Chcves'  adminis- 
tration, that  1  came  into  tl»c  Bank.  I  left  tlic  situation  of  Cashier  .of  the 
Parent  Bank,  1  think,  in   1896. 

Question  hy  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  recollect  any  circumstance  relatrnp; 
to  Mr.  Tiioi  ias  BiddleVs  receiving  money  from  the  Teller's  <lrawer.  and 
depositing  certificates  of  stock  for  the  same?  If  yea,  please  relate  all  the 
facts  in  your  knowledge  relating  to  it. 

Answer.  I  have  no  recollection  of  Mr.  Thomas  Biddle,  or  any  other 
jierson,  receiving  money  in  that  way. 

Question  hy  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  recollect  having  mentioned  to  any 
one  of  the  Directors,  some  time  in  the  year  1824,  about  the  month  of  May, 
that  Mr.  T.  liiddlc  was  in  the  habit  of  obtaiiiing  money  and  depositing 
certificates  of  stock  as  security,  and  afterwards  retiirning  the  money  and 
taking  back  his  certificate,  or  some  transactions  of  that  kind? 

Answer.     When  I  came  into  the  Bank  1  was  anxious,  from  considera- 
tions of  ]>ersonal  regard,  to  employ  Mr.  T.  Biddle  as  the  broker  for  the 
Bank,  and  did  so;  but  finding  that  it  appeared  to  be  unpleasant  to  the  tlicri 
President,    M:*.    Clieves,    1    chan.'^ed    the    arrangement,    and    employed 
McKuen,  Hale,  and  Davidson.       When  Mr.  Nicholas  Biddle  came  in  as 
President,  I.  of  my  own   accord,  and  from  the  same  considerations,  em- 
jdoyed  Mr.  T.  Biddle  again.     1  mention  this  in  justice  to  Mr.  N.  Biddle, 
the  President  of  the  Bank,  and  from  a  wish  to  be  understood  that  it  wjis 
through  me  that  Mr.  T.  Biddle  was  employed  as  broker  for  the  Bank. 
"With  regard  to  transactions  of  the  kind  referied  to,  J  cart  only  say,  that, 
.IS  Mr.  T.  Biddle  was  employed  to  purcl>asc  bills  for  the  Bank,  it  became, 
sometimes,  necessary  for  l»im  to  have  funds  at  liis  immediate  command,  so 
as  not  U)  appe.'.r  to  have  overdrawn  his  account.     Tliis  was  an  accommo- 
<iation  to  him  as  agent  of  the  Bank,  and  not  individually,  a!id,  for  myself, 
I  saw  notiiing  wMratever  culpable  in  it.      I  may  have  mentioned   to  some 
one,  that  in  consequence  of  his  great  facilities  as  broker,  it  was  proper  to 
be  careful  that  Mr.  T.  Biddle  did   not  derive  a  personal  profit  fi^m  his 
transactions  w  ith  jis.     1  remember,  now  that  the  matter  is  brought  to  my 
inind  by  the  iinpiiry,  that,  on  one  occasion.  Mi*.  T.  Brildle  offered  us  some 
bills  o»i  Virginia,  at  a  higher  rate  than  we  were  willing  to  pay;  the  Presi- 
dent and  myself,  therefore,  declined  taking  them.     Some  time  after,   Mr. 
Biddle  having  in  the  mean  time  tried  to  sell  them  in  New  York,  brought 
them  back  to  us;  the  President,  contrary   to  my  opinion,  agi*eed  to  take 
them.     The  bank  was  then  very  much  in  want  of  bills.     This  was,  how- 
ever, a  diffei-ence  of  opinion  only.     This  circumstance  1  remember  on  one 
occaf^on  to  have  mentioneii  to  one  or  two  of  the  Exchange  Committee. 
I  mentioned  it  to  Mr.  Whitney,  one  of  the  leading  members  of  the  Ex- 
change Committee.      There  was  no  question  as  to  the  character  of  the 
bills,  but  merely  in  relation  to  the  rate. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  US 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  What  are  we  to  understand  by  the  remark, 
^"it  became  soujetimes  necessary  for  him  to  have  funds  at  his  immediate 
command,  so  as  not  to  appear  to  have  overdrawn  his  account'"' 

Answer.  I  refer  to  a  general  practice  among  our  respectable  merchants 
and  brokers,  and  not  to  Mr.  Biddle  particularly,  further  than  as  acting  as 
agent  for  the  Bank  in  its  purchases  of  bills.  They  draw  at  different  times 
during  the  day,  making  their  deposites  at  a  late  hour;  sometimes  when 
checks  are  presented,  the  officer  will  not  think  it  necessary  scrupulously 
to  examine  the  accounts  of  the  individuals  drawing,  to  see  with  how  much 
they  are  credited,  but  will  pay  them  at  once.  This  is  a  facility  extended 
to  any  merchants  in  whom  the  Bank  has  confidence.  Mr.  Cheves  at- 
tempted lo  check  this  practice  as  an  irregularity,  and,  in  consequence,  the 
business  of  the  bank  with  the  brokers  was  diminished,  and  many  com- 
plaints were  made  by  the  merchants.  The  practice  was  soon  resumed, 
not,  hovvever,  with  the  assent  of  Mr-.  Cheves,  hut  as  a  practice  necessarily 
arising  in  business,  of  which  the  principal  responsibility  was  with  the 
Teller. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  During  Mr.  Cheves'  administration,  were 
any  notes  ever  discounted  by  the  Exchange  Committee?  and  was  not  all 
discounting  of  notes  done  by  the  Board  of  Directors  on  the  regular  dis- 
count days? 

Answer.  All  notes  discounted  were  discounted  on  the  regular  discount 
days  by  the  Board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Was  it  not  Mr.  Cheves'  mode  of  doing  bu- 
siness, to  let  no  one  have  money  unless  regularly  discounted  by  the  Board 
of  Directors? 

Answer.     It  was  his  practice. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  recollect  any  instance  of  the  officers 
of  the  Bank  purchasing  bills  of  exchange  from  Mr.  T.  Biddle,  after  the 
Exchange  Committee  had  refused  to  purchase  of  him? 

Answer.     [  do  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  recollect  being  directed,  and  by 
whom,  to  allow  Mr.  T.  Biddle  two  diffijrent  sums  as  interest  on  deposites? 
if  yea,  please  state  the  amount,  as  nearly  as  you  can  recollect,  of  each,  and 
whether  you  did  not  make  a  memorandum  of  it  at  tiie  time? 

Answer.  There  were  two  instances  of  allowance  of  interest  to  Mr.  T. 
Biddle  on  deposites.  I  think  one  was  about  sixteen  hundred  dollars.  The 
books  will  show  it.  Mr.  Andrews  made  the  entry,  and  can  explain  it. 
I  recollect  distinctly  the  circumstances  connected  with  it.  Mr.  T.  Biddle 
presented  to  Mr.  Andrews  an  account  current,  in  which  the  Bank  was 
charged  with  interest  on  deposites  from  day  to  day.  Mr.  Andrews  asked 
me  if  I  had  passed  the  account?  I  told  him  I  knew  nothing  of  the  transac- 
tion, and  advised  him  to  consult  the  President  about  it;  he  felt  some  deli- 
cacy about  it,  and  I  did  it.  The  President  directed  it  to  be  allowed.  I 
recollect  it  distinctly,  because  ii;  was  the  only  instance,  besides  the  other 
I  have  mentioned,  but  the  details  of  which  I  cannot  recollect. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  was  the  nature,  and  what  the  cir- 
aumstances  of  the  deposites  on  which  T.  Biddle,  or  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  re- 
ceived interest?  State  whether  the  said  deposite  was,  or  was  not,  under- 
stood as  a  loan  to  the  Bank. 

Answer.     The  deposites  were  made  in  the  ordinary  way.   The  amount^ 
to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  exceeded  ene  hondred  thousand  dollars,  irti 
15 


114         J  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

wliich  the  interest  account  commenced,  and  the  funds  to  theii*  credit  were 
used  at  their  pleasure.  The  interest  account  continued,  I  believe,  forty- 
cne  days.  It  was  not  regarded  by  me  as  a  loan  to  the  Banic  till  the  inter- 
est account  was  rendered,  and  the  explanation  was  given  by  the  President, 
nor  was  it  known  to  the  Directors. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffic.  Did  not  the  President  state  some  specia! 
ground  on  which  interest  should  be  allowed?  or  did  he  convey  to  you  the 
idea  that  1\  Biddle  &  Co.  should  receive  interest  on  an  oi-dinary  deposited 
Answer.  The  President  di»l  not  state  to  me  any  special  ground.  He 
stated  to  me  nothing  to  distinguish  this  from  an  ordinary  deposite;  but  my 
impression  was,  that  it  was  because  at  that  time  there  was  a  pressure  on 
the  Bank.  I  mentioned  this  matter,  I  think,  to  Mr.  Beck,  and  perliapsto 
Mr.  Whitney. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie,  When  did  this  transaction  take  place? 
iiuswer.  During  Mr.  Biddle's  administration,  and  I  think  about  a  year 
previous  to  my  leaving  the  Bank.  The  matter  of  allowing  interest  on  de- 
posires  was  several  times  discussed  before  different  Boards.  Applications 
to  that  effect  were  made  by  Mr.  Prime,  of  New  York,  and  McEuen,  Hale, 
and  Davidson,  of  this  city,  and  refused.  These  were,  I  think,  before  the 
allowance  to  Mr.  T.  Biddle. 

[Mr.  McDuffie  here  read  to  the  witness  a  portion  *of  Mr.  N.  Biddle's 
evidence  of  yesterday,  relating  to  an  allowance  of  seven  hundred  and  thir- 
ty-nine dollars  interest  to 'Mr.  T.  Biddle.] 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Is  the  explanation  just  read  to  you,  given 
by  Mr.  Nicholas  Biddle,  of  a  similar  payment  of  seven  hundred  and  thirty- 
ty-nine  dollars,  the  same  explanation  he  gave  to  you  when  you  asked  him 
if  the  interest  on  Mr.  T.  Biddle's  account  was  to  be  allowed? 

Answer.  1  have  no  recollection  of  such  an  explanation;  nor  do  I  be- 
lieve such  an  explanation  was  made  at  the*time. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  Mr.  Beck,  or  Mr.  Whitjiey,  ever,  to  your 
knowledge,  at  tlte  Board  of  Directors,  notice  this  transaction  as  a  ques- 
tionable one? 

Answer.  Never.  1  kept  the  minutes  of  the  Board,  and  I  am  certain  they 
never  made  any  question  of  it. 

Question  by  Mr  Adams.  Do  you  know  of  any  preference,  or  favor,  or 
partiality,  shown  by  the  President  of  the  Bank  to  Mr.  Thomas  Biddle,  m 
the  transactions  of  the  Bank  with  him? 

Answer.  1  do  not.  When  the  sale  of  the  forfeited  bank  stock  was  con- 
templated, a  committee  of  the  Directors  was  appointed  to  comluct  it,  and 
Mr.  Whitney  went  to  New  York  in  order  to  dispose  of  it.  Such 
an  operation  was  of  course  to  be  conducted  with  secrecy.  He  made  sale 
of  a  large  portion  of  it  through  the  Primes's.  Mr.  T.  Biddle  became  the 
purchaser.  He  held  the  stock  for  a  long  time,  at  a  considerable  disadvan- 
tage, and  was  not  aware,  at  the  time  he  purchased,  that  it  was  the  Bank 
that  was  selling.  I  mention  this  circumstance  to  show  there  was  no  pri- 
vity or  connexion  between  Mr.  T.  Biddle  and  the  President  of  the  Bank. 
It  was  a  large  operation,  and  had  it  been  known  that  the  bank  was  selling, 
the  price  would  of  course  have  fallen.  I  may  add,  that  the  commission 
alone  on  such  a  sale  would  have  been  a  great  object,  if  Mr.  T.  Biddle  had 
been  employed  as  the  agent  to  conduct  it 

Question  bj  Mr.  Clayton.     Will  you  look  upon  the  discount  book,  for 


[  H^p.  No.  460.  ]  US 

"j^Iay,  i624i  and  state  whether  you  know  any  thing  of  the  discount  fop 
;S20,000,  then  and  there  made  for  T   Biddle,  and  how  it  was  made? 

Answer.     It  waa  discounted  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Directors. 

Question  hy  Mr.  Clayton.  Look  at  another  discount  for  Charles  Biddle 
in  the  same  month,  and  say.  if  you  know  any  thirjg  in  relation  to  that  loan, 
and  how  it  was  made? 

Answer.  It  was  discounted  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Directors.  I'lie 
President  was  very  particular,  with  regard  to  the  transactions  of  the  Bank, 
with  his  brother  Mr.  Clmrles  Biddle. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  The  two  loans  above  mentioned  appear  to 
have  been  made  without  the  notes  being  regularly  entei^d  aud  laid  before 
the  Board;  explain  the  reason  of  it. 

Answer,  it  is  a  frequent  practice  to  make  an  offering  on  a  slip  of  paper, 
the  note  not  being  presented  at  the  time;  the  President  marks  tiie  slip,  if  it 
is  accepted,  in  the  same  way  that  he  does  the  discount  book;  the  slip  of  pa- 
per, so  marked,  is  handed,  with  the  other  notea,  to  tlie  discount  clerk,  who 
BO  eutcrs  it. 

Examination  of  Ileuhen  M.  JVhitney. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Were  you  ever  a  Director  of  the  Bank  of  the 
l&nited  States? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     During  what  period  were  you  a  Director? 

Answer.   During  the  years  1822,  3,  4. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Who  was  the  President  during  the  time 
you  were  a  Director? 

Answer.  Mr.  Cheves  in  1822,  and  Mr.  Biddle  the  two  subsequent  years. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Were  you  a  member  of  any  of  the  com* 
inittees? 

Answer.  I  was  a  member  of  the  Foreign  Exchange  Committee  during 
wearly  the  whole  time  [  was  a  Director.  Occasionally  I  was  on  the  Com- 
mittee on  the  State  of  the  Bank,  occasionally  on  the  Committee  on  the 
Ottices^  and  on  the  Monthly  Committee.  I  was  a  metuber  of  the  Dividend 
Committee,  I  think,  every  time  a  dividend  was  declared  while  1  was  in  thei 
Boardw 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  What  were  the  duties  of  tlie  Foreign  Ex- 
change Committee? 

Answer.  In  the  early  stages  of  my  being  a  member  of  that  committee, 
they  attended  principally  to  the  nmnagement  of  the  foreign  exchange  de- 
partment; there  was  also  committedjo  their  care  the  management  of  the 
foreign  loan  then  in  existence;  also'the  sale  of  the  forfeited  Bank  stock; 
they  were  also  entrusted  with  the  negotiation  with  the  Government  of 
two  loans  of  five  millions  each — one  under  the  Florida  treaty,  and  the 
other  subsequently,  for  the  purpose,  I  think,  of  paying  off  the  six  per  cent, 
stock.     These  comprised  the  principal  duties  of  that  committee. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Did  the  committee  make  discounts  during^ 
the  recesses  of  the  Board  of  Directors? 

Answer.     Not  to  my  knowledge. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Were  loans  or  discounts  made  by  any  com- 
mittee or  person,  with  the  authority  of  the  Board,  while  yon  were  a  Direq*, 
for? 

.^Hswep.    Net  to  my  knowledge 


lie  I  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Did  Mr.  Thomas  Wilson,  the  former  Cashier^ 
ever  acquaint  you  vvitli  any  circumstance  relating  to  the  accounts  of  Mr/ 
Thomas  Biddle  in  the  Bank?  if  yea,  state  fully  what  it  was. 

Answer.  Sometime  in  1824,  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Andrews  mentioned 
to  me  that  some  transactions  had  taken  place  in  the  Bank  in  which 
T.  &  J  G.  Biddle  were  concerned,  which  they  were  not  willing  should 
exist  without  some  member  of  the  Board  being  informed  of  them.  I  asked 
what  they  were.  They  replied  that  T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  coming  to  Bank  and  getting  money,  and  leaving  ceriificates  of 
stock  which  represented  it,  in  the  First  Teller's  drawer,  without  paying 
interest.  They  also  stated,  that  the  Messrs.  Biddle  had  had  notes  dis- 
counted for  them  by  the  President,  which  were  entered  on  the  books  of  the 
preceding  discount  day.  I  asked  them  what  sums  there  were  of  the  kind 
in  existence  at  that  time.  Tliey  went  with  me  to  the  First  Teller's  drawer, 
and  we  found  one  sum  of  S45,000,  dated  25th  May,  and  one  for  824,000, 
dated  26th  May.  We  then  went  to  the  discount  clerk's  desk,  and  found 
one  note  at  titteen  days,  dated  ISth  May,  for  S20,000,  of  T.  Biddle's^and 
one  note  of  i  harles  Biddle's,  dated  21st  May,  at  sixteen  days,  for 
§38,319.  The  two  former  sums  rep'*esented  cash,  and  the  two  latter 
new  notes,  which  they  stated  to  me  had  been  discounted  by  order  of  the 
President.  Of  all  thege  I  made  a  memorandum  (now  produced)  at  the 
time,  which  corresponds  with  the  entries  now  in  the  books  now  shown  M» 
me. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Did  you  communicate  these  matters  to  the 
President?  if  yea,  state  when  and  where. 

Answer.  Immediately  after  examining  the  books  I  came  intf»  'he  Pre- 
sident's room  and  communicated  to  him  what  had  been  communicated  to 
me,  and  what  1  had  learned  by  examining  the  hooks.  After  stating  this, 
I  desired  that  nothing  of  a  similar  nature  sliould  occur  while  1  was  a  Di- 
rector of  the  Bank.     He  told  me  there  should  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Did  you  not  direct  the  officers  to  enter 
what  you  discovered,  on  the  books,  and  was  it  done? 

Answer.  I  directed  the  officers  to  enter  on  the  books  the  money  that 
bad  been  loaned  from  the  Teller's  drawer,  and  which  was  represented  by 
stock  cei'tificates.  It  was  done;  I  did  not  see  it  done,  but  1  know  it  was 
done.  Subsequently  I  saw  this  entry  of  <*  bills  receivable,"  which  1  knew 
was  the  entry  made  for  that  purpose.  In  the  entry  on  the  semi-weekly 
statement,  or  state  of  the  Bank,  under  date  of  27th  May,  under  head  of 
bills  receivable,  the  sum  of  S69,000  is  entered,  which  is  the  exact  amount 
of  the  two  sums  of  S45,000,  and  g24,000,  represented  by  stock  certificates 
in  the  Teller's  drawer. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  in  your  communication,  immediately- 
after  directing  the  entries  to  be  made  in  the  books,  inform  the  President 
that  you  had  directed  those  entries  to  be  made? 

Answer.     I  cannot  say  that  I  did. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  The  memorandum  you  have  produced  b 
the  one  before  referred  to  by  you;  when  was  it  made? 

Answer.  I  made  it  at  the  time  the  communication  was  made  tme  by 
Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Andrews,  and  this  memorandum  now  irrodnced  is 
the  one.» 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  are  thetlates  on  that  memorandniWr 
viz.  May  25,  opposite  §45,000,  and  May  £6,  opposite  to  §24,000? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  llf 

Answer.  I  presume  these  are  the  dates  on  which  the  money  was  loaned. 
I  cannot  say  positively  whether  they  are  the  dates  of  the  loans,  or  of  the 
stock  certificates.  They  were  not  taken  by  me  from  books,  but  from  the 
memorandum  in  the  Tellei^'s  drawer. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  ever  had  any  communication^ 
written  or  verbal,  on  this  subject,  with  any  member  of  the  committee? 

Ansvxer.  I  have,  verbally,  with  Mr.  Clayton,  and  in  the  presence  of 
Mr.  Cambreleng.  I  have  also  told  different  individuals  of  it  immediately 
after  it  occurred,  as  well  as  at  various  times  since. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  You  have  said  you  have  communicated  ver- 
bally with  Mr.  Clayton,  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Cambrelesig;  state  whether 
you  have  ever  communicated  in  writing  with  any  one  of  the  committee? 

Answer.  I  never  have  by  letter,  and  whether  1  have  by  memorandum 
in  writing,  or  not,  I  cannot  recollect. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Wlien  and  where  did  you  make  this  commu- 
nication to  Judge  Cla}  ton  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Cambreleng? 

Answer.  It  was  since  the  committee  met  in  this  city;  I  cannot  recol- 
kct  the  day,  and  I  think  in  Mr.  Clayton's  room. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Was  this  communication  made  on  your  own 
motion,  or  had  3'ou  been  solicited  to  make  it? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  whether  it  was  voluntary,  or  whether  I 
was  asked  to  make  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Had  you  any  particular  motive  for  making 
this  communication? 

Answer.     I  had  no  particular  motive.     My  motives  were  general. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  go  to  Mr.  Clayton  without  any 
previous  solicitation? 

Answer.  I  had  received  a  letter  from  Colonel  Benton,  informing  me  he 
had  recommended  Judge  Clayton  to  me. 

Question  by  Mr.  Watmough.  How  long  have  you  been  a  resident  of 
this  country? 

Answer.     I  was  born  in  this  country. 

Question  by  Mr.  Watmough.  Were  you  not  a  resident  of  Canada^ 
during  the  late  war? 

Answer.  I  resided  there  from  1808  to  the  spring  of  1816,  when  I  re- 
moved to  this  city. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  know  any  thing  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Biddle*s  receiving  interest  on  deposites? 

Answer.     1  know  nothing  but  what  Mr.  Wilson  told  me. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle,  the  Presi  ent  of  the  Bank.  Where  did  the 
alleged  conversation  between  you,  Mr.  Wilson,  and  Mr.  Andrews,  take 
place? 

Answer.  In  the  area  of  the  banking  room,  not  far  from  the  First  Teller's 
pesk.  These  gentlemen,  (fne  or  both  of  them,  went  with  me  to  the  Teller's 
desk.  I  made  the  memorandum  of  the  cash  there,  and  my  memorandum 
of  the  notes  I  made  at  the  discount  clerk's  desk;  one  or  both  of  them  went 
with  me  to  the  discount  clerk's  desk,  and  there  I  made  my  memorandum 
of  the  notes.  Mr.  Burtis  was,  I  think,  the  discount  clerk.  I  cannot  say 
whether  I  directed  the  entries  on  the  books  of  the  loans  before  1  went  to  the 
discount  clerk.  1  gave  the  direction  to  both  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Andrews, 
if  both  were  present,  or  to  but  one,  if  only  one  was  present.  I  stated  to 
you  the  particulars  I  had  learned,  as  stated  in  the  memorandum.     You 


lis  I  Rep.  No.  466.  j 

flicl  not  deny  them.  You  colored  up  a  good  deal.  I  caVinot  say  whether 
thri'p  wa^  u!iv  person  wlio  could  have  overheard  this  conversatifMi,  hut  I 
presume  not  1  cannot  say  Whether  1  saw  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Andrews 
immrdiately  after  I  Ittt  you.  I  cannot  say  whether  or  not  I  have  had 
any  convtM'sation  with  then  since;  1  think  it  probable  I  have,. as  1  do  not 
Jinow  how  else  i  learned  that  the  item  of  bills  receivable  related  to  these 
transactions. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  Could  you  not  have  recognised  this  entry  as 
referring  to  thi;;*  matter  witliout  conversing  with  those  oJiirers? 

Answer.  I  might  by  the  sums;  but,  ♦»  bills  receivable"  is  a  n^w  line  I 
had  never  seen  on  the  hooks  previously,  and  I  have  no  doubt  I  was  told  by 
the  otticers  that  it  represented  the  two  items  v»luch  were  in  the  cash 
drawer. 

C&py  oj  Mi\  irhUnei/s  memorandum 

May  25.         -  -  •  §45.000 

X.6.  -  -  -  24,000 

May  15.   15  days,      -  -  g20. 000  collateral. 

21.  C.  liiddle,  -  -  §38,319  1 6  days,  5-6  June.- 

On  the  close  of  Mr.  Whitney's  examination,  Mr.  Clayton,  the  Chair- 
man, suhmilted  the  following  paper,  to  be  put  on  the  file  of  tiie  committee. 

Mr  Clayton  wishes,  h\  answer  to  a  question  asked  by  Mr.  Adams  of 
Mr.  Whiiney,  viz.  whether  he  had  ever  communicated  what  lie  has  now 
tesiified,  to  any  member  of  this  committee,  to  say,  and  to  have  it  entered  on 
the  minutes.  ^h«t  Mi*.  Wljitney  did  communicate  to  me,  in  the  presence*  of 
Mr.  CHjfibreleng,  in  my  parJor,  at  the  United  States'  Hotel,  what  he  has 
now  testified;  that  I  liave  sought  of  him  and  every  one  else  that  I  timught 
could  give  me  any  information  on  the  subject  of  the  misconduct  of  th© 
Bank;  tha(  I  had  been  recommended  to  Mr.  Whitney  by  Colonel  Benlon, 
as  ;«  |)erson  who,  from  iiaving  been  an  active  Director  of  the  Bank,  could 
give  me  as  much  information  as  any  one  else;  that  i  took  a  memoraj»dum 
of  the  information  at  the  time,  and  predicated  thereon  certain  resolutions 
\vhich  are  now  tlie  subject  of  inquiry;  that,  at  the  time  I  submitted  said 
resolutions,  I  stated  I  would  produce  the  witness,  to  be  exaniined  on  tlie 
facts;  that  accordingly  he  has  been  produced.  I  have  nothing  to  conceal, 
and  will,  on  all  occasions,  which  I  have  frequently  stated  to  the  commit- 
tee, seek  of  my  fellow-citizens  information,  publicly  and  privately,  on  ali 
subjects  that  may  come  before  rae  to  act  upon  in  a  public  office. 

Mr.  Adams  then  desired  the  following  minute  of  former  proceedings  t<i 
be  put  on  the  file: 

JprilQ,  1832. 

The  Chairman  having  proposed  that  a  subpoena  should  be  issued  to 
Thomas  WiKson,  who  was  Cashier  of  the  Bank  in  the  year  1824,  to  ap- 
pear before  the  Committee,  Mr.  Adams  desired  that  it  might  be  stated 
what  it  was  expected  Mr.  Wilson  would  prove. 

The  Chairman  declined  saying  more  tlian  that  he  had  reason  to  believe 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  Wilson  was  material. 

Mr.  Adams  then  objected  to  the  issuing  of  the  subpoena. 

After  some  discussion,  tlie  Chairman  withdrew  the  motion  for  a  subpoena. 


f  Rep.  No.  460.  J  119 

Jlpril  S,  I83'i. 

The  Chairman  read  from  a  paper  staieinents  which  Mr.  Adams  undtr- 
stood  to  be  certain  charges  against  Nicliolas  Biddle,  the  President  of  tac 
Bank,  which  tiie  Chairman  then  stated  contained  the  grounds  upon  which 
he  moved  again  for  a  subpoena  to  Thosnas  Wilson. 

Mr.  Adams  asked  for  the  name  of  the  person  from  whom  the  Chairman 
had  received  the  informal  ion  upon  which  tliese  supposed  charges  were 
made;  which  the  Chairnnin  declined  to  give. 

Mr.  Adams  moved  tiiat  a  copy  of  the  cliarges,  as  read  by  the  Chairman, 
be  entered  on  the  Journal  of  the  Committee,  to  which  the  Chairman  ob- 
jected. 

The  Ciiairman  afterwards  reduced  the  substance  of  these  charges  to  the 

resolutions  which  were  adopted  on  the ,  and  entered  on  the 

journal  of  that  date. 

Examination  of  John  Andrews. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDufBe.  Did  you  ever  inform  Mr.  Wliitney  that 
Thomas  Biddle,  or  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co  ,  had  been  in  the  habit  of  obtain* 
ing  money  without  interest  from  the  Bank  on  a  deposite  of  stock? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  giving  any  such  information.  I  recollect 
tliat  moneys  have  been  advanced  to  the  Messrs.  Biddle  on  a  deposite  of 
stock  as  collateral  security,  on  whicli  they  have  always  regularly  paid 
interest 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  ever  ^Xv^qX  you  to  enter 
in  the  books  two  sums  of  ^45,000  and  S24,000,  which  T.  Biddle  &  Co. 
had  drawn  from  the  Bank  in  May,  1824? 

Answei'.     I  have  no  recollection  of  it — none  whatever. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Have  you  any  recollection  of  these  transi- 
actions  as  related  by  Mr.  Wliitney  in  the  testimony  just  read  to  you? 

Answer.     I  have  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuflie.  Did  you  ever  inform  Mr,  Whitney  that 
the  President  had  been  in  the  habit  of  discounting  notes  for  T.  Biddle  & 
Co.  without  ti«e  sanction  of  the  Board  of  Directors? 

Answer.  Not  to  my  knowledge.  I  have  no  recollection  of  it.  I  have 
no  recollection  of  the  President  ever  having  done  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Have  you  ever  known  the  President  to  dis- 
count a  note  for  any  body  without  having  previously  consulted  the  Direc- 
tors? / 

Answer.  As  I  have  said  before,  Mr.  Biddle  has  handed  me  notes  to 
be  extended,  (such  is  my  impression,  but  I  cannot  say  what  notes  they 
were.)     I  did  not  inquire  wJiether  they  were  done  by  tlie  Board  or  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Is  it  not  usual,  when  notes  come  in  on  the 
discount  days,  far  the  President  to  mark  tiiem,  and  to  hand  them  over  to 
you?  . 

Answer.  Yes.  Frequently  notes  come  in.  and  are  not  put  down  on 
the  bof»ks,  because  not  regularly  offered,  but  whicli  are  nevertheless  sub- 
mitted to  the  Board,  and  agrewl  to  be  done  by  them,  and  handed  over  to 
me;  sometimes  after  tfie  breaking  up  of  the  Board.  These  notes  to  which 
I  have  alluded,  may  have  been  sometimes  handed  over  to  me  by  the  Pre- 
^dent. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.     From  examining  the  First  Teller's  check 


120  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

book  for  1824,  would  you  say  that  the  entry  ot  S45,000,  for  bills  receiv- 
able, must  have  been  made  on  25th  May? 

Answer.  1  should  suppose  it  was  made  on  that  day,  because  I  perceive 
that,  after  this  entry,  there  are  several  entries  made  on  the  same  day.  The 
check  book  is  a  book  of  original  entries. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  From  examining  the  journal,  would  you  say 
that  the  entry  of  g45,000,  bills  receivable,  was  made  on  that  day? 

Answer.     1  should  say  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Will  you  explain  the  difFerence  between 
*<  bills  discounted"  and  **  bills  receivable?'* 

Answer.  <*  Bills  discounted'' are*  those  which  are  discounted  by  the 
Board  on  personal  security  or  on  pledge  of  stock.  *<  Bills  receivable" 
are  those  secured  by  slock,  and  on  which  the  full  amount  is  advanced  to 
the  borrower  on  interest,  payable  when  the  loan  is  due.  To  this  account 
is  also  carried  bills  growing  out  of  compromises  of  debts,  and  more  re- 
cently, of  bills  received  on  account  of  India  arrangements. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  By  what  officers  of  the  Bank  has  money 
been  loaned  on  bills  receivable,  without  tlie  consent  of  the  Directors? 

Answer.  I  am  not  aware,  nor  do  I  recollect,  of  any  loan  made  by  an 
officer  of  the  Bank  which  has  been  charged  to  **  bills  receivable."  It  has 
been  a  practice  foi*  the  officers  of  the  Bank  to  affiird  occasionally  accom- 
modations lo  individuals,  for  a  few  days,  on  a  deposite  of  their  check  or 
note,  secured  by  a  deposite  of  stock  or  coin;  and,  from  the  temporary  na- 
ture of  these  loans,  they  have  been  passed  with  the  assets  of  the  Teller  as 
cash.  This  practice  I  have  always  considered  familiar  with  our  Direc- 
tors, and  one  which  I  believe  prevails  in  the  otiier  banking  institutions  of 
this  city. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  What  amount  of  money  has  been  advanced, 
from  time  to  time,  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  on  bills  receivable,  by  the  offi- 
cers of  the  Bank?  and  what  sum,  thus  loaned,  was  due  to  the  Bank  on  the 
23d  day  of  February  last? 

Answer.  I  have  no  knowledge  of  money  advanced,  from  time  to  time, 
to  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  by  the  officers,  charged  to  *»  bills  receivable."  The 
amounts  loaned  to  them,  and  charged  to  **  bills  receivable,"  were  all  paid 
on  the  1st  July,  1825, 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Have  other  persons,  besides  Thomas  Biddle 
&  Co.,  frequently  taken  money  from  the  Teller's  drawer,  on  a  deposite  of 
certificates  of  stock,  without  having  first  consulted  the  Directors? 

Answer,  Other  persons,  beside  T.  Biddle  &  Co.,  have  been  accommo- 
dated with  temporary  loans  in  the  manner  I  have  stated. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  ever  make  a  private  communication 
to  any  one  Director  imputing  misconduct  to  the  President  of  the  Bank, 
which  you  thought  the  Board  of  Directors  ought  to  be  informed  of? 

Answer.     No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Johnson.  Do  you  recollect  any  instance  in  which  any 
Director  has  given  you  or  any  officer  of  the  Bank  directions  to  make  en- 
tries on  the  books? 

Answer.     No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adaras.  Do  you  consider  it  the  right  of  any  individ- 
ual Director  to  order  you  to  make  entries  on  the  books? 

Answer.     No. 

'^estioii  by  Mr.  Adams.     You  have  heard  Mr.  Whitney's  evidence 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  121 

I'ead  relating  to  a  cenversation  between  him,  Mr.  Wilson,  and  yourself. 
You  have  said  you  have  no  recollection  of  it.  Was  that  transaction  of 
such  a  nature  that  it  could  have  escaped  your  recollection  if  it  had  oc- 
curred? 

Answer.     I  think  not. 

(Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  If  Mr.  Whitney  had  ordered  you  to  make 
the  entry  as  he  stated,  would  you  have  done  it  without  informing  the  Pre- 
sident? 

Answer.     No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Are  the  entries  referred  to  in  your  hand 
writing? 

Answer.     No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  know  whether  interest  was  ever 
paid  to  T.  Biddle,  or  T.  Biddle&  Co.,  for  deposites;  if  yea,  state  how  of- 
ten, and  to  what  amount;  and  did  you  ever  make  any  entry  of  it  on  the 
books? 

Answer.  I  recollect  but  one  payment  of  the  kind  mentioned — in  De* 
cember.  1825,  of  seven  hundred  and  some  odd  dollars.  The  amounts  de- 
posited by  the  Messrs.  Biddle  consisted  of  demands  upon  the  city  banks; 
the  object  of  which,  as  far  as  I  recollect,  was  to  reduce  the  very  heavy 
balance  which  this  Bank  owed  the  city  banks.  The  amount  on  which  thd 
interest  was  charged,  was  paid  with  simple  interest  only. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Was  interest  on  deposites  ever  paid  to  any 
one  else,  and  had  not  application  been  made  to  that  effect,  and  refused? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  any  application  being  made  to  us  by  any 
body  but  the  Messrs.  Biddle.  I  do  not  at  present  recollect  any  applica- 
tion to  the  Bank  by  any  one  else  for  such  an  allowance. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Have  you  any  recollection  of  having  stated 
to  Mr.  Wilson,  the  former  Cashier,  that  Mr.  T.  Biddle  had  charged  in- 
terest on  a  deposite,  and  wished  to  know  of  him  whether  he  had  allowed 
said  interest,  and  what  reply  did  he  make? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect,  when  that  bill  was  presented  for  payment, 
whether  it  was  presented  to  myself  or  to  Mr.  Wilson.  I  recollect  the  time 
when  it  was  presented  for  payment,  and  that  reference  was  made  to  the 
President  with  regard  to  the  correctness  of  the  bill,  as  we  had  not  bee» 
informed  of  the  transaction.  The  bill  was  directed  to  be  paid  by  the  Pre- 
sident, as  the  Messrs.  Biddle,  as  I  understood,  had  been  employed  to  pro- 
cure funds  for  the  Bank. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  State  whether  you  and  Mr.  Wilson  did  no 
examine  the  account  together,  and  were  not  able  to  make  the  interest  the 
same  which  was  allowed,  and  was  not  that  interest  somewhere  about 
§1,600? 

Answer.     I  do  not  recollect  that. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Was  there  any  thing  unusual  in  the  fact, 
that  Mr.  Wilson  and  yourself  had  not  been  intormed  of  the  nature  of  the 
transaction  ? 

Answer.     No.     I  cannot  say  that  there  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  was  the  advantage  derived  by  the 
Bank  from  this  deposite,  and  was  it,  or  was  it  not.  in  the  nature  of  a  loan 
to  the  Bank,  or  did  it  not  serve  the  Bank  the  same  purjxise  as  a  loan? 

Answer.     It  did  serve  the  purpose  of  a  loan.    The  operation  ef  it  weuld 
be  to  reduce  the  debt  due  by  the  Bank  to  tlie  city  banks* 
J6 


122  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Re'exnmination  of  John  Judrews,  in  the  presence  of  R.  M.  Whitney, 

TIiP/  following  questions  were  put  to  the  witness  by  tlie  Chairman: 

Question,  (s  it  not  customary  to  note  upon  the  minutes  all  business  re- 
ferred to,  or  c«Hnmitted  to,  the  comniittees  by  tlie  Board? 

Answer.  I  think  it  is.  I  am  not  the  keeper  of  the  minutes.  Mr.  Mcll- 
vaine  is.     He  can  answer  the  question, 

Question.  Do  you  know  of  any  authority  liaving  been  given  by  tbc^ 
Bourtl  to  ai'y  committee  to  make  discounts  or  loans  during  the  year  1822^ 
'3,  "4? 

Answer.     T^i  o. 

Question  Were  any  loans  or  discounts  made  during  those  y«ars,  to- 
your  knowledge,  except  by  the  Board? 

Answer.     ISo. 

(Question.  To  whom  were  Ihe  two  loans  made,  being  the  two  first  i^ms 
charged  to  the  account  of  *<  biiis  receivable,"  the  first  on  'I5ih  May,  1824,. 
for  S45,000,  and  the  second  on  \:6th  May,  1824.  for  S24,()00? 

Answer.     I  believe  to  T.  Middle  &  Co. 

Question.  Was  the  amount  of  ihe  two  loans  of  S45,000  and  S24.000 
placed  to  the  credit  of  the  borrowers,  and  the  same  checked  for  in  the 
usual  manner,  or  was  it  paid  outof  tlje  drawer  of  the  First  Teller,  and  ac- 
eounted  for  by  him  by  a  chargp  to  ** bills  receivable?'* 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  if  they  were  paid  to  the  borrowers  or  passed 
to  their  credit.  I  ratlier  think  they  were  }>a!d.  If  paid  by  the  First 
Teller,  I  .sliould  say  it  would  l>e  charged  to  *<  hills  reccivai)le."  To  the 
best  of  my  recollection,  the  practice  of  passing  <<  bills  receivable"  through 
our  books,  when  an  amount  is  loaned,  is  to  issue  a  Bank  voucher  in  favor 
of  the  party,  receiving  a  collateral  security  of  stock  or  coin,  accompanied 
by  a  note  of  the  party  to  pay  it  at  a  particular  period  for  which  t!ie  loan  is 
made.  The  voucher  is  charged  to  '<  bills  receivable,"  and  the  note  de- 
posited for  collection  to  the  credit  of  bills  receivable.  I'his  has  been  the 
practice  to  the  best  of  my  recollection.  The  account  of  bills  receivable 
\vas  first  opened,  I  think,  in  1822.  I  should  say,  from  the  entry  in  the 
First  Teller's  check  book,  that  the  atnounts  had  been  paid  to  T.  Biddle, 
and  charged  to  bills  receivable. 

Question.  At  what  periofis  were  the  two  loans  of  S4 5,000  and  ^24,000 
paid  by  the  Bank  to  the  borrowers? 

Answer.  I  must  refer  for  this  to  the  statement  headed  **  bills  receiv- 
able," furnished  by  Mr.  Cowperthwait. 

Question.  What  are  the  dates  of  the  first  and  the  last  loans  charged  to 
bills  receivable  in  1 824,  and  what  the  amou»»ts  of  each  loan,  and  the  dates 
at  which  they  were  made  during  the  said  period? 

Answer.     I  must  make  the  same  reference  as  I  did  to  the  last  question. 

Question.  You  have  said  that  loans  are  frequently  made  and  charged 
to  bills  receivable,  will  you  say  if,  to  your  knowledge,  that  item  appears 
upon  the  Bank  statements  prior  to  the  25th  May,  1824,  and  subsequently  to 
the  1 4th  of  August? 

Answer.     I  do  not  recollect.     The  statement  will  show. 

Question.  Were  any  of  the  sums  loaned,  and  charged  to  *< bills  receiv- 
able" in  1824,  made  on  the  regular  discount  days;  if  yea,  state  the  amounts 
of  each,  and  the  dates? 

Answer.     I  do  not  recollect  whether  these  loans  were  made  before  the 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  12S 

Board,  or  whether  the  officers  of  the  Bank  were  authorised  by  the  Board 
to  jnake  the  loans,  duly  taking  the  obligations  of  the  parties* 

Question.     Was  the  25tii  Mav,  1824,  a  discount  day? 

Answer.     It  appears  so  from  the  books. 

Question.  You  have  said  that  you  knew  of  no  authority  granted  by  tlie 
Board  to  any  one  to  make  loans  or  discounts  in  1822,  '3,  '4,  by  whom 
were  the  aforesaid  two  loans  made? 

Answer.     I  have  answered  that  jilready. 

Question.  Can  you  bay,  from  any  circumstances,  either  by  the  dates  of 
the  notes,  or  the  interest  charged,  wliether  two  notes  discounted  for  T.  and 
J.  G.  Biddle,  in  May,  1824,  the  one  for  S20,0()0,  and  the  other  for 
g38,Sl9,  and  entered  upon  the  discount  book  after  the  work  of  the  regular 
discount  day  had  bt^n  closed,  were  discounted  on  or  between  discount  days? 

Answer.     I  am  not  able  to  say. 

Qtiestion.  Are  tiiere,  to  your  knowledge,  any  other  notes  entered  on 
the  discount  book  in  1822.  '3,  '4,  in  a  similar  manner  to  the  above  two — 
that  is,  added  to  the  work  of  the  regular  discount  day  after  it  had  been 
closed  ? 

Answer.     I  do  not  recollect. 

Question.  Did  Mr.  Cheves  ever,  to  your  knowledge,  make  any  loan 
or  discount  whatever,  on  account  of  the  Bank,  upon  his  individual  respon- 
sibilit}? 

Ariswer.     I  do  not  recollect. 

Question.  Who  were  among  the  most  active,  laborious,  and  influential 
members  of  the  Board  in  the  years  1822,  '3,  M? 

Answer.  1  cannot  recollect  who  were  Directors  at  that  time,  without 
referring  to  the  books.  I  should  consider  Mr.  Whitney  as  having  been 
among  the  active  members  of  the  Board. 

Question.  Was  you  in  the  habit  of  frequently  or  occasionally.commu- 
nicating  with  Mr.  Whitney,  while  he  was  a  Director,  upon  the  uusiness 
of  the  Bank? 

Answer.  I  think  I  might,  as  with  tlie  other  Directors.  I  recollect 
something  of  Mr.  Whitney's  being  entrusted  with  the  sale  of  the  forfeited 
Bank  stock. 

Question.  Whenever  the  President  hands  you  a  note,  and  desires  that 
it  may  be  entered  upon  the  books  to  the  credit  of  the  person  he  names,  has 
it  not  been  your  jiractice  to  do  so  without  inquiring  the  authority,  and  have 
you  not  considered  his  direction  sufficient? 

Answer.  It  has,  as  I  have  never  had  any  reason  to  question  the  au* 
tliority  under  which  he  acted. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Has  Mr.  Whitney  ever,  to  your  knowledge, 
had  access  to  any  of  the  books  of  the  Bank  since  he  left  the  direction  at  the 
dose  of  1824? 

Answer.     Not  to  my  knowledge. 


Nicholas  Biddle — Loans  to  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  in  1830. 

Will  you  state  the  nature,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  large  discounts 
to  Thomas  Biddle  and  Co.? 

In  the  year  1830,  owing  to  the  abundance  of  money,  it  was  difficult  to 
invest  the  funds  of  the  Bank  at  the  usual  rate  of  interest,  and,  in  conse- 


lU  I  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

^uence,  a  resolution  was  passed  by  the  Board  on  the  9th.of  July,  183«,  di-^ 
recti ng,  ♦•  that  the  Committee  of  Exchaoge  be  authorised  to  loan,  on  the  col- 
lateral security  of  approved  public  stock,  large  sums  of  money  at  a  dis- 
count not  lower  thaii  five  per  cent" 

The  diificulty  of  making  investments  became  increased,  in  the  course  of 
the  year,  by  the  reimbursement  of  the  five  per  cent,  stock,  subscribed  by 
the  Government  to  the  Bank  at  the  time  of  its  creation,  the  sum  of  seven 
millions  of  dollars  having  been  paid  off  in  the  course  of  nine  months,  begin- 
ning with  the  1st  of  October,  18S0. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  following  resolution  was  adopted  on  tlie 
17th  of  September,  1830. 

The  President  submitted  to  the  Board  a  statement  of  the  diminished  line 
of  discounts,  at  the  Northern  and  Eastern  offices  generally,  and  suggest- 
ed the  expediency  of  taking  timely  measures  for  reinvesting,  gradually, 
the  amount  of  funded  5  per  cent,  debt,  that  will,  ere  long,  be  paid  off  by 
th<'  Government  to  this  Bank,  in  other  good  securities,  yielding  even  a  less 
rate  of  interest  than  5  per  cent. 

Whereupon  it  was,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Fisher, 

Resdved,  That  the  resolution  adopted  by  the  Board  on  the  Qth,  authori- 
sing the  Committee  of  Exchange  to  loan,  on  the  pledge  of  public  stock,  be 
so  modified  as  to  permit  such  loans  to  be  made  on  the  same,  or  other  ap- 
proved securities,  at  a  rate  of  interest  not  less  than  four  and  a  half  per 
cent,  per  annum. 

Under  this  authority  the  Committee  of  Exchange  applied  to  Thomas  Bid- 
die  and  Co.  and  requested  them  to  concentre  all  the  loans  they  had  occasion 
to  make  in  this  bank,  urging  them  to  take  any  amount  which  they  wanted 
at  five  per  cent.  To  this  they  consented,  and  accordingly  took  up  loans 
amounting,  at  one  period,  to  upwards  of  a  million  of  dollars  at  five  per 
cent.  These  loans  were  always  secured  by  a  large  excess  of  public  stocks 
«ver  tha' amount  of  the  loans.  They  v\ ere  considered  as  accommodations 
to  the  Bank,  not  to*  the  borrowers.  They  could  certainly  have  obtained 
them  at  other  places  at  a  lower  rate,  for  the  rate  of  interest  in  the  market 
was  below  five  pei*  cent,  and  the  Committee  of  Exchange  themselves  were 
authorised  by  the  very  resolution  under  which  the  loans  were  made  to  go 
as  low  as  four  and  a  half  per  cent. 

The  total  amount  of  the  discount  paid  to  the  Bank  on  these  loans  by 
Thomas  Biddle  and  Co.  was  S49,548.01. 

On  what  now  remains  of  the  loan  the  interest  has  been  raised  to  six  per 
cent.  The  statement  of  Manuel  Eyre,  one  of  the  members  of  that  commit- 
tee, will  further  explain  this  subject.  His  statement  is  before  ihe  commit- 
tee. 

Question.  It  appears,  from  the  books  of  the  Bank,  that  Thomas  Biddle 
and  Co.  sold  to  the  Bank  bills  of  exchange  on  houses  in  London,  on  the 
following  da}s,  and  for  the  following  amounts,  to  wit — 

Octob«'r   14,  1831,  -  -  -  -     §147.810  U 

**  22,     «  ...  -        592,000.00 

December  9,    «  .  .  _  -       506  250.00 

Februnry,  14, 1832,  -  -  -  .       548.000.00 

"What  srrurity  had  the  Bank  for  the  repayment  of  i^e  money  thus  ad- 
vanced, before  the  bills  were  accepted? 

When  did  the  Bank  first  receive  notice  of  the  acceptance  of  each  the  of 
forementioned  bills  of  exchange? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  125 

Answer.  The  securifies  on  which  the  Committee  of  Exchange  took  these 
bills  were — 

1st.    The  undoubted  solidity  of  the  drawers  of  the  bills. 

2d.  The  letters  of  the  European  house  or  houses,  on  wliich  the  bills  were 
ilrawn,  authorising  the  drafts,  and  of  course  equivalent  to  ah  actual  accept- 
ance by  them. 

3.  rhe  knowledge  of  the  fact' that  public  stocks  of  this  country,  sufficient 
to  cover  the  amount,  were  remitted  by  the  drawers  to  the  European  house 
or  houses,  on  which  they  drew  eitiier  at  the  time,  or  previous^to  tlie  time, 
of  drawing  the  bills. 

The  time  of  receiving  notice  of  the  acceptance  of  the  bills  respectively 
was  as  follows: 

That  of  October  14,  1831,         gl47,810.11         November  14,  1831. 
"  ''  22,       «  592,000  "  22,  1831. 

<*       December  9,      <^  506,250  January  6,         1832. 

*<       February,  14,  1832,  548.000 

JS/*icholas  Biddle*s  testimony. 

Whether  Thomas  Biddle  ever  obtained  money  from  the  Bank,  by  leaving 
a  certificate  of  some  kind  of  stock,  which  was  put  into  the  drawer  of  the 
First  Teller,  and  called  cash?  Whether  he  returned  the  money  without 
paying  interest,  and  received  back  fiis  certificates  of  stock,  and  to  whatf 
amount  such  transactions  were  allowed?  This  inquiry  relates  to  transac- 
tions in  May,  1824. 

I  have  no  personal  knowledge  of  any  such  transaction.  I  find,  upon  ex- 
amination, that  at  the  time  alluded  to,  there  was  a  practice  in  this  bank, 
as  well  as  the  other  city  banks,  a  practice  sitice  discontinued  in  this  bank^ 
that  when  the  customers  of  the  Bank  wished  to  borrow  for  a  few  days,  on 
a  pledge  of  stock,  instead  of  making  a  formal  hypothecation  of,  the  stock, 
in  order  to  save  time  and  labor  the  stock  itself  was  transferred,  and  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  First  Teller!*  This  practice  was  extended  to  many  in- 
dividiials,  among  the  rest  to  the  firm  of  which  Mr.  Thomas  Biddle  is  the 
chief  partner.  It  a])pears,  in  May  1824,  that  house  had  a  loan  of  this  de-^ 
scription  to  the  amount  of  Si  2,000  for  a  period  of  a  few  days,  on  which 
they  paid  sixteen  drdlars  interest.  Neither  they,  however,  nor  any  othei* 
individual,  ever  had  a  loan  of  any  description  without  paying  interest  for  it. 

Whvither  discoun  s  have  been  made  for  Thomas  Biddle  and  Co.  of  indi- 
vidual notes,  and  entered  back  upon  the  books,  say  added  to  the  discounts 
of  the  preceding  discount  day?  This  inquiry  relates  to  transactions  in 
May  1824. 

I  have  no  recollection  of  any  facts  connected  with  this  inquiry.  On  ex- 
amining the  'liscount  book  for  May  1824,  I  do  not  perceive  any  discounts 
for  that  firm.  On  the  1st  of  June,  1824.  I  observe  three  notes  dis- 
counted for  Messrs.  T.  and  J.  G.  Biddle,  the  former  style  of  the  firm, 
but  1  can  recall  no  circumstance  whatever  connected  with  it.  It  is,  how- 
ever, the  general  practice  of  the  Bank,  where  loans  are  made  in  the  inter- 
vals between  the  Board  days,  to  annex  them  to  the  week  of  the  preceding 
discount  day. 

Whether  bills  of  exchange  offered  to  the  Exchange  Committee,  for  sale  by 
Thomas  Biddle  and  Co..  and  refused  by  them,  "Vvere  afterwards  purchascid 
by  any  ofliGer  of  ttie  Bank  for  the  Bank? 


126  £  Rep.  No.  460.  } 

I  have  no'  remembrance  of  any  such  circumstance. 

Whether  Thomas  Biddleand  Co.  Iiav*  receive;)  any  interest  on  their  dew 
posites,  and  if  tiiey  have,  to  what  amount,  and  if  it  has  been  allowed  to  an/ 
one  else? 

Second  examination  of  Thomas  Wilson. 

The  Clerk  read  to  the  witness  Mr.  Whitney's  evidence. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Did  you  inform  Mr.  Whitney  in  May^ 
1834,  or  at  any  otiier  time,  that  Thomas  Riddle  &  Co.  were  in  the  habit 
of  drawing  money  from  the  Bank  without  paying  interest  for  it? 

Answer.  I  cei-tainiy  never  gave  information  that  they  ever  obtained 
money  without  interest,  and  1  cail  speak  generally  that  I  never  knew  a 
loan  or  accommodation  to  any  individual  or  company  without  interest. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Would  you  have  made  a  complaint  to  Mi^ 
Whitney  of  the  conduct  of  the  President? 

Answer.  No.  1  was  on  those  terms  with  the  President  that  I  would 
bave  spoken  directly  to  him. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie,  Were  individual  Directors  in  the  habit  of 
directing  the  Casljiers  or  Clerks  of  the  Bank  to  make  entries  on  the  books? 

Answer.  Never,  to  my  knowledge.  No  clerk  in  the  Bank  would  obey 
such  directions. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  You  have  heard  Mr,  Whitney's  evidence. 
If  such  an  occurrence,  as  Mr.  Whitney  relates,  had  taken  place,  would  it 
not  have  made  a  strong  impression  on  your  mind,  and  do  you  not  think  yon 
would  certainly  have  recollected  it? 

Answer.  Undoubtedly  1  should,  and  I  should  have  been  a  very  unfaith* 
fu I  officer  indeed  if  1  had  been  privy  to  such  a  transaction  as  lending  money 
without  interest,  and  the  Director  would  have  been  equally  culpable  who 
knew  it  and  coticealed  it.  With  respect  to  the  note  for  S20,000  for  T^ 
Biddle,  referred  to  by  Mr.  Whitney,  I  am  positive  it  was  discounted  by 
the  Board.  I  am  equally  positive  as  to  the  note  of  C.  Biddlo,  1  am  a» 
j)ositive  about  this  as  about  the  other. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  recollect  whether  you  ever  had  any 
^conversation  with  Mr.  Whitney  about  Mr.  T.  Biddle  depositing  certifi- 
cates of  stock,  and  the  inconvenience  attending  it? 

Ai^wer.  That  I  mentioned  to  Mr^  Whitney  that  Mr.  Biddle  had  loans 
^n  stock  security,  I  have  no  doubt.  I  have  said  he  had  these  facilities, 
and  1  cannot  say  that  1  was  pleased  with  such  transactions,  though  such 
fjicilities  were  allowed  to  many  beside  Mr.  Biddle, 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Were  the  customers  of  the  Bank  allowed 
t«  draw  money  fro«i  the  drawer  of  the  First  Teller,  leaving  therein  certifi- 
cates of  stock,  to  be  counted  as  cash  on  hartd,  prior  to  the  election  of  Mr,i 
Biddle  as  President? 

Answer.     Nfi,  not  in  any  instance  that  I  knew  of. 

Question  by  Mr.  A-dams.  Are  customers  ever  allowed  to  draw  money 
from  the  drawer  of  the  Teller? 

Answer,  if  the  word  **drawei-"  is  meant  to  convey  the  idea  of  receiving 
money  from  the  Teller,  they  are. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Can  you  state  at  what  time  since  the  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  N.  Biddle  as  President,  the  practice  of  loaning  money  on  de- 
poidtes  of  stocky  without  consulting  the  Directors,  commenced?. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  W 

Answer.     1  cannot  mention  the  precise  time. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  AVhy  are  there  no  memoranda  on  the  books 
of  the  Bank  of  the  amount  of  money  out  on  deposited  certificates  between 
the  tii!ie  when  Mr.  Biddle  was  first  elected  President  and  25  May,  1824? 

Answer.  In  cases  of  that  kind,  the  amount  of  money  paid  by  the  Teller 
would  be  represented  by  the  security,  and  he  would  have  counted  that  as 
cash. 

Question  by  Mr.  Johnson.  Since  the  practice  commenced  of  making 
temporary  loans  on  thedeposite  of  stock  or  bullion,  have  you  ever  known  a 
loss  occur  to  the  Bank  in  consequence  of  it? 

Answer.     No.     It  would  be  impossible. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Were  you  and  the  President  ever  on  na^ 
friendly  terms  during  your  continuance  in  the  Bank? 

Answer.     Never. 

Examination  of  Joseph  Swift. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Are  you  a  partner  of  the  house  of  T.  Biddle 
&  Co.,  and  if  yea,  how  long  have  you  been  so,  and  how  long  have  you 
been  connected  with  that  house? 

Answer,  i  have  been  a  partner  two  years  fi'om  the  1st  January  last, 
and  have  been  in  the  counting  house  of  T.  and  J.  G.  Biddle  since  July, 
1819. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  frequently  transacted  the  business 
of  T  &  J.  G.  Biddle,  6c  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  with  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  personally  at  the  Bank? 

Answer.     I  have,  frequently. 

[Mr.  Whitney's  evidence  was  here  read  to  the  witness.] 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  house  of  T. 
Biddle  &Co.>or  T.  and  J.  G.  Biddle,  being  in  the  habit  of  obtaining  money 
from  the  First  Teller's  drawer  without  paying  interest,  on  the  deposite  of 
«tock  ceitificates,  in  the  way  described  by  Mr.  Whitney? 

Answer.     They  never  did  in  any  single  instance. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  Messrs.  Bid- 
die  ever  obtaining  a  loan  from  tlie  Bank,  from  the  President,  without  con- 
sulting the  Directors? 

Answer.     I  have  no  knowledge  of  such  a  tiling. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  You  say  you  have  never  known  a  single  in- 
stance of  money  being  borrowed  from  the  Bank  without  paying  interest, 
have  you  not  known  of  the  payment  of  interest  for  a  single  day  at  this 
Bank,  when  in  similar  cases  the  other  Banks  did  not  charge  it? 

Answer.  I  have  known  this  Bank  to  charge  interest  fretjueotly  on  a 
draft  «n  New  York  at  sight,  presented  at  the  Bank  after  they  had  made 
wp  their  accounts  for  the  eastei*n  mail.  This  has  sometimes  been  unex- 
pected, and,  therefore,  inconvenient  to  us,  and  result'^!  from  the  extreme 
exactness  of  the  cashier,  Mr.  Andrews.  We  frequently  received  cash  from 
other  Banks  for  drafts  at  seven  days'  sight,  which  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  would  not  take  without  charging  interest,  though  in  want  of  New 
York  funds. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Did  you  give  any  notes  for  the  loans  which 
you  received  on  deposite,  and  did  you  deposite  them  for  collection  to  go  to 
#ie  credit  of  billtj  receivable? 


128  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


Answer.  Notes  or  checks.  I  rather  think  we  gave  checks.  I  think  I 
recollect  cases  of  notes.  They  were  paid  in  a  short  time;  sometimes  they 
were  given  for  as  short  a  time  as  two  days,  and  interest  always  was  charg- 
ed. Some  of  the  other  Banks,  with  whom  we  made  the  same  arrangements, 
preferred  checks.  At  one  time  we  made  an  arrangement  of  tliis  kind 
with  one  of  our  city  banks,  of  a  small  capital,  to  the  amount  of  glOO,000 
on  checks. 

Examination  of  Paul  Beck^  Jim, 

Question.  Were  you  a  Director  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States?  If 
yea,  how  long? 

Answer.  In  the  years  1824,  '5,  and  %  and  '28,  '29,  and  30,  I  was  a 
Director. 

Question.  Do  you  know  whether  the  Bank  has  ever  paid  interest  to 
any  one  on  account  of  deposites? 

Answer.     I  do  not.     It  never  came  under  my  notice. 

Question.  Did  Mr.  Wilson,  former  Cashier,  ever  tell  you  that  any  one 
had  received  interest  on  that  account?  If  yea,  who  was  it? 

Answer.  There  was  a  coolness  existed  shortly  before  Mr.  Wilson  left 
this  city  for  New  Orleans,  between  him  and  the  President.  Mr  Wilson 
did  mention  such  a  circumstance  to  me  in  regard  to  Mr.  Thos.  Biddle,  but 
I  supposed  it  to  arise  from  irritation.  I  took  it  for  granted  that  the  Pre- 
sident and  the  Exchange  Committee  understood  the  business  perfectly  well. 
I  believe  Mr.  Wilson  to  be  an  honest  man,  though  I  did  not  consider  him 
as  fully  competent  to  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  this  institution,  but 
I  do  not  think  that  would  prevent  him  from  telling  the  truth. 

Question.  Did  he  ever  tell  you  any  thing  in  relation  to  that  subject,  or 
any  other,  where  money  was  irregularly  obtained  from  the  Bank? 

Answer.     He  never  mentioned  to  me  a  single  instance  but  that. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Was  Mr.  Wilson  removed  from  the  office  of 
Cashier? 

Answer.  He  was  removed  to  New  Orleans.  Mr.  Biddle  knew  me  to 
liave  been  the  friend  of  Mr.  Wilson  for  many  years,  and  Mr.  Biddle  com- 
plained of  his  incompetency  to  me,  and  wished  me  to  propose  his  going  to 
rfew  Orleans.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Biddle  that  tlie  institution  could 
not  get  on  with  him,  but  that  he  must  be  removed.  I  felt  a  hesitation  about 
ilie  climate  of  New  Orleans,  and  did  not  make  the  proposition.  He,  how* 
ever,  went  to  New  Orleans,  and  acted  as  Cashier  there. 

Question.     How  long  did  he  act  as  Cashier  there? 

Answer.     I  do  not  recollect. 

Question.     Was  he  removed  from  that  situation? 

Answer.     I  believe  he  was. 

Question.  Did  Mr.  Wilson  ever  state  to  you  any  thing  which  he  con- 
ceived improper  or  irregular  in  the  conduct  of  the  President  of  the  Bank? 

Answer.     No. 

Question.  Was  the  conversation  you  speak  ©f  just  before  he  went  to 
UjTew  Orleans?  / 

Answer.     It  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  You  speak  of  my  having  asked  you  to  speak 
to  Mr.  Wilson  respecting  his  removal  to  New  Orleans.  Was  not  my 
eommunication  with  you  at  that  time  made  in  the  spirit  of  friendship  and 
good  will  to  Mr.  Wilson? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  J  129 

Answer.  It  was,  and  with  a  view  of  placing  him  in  a  situation  for  which 
he  was  hetter  qualified. 

Question.  Have  you  ever  known  the  President  of  the  Bank  to  manifest 
any  undue  partiality  towards  Thomas  Biddle  6i  Co.  in  any  of  tlie  trans- 
actions of  the  Baniv? 

Answer.  No,  never.  I  have  seen  him  treat  them  as  hard  as  any  hody 
else.  In  time  of  press,  brokers'  and  auctioneers'  paper  was  always  dis- 
counted last;  mechanics'  and  traders'  always  discounted  first.  I  have  very 
often  seen  the  Board  willing  to  do  more  for  Thos.  Biddle  &  Co.  than  the 
President  would  allow. 

Question.  Have  or  have  not  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  been  the  most  valuable 
customers  of  the  Bank?  and  do  you,  or  do  you  not,  conceive  that  the  Bank 
has  been  rather  the  party  most  benefited  by  its  transactions  with  them? 

Answer.  1  have  no  doubt  of  it.  There  have  been  times  when  we  have 
been  very  glad  to  get  rid  of  money.  1  have  encouraged  people  myself  to 
come  forward  when  they  could  make  up  a  large  sum. 

Question  by   Mr,  Adams.     During  the  six  years  that  you  have  been  a 
Director  of  this  Bank,  has  any  circumstance  ever  come  to  vour  knowledge 
of  what  you  considered  as  misconduct  in  the  President  of  the  Bank  in  his 
official  capacity,  or  in  any  manner  in  violation  of  his  duties  as  such? 
Answer.     Mo,  never. 

Question.  What  is  the  largest  sum  ever  due  the  Bank  by  T.  Biddle  & 
Co.  at  one  time? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect.  The  Committee  of  Exchange  discounted 
at  one  time  a  large  amount  on  stock.  I  kept  the  tickler,  and  was  familiar 
with  the  amount  at  the  time,  tvery  person  at  the  Board  could  see  at 
once  the  amount.  I  saw  it,  asked  the  question,  and  was  told  it  was  done 
on  stock — the  best  security  we  could  have. 

Question.  Is  your  confidence  in  the  punctuality  and  safety  of  T.  Bid- 
dle &  Co.  so  great,  that  you  would  willingly,  if  able,  loan  them  one  mil- 
lion of  dollars  of  your  private  funds? 

Answer.  If  tiiey  gave  me  good  stock,  I  certainly  would,  to  them  or  any 
body  else.  They  are  a  house  of  tJje  first  character  in  that  line  in  our  city. 
I  know  of  no  one  else  so  extensive.  I  would  give  them  as  large  credit  as 
I  Would  any  house  in  Phila(lel])hia,  on  their  personal  security. 

Question.  Would  you,  if  able,  make  a  loan  of  gl, 000,000  to  any  one,. 
on  personal  security  ? 

Answer.     No,  I  would  not. 

Re'examination  of  J,  C&wperthwait. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  is  meant  by  bills  receivable,  in  the 
books;  and  when  wiis  the  account  of  bills  receivable  raised,  and  by  vvhorft 
was  it  directed? 

Answer.  My  situation  gave  me  a  full  knowledge  of  this  subject.  The 
account  of  <*  bills  receivable"  was  raised  in  1822,  and  has  been  continued  ' 
ever  since.  It  was  an  account  raised  for  the  purpose  o  j  keeping  temporary 
loans  separate  from  tlie  discounts,  and  has  been  Cf)ntinued  ever  since  for 
that  purpose,  and  now  also  for  tlie  purpose  of  placing  the  bills  that  are 
going  circuitously — I  mean  India  bills. 

Question  by  Mr.  Tliomas.     In  the  account  of  bills  receivable,  did  you 
enter  the  amount  of  loans  made  on  deposites  of  stock  certificates,  counted 
17 


130  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

as  cash,  by"thc  Teller,  prior  to  the  25th  May,  1824?  If  yea,  give  the  date 
and  ansouiit  of  sucli  loans. 

Answer.  No.  We  did  not  do  it  prior  to  that  date,  nor  ever  have  done 
since. 

Question l)y  Mr.  McDnfiie.  Are  the  entries  in  May,  1824,  of  two  sums 
of  bills  receivable,  viz:  S45,000  and  S24,0Q0,  in  tiiebooks  of  tlie  Bank, 
the  regular  entries  of  the  bills  receivable,  arid  such  as  had  been  usual  since 
1822? 

Answer.  Yes.  In  examining  the  books  of  the  note  desk  for  June, 
1824,  I  found  that  the  loans  granted  to  Thomas  Biddle  k  Co.  in  May, 
1824,  of  SI69,000,  had  been  paid  by  them,  and  that  the  note  clerk  had 
explained  the  transaction  to  be  a  .stock  loan;  that  the  proceeds  of  the  loan 
were  credited  to  the  account  of  bills  receivable,  to  which  they  had  been 
previously  chaiged,  jind  the  interest  accruing  thereon  had  gone  to  thecre^ 
dit  of  interest  account. 

Jle- examination  of  J,  CowpertlnvaiL 

»  Question.  Why  is  the  entry  of  S69,000,  being  the  two  items  ofg45,- 
000  and  S24,000,  certificates  of  stock  dej)osited  by  Thomas  and  John  G. 
Biddle  in  the  Teller's  drawei-,  under  the  head  of  bills  receivable,  in  the 
book  called  the  Semi-weekly  Statement  of  the  Bank,  the  only  place,  down 
to  that  date,  in  that  book,  which  commenced  June  10,  1822,  where  such 
an  account  appears? 

Answer.  There  were  no  loans  precisely  similar  to  those  made  by  T. 
and  J.  G.  Biddle  in  May,  1824,  charged  to  bills  receivable  anterior  to  that 
time.  A  transaction  with  that  house  in  May,  1822,  was  charged  to  that 
account,  and  a|)j)ears  upon  the  semi-weekly  statement  of  that  period.  Prior 
to,  and  since  May,  1824,  loans  oil  the  description  alluded  to,  that  is,  tem- 
porary loans,  piiyable  on  demand,  on  a  pledge  of  stock,  or  other  security, 
were  placed  in  t!ie  Teller's  drawer  as  cash,  and  of  course  no  entry  made 
in  relation  to  them,  except  to  credit  the  interest  received  upon  them,  which 
usually  went  to  exchange  account. 

Question.  Were  there  any  loans  upon  pledge  of  stock  between  the  month 
of  May,  1822  and  1824?  H"  yea,  why  were  they  not  entered  to  the  credit 
of  bills  receivable,  as  well  as  the  loans  before  mentioned? 

Answer.  The  only  reason  I  can  assign  for  those  particular  loans  of 
May,  1824,  having  been  charged  to  bills  receivable,  is,  that  the  amount 
being  much  larger  than  usual,  it  may  have  been  inconvenient  to  retain 
them  in  the  drawer  as  cash. 

'  Question.  To  what  account  do  you  credit  interest  arising  on  all  loans 
made  on  bills  discounted? 

Answer.  There  are  three  general  accounts  to  which  all  the  interest 
arising  on  loans  of  every  description  is  credited,  namely,  <*  Discounts  re- 
ceived/' <^  Exchange  Account,"  *'  Interest  Account." 

Question.  The  practice  of  lending  on  pledge  of  stock  has  ceased  foi'Xhe 
last  two  years — will  you  state  the  reason? 

Answer.  Similar  loans  are  now  seldom  apjilied  for;  the  last  was  made 
ill  December,  1831 — but,  if  applied  for  now>  would  probably  bo  granted. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  >  131 

Examinotion  of  John  Burtis* 

Question  by  R.  M.  V/hitney,  through  the  Chairman.  Are  not  all  the 
notes  disc(unitc(l,  or  deposited  for  collection,  mimbered;  and  is  tisere  not  a 
corresj)oi)ding  number  in  the  margin  ol' the  discount  and  deposite  note  book 
against  each  note? 

Answer.  It  is  the  design  to  number  them  ail  to  correspond  with  the 
rmmbers  in  the  margin  oC  the  book;  but  it  occurs  sometimes  that  they  are 
not  numbered,  and  (U)  not  correspond — an  ei-ror  resnltiiig  from  accident. 

Question  by  the  same.  At  what  time  or  period  of  the  day  is  the  register 
of  notes  discounted,  oji  discount  days,  closed,  and  each  column  added  up, 
to  be  posted  to  the  respective  accounts? 

Answer.  The  lime  is  generally  the  morning  of  offering;  sometimes  the 
evening  before,  and  sometimes  the  day  of  discount. 

Question  by  the  same.  Were  there,  to  your  knowledge,  during  the  years 
18i22,  3,  4,  any  special  meetings  of  the  Board  between  the  regular  discount 
days,  to  consider  apfdications  for  loans? 

Answer.     Not  tiiat  I  know  of. 

Qu^^stion  by  the  same.  Are  ail  notes  for  collection  entered  upon  the 
tickler,  under  tiie  ilates  on  which  they  fall  due? 

Answer.     They  a»*e;  and  if  not,  it  is  from  mistake. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Has  Mr.  Whitney,  to  your  knowledge,  had 
access  to  any  of  the  books  of  the  Bank  since  he  left  the  direction  at  tlie  close 
of  the  year  1824? 


Answer,     ^'o. 


Re-examination  of  John  Burtis* 


Question  by  Mr.  McDuflio.  Has  it  ever  come  within  your  knowledge, 
tliat  Thomas  Biddle  k  Co.  have  (h*awn  money  out  of  the  Bank,  on  a  pledge 
of  stock,  without  paying  interest? 

Answer.     Never. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuflie.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  ever  give  an  order  to 
Mr.  Andrews  or  Mr.  Wilson,  in  y«)ur  presence,  to  inake  an  entry  in  the 
books,  of  money  loaned  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  orj  a  pledge  of  stock? 

Answer.  No.  1  have  no  knowledge  of  Mr.  Whitney's  ever  having 
come  with  Mr.  Andrews  or  Mr.  Wilson,  or  any  otiier  person,  to  my  de.^lty 
lor  the  purpose  of  making  or  ordering  any  entries.  ^^^^" 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Look  upon  the  discount  book  for  May,  isfci, 
and  say  whether  the  1  ith  day  of  tiiat  month,  as  entered  on  the  top  of  the 
page,  was  not  the  regular  discount  day? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mv,  Clayton.  Look  upon  the  same  page,  and  explain  the 
reason  why  a  note,  to  I'un  fifteen  days,  discounted  for  Thomas  ami  John 
G.  Biddle,  for  S20,000,  appears  to  be,  after  the  book  was  closed  for  the 
regidar  discount  day,  and  discounted  on  the  13th  May  instead  of  the  lit!). 

Answer.  I  can  say  no  more  tiian  that  it  was  directed  to  be  put  there 
by  some  of  the  officers — Mr.  Andrews,  I  presume,  as  he  generally  hands  me 
the  note:^.  It  came  regularly  into  my  hands  as  all  other  notes.  I  believe 
that  no  tjotes  are  ever  handed  to  me  but  such  as  arc  authorized  by  the 
j^oard  or  the  Exchange  Committee. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     Look  upon  the  same  book  for  May,  1824, 


132  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

and  say,  whether  the  21st  of  that  month,  a^  entered  at  the  top  of  the  page, 
was  not  the  regular  discount  day. 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     Look  upon  the  next  page,  purporting  to  be 
under  the  same  date,  and  explain  the  reason  why  a  note  of  Charles  Biddle, 
for  838,319,  also  appears  to  be  discounted  after  the  books  are  closed  for  . 
the  regular  discount  day. 

Answer.  It  appears  from  the  entry,  that  that  note  was  discounted  by 
the  Board,  and  entered  the  following  day,  which  is  not  an  uncommon  oc- 
currence. The  discount  is  'charged  from  the  21st  May,  the  regular  dis- 
count day. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Why  is  the  note  dated  on  the  15th  May, 
and  not  entered  and  offered  regularly  with  the  other  notes  on  the  book? 

Answer.  I  presume  because  the  note  came  in  after  the  books  were 
made  up,  and  was  entered  like  other  notes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Can  you  give  any  reason  why  there  are  so 
few  cases  on  this  same  book,  where  notes  have  been  similarly  discounted? 

Answer.     I  cannot. 

Examination  of  Jonathan  Fatterson,  First  Teller, 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  station  do  you  hold  in  the  Bank^ 
how  long  have  you  been  in  it,  and  what  are  your  duties? 

Answer.  I  have  been  first,  or  paying  Teller,  from  the  commencement 
of  the  institution. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.     Did  the  President  ever  give  you  any  di- 
rections to  loan   money  to  Thomas   Biddle  &  Co.  without  interest,  on  a 
pledge  of  stock,  or  on  any  other  security? 
Answer.     Never,  to  my  recollection. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Has  it  ever  come  within  your  knowledge, 
that  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  have  drawn  money  out  of  the  Bank,  on  a  pledge 
of  stock,  without  paying  interest? 

Answer.     Never,  without  paying  interest. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.     Would  not  such  a  transaction  have  been 
known  to  you,  if  it  had  occurred? 
Answer.     1  believe  it  would. 

Question  by  Mr.   Clayton.     Have  you  ever  known  Thomas  Biddle  & 
Co.  to  receive  money  on  depositing  a  certificate  of  stock  in  the  cash  drawer? 
Answer.     1  have. 

Qne&ti<m  by  Mr.  Clayton.     Did  those  certificates  remain  there  as  cash? 
Answer.     They  did. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     How  were  they  afterwards  disposed  of? 
Answer.     By  deposites  of  cash;  the  certificates  being  subsequently  taken 
up  by  their  own  checks. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  know  whether  they  had  been  regu- 
larly discounted  by  the  Board? 

Answer.     I  do  not  know  whether  they  were  or  not. 
Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     By  whom  were  they  personally  deposited? 
Answer.     They  were  sent  to  me  by  t\\6  Second  Teller,  as  cash,  with 
other  cash. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Has  not  interest  been  charged  upon  them 
after  they  have  remained  there  longer  than  was  at  first  intended,  and  by 
whom? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  133 

Answer.  Interest  was  charged  for  the  time  they  remained  in  the 
drawee*.  The  interest  was  always  paid  to  me  when  the  certificates  were 
taken  up.  The  practice  was,  and  still  is,  to  credit  the  interest  to  exchange 
account.  Other  persons  have  received  similar  accommodations.  The 
Nevins's  for  instance,  on  a  deposite  of  specie. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Have  you  never  heard  Mr.  Andrews  and 
Mr.  Wilson  complain  that  they  had  difficulty  in  keeping  Thomas  Biddle 
&  Co's  accounts,  in  consequerjce  of  their  drawing  money  upon  these  cer- 
tificates without  having  them  regulaily  discounted? 

Answer.     I  have  no  recollection  that  1  have. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Is  it  the  practice  now  to  deposite  certificates 
of  stock  in  the  cash  drawer,  and  receive  money  therefrom  in  the  way  you 
have  mentioned? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  that  it  has  been  for  some  time;  perhaps  a 
year  or  two. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Has  there  been  any  order  from  the  Board  of 
Directors  to  cease  that  practice? 

Answer.     None  to  me,  nor  to  any  one  else,  to  my  knowledge. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  ever  give  an  order  to 
Mr.  Andrews,  or  Mr.  Wilson,  in  your  presence,  to  make  an  entry  in  the 
books  of  money  loaned  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  on  a  pledge  of  stock? 

Answer-     I  have  not  the  slightest  recollection  of  any  thing  of  the  kind. 

A  part  of  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Whitney  being  read,  as  follows: 

"  They  (Mr.  Andrews  and  Mr.  Wilson)  went  with  me  to  the  First  Tel- 
ler's drawer,  and  we  found  one  sum  of  g4 5,000,  dated  25th  of  May,  and 
one  for  S24,0U0,  dated  26th  of  May." 

Question  by  Mr  Adams.  Do  you  know  any  thing  of  the  fact  stated  by 
Mr.  Wliitney  in  the  above  extract? 

Answer.     I  have  not  the  slightest  recollection  of  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  come  with  Mr.  Andrews 
and  Mr.  Wilson  to  your  drawer,  and  examine  the  contents  of  the  same,  at 
any  time  in  the  year  1824? 

Answer.     I  have  no  recollection  of  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Was  you  on  the  27th  of  May,  1824,  at  your 
drawer,  during  banking  hours,  the  whole  time? 

Answer.     From  the  entries  on  my  book,  I  should  say  I  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Were  you  also  at  your  drawer  during  bank- 
ing hours  on  the  two  preceding  and  two  following  days? 

The  entries  on  my  book  being  made  by  myself  during  the  time  speci- 
fied, I  have  no  doubt  that  I  was.     I  am  very  seldom  absent 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Do  you  recollect  whether  any  certificates  of 
stock  were  deposited  by  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  one  for  5S45,000,  and  the 
otiier  for  S24,000,  on  or  about  the  24th  of  May,  1824,  in  the  First  Tel- 
ler's drawer? 

Answer.  I  have  no  recollection  of  those  particular  accounts,  or  any 
others. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     What  is  the  meaning  of  that  entry  in  the 
book  called  the  «  State  of  the  Bank,"  on  the  27th  May,  1824,  of  ^69,000, 
and  on  what  account  charged,  for  what  purpose,  and  what  does  it  consist  ■ 
of? 

Answer.     I  do  not  know,  as  it  does  not  come  under  my  notice. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.     Do  you  know  of  any  instance  of  deposites  of 


134  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

certificates  of  stock,  or  other  collateral  security,  thus  deposited  in  your 
drawer,  and  al'terwards  withdrawn,  without  payment  oF  interest? 

Answer.     I  liave  no  recollection  of  any  instance  of  the  kind. 

Question.  Examine  tiie  entries  under  the  line  "  bills  receivable,"  made 
in  tl»e  general  leger,  First  Teller's  check  book,  and  semi-weekly  state  of 
the  bank,  and  say  whether  Ihey  are  designed  for  a  memorandum  of  the 
amount  of  money  loaned  on  deposites  of  stock  in  the  Teller's  drawer? 

Answer.  The  entries  of  bills  receivable  are  not  designed  to  be  memo- 
randums of  the  amount  of  money  loaned  on  deposite  of  stock  in  the  Tel- 
ler's drawer. 

Question.  Do  not  all  those  entries  hear  date  subsequently  to  the  25th 
day  of  May,  \  824  ?     State  the  amount  and  date  of  each  entry  in  each  book. 

Answer.  The  entries  in  relation  to  bills  receivable,  bear  date  agreea- 
bly to  the  transcript  of  the  account  under  that  caption,  furnished  to  the 
Committee,  beginning  in  1822. 

Question.  You  have  stated  that  interest  vi^as  always  paid  upon  certifi- 
cates of  stock  deposited  in  the  cash  drawer  for  any  length  of  time,  and 
charged  to  the  credit  of  exchange  account.  Will  you  please  to  point  out 
any  such  charge  on  certificates  of  stock,  prior  to  24th  May,  1824. 

Answer.  The  following  arc  amounts  of  interest  charged  on  certificates 
of  stock,  or  other  securities,  represented  as  cash  in  the  Teller's  drawer: 


1823,  May  28th, 

interest 

on  L.  Clapier's  check 

f 

- 

S29   17 

June    5, 

it 

JNevins's  deposite, 

. 

- 

9  50 

19, 

a 

do.             •« 

. 

. 

5  67 

July  19, 

a 

do.             «« 

- 

. 

6  67 

182S,  July21, 

a 

do.             '<     S14,000, 

- 

11  67 

22, 

a 

do.  3  deposites, 

June  25, 

S5,000,  ■ 

) 

27, 

10,000 

[97  50 

July  2, 

10,000. 

J 

26, 

a 

do. 

- 

— 

4  83 

28, 

a 

do. 

. 

. 

10  S7 

Aug.    2, 

a 

do. 

June  24, 

S4,000 

39  00 

Sept.  6, 

6i 

do. 

- 

- 

90  67 

6, 

ii 

J.  G.  Stacey,     - 

- 

- 

27  78 

17, 

a 

•     C.  Biddle, 

. 

. 

63   33 

20, 

a 

Nevins, 

. 

— 

44  00 

Oct.    1, 

i< 

do. 

. 

. 

36  66 

3, 

a 

do. 

. 

• 

27  67 

7, 

a 

Biddle's, 

. 

• 

64  00 

11, 

a 

Nevins, 

- 

- 

14   16 

21, 

it 

do. 

. 

- 

28  93 

22, 

a 

do.  2  deposites, 

- 

- 

50  26 

Nov.  8, 

a 

Biddle's  deposite, 

- 

- 

10  67 

15, 

it 

do.           ** 

. 

« 

25  00 

Dec.    3, 

u 

Nevins's      *^ 

- 

- 

65  55 

1824,  March  12, 

it 

Biddle's,  14  days. 

on  S20.000, 

46  67 

May  12, 

a 

do.          5  days, 

on  gl2,000. 

16  00 

SUBSEq,UENT. 

1824,  May  29, 

interest 

on  Nevins's,  3  days,  on  S30,000 

- 

15  00 

1825,  July  26, 

ii 

Biddle's, 

• 

- 

10  92 

Aug.    9, 

a 

do. 

- 

- 

45  7S 

Nov.    2, 

a 

Nevins's, 

- 

- 

58  98 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  135 

All  the  above  were  cretlited  to  exchange  account,  with  one  exception, 
which  appears  to  have  gone  to  interest  account.  The  interest  on  loans 
made  on  bills  discounted,  is  passed  to  the  credit  of  an  account  called  '*  dis- 
counts received."  When  an  account  is  charged  on  the  Teller's  hooks,  it 
ceases  to  be  cash  in  the  drawer. 

Question.  Has  Mr.  Whitney,  to  your  knowledge,  had  access  to  any  of 
the  books  of  the  Bank,  since  he  left  it,  as  a  director,  at  the  close  of  the  year 
1824? 

Answer*     Not  to  my  recollection. 

Examination  of  Thomas  Biddle. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Did  you  ever  receive  interest  on  money 
deposited  in  this  Bank,  and,  if  you  did,  state  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  done? 

Answer.  In  1825,  I  think,  (my  books  will  show  the  date)  there  is  an 
entry  of  seven  hundred  and  thirty  odd  dollars  to  the  credit  of  our  interest 
account.  It  is  the  only  transaction  of  the  kind  that  I  recollect.  I  be- 
lieve in  that  year  I  was  selling  stocks,  five's  and  four  and  a  half  per  cents, 
but,  as  it  depends  on  memory,  I  am  not  exactly  certain  without  reference 
to  my  books,  by  order  of  the  Bank.  They  wished  to  protect  their* Ferdi- 
nands and  Caroluses,  the  Spanish  dollars  of  those  names,  as  tiie  state 
of  their  balances  was  not  as  strong  in  their  favor  with  the  city  banks  as 
they  wished.  That  was  a  year  of  very  extraordinary  pressure.  Mr. 
Baring's  phrases  on  the  subject  were  of  an  unexampled  character, 
and  the  contagion  of  them  diffused  itself  through  the  United  States. 
Large  sums  of  bills  were  retui*ned  protested  from  England.  It  was 
very  desirable,  on  that  account,  therefore,  to  be  strong  in  specie 
funds.  The  President  of  the  Bank  told  me  he  wished  to  strengthen  him- 
self immediately;  to  get  him  all  the  money  1  could,  and  bring  it  to  the 
Bank.  At  that  time  1  had  in  my  hands  large  resources,  received  from 
foj'eign  hands,  which  were  known  to  be  in  my  charge.  1  obtained  for  the 
Bank  considerably  upwards  of  Si 00,000,  but  I  am  not  precise  as  to  the 
sum.  The  account  now  in  Bank,  that  I  furnisiied,  will  show  it.  I  con- 
tinued adding  to  this  sum,  daily,  what  I  was  enabled  to  obtain.  The  ac- 
count was,  1  think,  settled  on  the  principle  of  allowing  interest  on  the 
balances  which  I  had  in  Bank.  1  do  not  think  the  interest  1  received  was 
an  adequate  comj)ensation  for  the  use  of  the  money,  or  equivalent  to  tlie 
uses  for  it,  which  presented  themselves  on  all  sides.  Mr.  Wilson  made 
some  little  objection,  or  rather  I  should  say  he  had  some  difficulty  in  know- 
ing to  what  to  charge  the  account  when  I  presented  it.  He  did  not  seem 
to  make  the  slightest  objection  to  its  propriety.  He  went  to  the  Presi- 
dent's room.  I  am  not  aware,  nor  did  I  ever  know,  what  passed  between 
him  and  the  President.  He  came  out  and  gave  his  entire  assent  to  it. 
My  transactions  with  the  Bank,  in  ordinary  cases,  are  done  with  t!ic 
Cashiers;  when  a  rule  is  once  established,  or  in  usage,  for  I  do  not  know 
when  it  becomes  a  rule,  we  apply  to  the  Cashiers;  and,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  the  whole  transaction  is  begun  and  concluded  with  them. 

Question  by  Mr.  Watmough.  Has  tho  President  of  the  Bank  ever 
given  you  any  information  toucliing  the  operations  of  the  Bank,  with  the 
view  to  enable  you  to  promote  your  own  interest  and  advance  his? 

Answer.     1  am  not  aware  of  receiving  any  information  of  a  private 


136  [  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

character,  which  I  could  turn  to  my  advantage,  or  to  his;  to  his,  certainly 
never. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adarns.  Have  you  been  for  many  years  a  broker  of 
large  and  extensive  operations  with  the  city  banks,  as  well  as  with  this 
Bank?     Give  a  general  view  of  the  extent  of  your  operations. 

Answer.  In  the  year  1791, 1  became  familiar  with  business,  under  my 
father,  the  late  Colonel  Clement  Biddle.  During  the  heavy  sales  of  stock 
in  1792,  for  a  respectable  merchant  of  New  York,  afterwards  a  Director 
of  the  Manhattan  Company,  my  father  deposited,  through  me,  upwards 
of  81,200,000  in  the  old  Bank  of  the  United  States.  In  after  years  I 
must  have  had,  I  think,  ten  transactions,  of  a  million  of  dollars  each,  in 
a  day.  In  the  sixteen  million  loan  we  took,  under  the  late  David  Parish, 
upwards  of  two  millions,  and  paid  in  upwards  of  one  million  on  the  first 
instalment,  into  Girard's  bank.  Of  Mr.  Dallas's  loan,  in  1815,  we  paid 
in,  under  the  authority  of  a  letter  to  Richard  Bache,  §1,500,000  to  the 
Bank  of  Pennsylvania.  We  have  had  authority  from  Europe  to  subscribe 
for  as  much  as  two  millions  of  a  loan,  the  specie  to  be  sent  if  necessary. 
We  have  taken  of  the  Ohio  loan,  in  our  own  name,  and  under  others  in 
New  York,  a  respectable  amount;  [of  almost  all  the  Pennsylvania  State 
loans,  under  and  in  conjunction  with  the  banks,  very  largely,  to  the  extent 
of  several  millions.  We  offered,  in  conjunction  with  Prime,  Ward,jKing, 
and  Co.,  and  Charles  King,  of  New  York,  for  the  five  per  cent,  loan  of 
1821,  for  five  millions  against  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  to  Mr.  Craw- 
ford, then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  There  appear  upon  the  books  of  the  Bank^ 
entries  of  two  sums,  viz:  845,000  on  the  25th  of  May,  1824,  and  g24,000 
about  the  same  time,  which  appear  to  have  been  drawn  from  the  Bank; 
will  you  state  the  manner  and  terms  upon  which  you  obtained  these  sums 
from  the  Bankf 

Answer.  They  were  obtained  on  deposites  of  stock.  That  of  May  19, 
(this  is  the  date  on  my  books)  on  a  deposite,  as  it  apj)ears  from  my  books,  of 
g 1 2, 000,  United  States' seven  p«r  cents,  and  §6,000  six  and  a  half  per 
cents,  which  was  paid  on  the  2d  of  June,  with  an  addition  of  g45  interest. 
I  find  that  the  Bank  charged  me  with  interest  for  the  fiist  and  last  days, 
inclusive.  On  the  24th  of  May  there  appears,  to  have  been  a  deposite  of 
827,000,  six  per  cents  of  1813,  which  was  paid  4th  of  June,  with  an 
addition  of  854  interest,  I  do  not  believe,  from  the  practice  of  business, 
that  the  President  of  the  Bank  knew  any  thing  about  this,  but  that  the 
transaction  was  altogether  with  Mr.  Wilson.  On  the  26th  of  May,  there 
were  borrowed  824,000  on  a  deposite  of  824,000,  six  per  cents  of  1815. 
It  was  paid  on  7th  June,  with  852  interest.  This  explanation  is  derived 
from  my  books,  the  entries  from  which  I  annex. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  (Mr,  Whitney^s  evidence  having  been  read 
to  the  witness.)  Were  you,  at  the  time  referred  to,  or  at  any  other  time, 
in  the  habit  of  getting  money  from  the  Bank,  and  leaving  certificates  of 
stock  in  the  First  Teller's  drawer,  without  paying  interest? 

Answer.  I  am  not  aware  of  ever  having  had  any  transactions  with  the 
First  Teller  in  any  shape  or  manner.  It  was  not  my  habit  of  doing  busi- 
ness. Nor  am  I  aware  that  any  of  the  members  of  my  house,  or  any  of 
my  clerks,  ever  had  transactions  with  the  First  Teller.  I  am  not  aware 
of  ever  having  had  any  money  without  paying  interest. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.   Were  you  ever  in  the  hauit  of  getting  discounts 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  137 

from  the  President,  which  were  put  down  as  having  been  done  on  the  pre*- 
vious  discount  day,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Whitney? 

Answer.  !Never.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  the  President  or  Cashier 
would  have  suffered  such  a  tiling,  and  they  were  the  only  officers  with 
whom  I  had  intercourse.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  any  body  in  my  employ- 
ment has  done  any  thing  of  the  kind. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Did  your  house  obtain  from  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  money  on  the  deposite  of  certificates  of  stock  at  any  time 
in  the  years  1823  and  1824,  prior  to  the  19th  of  May,  1824? 

Answer.  Yes.  It  is  so  stated  in  the  extract  I  have  furnished  from  my 
books.  There  is  an  item  there  dated  28th  of  February,  1824.  I  cannot 
recollect  as  to  1823,  without  reference  to  my  books. 


Thomas  and  John  G,  Biddle^s  Bill  for  Interest, 
1825— Oct.  8,  To  cash,  g  100,000  to  Nov.  19,  is  42  days, 

at  6  per  cent,  is   -  -       g700  00 

Nov.  19,  off  33,000  to  Nov.  21. 


g67, 000  to  Nov.  21,  is  2  days, 

at  6  per  cent,  is  -  -  22  33 

Nov.  21,  off  17,000 


50,000  to  Nov.  23,  is  2  days, 

at  6  per  cent,  is  -  -            16  67 

Nov.  23,  off  50,000  

S739  00 


Received  payment, 


THOS.  and  JOHN  G.  BIDDLE, 
FOR  E.  R.  BIDDLE. 


Entries  in  T.  Biddle's  books, 
Feb.   28,  1824— Cash  received  of  T.   Wilson,  Cashier,        g20,000  00 

(S26,000,  U.  S.  3's  transferred  as  collateral.) 
May     5 — Cash  of  ditto,  -  .  .  -  12,000  00 

(S12,000,  U.  S.  7's  transferred  as  ditto.) 
19 — Cash  of  ditto,  .  -  .  .  18,000  00 

(S12,000,  U.  S.  7's  and  6,000  6's  transferred.) 
24_Cash  of  ditto,  -  .  .  -  27,000  00 

(S27,000,  6's  of  1813,  transferred.) 
26 — Cash  of  ditto,  -  -  -  .  24,000  00 

(S24,000,  6's  of  18 15,  transferred.) 
27 — Cash  of  ditto,  -  -  -  .        '   i8,000  00 

(SI 8,000,  6's  of  1815,  transferred.) 
28 — Cash  of  ditto,  .  -  -  -  12,000  00 

(Sl2,000,  6's  of  1814,  transferred.) 
31 — Cash  of  ditto,  -  -  -  ,  20,000  00 

(S20,000,  6's  of  1813  and  1814,  transferred. 

Sl51,000  00 
18  - 


138  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

1824. 


Marci 

1  12 — 1> 

ash  pu.  i 

3ank  U. 

S.  S20,000 

and  ii 

it.  g46  6r  820,046  67 

May 

12, 

do 

do 

12,000 

do 

16  00    12,016  00 

June 

2, 

do 

do 

18,000 

do 

45  00    18,045  00 

4, 

do 

do 

27,000 

do 

54  00    27,054  00 

7, 

do 

do 

24,000 

do 

52  00    24,052  00 

12, 

do 

do 

12,000 

do 

32  00    12,032  00 

14, 

do 

do 

20,000 

do 

50  00    20,050  00 

^r 

do 

do 

18,000 

do 

30  00    18,030  00 

Sl51,000 

g325  67  interest 

Average  12  days'  interest. 
The  above  extracted  from  books. 

THOS.  BIDDLE  &  Co. 


Re-examination  of  Reuben  M,  Whitney. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  In  what  place  in  Canada  did  you  reside 
during  the  war? 

Answer.  In  Montreal.  I  went  to  Canada  as  a  clerk.  I  afterwards 
became  engaged  in  business  on  my  own  account.  When  the  war  broke 
out,  I  had  a  great  deal  of  money  scattered  about  in  that  countrv,  having 
sold  much  on  credit,  all  which  I  should  have  sacrificed  by  leaving  it  wl^ri 
war  was  declared.  I  remained,  therefore,  having  the  permission  of  the 
British  Government  to  do  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  ever  ask  permission  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  to  remain  there? 

Answer.     I  never  did. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  On  what  conditions  did  the  British  Govern- 
ment permit  you  to  remain  in  Canada  during  the  war? 

Answer.  1  took  an  oath  to  observe  tlic  laws  of  the  country  while  I  re- 
mained there. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  understand  that  to  be  an  oath  of 
allegiance? 

Answer.     No.     I  did  not,  permanently. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  consider  yourself  as  having  fully 
disciiarged  your  duty  as  a  Director  by  the  private  communication  you  say 
you  made  to  the  President,  without  communicating  it  to  the  Board  of 
Directors? 

Answer,     I  cannot  say  whether  I  took  that  view  of  it  at  the  time. 

Examination  of  John  Andrews,  First  Msistant  Cashier. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  How  long,  and  in  what  relation,  have  you 
been  associated  with  Mr;  Biddle,  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of 
the  Bank? 

Answer.  I  have  been  in  the  Institution  since  its  foundation.  I  was  ap- 
pointed Assistant  Cashier  towards  the  close  of  1821. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDullie.     It  appears  from  the  books  that  very  large 


f  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  139 

loans  have  been  made  "to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  particularly  in  18S1;  will 
you  state  whether  you  have  ever  known  the  present  presiding  officer  of 
this  institution  to  manifest,  on  any  occasion,  a  disposition  to  grant  favors  to 
tiie  liouse  of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  or  to  extend  to  them  any  facilities 
not  conducive  to  the  interest  of  the  Bank?  State  fully  what  you  know  on 
this  subject. 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  that  in  any  instance  he  has  manifested  a 
disposition  to  favor  that  house. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  ever  known  the  President  to  mani- 
fest any  partiality,  or  evince  a  disposition  to  grant  a  special  favor  to  any 
one  of  his  relatives  or  connexions? 

Answer.     !No. 

Examination  of  Joshua  Lippincott. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Have  you  ever  served  on  a  Committee  of 
the  Bank  Directors  with  Mr.  Whitney? 

Answer.     Yes.     In  1 824,  on  the  Committee  on  the  State  of  the  Bank. 

Question  hy  Mr.  McDuffie.  Did  you  ever  hear  Mr.  Whitney  speak  of 
any  improper  transactions  in  the  Bank? 

Answer.  No.  In  January,  1824,  Mr.  Whitney,  myself,  and  some  other 
of  the  Directors,  made  a  full  examination  of  the  aflTairs  of  the  Bank  in  rela- 
tion to  many  particulars;  and  among  others,  the  advances  on  security  of 
stocks.  We  found  evevy  thing  perfectly  right,  and  corresponding  witli  the 
general  ledger  of  the  Institution,  which  Mr.  Whitney  and  myself  particu- 
larly examined.  I  am  under  the  impression  1  made  a  similar  examination 
in  July,  but  do  not  find  the  documents.  The  documents  of  the  January 
examination  1  have  seen. 

Question.by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Did  you  ever  converse  with  Mr.  Whitney 
on  the  general  transactions  of  the  Bank,  and  of  the  manner  in  whicli  Mr. 
Biddle  had  discharged  his  duties  as  President,  during  the  time  Mr.  Wliit- 
ney  was  a  Diiector,  or  since  he  left  the  Bank?  If  you  did,  state  what  he 
said  on  tlie  subject. 

Answer.  1  iiave  frequently  had  such  conversations  with  Mr.  Whitney, 
both  while  we  were  Directors,  and  since,  at  none  of  which  has  Mr.  Win't- 
ney  ever  hinted  at  any  thing  like  impropriety  of  conduct  in  the  Bank. 
Mr.  Whitney  always  spoke  in  very  higii  terms  of  Mr.  Biddle,  both  as  an 
individual,  and  in  relation  to  his  management  of  the  Bank. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Was  Mr.  Whitney  an  active  and  vigilant 
member  of  tiie  Board? 

Answer.  Yes.  Mr.  Wliitney  and  myself  sate  next  generally  to  the  Pre- 
sident, at  the  Board,  and  holding  the  notes  in  our  hands,  examined  them 
as  the  President  read  them  from  the  book,  and  generally  either  ap|)roved 
or  disapproved  of  their  being  discounted.  Our  decision  was  regarded  as 
conclusive,  unless  other  members  of  the  Board  objected.  The  Cashier 
always  sate  between  the  President  and  ourselves. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Was  he  entrusted  solely  with  the  sale  of  a 
large  amount  of  forfeited  stock  in  New  York? 

Answer.     I  do  not  know  any  thing  of  such  a  transaction. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.     Is  any  individual,  except  the  officers  of 
Bank,  permitted  to  insj)ect  the  books  of  the  Bank? 

Answer.    Not  that  I  know  of.     When  I  Arst  heard  of  Mr.  Whitney's 


140  I  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

statement,  made  before  the  committee,  it  struck  me  from  that  \ery  circum 
stance  it  could  not  be  correct.  I  never  knew  any  Director  examine  any  o 
the  books  of  the  clerks  or  cashiers,  except  when  the  inspection  is  mad 
semi-annually,  in  January  and  July,  by  a  committee  of  the  Board,  o 
under  some  special  resolution  from  the  Board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Watmough.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  practic 
you  have  mentioned  of  Mr.  Whitney's  sitting  near  the  President  at  th 
Board,  arose  from  any  peculiar  confidence  in  Whitney,  or  from  the  accl 
dent  of  his  position  at  the  Board? 

Answer.  Mr.  Whitney  had  no  higher  standing  at  the  Board  than  th» 
other  Directors;  but  owing  to  his  extensive  business,  he  was  looked  to  a.' 
being  well  acquainted  with  the  standing  of  individuals.  He  took  a  verj 
active  part  in  the  business  of  the  Ba.nk. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.     Has  Mr.  Whitney  since  failed? 

Mr.  Thomas  objected  to  the  question,  because  such  a  question  neces- 
sarily will  lead  to  collateral  inquiries,  which  will  greatly  consume  the 
time  of  the  Committee,  and  add  to  the  expense  of  its  proceedings;  because, 
if  the  conimittee  receive  the  testimony,  showing  the  solvency  or  iiisolven- 
cy  of  a  wilnes»,  as  a  mode  of  disparaging  or  enhancing  testimony,  the 
Committee  will  be  pledged  to  hear  and  examine  any  testimony  the  witness 
may  produce,  to  show  that  his  pecuniary  embarrassments,  if  they  exist 
were  the  result  of  misfortune. 

The  Ayes  and  Noes  being  called,  whether  the  question  proposed  by 
Mr.  Adams  should  be  put  to  the  witness — 

Ayes.— Messrs.  Adams,  Cambreleng,  Johnson,  Watmough. — i. 
Nobs,— Messrs.  Clayton,  McDuffie,  Thomas.— 3. 

So  the  question  was  put. 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  you  conceive  it  to  be  your  right,  as  a  Di- 
rector, to  make  any  entries  on  the  books? 

Answer.  No.  I  never  considered  it  my  right  as  a  Director  to  cxam- 
ne  the  books,  unless  authoi'ized  by  the  Board.  I  should  think  the  Clerks 
would  regard  it  as  an  interference  with  their  duties. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  If,  when  you  were  a  Director,  any  of  the 
officers  of  the  Bank  had  asked  your  opinion  or  advice  about  any  difficulty 
which  might  arise  in  the  course  of  their  business,  would  you  feel  unau- 
thorized to  give  them  your  opinion  or  advice? 

Answer.  No;  but  the  opinion  would  be  of  little  value,  unless  sanctioned 
hy  the  Board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Would  you  feel  authorized  to  look  into  a 
book,  or  into  the  Teller's  drawer,  if  requested  to  do  so  by  the  Clerks? 

Answer.  I  should  feel  authorized  to  look  into  a  book  or  drawer,  if 
asked  to  do  so  by  a  Clerk. 

Examination  of  Wilson  Hunt. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  ever  communicate  any 
thing  to  you  relati\e  to  any  transactions  in  the  bank  in  which  T.  Biddic, 
or  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  were  concerned  ?  If  yea,  statb  what  it  was,  and  when 
it  occurred. 

Ansver.  Some  years  since  Mr.  Whitney  called  at  my  counting  house 
and  showed  me  a  paper  containing  a  »nemorandum  of  some  loans,  which  he 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  J  141 

said  had  been  made  to  Mr.  T.  Biddle,  on  stock.  I  considered  the  commu- 
nication as  confidential.  It  was  so  understood  at  the  time  between  us,  and 
1  have  never  mentioned  it  since.  1  shouhl  add,  that  he  said  these  loans 
were  made  by  the  President,  without  tlie  knowledge  of  the  board.  It 
was  not  less  than  five  years  ago.  Mr.  Whitney  was  a  Director  at  the 
time.     It  was  before  his  misfortunes  in  business. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  state  to  you  that  these 
loans  were  made  to  T.  Biddle  witimut  interest  ? 

Answer.  No.  I  am  sure  he  did  not  say  they  were  made  without  in- 
terest. I  thought  the  charge  serious  enough  at  the  time,  and  think  that,  if 
he  had  said  the  loans  were  without  interest,  it  would  have  made  a  strong 
imjnession  on  my  mind. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  say  any  thing  about  these 
loans  not  bt-ing  on  the  books,  and  that  he  had  ordered  them  on  the  books  ? 

Answer.  1  think  he  said  they  were  not  on  the  books;  but  I  do  not  re- 
member his  saying  he  had  ordered  them  on  the  books. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  give  any  reason  at  the  time 
for  making  this  communication  to  you  ? 

Answer.  I  think  he  said  Mr.  Wilson,  or  some  other  officer  of  the 
Bank,  had  consulted  him  about  the  propriety  of  this  sort  of  loans. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Did  Mr.  Whitney  say  he  had  any  object  in 
communicating  tiiis  to  you  ? 

Answer.  1  don't  recollect  his  doing  so.  I  considered  Mr.  Whitney, 
at  the  time,  as  not  friendly  to  the  President,  Mr.  Biddle.  This  was  my 
impression,  founded  on  communications  made  to  me  by  Mr.  Whitney, 
relative  to  transactions  in  tlie  Bank. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Had  Mr.  Whitney  made  any  previous  com^ 
munication  to  you,  on  which  you  founded  this  opinion  ? 

Answer.  He  had  mentioned  some  other  circumstances,  discounts,  and 
other  things,  which  lie  disapproved  of.  He  thought  Mr.  N.  Biddle  had 
assumed  too  much  influence  in  the  Bank. 

Answer  of  JV.  Biddle  to  the  testimony  of  R.  M.  Whitney. 

'*  When,  on  the  10th  instant,  I  declared  to  the  committee  that  the  whole 
evidence  of  R.  M.  Whitney,  so  far  as  it  related  to  me  personally,  was  to- 
tally and  absolutely  false,  I  relied  on  the  consciousness  of  my  own  integ- 
rity, satisfied  that  I  was  wholly  ignorant  of  the  transactions  themselves, 
in  which  this  imaginary  conversation  was  founded,  and  that  no  such  con- 
versation had  ever  taken  place.  My  own  situation,  the  committee  will 
readily  perceive,  is,  in  this  respect,  very  peculiar.  From  day  to  day, 
and  from  year  to  year,  1  am  in  the  habit  of  receiving,  officially,  crowds 
of  persons,  who  remain  with  me  for  a  few  minutes,  and  who  are  immedi- 
ately succeeded  by  others,  presenting  subjects  of  a  different  kind,  and 
each  effacing,  to  a  certain  degree,  the  business  of  his  predecessor.  When, 
therf fore,  a  person  swears,  tijat,  on  a  certain  day,  nearly  eiglit  years 
ago,  he  came  into  my  room,  when  I  was  alone,  and  said  something  tome, 
to  which  I  answered  a  few  words,  and  he  then  left  me,  it  is  difficult,  in 
ordinary  occasions,  and  iy  matters  of  indifference,  to  contradict  such  a 
casual  visiter.  But  where,  as  in  the  present  instance,  the  witness  imputes 
to  me  conduct  wholly  inconsistent  with  my  character;  and,  when  the  in- 
dividual represents  himself  to  have  spoken  to  me  in  a  strain  entirely  dif- 


142  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

ferent  from  the  uniform  tone  of  his  constant  demeanor  during  all  our  inter- 
course, such  a  transaction,  liovvcvcr  short  the  time  it  occupied,  could  not 
fail  to  have  made  a  lasting  impression  upon  me.  I  did  not  hesitate,  there- 
fore, to  ihuy  t!ie  \vhoh%  in  tlie  most  une(|uivocal  manner. 

I'iic  other  persons  whom  lie  named,  on  the  occasion,  Ijave  since.  I  un- 
derstand, contradicted  hin^.  decidedly  on  all  that  relates  to  tliem  respec- 
tively. By  a  fortunate  accident,  I  am  now  enahled  to  prove,  in  the  clear- 
est manner,  to  the  committee,  that  the  occurrence  to  which  R.  M.  Whit- 
ney has  sworn  with  so  much  hardihood,  was  not  merely  improhahle,  but 
actually  impossible.  After  the  adjournment  oftiie  committee  yestej'day, 
on  examining  the  minutes  of  the  Bank  for  anoihor  j)urpose,  I  casually  saw 
a  passage  whicii  furnished  the  means  of  convictitjg  the  witness  of  being 
guilty  of  a  deliberate  violation  of  truth. 

It  will  be  recollected  that  R.  M.  Whitney  swore  that,  on  a  given  day,  in 
the  mofith  of  May,  1824,  the  Cashier  and  Assistant  Cashier  complaisied 
to  him  of  certain  loans,  without  interest,  made  by  me  to  Thomas  and  J. 
G.  Biddle;  tiiat  he  went  to  the  First  reller's  drawer,  and  lound  there  two 
certificates,  one  for  S24,000.  nnd  one  for  S45,000,  dated,  respectively,  the 
2oth  and  26tli  of  May,  which  he  immediately  directed  tiiem  to  put  on  the 
boo';s  of  the  bank;  and  that  they  were  accordingly  so  placed  upon  the 
books  on  the  27th  of  May:  and  he  triumphantly  exhibited  this  enti-y  of  tlie 
27th  of  May,  of  §69- 000,  as  being  the  aggregate  of  the  two  sums  of 
S24,000,  and  S45,000,  whir.ii  he  had  thus  withdrawn  from' their  secre,t 
place  in  tiie  First  Teller's  drawer,  and  placed  on  tlie  books.  It  was  imme- 
diately after  he  had  given  this  order  to  tl»e  Casliiers,  that  he  re])resents 
himself  as  coming  into  my  room,  relating  his  discoveries,  and  expressing 
his  hope  that,  as  long  as  he  was  a  director,  such  a  thing  should  never  take 
place  again,  on  which,  not  denying  that  it  had  been  done  by  my  order,  I 
promised  that  it  should  not  he  done  again.  Now  the  dates  of  this  story 
are  its  essence.  The  certificates,  according  to  a  memorandum  made,  he 
says,  at  the  time,  and  produced  to  the  committee,  were  dated  on  the  25ti! 
and  26th  of  May;  of  course  the  loans  would  not  have  been  made  before 
the  25tli  of  May;  and  tije  entries  of  them  are  on  the  27th  of  May.  Of 
course  the  alleged  conversation  with  me  could  not  have  been  after  t!iat 
day.  He  is,  therefore,  according  to  his  r.wn  stoiw,  enclosed  between 
these  two  dates,  beyond  which  he  cannot  escape,  and  according  to  his  owii 
exhibition  of  dates,  the  conversation  with  me,  if  it  took  place  at  all,  must 
have  been  between  the  2nth  and  the  27th  of  May;  that  is,  on  the  26tli  of 
May,  the  only  interval  between  the  date  of  the  last  certificate,  and  the 
27th,  the  day  of  their  appearance  on  the  books. 

Now  I  am  about  to  prove  to  the  committee,  that,  on  the  very  day  when 
R.  M.  Whitney  swears  that  he  conversed  with  me  in  this  room  at  Phila- 
delphia, where  wc  are  now  sitting — for  many  days  before  tljat  day,  and 
for  many  days  after  that  day — I  was  aduaUy  in  the  Citij  of  fFashingfon. 
Tiie  first  evidence  is,  tiie  original  minutes  of  the  Bank,  by  which  it  will  be 
seen,  tiiat.  from  the  22d  day  of  May,  to  the  1st  of  June,  I  was  absent 
from  the  Bank,  and  tiiat  R.  M.  Whitney  himself  attended  the  meetings  of 
the  Board,  when  the  fact  of  my  absence  was  recorded.  The  extract  from 
the  minutes  is  as  follows  :  • 


£  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  143 

Extract  from  the  Minutes. 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  May  2^,  1824. 
Tlie  Board  met  agreeably  to  adjourninent. 
Present:  Thomas  Cadwalader,  i^resideiit  pro  tern, 

Messrs.   l}u{)ont,  Messrs.   Willing, 

Eyre,  Clapier, 

Bohlen.  Becli, 

IFhitney,  Bi-own, 

Lippincott,  Evans. 

The  Cashier  read  lo  tlie  Board  the  following  letter,  from  the  President 
of  the  Bank,  to  Thomas  Cadwalader,  Esq.  which  was  ordered  to  be  plac- 
ed on  tlie  minutes,  viz: 

Bank  OF  the  United  States,  May  22,  1824, 

Sir:  Being  about  to  visit  Washington,  on  the  business  of  the  Bank,  I 
hereby  depute  you  to  act  as  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
until  my  r€turji.     I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Yevy  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President, 
TnoMAS  Cadwalader,  Esq.  Philadelphia. 

Whereupon,  Mr.  Cadwalader  took  the  chair. 

A  letter  from  Mr.  Clay,  dated  the  2 1st  instant,  to  the  President  of  the 
Bank,  was  read,  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Ollices. 

A  letter  from  Ezekiel  Whitman  to  the  President  of  the  Bank,  dated  the 
22d  instant,  and  sundry  documents  in   relation  to  the  establisliment  of  an 
ottirc  of  discount  and  deposite,  at  Portland,  Maine,  were  read,  and  referred 
to  the  Committee  on  the  Oii)ces. 
Adjourned. 


Bank  of  the  United  States,  May  28,  1824. 

The  Board  met  agreeably  to  adjoui'nment. 

Present:  Thomas  Cadwalader,  President  pro  tem. 

Messrs.  Eyre,  Messrs.  Henry, 

Bohlen,  Clapier, 

Coxe,  Beck, 

Whitney,  Brown, 

Li{)pincott,  Willing. 

EvanvS, 

The  discount  business  being  adjusted,  the  Board  adjourned. 

Bank  oT  the  United  States,  June  1,  1824. 
'I'!;e  ]?oard  rnct  agreeably  to  adjournment. 
Present:  Nicholas  Biddie,  President, 

Messrs.  Eyre.  Messrs.  Henry, 

I*ohlen,  Clapier, 

Coxe,  Beck, 

Whitney  f  Brown, 

Cadwalader,  Evans. 


Adjourned, 


Willing  , 


144  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

The  fvccasion,  and  the  duration  of  my  visit,  I  will  now  explain.  It  was 
to  negotiate  with  the  Government  for  the  loan  of  five  millions  of  dollars, 
for  the  })ayinent  of  the  awards  under  the  Florida  treaty.  On  that  subject 
1  received  from  tlie  Honorable  James  Lloyd,  of  the  Senate,  a  letter,  of 
whicli  the  following  is  an  extract,  dated  May  20,  1824,  and  received  May 
22,    1824: 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  the  Honorable  James  Lloyd  to  jV.  Biddle,  Esquire, 
Fr evident  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  dated 

Washington,  May  20,  1824. 

Dear  Sir:  The  bill  authorizing  a  loan  for  five  millions  of  dollars,  to 
provide  for  the  awards  under  the  Florida  Treaty,  this  day  passed  to  its 
third  reading  in  the  Senate,  under  so  decisive  a  vote  as  to  leave  on  my 
mind  no  doubt  as  to  its  final  passage  on  the  morrow.  Its  warmest  friends, 
thinkijig  it  expedient  to  reserve  their  support,  did  not  find  it  called  for, 
and  were  willing  to  leave  the  merits  of  its  passage  to  others.  Lest  it  should 
have  sustained  some  alteration,  since  I  sent  you  a  copy  of  the  bill,  1  en- 
close another,  in  the  shape  in  which  it  will  become  a  law. 

The  combined  interest  and  ability  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  be- 
ing such,  in  my  opinion,  as  to  distance  all  competition,  1  otfer  you  with 
pleasure  any  services  it  may  be  in  my  power  to  render,  towards  carrying 
into  effect  the  wishes  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  in  the  attainment  of  the  loan,  it  being  my  intention  not  to  return 
eastward  from  hence,  prior  to  the  10th  of  the  ensuing  month. 

In  this  case,  specific   directions,  as  precise  as  you  may  think  proper, 
W'ould  be  desirable;  and  the  sooner  an  arrangement  may  be  offered  to,  or  ef- 
fected with,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  the  more  advantageous  it  probably 
would  be. 

In  the  payments,  assignments  on  the  branches  at  New  York,  Providence, 
and  Boston,  especially  the  latter,  would  be  acceptable  to  the  claimants, 
under  the  treaty,  resident  there,  and  might,  ])erhaps,  afford  a  convenience 
to  the  Bank.  They  miglit  be  issued,  under  the  orders  of  the  Secretary,  at 
Philadelphia,  in  such  mode  as  may  hereafter  be  prescribed. 

To  this  I  immediately  answered  as  follows:  "» 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  .^an/  22,  1824. 
Dear  Sir:  I  have  just  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  your  letter,  which 
leaves  no  reason  to  doubt  the  final   passage  of  the  Florida   Loan  Bill 
Aw^are  of  the  advantage  of  acting  promptly  on  this  subject,  all  our  arrange 
ments  have  been  prepared  for  mme.  time;  and  I  have  waited  only  for  some     ' 
decisive  indication  of  the  temper  of  the  Senate  in  order  to  make  immedi- 
ate proposals  to  the  Secretary.     /  shall  accordingly  leave  this  place,  for 
Washington,  to  morrow,  and  as  I  shall  go  \)y  the  same  conveyance  wliich 
carries  this  note,  will  probably  arrive  there  before  this  reaches  you.     I 
shall  then  have  the  pleasure  of  thanking  you  in  person  for  yoiir  attentio.n, 
and  of  assuring  you  how  respectfully,  and  sincerely, 

I  am  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President, 
Hon.  James  Llotd,  Washington,  D,  C,  . 


[  Kep.  No.  4«u.  J  145 

I  also  wrote,  on  tlic  same  day,  to  the  honora^'le  R.  M.  Johnson,  as  fol- 
lows; 

Banfov  the  United  States,  May  22,  1824. 

Dear  Sir:  I  sha7,"  if  no  accident  happens  to  nie,  be  in  Washington  be- 
fore you  receive  h\s;  and  sliall  he  glad  to  see  you  and  your  hrother  at  Wil- 
liamson's Hoti. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDL?;,  President 
flonorahle  R.  M.  Johnson,   Washington^  D.  C, 

On  the  Q6th  day  of  May,  the  contract  for  the  five  million  loan  vvas 
made  hetween  the  President  of  the  United  States — the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  ht'ing  too  ill  to  transact  husiness — and  myself,  according  to  the 
original  document  now  suhmitted  to  the  committee,  in  the  following  words: 

Washington,  May  26,   1824. 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  offer,  on  the  part  of  tlie  liank  of  the  United 
States,  to  purchase  the  Stock  to  the  amount  of  five  millions  of  dollars, 
which  you  are  authorised  to  issue  by  the  act  of  Congress,  to  provide  for 
the  awards  of  the  Commissioners  under  the  Treaty  with  Spain.  The 
rate  of  purchase  to  be,  one  hundred  dollars  in  money  for  exevy  one  hun- 
dred dollars  of  stock;  bearing  an  interest  of  four  and  a  half  per  cent,  per 
annum,  payable  quarter  yearly.  The  money  to  be  placed  to  tlie  credit  of 
the  United  States,  at  the  Bank  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  eighth  day  of  Juno 
next,  and  the  stock  to  bear  interest  from  that  day. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.   BIDDLE, 
President  Bank  U,  8. 
Hon.  WiLxiAM  H.  Crawford, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury y  Washington, 

The  proposition  made  by  Nicholas  Biddle,  President  of  t!»e  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  is  accepted. 

JAxMES  MONROE. 

i 

On  the  same  day  I  wrote  the  following  letter  to  the  President,  pro  tem- 
pore, of  the  Bank. 

Washington,  Wednesday  evenings  May  26,   1824. 

My  Dear  Sir:  On  my  arrival  here,  I  found  Mr.  Crawford  extremely 
ill,  in  coasequence  of  a  relapse,  and  he  has  since  continued  incapable  of  at- 
tending to  business.  I  have  therefore  endoavored  to  transfer  the  negoti- 
ation to  the  President  himself;  which  has  been  accordingly  uone,.  and  1  have 
to  day  made  some  progress  in  it.  But  as  this  is  the  last  day  of  the  Ses- 
sion of  Congress,  he  has  been  very  much  occupied,  and  has  passed  the 
whole  evening  with  his  Secretaries  at  the  Capitol,  im  m^hv  to  facilitate 
the  passage  of  bills.  The  business  is  now  in  such  a  state,  as  to  require  my 
personal  attention,  and  1  feel  it  my  duty  to  remain,,  until  it  is  finally  set- 
tled, although  the  delay  is  exceedingly  disagreeabk  to  me  personally*  Yoa 
19 


146  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

will  be  informed  to-raorri>v  of  its  j)rogrcss.     In  tlic  mean  time,  !iave  tke 
goodness  to  explain  to  our  cole!\2;ucs,  the  reason  of  my  being  obliged  to 
remain  longer  tlian  I  bad  anticipates, '•.»?.d  present  my  respects  to  tbem. 
Very  sincerely,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE. 
General  Cadwallader. 

The  next  day  I  wrote  to  him  the  following  letter; 

Washington,  May  27,  1824. 
Half  after  10  in  the  evening. 

My  Dear  Sir:  I  am  busily  engaged  in  preparing  to  leave  this  place 
4n  the  morning:  but  lest  I  should  be  detained  another  day,  1  write  to  i?i- 
form  you,  that  1  have  contracted  for  the  vvhole  loan  of  five  millions,  at 
par,  payable  on  the  8th,  and  drawing  interest  from  that  date.  The  other 
loan  not  being  wanted  until  January  next,.  1  have  of  course  not  done  any 
thing  in  relation  to  it;  the  state  of  Mr.  Crawfoi-d's  health  rendering  it 
proper  not  to  engage  in  any  operatiotjs  of  magnitude,  not  indispensably 
necessary. 

In  haste,  very  trulv,  vours, 

N.  BIDDLE. 

General  Cadwaladee,  Philadelphia, 

Tiie  contract  for  the  loan  being  concluded,  I  thouglit  it  proper  to  write 
to  tlie  President,  and  state,  tiiat,  as  the  negotiation  had  been  made  vviih- 
out  the  benefit  of  tlie  assistance  of  t!je  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  at 
a  time  when  he  was  mucii  pressed  by  otiier  concei-ns,  if,  orj  the  recovery 
of  the  Secretary  of  tiic  Treasui*y,  lie  thought  terms  more  advantageous  to 
the  Government  might  have  been  obtained,  the  whole  contract  sliould  bo 
subject  to  revision.  Accordingly,  1  addressed  to  him  the  following  let- 
ter, dated  May  28,    J  824: 

Washington,  May  28,  1824. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  the  honor  of  ejiclosing  to  you  the  documents  wliich 
you  were  desirous  of  possessing,  in  relation  to  tiie  loan,  and  1  deem  it  pro- 
per to  accompany  them  with  a  few  words  of  explanation. 

These  papers  will  prove,  1  think,  in  the  most  satisfactory  mannei',  that 
no  ai'rangement  so  advantageous  to  the  Governinent,  as  tliat  proposed  by 
the  Bank,  eould  have  been  offered.  The  details  of  that  arrangement  I  en- 
deavored, ill  owr  interview,  to  present  to  you  in  tiie  most  distinct  manner, 
and  invited  your  pai-ticular  attenti(m  to  the  points  most  nraterial  in  the 
transaction,  which  were:  Whether  the  Govei-nnient  wius,  by  the  treaty  with 
Spain,  bound  in  good  faith  to  pay  the  cla.'mants  immediately  on  the  expira- 
tion of  the  commission:  Whether  there  was  any  obligation,  or  would  beany 
advantage,'On  tke  part  of  the  Government,  in  ijiviting  j)uhiic  pi'opoaals  for 
tlie  purchase  of  the  stock:  at  what  place  t4ie  Govertjment  was  bound  to 
make  the  payments,  and  wliether  the  terms  of  tiie  loan  were  as  favorablo- 
fo'  the  Government  as  could  have  been  obtained  from  any  other  quarter. 
On  these  several  points  you  were  entirely  satisfiird,  after  consulting  with 
ihfi  officers  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  arrangement  was  acc«rdingly  closed. 


I 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  1  147 

I  cannot,  however,  but  be  aware,  that  the  necessity  of  acting  immedi- 
ately on  this  niatter,has  bnmglit  it  before  yoii  somewhat  unexpectivily,  in 
the  midst  of  a  great  pirssure  of  other  business,  and  without  the  benefit  (i* 
any  (•o()j)erati(>n  from  tlic  Secretary  of  the  I'reasury,  to  whose  care  the 
negotiation  of  the  loan  would  have  been  naturally  assigned  by  you. 

'rhe  defect  of  this  assistance  1  liUve  encU'avored  to  supply,  as  far  as  it 
was  in  my  po\^er,  by  presenting  to  you  the  whoie  subject,  with  all  the  in- 
formation I  p(»ssessed  with  regard  to  it;  and  by  suggesting  i^vevy  cousi<le- 
i-ation  which  T  thought  belonged  to  tiie  most  candid  examination  of  it:  I  am 
not  aware  (hat  any  tliijig  has  been  omittec!.  I  believe  the  an-angement 
eminently  advantageous  to  the  Government,  wliiie  it  is  uselul  to  the  Bank, 
and  1  neither  perceive,  nor  anticipate,  any  objectitm  to  it.  Nevertheless, 
the  peculiar  situation  of  tiie  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as  well  as  the 
frankness  and  confidence  towards  myself  |)ersos»ally,  which  have  marked 
your  depoi'tment  on  the  occasion,  impose  on  n\e  the  duty  of  stating,  as  I 
now  do.  that  although  tiie  coiitiact  for  the  loan  is  complete*!,  and  shall  be 
immediately  executed,  yet  if,  on  tiie  restoi'atimi  to  health  of  tiic  Secretary, 
lie  siiall  perceive  in  t!ie  arrangement  any  tiling  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
Governnwnt,  whicli  liis  personal  attentii)n  to  it  migiit  fiave  prevented,  any 
modifications  of  it  which  he  may  suggest  will  be  most  respectfully  consi- 
dered by  the  Board  of  Directors,  and  ciieerfully  agreed  t(j,  if  not  inconsist- 
ent with  their  duty  to  the  institution.  For  myself,  I  speak  with  eiitire 
confidence,  nor  have  I  more  hesitati(ni  in  answering  for  all  my  colleagues, 
who  arc  desirous  on  tliis,  as  on  every  other,  occasion,  of  conducting  them, 
seives  towards  tlic  Government  in  a  spirit  of  the  utmost  firmness  and  ac- 
commodation. 

I  think  it  proper  to  guard  against  any  casualty  to  mysrlf,  by  leaving 
with  you  this  declaration,  whicii,  as  you  kfiow,  is  wiiolly  voluntary,  on  my 
part,  and  of  which  you  will,  i  am  sure,  at  once  understand  and  appreci- 
ate the  motives. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully  yours, 

:-L  BIODLE,  PvesidenL 

His  Excellency  James  Monroe, 

Preaiienl  oJ'Ahc  Lhiited  Statos,    Washinglon, 

On  the  29th  of  May,  I  addressed  the  following  letter  from  Baltii'.on, 
to  ihe  Hon.  James  Lloyd,  at  Washington. 

Baltimore,  ȴ/iy  29,  1824. 

My  Dear  Sir:  The  delay  of  the  steam  boat  till  this  afternoon  allows  me 
time  to  say,  th.at,  before  leaving  Washington,  1  called  to  see  you,  but 
learned,  with  regret,  lliat  you  were  much  indisposed.  A  few  days'  enjoy- 
ment of  the  repose  which  ha^  heen  so  long  denied  to  you  will,  I  hope, 
soon  re-establish  yon.  1  was  desirous,  before  going  home,  of  communica- 
ting to  you  my  progi'ess  in  the  business  of  the  loan,  and  of  my  ho])c  of' 
relieving  you  from  the  trouble  of  discussing  th«  question  of  interest  on  the 
ilebt  from  the  Bank  of  Columbia.  For  this  purpose,  I  had  an  intervi(*#' 
with  Mr.  Key,  of  Ge(;rgetown.  fie  acquiesced  in  our  views,  stated  hi» 
opinion,  that,  under  all  the  circumstances,  the  Bank  of  Columbia  ought  to 
yield  the  point;  and  added  that  he  would,  at  once,  see  Mr.  M(mroe,  and, 
•f  he  succeeded  in  satisfying  that  gentleman  of  tin?  propriety  of  the  course, 
be  bad  no  dmibt  it  would  be   arranged  without  fui-ther  ti'ouble.     The  finai 


148  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

decision  could  not,  however,  take  place  before  next  Thursday,  when  the 
Board  of  the  Bank  of  Columbia  meet. 

Under  these  circumstances,  1  hope  to  avoid  troubling  you  in  this  mat. 
ter,  or,  at  any  rate,  you  will  be  apprised,  by  Mr.  Smith,  the  Casijier, 
should  there  be  any  occasion  for  your  interposition,  whicii  has  been  in- 
voked too  often,  I  fear,  for  your  comfert,  but  which  is  always  so  desirable 
to  the  Board  of  Directors,  as  well  as  to 

Yours,  with  great  respect, 

N.  BIDDLE. 

Honorable  James  Lloyd,  Washington, 

On  the  1st  of  June,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  minutes,  I  took  my  place  at 
the  Board. 

It  will  thus  appear  that  during  the  whole  period  which  R.  M.  Whitney 
assigns  for  this  alleged  interview  with  me,  in  this  room,  I  was  absent 
from  Philadelphia. 

Lest  he  should  still  adhere  to  the  substance  of  his  testimony,  but  now 
give  it  another  date,  I  now  conclude,  w  ith  a  declaration,  that  I  was  entire- 
ly ignorant  of  the  transaction  to  which  the  alleged  conversation  refers— 
tluit  I  did  not  know  of  the  existence,  in  the  First  Teller's  drawer,  of  the  cer- 
tificates which  he  describes— that  I  did  not  discount,  without  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Board,  the  two  notes,  or  either  of  them,  which  he  describes 
as  being  on  the  discount  book-^i-that  I  was  not  aware  of  the  practice  of 
Thomas  Biddle's  obtaining  loans  without  interest — and  that  no  such  con- 
versation, as  he  describes,  ever  took  place  between  R.  M.  Whitney  and 
myself. 


Staleinent  of  R»  M,  fVhitney^  in  continuance  of  his  testimony  given  on  the 
9thinstantf  before  the  Committee. 

The  statement  presented  by  Mr.  Biddle,  the  President,  on  the  1  Ith  inst, 
to  the  Committee,  points  out  some  partial  discrepancies  in  my  testimony. 
But  the  main  facts,  of  which  I  produced  a  memorandum,  taken  at  the  time 
I  learned  them,  still  remain  as  they  were,  confirmed  by  the  books. 

First  The  loan  to  T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle  of  §45,000,  on  the  25th  day  of 
May,  1824,  and  of  S24,000,  on  the  26th  day  of  May,  1824,  botii  sums 
paid  from  the  cash  drawer  of  the  First  Teller,  upon  deposites  of  stock  certi- 
cates,  and  accounted  for  by  him,  by  a  charge  to  **  bills  receivable,"  which, 
for  the  first  time  that  year,  appears  in  the  book  "  The  state  of  the  Bank," 
on  the  27th  day  of  May,  1824,  and  are  the  first  entries  to  that  account. 

The  first  sum  of  §45,000,  loaned  and  charged  on  the  25th  day  of  May, 
1624,  was  on  a  regular  discount  day  of  the  Board — Tuesdays,  and  Fri- 
days being  the  discount  days,  and  the  25th  of  May,  1824,  was  on  a  Tues- 
ijay;  why  this  loan  was  made  on  a  discount  day,  (and  entered  to  a  new- 
account  in  the  books.)  should  not  have  been  applied  for  to  the  Board,  on 
that  day,  and  entered  in  the  regular  manner  that  notes  are,  which  are  dis- 
counted by  the  Board,  I  will,  with  due  respect,  leave  to  the  Committee  to 
determine. 

The  second  loan  of  §24.000,  made  on  the  26th  day  of  May,  1824,  was  the 
day  following  a  regular  discount  day,  and,  in  regard  to  both  those  loans, 
it  will  be  for  the  Committee  to  determine,  by  the  testimony  and  the  minutes 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  149 

of  the  Board,  whether  there  existed   an  authority  by  the  Board,  at  that 
time,  for  any  committee  or  individual  to  make  loans, 

SecmuL  Tlie  two  notes  entered  upon  the  discount  book,  after  the  dis- 
counts of  the  regular  discount  i\kys,  had  been  added  up;  and,  at  dates  be- 
tween tiie  regular  discount  days,  the  one  for  §20,000  and  the  other  for 
838,319.00  are  found  to  correspond,  by  the  books  of  the  Bank,  with  the 
memorandum  by  me  i>roduced.  Whether  there  existed  an  authority  for 
granting  those  discounts  must  ha  determined  as  in  the  case  of  the  prece^ 
ding  loans. 

The  discrepancies  which  appear  exist  in  the  collateral  circumstances 
connected  with  the  preceding  loans  and  discounts,  as  related  by  me. 

First,  As  to  the  period  that  the  facts  were  communicated  to  me,  and  my 
giving  directions  to  have  the  two  loans  put  upon  the  books. 

Second.  As  to  i\\v  time  I  informed  the  President,  Mr.  Biddle,  that  these 
facts  had  been  communicated  to  me. 

Of  those  circumstances  I  did  not  take  any  memorandum  whatever;  the 
one  taken,  as  will  be  seen,  was  confined  merely  to  dates  and  amounts. 
After  a  lapse  of  nearly  eight  years,  (as  in  this  case,)  the  Committee  will  at 
once  discover  how  liable  any  person  may  he  to  err  in  a  general  relation  of 
circumstances,  and,  particularly,  as  to  particular  dates;  and  tlie  discrepan- 
cies which  appear  in  the  circumstances,  connected  with  the  facts,  are  to  be 
attributed  solely  to  error  in  recollection. 

In  relation  to  theirs/,  my  impression  now  is,  that,  when  I  was  inform- 
ed of  the  facts  by  the  officers  of  the  Bank,  that  I  directed  the  two  loans 
to  be  put  upon  tiie  books,  or  that  J  was  informed  that  tliey  had  been  placed 
there,  and  that  1  confirmed  their  having  done  so.  As  to  the  period  at 
which  I  was  informed  of  them,  it  would  appear  that  it  must  have  been  prior 
to  the  Slst  of  iMay,  1824,  for  at  tiiat  time  "bills  receivable"  account 
had  been  increased  to  the  amount  of  Si  19,000,  by  another  loan  to  T.  &  J. 
G.  Biddle,  whereas  the  sums  of  which  I  had  a  memorandum  (S45,000and 
S^24.000)  amounted,  on  the  27th  day  of  May,  (4  days  previous,)  to  only 
869,000.  In  relation  to  the  second^  it  appears  tiiat,  at  the  time  the  two 
loans  were  made  of  S45,000  and  824,000,  of  which  I  took  a  memoran- 
dum, that  Mr.  Biddle,  the  President,  was  absent  at  Washington;  tliere- 
fore,  1  could  not,  as  I  believed  1  did,  inform  him  of  tlie  communication 
which  had  been  maOe  to  me.  at  the  same  period,  and  immediately  after  re- 
ceiving them;  but  it  must  have  been  subsequently. 

The  two  loans  appear  to  have  been  made  and  charged,  while  Mr.  Bid- 
dle, tlie  President,  was  absent  at  Washington;  and  I  think  it  may  be  fair- 
ly inferred  that  they  were  allowed  by  the  officers,  in  consequence  of  the 
])ieredent  cstablisiied  of  similar  loans  having  been  made,  and  they,  not 
feeling  willing  to  refuse  to  do,  while  the  President  was  absent,  what  he 
had  authorized  arid  done  while  present,  which  was  the  reason  of  my  being 
informed  that  they  had  been  made,  and  that  they  had  been  put  upon  the 
hooks,  or  that  1  directed  they  should  be.  In  relation  to  interest  being  paid, 
it  certaifdy  appears  by  the  books  that,  at  the  time  the  two  loans  were  |)aid 
off,  interest  was  at  tiie  same  time  paid,  for  the  period  tlie  money  had 
been  borrowed. 

Having  been  asked  by  a  member  of  the  committ-ee,  whether  Mr.  Wilson 
and  Mr.  Andrews  accompanied  me  when  I  took  the  memorandum  of  the 
two  loans,  and  two  notes  discounted,  and  having  answered,  that  oneorboth 
did,  1  beg  leave  here  to  mention  circumstances  which  must  be  completely 


150  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

corroborative  of  tliat  fact;  whirli  are — that,  by  the  rules  and  regulations 
of  tlie  Boar*!,  no  Directoi*  shall  be  pei'uiitted  to  inspect  the  private  trans- 
actions of  individuals  with  tlie  Bank;  therefore,  the  committee  will  see 
that  1  could  not  have  obtained  the  particulars  of  the  two  loans  made,  with- 
out having  had  one  of  those  gentlemen  with  me,  eveti  if  I  could  those  of 
the  two  notes  discounted  and  put  upon  the  books.  But  then  I  will  ask, 
if  it  can  lor  a  moment  be  supposed,  that  1  would  look  back  upon  the  dis- 
count book  for  a  period  prior  to  the  £6th  of  May,  to  the  work  of  the  regu- 
lar discount  days,  (wliicii  had  been  closed)  for  the  two  notes  in  question, 
unless  my  attention  had  been  directed  to  them  by  some  one,  whicii  appear 
to  have  keen  added  to  the  work  of  tlic  11th  and  21st  days  of  May,  and  ap- 
pear to  have  been  discounted,  the  former  on  the  13th,  and  the  lattei'on  the 
2Sd  days  of  May;  and  this  latter  dated  the  loth  day  of  May,  due  the  5-8 
June,  and  sixteen  days  interest  charged. 

Mr.  Biddle,  the  President,  having  stated  that  he  was  absent,  at  Wash* 
ington,  from  about  the  2i>d  day  of  May  to  about  the^lst  June,  18£4,  for  the 
purpose  of  negotiating  for  the  five  million  Florida  loan,  which  he  took,  1 
wish  to  observe,  timt,  by  a  reference  to  the  minutes  of  the  Bank,  it  will 
be  seen,  that  1  was,  at  that  time,  a  member  of  the  Foreign  Exchange  Com- 
mittee, to  whom  the  Board  intrusted  tlie  j)ower  of  negotiating  for  that 
loan,  and,  consequently,  the  President's  visit  to  Washington  was  connect- 
ed with,  and  by,  the  sanction  of  that  committee. 

I  trust  that  this  statement  will  satisfy  the  honorable  committee  as  to  any 
partial  discrepancies  which  may  appeal''  in  my  testimony,  already  given, 
and  be  received  by  them  in  explanation. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  explanation  and  confirmation,  I  wisli  to  be 
allowed  to  continue^upon  the  records  of  my  testimony  tlie  following,  to 
show  the  position  which  1  held  at  tl>e  Board,  and  the  confidence  re;5oscd  iti 
me  by  my  colleagues. 

1st.  The  sales  of  eleven  thousand  shares  of  Bank  stock,  sold  in  New 
York  in  1824,  in  tlje  month  of  December,  by  my  order,  and  under  my  su- 
perintendence, as  agent  of  tije  Rank. 

2d.  A  letter  from  N.  Biddle,  the  President,  to  me,  while  in  New  York, 
dated  the  IjSth  December,  1824. 

3d.  My  memorandums  of  transactions  for  account  of  the  Bank,  show  ing 
the  trust  committed  to  me,  the  manner  in  which  that  trust  was  redeemed,  as 
well  w!»ile  I  was  a  Director,  as  subsequently,  in  1825,  after  my  term'asa 
Director  had  expired;  the  whole  of  which  was  gratuitous,  charging  only 
my  expenses — sixty-five  dollars. 

The  latter  document  I  lequest  may  be  verified  by  tiie  officers  of  the 
Bank. 

R.  M.  WHITNEY. 

Jlpril  14</»,  1832* 


,  Philadklphia,  December  15,  1824. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  this  morning  returned  from  Washington,  having  ta- 
ken the  whole  five  millions  at  pai*.  I  wish  you  would  see  and  console  Mr. 
Prime,  andpartieularly  endeavor  to  keep  his  complaints  out  of  the  newspa- 
pers. Moreover,  he  may,  perhaps,  be  serviceable  to  us,  by  turning  over  to 
us  the  funds  he  had  provided  in  Boston,    ConsiderijJg  tlic  footing  on  which 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  151 

the  Bank  very  naturally  and  justly  claimed  the  loan,  as  being  decidedly 
more  advantageous  to  give  it  to  us  rather  than  to  individuals,  we  should  all 
extremely  regret  being  obliged  to  part  with  any  of  our  Florida  Loan;  we 
vrould  much  rather,  even  at  some  little  sacrifice,  get  tunds  at  Boston,  by 
purchasing  them  in  New  York,  and  obtaining  drafts  on  the  Boston  banks,  or, 
in  the  last  resort,  raising  some  hundred  thousand  dollars  at  Boston,  by  pledg- 
ing on  stock  there  for  sixty  days,  until  we  could  replace  the  amount  there. 
What  think  you  of  this  last  plan?  I  agree  with  you  as  to  the  expediency  of 
retaining  the  specie  at  New  York,  if  we  could  raise  the  necessary  funds  with- 
out it  at  Boston;  but  we  are  Uvit  sure  of  that,  and  we  have  reason  not  to  he 
very  confident  of  the  Boston  banks  themselves.  We  must  leave  nothing  t4> 
hazard;  and,  since  we  have  taken  the  loan  at  par,  on  the  distinct  groutid  ot* 
our  having  the  means  of  doing  it,  it  would  be  advisable,  in  every  point  of 
view,  not  to  sell  any  of  the  Florida  loan  in  Boston. 

After  much  consideration,  therefore,  we  are  all  of  the  opinion,  that  the 
specie  had  better  go  on;  I  have  arranged  for  two  or  three  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  from  Baltimore,  to  be  sent  here. 

The  news  of  the  loan  will  probably  occasion  arise  in  Bank  stock.  W' ould 
it  not  be  well  to  pause  and  profit  by  it  ?  We  leave  this  to  your  good  judg- 
ment. 

In  haste,  very  truly,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE. 
R.  M.  Whitney,  Esq.  JV*ew  York. 


I 


JHemorandum  of  transactions  for  account  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  SlaieSf 

by  KM.  Whitney. 
1834. 

Dec.  9 — Received  of  Thomas  Wilson, Cashier,  4  certificates  of  1 000  shares 
each,  say  4000  shares,  and  gave  a  receipt  on  my  departure  for 
New  York. 

Dec.  £7 — Returned  Thomas  Wilson,  Cashier,  certificates  of  4000  shares, 
received  above,  and  received  from  him  my  receipt. 

Dec.  31 — Received  from  Tljomas  Wilson,  Cashier,  certificates  for  5000 
shares  United  vStates  Bank  stock,  and  sent  to  Prime  and  Co- 
and  gave  T.  Wilson  a  receipt.  ^^ 

1825.  "^i 

Jan.  S — Gave  T.  Wilson  a  draft  on  Prime  and  Co.  favor  of  J.  Holmes, 
atpight,  -  -  .  .  g200,000  00 

Do.   do GaveT.  Wilson  a  draft  on  Prime  and  Co.  favor  of 

E.  D.  Whitney,  atone  day's  sight,  without  grace,     170,000  00 

Jap.  5 — Received  of  T.  Wilson,  Cashier,  and  gave  a  re- 
ceipt, 1000  shares  of  United  States  Bank  stock, 
and  sent  Pi-ime  and  Go. 

Ja!i.  8 — Received  of  T.  Wilson,  Cashier,  certifiicate  of  one 
tiiousand  shares,  and  sent  Prime  and  Co, 

Jan.    8 — GaveT.  Wilson  a  draft  at  sight  on  Prime  and  Co. 

for  -  -  -  -  1  £0,000  00 

Jan.  10 — Received  of  T.  Wilson,  Casliier,  and  gave  a  re- 
ceipt, 4.000  shjjrcs  of  United  States  Bank  stock, 
and  sent  Prime  and  Co, 


152  1   Rep.  No.  460.  ]    , 

Jan.  10 — Gave  T.  Wilson,  Casliier,  a  draft  on  the  Branch 
Bank  at  Boston,  on  account  of  stock  sold  hy 
Prime  and  Co.  -  -  -  299,000  00 

Jan.  11 — Gave  T.  Wilson,  Cashier,  a  draft  on  the  Branch 
Bank  at  Boston,  on  account  of  stock  sold  by  Prime 
and  Co.        -  -  -  -  46,800  00 

Jan.  12 — Gave  T.  Wilson,  Cashier,  a  draft  on  the  Branch 
Bank  at  Boston,  on  account  of  stock  sold  by 
Prime  and  Co.  ...  70,200  00 

Jan.  15 — Gave  T.  Wilson  a  draft  on  S.  Frothingham,  Bos- 
ton, on  account  of  stock  sold  by  Prime  and  Co.         100,000  00 

Jan.  18 — Gave  T.   Wilson,  Cashier,  a  draft  on  Prime  and 

Co.  payable  20th  instant,  without  grace,     -  140,000  00 

Jan.  24 — Gave  T.  Wilson,  Cashier,  a  draft  on   Prime  and 

Co.  at  sight,  on  account  of  stock  sold,         -  130,000  00 

Jan.  26 — Gave  T.  Wilson,  Cashier,  a  draft  on  Prime  and  Co. 
at  sight,  for  balance  due  for  stock  sold  by  them 
to  close  the  account,     -  -  -  4,91055 


Statement  R.  M,  Whitney  requests  may  be  contimied  after  his  testimony  and 

previous  statement. 

The  question  having  been  asked  by  Mr.  Adams,  if  I  had  not  failed,  since 
I  was  a  Bank  director  ?  I  beg  to  be  permitted  to  answer  it  myself,  and  to 
state  circumstances  which  that  question  naturally  calls  forth. 

In  1825 — the  same  year,  during  the  month  of  January  of  which,  as  will 
be  seen  by  documents  presented,  altiiough  not  a  director,  I  was  employed 
by  the  Bank  to  transact  business  for  them,  and  did  it  gratuit(»usly,  and  was 
entrusted  with  nearly  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  at  a  time — in  the  month 
of  December  of  that  year,  I  did  fail.  My  failure  arose  from  the  very  heavy 
losses  I  sustained  upon  the  importation  of  foreign  goods,  the  losses  in  ruin- 
ous speculations  in  which  I  had  engaged,  and  tremendous  losses  by  bad 
debts  and  misplaced  confidence.  Between  60  and  70,000  dollai^s  are  yet 
due  from  one  concern.  16,000  from  another,  15,000  from  anothei*.  and 
many  from  1  to  5,000  dollars;  all  contracted  that  year,  besides  heavy  losses 
in  preceding  years.  ^ 

At  the  time  of  my  failure,  I  owed  the  Government,  for  duties  in  this  place 
and  New  York,  S128.714  97;  the  whole  of  which  I  regularly  paid,  as  the 
bonds  became  due;  and  am  not  now  indebted  to  the  Government  one  dollar, 
although  1  have  paid  for  duties  on  foreign  importations,  since  the  year  1816, 
upwards  of  one  mitlion  six  hundred  thousand  doltarSj  and  i-e^ularly  as  the 
bonds  or  obligations  became  due. 

R.  M.  WHITNEY. 


Examination  of  Joseph  Cowperthwait,  Second  Jssistant  Cashier. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuflie.  How  long,  and  in  what  relation,  have  you 
been  associated  with  Mr.  Biddle  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  tho 
Bank? 


I 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  153 

Answer.  I  liave  been  in  the  Bank  eleven  years.  For  a  number  of 
years,  I  think  between  tliree  and  (bur,  I  was  Secretary  to  the  President* 
and  I  always,  prior  to  my  liolding  the  jjlace  I  now  do,  of  Second  Assistant 
Cashier,  maintained  a  confidential  relation  to  the  President. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  It  appears  from  the  books  tiiat  very  large 
loans  have  been  made  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  particularly  in  1831; 
will  you  state  whether  you  have  ever  known  the  present  presiding  officer 
of  this  institution  to  manifest,  on  any  occasion,  a  disposition  to  grant  favors 
to  the  house  of  Tliomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  or  to  extend  to  them  any  facilitie/S 
not  conducive  to  the  interest  of  the  Bank?  State  fully  what  you  know  on 
this  subject. 

Answer.  With  regard  to  loans  to  T.  Biddle  &  Co.,  in  1831,  they  were 
frequently  the  subject  of  discussion  before  the  Exchange  Committee,  and 
it  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  President  was  the  least  anxious  on  the 
subject.  He  was  anxious  that  the  funds  of  the  Bank  should  be  invested, 
and  spoke  in  that  general  relation  at  the  meetings  of  the  committee;  and  I 
distinctly  recollect  hearing  one  or  two  of  the  committee,  Mr.  Cope  parti- 
cularly, say,  that  they  had  been  to  Thomas  Biddle  6c  Co.  to  solicit  invest- 
ments of  that  sort.  With  regard  to  the  partiality  to  which  the  question 
refers,  I  know  of  no  instance  whatever  of  it.  My  own  impressions  have 
always  been,  that  the  President  has  erred  in  being  too  scrupulous.  One 
case  now  occurs  to  me.  I  recollect  some  years  ago  it  was  determined  to 
sell  part  of  the  forfeited  Bank  slock  held  by  the  Bank;  when  it  was  sold, 
I  was  surprised  to  find  an  agent  in  New  York  had  been  employed,  rather 
tiian  the  house  of  T.  Biddle  &  Co.,  to  whom,  I  myself,  if  1  had  had  the 
management  of  it,  would  have  given  it,  believing  that  they  could  have 
managed  it  much  better.  When  I  alluded  to  the  matter  among  the  officers 
of  tjjc  Bank,  1  received  the  impi'ession  that  it  was  done  in  order  to  avoid 
any  imputation  of  partiality. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  ever  known  the  President  to  mani- 
fest any  pai'tiality,  or  evince  a  disposition  to  grant  a  special  favor  to  any 
one  of  his  relatives  or  friends? 

Answer.     No. 

Examination  of  Joseph  Parker  Mrris, 

Question  by  Mr.  McDulfie.  Arc  you  the  President  of  the  Bank  of 
Pennsylvania? 

Answer.     I  am. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Are  you  aware  that  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co- 
obtained  a  considerable  loan  froRi  the  Bank  of  the  United  States? 

Answer.     1  have  heard  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle,  President  of  the  Bank.  Did  the  Board  of 
Directors  of  the  Bank  of  Pennsylvania  pass  a  resolution  authorising  the 
officers  of  the  bank  to  make  Icj^ns  on  stock?  State  at  what  time,  and 
what  was  the  rate. 

Answer.  They  did.  They  passed  a  resolution  in  October,  1830,  to 
empower  the  President  to  loan  any  sum,  not  exceeding  §500,000,  at  a  rate 
of  interest  not  less  than  four  and  a  half  per  cent,  on  a  deposite  of  public 
stocks,  or  the  stocks  of  incorporated  companies,  such  as  he  might  approve. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.     Did  they  obtain  any  loans  under  that  reso^u  • 
tion,  and  to  wiiat  amount? 
20 


154  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Answer.     They  did.     I  believe  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousnif 
dollars  was  all  I  could  loan. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  Were  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  aware  of  that  reso- 
lution? 

Answer.     They  were. 

Question  by  Mr,  Biddle.  Had  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  withdrawn  any  por- 
tion o[  their  loans  from  the  Bank  of  Pennsylvania  to  the  Bank  of  tUe 
United  States? 

Answer.     1  cannot  say. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  Did  they  take  part  of  the  loan  of  the  Bank 
of  Pennsylvania? 

Answer.  They  did,  at  four  and  a  half  ])er  cent.,  and  if  it  had  not  been 
for  them,  we  should  not  have  loaned  more  than  twenty  or  thirty  thousand 
dollars. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  Would  not  the  Bank  of  Pennsylvania  have 
lent  to  1'.  Biddle  &  Co.  the  whole  half  million,  or  nearly  so? 

Answer.  They  would,  or  very  near  it.  If  others  had  made  proposals 
equally  advantageous,  we  should  have  given  it  to  them  as  well  as  to  the 
Messj's.  Biddle.  We  would  have  willingly  lent  the  Messrs.  Biddle  more 
than  we  did.  We  thought  at  the  tifne  that  the  Messrs.  Biddle  had  not 
treated  us  well  in  coming  to  the  Bardi  of  the  United  States  f<»r  part  of  i^ 

Examination  of  Thomas  Cadwalader* 

Question  by  Mr,  McDuffie.  How  long,  and  in  what  relation  have  yoa 
been  associated  with  Mr.  Biddle  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the 
Bank? 

Answer.  I  have  been  a  Director  ever  since  Mr.  Biddle  came  in  as  Pre- 
sident, with  the  exception  of  the  one  year  in  three  when  1  was  out  by  ro- 
tation. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  It  appears  from  the  books,  that  very  large 
loans  have  been  made  to  T.  Biddle  <k  Co.  particularly  in  1831;  will  you 
state  whether  you  have  ever  known  the  present  presiding  officer  of  this 
institution  to  manifest,  on  any  occasion,  a  disposition  to  grant  favors  to  the 
house  of  T.  Biddle  &  Co.,  or  to  extend  to  them  any  facilities  not  conducive 
to  the  interest  of  the  Bank?     State  fully  what  you  know  on  this  subject. 

Answer.  I  have  known  nothing  of  the  loans  to  T.  Biddle  k  Co.  till 
within  these  few  days.  1  have  no  recollection,  at  any  former  time,  of 
having  heard  of  applications  for  loans  by  that  house,  except  on  one  oc- 
casion, some  ycai's  ago,  when  I  was  acting  for  t!ie  President  of  the  Bank, 
in  his  absence.  I  never  have  had  any  evidence  of  any  leaning  or  partiality 
on  the  part  of  the  President  to  Mr.  T.  Biddle,  or  his  iiousc.  Mr.  T.  Bid- 
dle is  a  second  cousin  of  the  President.  I  have  never  known  of  any  lean- 
ing on  the  part  of  the  President  to  any  relative. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  ever  known  the  President  to  ma- 
nifest any  partiality,  or  evince  a  disposition  to  grant  a  special  favor  to  any 
one  of  his  relatives  or  friends? 

Answer.  I  have  not.  1  will,  however,  mention  two  or  three  circum- 
stances bearing  the  other  way.  Some  five  or  six  years  ago,  the  Exchange 
Committee  were  desirous  of  selling  part  of  the  bank  stock  belonging  to 
the  institution.  It  was  supposed  by  some  members  of  the  board,  that,  as 
this  was  a  matter  in  which  secrecy  and  good  management  were  essential^ 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  J  55 

the  most  fit  persons  to  be  employed  in  the  business,  would  be  T.  Biddle 
&  Co.  The  P)-esident,  however,  on  tliat  occasion,  employed  a  New  York 
house.  Another  circumstance  witinn  my  recollection,  is  aii  ap})Iication 
which  was  made  by  Mr.  Chailes  Biddle,  the  bi'other  of  the  l^resident,  fop 
a  cashiership  in  one  of  the  western  offices.  Mr.  C.  Biddle's  talents  and 
habits  of  business  miglit  be  supposed  to  have  eminently  qualified  hiii*J  for 
such  an  appointment.  His  apj)iication  was,  however,  discouraged  by  the 
President  of  the  Bank.  Another  application  was  made  by  Mr  C.  Biddle,. 
after  some  interval,  during  which  time  he  had  been  engaged  in  the  study 
ot  the  law,  having  before  been  a  mei'chant,  and  failed,  for  the  solicitorship 
of  the  Nashvi.le  office.  The  President  of  t!^e  Bank  declined  recommend- 
irjg  him  to  the  board  of  that  office  for  that  office;  his  want  of  professional 
exi)erience  being  suggested  by  the  President  as  a  sufficient  objection.  A 
few  years  ago  1  visited  St.  Louis,  at  the  request  of  the  Board,  (or  the  pur- 
pose of  reporting  as  to  the  eligibility  of  that  place  for  the  establishment  of 
a  Branch.  1  reported  against  the  immediate  establishment  of  the  office; 
but  being  of  opinion  that  it  might  shortly  become  expedient  to  fix  sucli  an 
establishment  in  that  city,  I  took  some  pains  to  ascertain  the  most  suitable 
persons  to  be  recommended  to  the  parent  board,  as  president  and  directors, 
when  such  an  office  should  be  established.  'J'he  character,  talents,  and 
standing,  of  Major  Thomas  Biddle,  a  brother  of  the  President,  seemed,  i« 
the  opinion  of  the  most  irjtelligent  people  of  the  place,  to  point  to  him  fc^ 
the  presidency  of  the  office.  Being  aj)prehensive,  however,  that  the  Pre- 
sident of  the  parent  Bank  would  object  to  Major  Biddle  on  the  score  of  the 
relationship,  1  placed  next  to  him,  on  my  list,  the  nam*^  of  Col.  O'Fallon. 
Wijen  the  office  was  afterwards  established,  and  the  Board  of  Dii^ectors 
were  to  be  appointed,  the  Pj-esident  desired  that  Colonel  O'Fallon  should 
be  placed  at  the  head  of  tiie  list,  and  it  was  so  arranged  by  the  committee 
on  the  offices. 

Examination  of  fVilliam  M*llvaine,   Cashier  qf  the  Bank  of  the  United 

States, 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  How  long,  and  in  what  relation,  have  you 
bceti  associated  Vvith  Mr.  Biddle  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  Hlates? 

Ajjswer.  1  am  the  Cashier  of  the  Bank,  and  came  in  on  or  about  4th 
February,  1 81:26.  My  duties  are  chiefly  of  an  executive  character:  my 
position  in  the  Bank  does  not  bring  me  into  an  immediate  acquaintance 
w'itli  the  loan  operatioiw  of  the  Bank,  wliich  are  attended  to  by  Mr.  An- 
drews, the  first  assistant  cashier.  My  dutr  is  specially  connected  witU 
the  excliange  department. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  It  appears  from  the  books  that  very  large 
loans  have  been  made  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  particularly  in  1831; 
will  you  state  whether  yt)U  have  ever  known  the  presetit  presiding  offic*Mr 
of  this  institution  to  manifest,  on  any  occasion,  a  disposition  to  grant  favof.^ 
to  the  house  of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  or  to  extend  to  them  any  facilities 
not  conducive  to  the  interest  of  tlie  Bank?  State  fully  what  you  know  oij 
this  subject. 

Answer.  I  have  never  seen  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  President 
to  show  the  smallest  favor  to  the  house  of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.     Their 


156  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

connexion  has  been  intimate,  arising  from  their  being  the  most  accomplish- 
ed brokers  in  tlie  city,  and  doing  the  largest  business.  They  have  not 
been  exclusively  em|)h>yea  by  the  Bank,  but  their  transactions* have  been 
very  large.  Tlie  operations  of  our  foreign  stockholders  have  almost  all 
been  done  through  them.  ^Vithout  disparagement  to  others  of  their  jjro- 
fession,  1  will  say,  I  have  always  found  them  more  prompt  and  skilful  than 
others  with  Vv  liom  1  have  been  officially  related,  particularly  in  large  oper- 
ations. In  all  purchases  of  exchange  from  them,  and  in  all  purchases  of 
stock  made  by  their  agency,  I  have  always  found  the  interests  of  the  Bank, 
and  of  all  i)arties  entrusted  to  them,  rigidly  protected. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  ever  knowm  the  President  to  ma- 
nifest any  jjartiality,  or  evince  a  disposition  to  grant  a  special  favor  to 
any  one  of  his  relatives  or  connexions? 

Answer.  I  have  not.  In  the  stock  operations,  recently  conducted  for 
the  Government,  purchases  of  three ^per  cents,  have  been  from  Thomas 
Biddle  &  Co.  generally  at  the  lowest  rates.  Whenever  the  Bank  has  been 
the  purchaser  of  bills  of  exchange  from  Thomas  Biddle  &  ('o.  the  Presi- 
dent lias  always  appeared  to  make  the  best  practicable  bargain  for  the 
Bank. 


Manuel  Eyre^s  Statement, 

The  Committee  having  requested  me  to  commit  to  writing  what  I  verbally 
stated  to  them  respecting  the  loan  to  Messrs.  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  I 
cheoifully  comply  witli  their  wish. 

In  the  year  1830,  owing  to  the  great  abundance  of  money,  and  the  reim- 
bursement of  the  public  stock  owned  by  the  Bank,  it  was  an  object  of 
great  anxiety  to  find  investments,  as  the  funds  of  the  Bank  could  not  then 
be  employed  in  regular  discounts.  The  Board  of  Directors  passed  reso- 
lutions authorizing  the  Exchange  Committee  to  make  investments  at  any 
rate  of  interest  not  less  than  four  and  a  half  \yer  cent.  As  Chairman  of 
that  committee  1  called  upon  Messrs.  T.  Biddle  &  Co.  several  times,  and 
particularly  requested  them  to  make  all  their  great  operations  with  us, 
and  urged  them  to  take  two  or  three  millions  of  dollars  or  more  at  five 
per  cent.,  and  for  as  long  a  time  as  they  wished.  They  were  not  willing 
to  take  the  loan  for  as  long  a  time  as  the  conimittee  wished,  but  reserved 
the  right  of  paying  off  as  might  suit  their  convenience.  The  committee^ 
upon  undoubted  security,  loaned  them  at  live  per  cent,  upward  of  eleven 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  which  loan  is  now  reduced,  as  your  committee 
has  observed,  and  now  pay  an  intere^st  of  six  per  cent.  It  was  thought  a 
very  advantageous  arrangement  to  obtain  such  a  lai'ge  investment  at  five 
per  cent,  on  such  undoubted  security,  when  the  committee  were  authorized 
to  loan  at  four  ajid  a  half  jjcr  cent.  I  have  always  regarded  this  opera- 
tion as  one  in  which  the  Bank  was  the  favored  party,  and  I  think  it  may 
be  safely  and  truly  said,  tliat  the  account  of  Messrs.  T.  Biddle  &  Co. 
has  alwavs  been  one  oX  the  most  advantageous  accounts  in  the  Bank. 

MAMUEL  EYRE. 

Jpril  5//i,  18S2. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


157 


No.  14. 

ACCOUNT  OF  THOMAS  BIDDLE  &  CO. 

A  STATEMENT  of  the  amount  of  money  due  to  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  by  Thomas  Biddle  S;  Co. ,  as  payers  or  endorsers,  on 
the  1 5th  day  of  each  and  every  month  from  the  1 5th  day  of  Septem- 
ber, 1830,  to  the  I5th  day  of  February,  1832,  showing  the  terms  of 
each  loan. 


XT-    I...           ■== 

Payer. 

Discounter. 

Rate. 

1830. 

September 

17 

144,950 

320,000 

5  per  cent. 

October 

15 

1,131,672 

1,123,100 

5  per  cent. 

November 

16 

737,112 

730,000 

5  per  cent. 

December 

14 

737,012 

730,000 

5  per  cent. 

1831. 

January 

14 

7-^2,300 

720,400 

5  per  cent. 

February 

15 

540,400 

540,400 

5  per  cent. 

March 

15 

400,000 

400,000 

5  per  cent. 

April 

15 

480,000 

480,000 

5  per  cent. 

May 

17 

443,098 

443,138 

C  $39,473  at  4i  per  cent 
I      balance  at  5  per  cent 

June 

14 

571,178 

557,968 

C  gl  10,641  at  4i  percent 
][     balance  at  5  per  cent 

July 

15 

501,162 

504,912 

5  per  cent 

August 

16 

573,912 

579,912 

5  per  cent 

September 

16 

573,912 

683,995 

eg 78,831   at  6  percent 
i     balance  at  5  per  cent. 

October 

14 

580,000 

698,727 

C$179,206  at  6  percent 
i     balance  at  5  per  cent 

November 

15 

580,000 

752,647 

eg  141,384  at  6  per  cent 
I      balance  at  5  per  cent 

December 

16 

580,000 

689,125 

eg  181,384  at  6  percent 
i     balance  at  5  per  cent 

1832. 

January 

17 

580,000 

652,388 

C$48,922  at  6  percent 
I     balance  at  5  per  cent 

February 

17 

46X766 

488,328 

5  per  cent 

The  above  loans  at  4^  and  5  per  cent,  were  made  by  the  exchange  com- 
mittee, and  those  at  6  percent,  on  personal  security,  were  made  by  the 
board. 


156  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

connexion  has  been  intimate,  arising  from  their  being  the  most  accomplish- 
ed brokers  in  the  city,  and  doing  the  largest  business.  They  have  not 
been  exclusively  em|doyea  by  the  Bank,  but  their  transactions*  have  been 
very  large.  The  operations  of  our  foreign  stockholders  have  almost  all 
been  done  through  them.  >Vithout  disparagement  to  others  of  tiieir  i)ro- 
fession,  I  will  say,  I  have  always  found  them  more  prompt  and  skilful  than 
«thers  with  v»  horn  1  have  been  officially  related,  particularly  in  large  oper- 
ations. In  all  purchases  of  exchange  from  them,  and  in  all  purchases  of 
stock  made  by  their  agency,  I  have  always  found  the  interests  of  the  Bank, 
and  of  all  parties  entrusted  to  them,  rigidly  protected. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Have  you  ever  knowni  the  President  to  ma- 
nifest any  partiality,  or  evince  a  disposition  to  grant  a  special  favor  to 
any  one  of  his  relatives  or  connexions? 

Answer.  I  have  not.  In  the  stock  operations,  recently  conducted  for 
the  Government,  purchases  of  three ^per  cents,  have  been  from  Thomas 
Biddie  &  Co.  generally  at  the  lowest  rates.  Whenever  the  Bank  has  been 
the  purchaser  of  bills  of  exchange  from  Thomas  Biddie  &  ('o.  the  Presi- 
dent iias  always  appeared  to  make  the  best  practicable  bargain  for  the 
Bank. 


Manuel  Eyre's  Statement, 

The  Committee  having  requested  me  to  commit  to  writing  what  I  verbally 
stated  to  them  respecting  the  loan  to  Messrs.  Thomas  Biddie  &  Co.  I 
chewfully  comply  with  their  wish. 

In  the  year  1830,  owing  to  the  great  abundance  of  money,  and  the  reim- 
bursement of  the  public  stock  owned  by  the  Bank,  it  was  an  object  of 
great  anxiety  to  find  investments,  as  the  funds  of  the  Bank  cnuld  not  then 
be  employed  in  regular  discounts.  The  Boai'd  of  Directors  j)asscd  reso- 
lutions authorizing  the  Exchange  Committee  to  make  investments  at  any 
rate  of  interest  not  less  than  four  and  a  half  |mr  cent.  As  Chairman  of 
that  committee  1  called  upon  Messrs.  T.  Biddie  &  Co.  several  times,  and 
particularly  requested  them  to  make  all  their  great  operations  with  us, 
and  urged  them  to  take  two  or  three  millions  of  dollars  or  more  at  five 
per  cent.,  and  for  as  long  a  time  as  they  wished.  They  wei'e  not  willing 
to  take  the  loan  for  as  long  a  time  as  the  connnittee  wished,  but  reserved 
the  right  of  paying  off  as  might  suit  their  convenience.  The  committee^ 
npon  undoubted  security,  loaned  them  at  live  per  cent,  upward  of  eleven 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  which  loan  is  now  reduced,  as  your  committee 
has  observed,  and  now  pay  an  intere-st  of  six  per  cent.  It  was  thought  a 
very  advantageous  arrangement  to  obtain  such  a  large  investment  at  five 
per  cent,  on  such  undoubted  security,  wlien  the  committee  were  authorized 
to  loan  at  four  and  a  half  per  cent.  I  have  always  regarded  tliis  opera- 
tion as  one  in  which  t!ie  Bank  was  the  favored  jiarty,  and  I  think  it  may 
be  safely  and  truly  said,  tlnit  the  account  of  Messrs.  T.  Biddie  &  Co, 
has  alwavs  been  one  of  the  most  advantageous  accounts  in  tiie  Bank. 

MAJNUEL  EYRE. 

^pril  5tlh  1832. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


157 


No.  14. 

ACCOUNT  OF  THOMAS  BIDDLE  &  CO. 

A  STATEMENT  of  the  amount  of  money  due  to  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  by  Thomas  Biddle  <§•  Co. ,  as  payers  or  endorsers j  on 
the  1 5th  day  of  each  and  every  month  from  the  1 5th  day  of  Septeni^ 
her,  1830,  to  the  \5th  day  of  February ^  1832,  showing  the  terms  of 
each  loan. 


-ggz-ii r 

Payer. 

Discounter. 

Rate. 

1830. 

' 

September 

17 

144,950 

220,000 

5  per  cent. 

October 

15 

1,131,672 

1,123,100 

5  per  cent. 

November 

16 

737,112 

730,000 

5  per  cent. 

December 

14 

737,012 

730,000 

5  per  cent. 

1831. 

January 

14 

7-^2,300 

720,400 

5  per  cent. 

February 

15 

540,400 

540,400 

5  per  cent. 

March 

15 

400,000 

400,000 

5  per  cent. 

April 

15 

480,000 

480,000 

5  per  cent. 

May 

17 

443,098 

443,138 

^  $  39,473  at  4i  per  cent, 
t      balance  at  5  per  cent 

June 

14 

571,178 

557,968 

Cgll0,641  at 4i  percent 
\     balance  at  5  per  cent 

July 

15 

501,162 

504,912 

5  per  cent 

August 

16 

573,912 

579,912 

5  per  cent 

September 

16 

573,912 

683,995 

C^ 78,831  at  6  percent 
i     balance  at  5  per  cent. 

October 

14 

580,000 

698,727 

C$179,206  at  6  percent 
I     balance  at  5  per  cent 

November 

15 

580,000 

752,647 

C$141,384  at  6  percent 
\      balance  at  5  per  cent 

December 

16 

580,000 

689,125 

Ci^  181,384  at  6  percent 
\     balance  at  5  per  cent 

1832. 

January 

17 

580,000 

652,388 

C$48,922  at  6  percent 
l     balance  at  5  per  cent 

February 

17 

4^,766 

488,328 

5  per  cent 

The  above  loans  at  4^  and  5  per  cent,  were  made  by  the  exchange  com- 
mittee, and  those  at  6  percent,  on  personal  security,  were  made  by  the 
board. 


160 


f  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


«M      6 

®  s 

Q  3 


1831. 


Julj  29 


Attg.    1 


11 


12 


15 


15 

16 

20 
25 

31 


Drawer. 


Deposited  with  Barings,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.,  bill  on  Coutts, 
&  Go,,  renjjtted  by  Messrs. 
Todd  &  Romans,  for  the 
use  of  Ann  Galbraith;  200, 
Chambers  st.,  N.  York 

Deposited  with  Denison,  re- 
mitted by  W.  &  J.  Brown, 
of  Liverpool 

Deposited  with  Jones,  &  Co., 
fpr  the  use  of  William  Far- 
mer, of  Cincinnati,  in  behalf 
of  Hy.  Farmer,  Freeman's 
court.  Corn  hill,  London     -r 

Alexander  Lyell 

Scott  &  Balfour 

Mary  Gilpin 

James  Robortson     - 
Gordon,  Forstall,  &  Co. 
James  Robertson     - 
McNicol  &  Davidson 
Edw.  G.  Cozens 
Thos.  HoUinaed      - 

do  •  • 

do 

do  -  - 

Lee  &  Garner 

Benj.  Booth,  &  Co., 

McNicol  &  Davidson 

Scott  &^  Balfour 

Deposited  with  Baring,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.,  by  R.  Holm, 
for  the  use  of  John  Drinks 
all,  of  Cincinnati,  per  letter 
29  June     -  -  - 

R.  J.  Routh,  C.  G.  . 

do  •  - 

do 
John  Flemming,  pres. 
Le  Mesurier,  Tilstone,  &  Co. 
Jos.  Thompson 


John  B.  Champ       • 

J.  Smlrnove 

Benj.  Booth,  &  Co.  - 

George  Salkell 

McNicol  &  Davidson 


Endorser. 


J.  B.  Tilden     - 
J.  Marshall,  cash'r 
H.  D.  Gilpin    - 

J.  &  R.  Purvis,  &  Co. 
Forstall,  &  Co. 
William  Hood 
John  Hiddleston 
J.  B.  Wood      - 
Lee&Garner,  J.E.Squires 

do 

do 

do 
T.E.  Squires,  H.T.  Hut- 
chins  -  -f 
Joseph  Le  Carpentier  - 
Ogden  Hammond 
W,  &  H.  Rose 


T,  A.  Stayner,  Esq.      - 

do 
W,  Harvey,  Esq. 
Benj.  Holmes,  cash'r     - 
T.  A.Stayner,  W.T.Barry 
A.&  J.  Dennisto  wn,&C  o. 


Jno.  B.  Champ,  Schuyl- 
kill bank 
W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r  - 
Jos.  Le  Carpentier 
Rich'd  O.  Pritchard      - 

McNeill  &  Blair 


J.H.Linn,  J. Smith, Esq. 
Davidson, Simpson,&D'n 
Barclay,  Tritton,Bcvan, 
&Co. 
A.  Taylor,  &Co.,L'pool 
A.  Gordon,  &  Co. 
A.  Taylor,  &  Co. 
R.  Jarvie,  Esq.,  Glasgow 
Smith,  Payne,  &  Smith 
H.  T.  Hutchins,  T.  Lee, 
&Co. 

do 

do  , 

do 

do 
Booth,Djxon,&Co.L'pool 
W.  L.  Wostenholm 
Davison,  Simpson,  &D'n 


Lords  Commis'rs  of  his 
Majesty's  Treasury    - 
do 
do 
Thos.  Wilson,  &  Co.     - 
Rouths  &  Thompson     - 
B.  J.T.Nightengale,  Esq., 
Burnhill  row,  Friesbury, 
London 

Hanbury,&Co.,  bankers 
Harman  &  Co. 
Booth,Dixon,&Co.  L'pool 
Fletcher,  Roskoe,  Rob- 
erts, &  Co.      - 
Da>  id  Jackson 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  LONDON—Continued. 


161 


Where 
payable. 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount, 
currency. 

£.      8.    d. 

Per  cent 

DoUs.  cts. 

. 

London,         June  14 

60  days 

67  10 

lOi 

328  72 

- 

do                 do 

do 

90  11     9 

par 

402  61 

London 

do                  do 
N.  Orleans,    July  14 
Savannah,               23 

do 
do 
do 

51  15 

no 

952     2     6 

9|lessi- 

H 

8 

251  1$ 

535  33 
4,570  20 

do 

do 

do 

do  .      - 

do 

do 

Philadelphia,  Aug.    1 
Charleston,    July  26 
N.  Orleans,             20 
Charleston,              28 
do                       30 
Palestine,N.Y.Aug.5 

do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
lOdays 

25 

409     9  10 
1,500 
1,000 
1,000 

318     3     3 

9 

8 

n 

8 
8 

n 

121  11 

1,S>'d6  55 
7,183  33 
4,800 
4,800 
1,551  92 

do 
do 
do 
do 

Barbadoes,     July     8 
do                  do 
do             July     9 
do                  do 

90    " 
do 
do 

do 

200 
100 
200 
100 

1 

4,444  58 

do 
do 
do 
do 

do             July  13 
N.  Orleans,             26 
Charleston,    Aug.    3 
Savannah,                2 

do 

60 days 

do 

do 

317     9    2 
2,500 
1,000 

554 

8 

8i 

7 

12,000 
4,811  11 
2,634  53 

.      . 

.      .      . 

do 

60 

9|  less  i- 

291  21 

London 
do 
do 

Cluebec,         Mar.  18 

do             April   2 

do                      20 

Montreal,       July    4 

Gluebec,         flay  23 

30  days 

do 

do 
60  days 

do 

100 
100 
100 
400 
250 

|s          - 

H 

7 

960 

482  21 
1,' 37  17 

1,188  ea 

i.      . 

Nassau,N.P.  July  16 

do 

78 

8 

374  40 

London 
do 
do 

Pittsburg,       Aug.    5 
Washington,           12 
N.  Orleans,               6 

20 days 

5    " 
60    " 

105 

100 

2,000 

91 
8 

n 

512  17 
480 
9,555  55 

do 
_      do 

do                        9 
Charleston,             23 

do 
do 

150 
1,000 

7h 

8i 

716  6^ 
4,822  2^ 

21 


162 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


STATEMENT  No.   16.— REMIT 

i 

isi 

Drawer. 

Endorser. 

Drawee. 

&l 

1831. 

Sept.    2 

Deposited  with  Baring,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.,  per  their  letter 
July  14,  by  Bowen,  &  Co., 
Mai  ton,  for  the  use  of  Ricli- 

ard  Judson,  N.  Y. 

-           <•            - 

♦            •            - 

5 

Deposited  v/ith  Earing,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.,  Jily  30,  for  the 
use  of  A  .&  R.  Carrick,  of 

N.  Y.        - 

.... 

«            •            - 

5 

Deposited  with  Baring,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.,  July  SOjlbr  the 

use  of  R.  Waugh,  of  lUinois 

... 

... 

7 

H.  Wm.  Palfrey      - 

J.  W.  Zacharie,  &  Co. 

W.  &  S.  Wild,  &  Sneyd, 
Liverpo  ol 

13 

Gordon,  Forstall,  &  Co. 

Kdm'd  Forstall 

A.  Gord        &  Co. 

22 

James  Moultrie       -    . 

James  Moultrie,  jr. 

S.Parso  Esq.,  Thread 
Needl         .liondon      - 

22 

(  D.  Crommelin,  &  Son,  their 
(      own  order 

J.  P.  Van  Ness,  Mayor  ) 

Jno  G      r  ^Cci 

of  Washington            ) 

*t  XA\J»    Vv*                 f     Ut  \J\J*                              •• 

2Q 

Deposit  for  the  use  of  James 
Upjohn,  of  Cincinnati,  with 

B.  B.  &  Co. 

»             .            - 

-                  -                  - 

36 

R.oyal  Bank  of  Scotland      - 

H.  Waldie,  A.  Waldie 

Bank  of  England 

23 

S-tephcn  Girard 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r  - 

Baring,Bro's,&Co.,Lond. 

28 

W.  E.  Alien 

do 

Hugh  Parncll,  Esq.      - 

Oot.      3 

J.  Campbell,  Treas.  U.  S.    - 

do 

Baring,  Brothers,  &  Co. 

14 

Frs.  Tenvayne 

H.deTheuxdeMayland 

Stride,  &  Fils  - 

14 

Bank  of  Scotland    - 
Deposite  with  B.  B.  &  Co.,  for 
use  of  Jos.  F.  Guille,  Zanes- 

Thos.  Ranken 

Coutts,  &  Co.  - 

viUe,  Ohio     • 

... 

-            -            - 

Thos.  Biddlo,  &  Co.             - 

J.  Swift 

Thos.  Wilson,  &  Co.   • 

do 

do 

Go  wan  &  Marx 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

17 

Thos.  Butler, 

S.  Duncan,  G.  Tichenor 

G.  Green,  &  Son,  L'pool 

19 

Chas.  Bankhead 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r    - 

H.  D.  Scott,  Esq.,  Fo- 
reign Office,  London  - 

22 

E.  Turner   - 

S.  Duncan,  G.  Tichenor 

G.  Green,  &  Sons,  L'pool 

John  N.  Gossler 

Jno.  N.  Gossler 

Thos.  Wilson,  &  Co.   - 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Thos.  Biddle,  &  Ca 

W.  Mcllvaine,  caeh'r  - 

Gowan  h  Marx 

do 

do 

do 

do 

,     do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

d6 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Bank  Pennsylvania 

do 

Baring,  Brothers,  &  Co.  ^ 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  LONDON— Continued. 


163 


Where 
payable. 


Date  of  bill. 


N.  Orleans,  Aug.    4 

do  27 

Charleston,  Sep.  12 

Amsterdam,  July  15 


London,  Aug.  19 

Edinburgh,  July  7 
Philadelphia,  Sep.  2S 
New  York,  22 

Washington, .  29 
Liege,  Apr.  22 

Bk.ofScot.Off.         14 


London,  Aug.  30 

Philadelphia,  Oct.    12 

do  >  15 

do  15 

do  15 

Natchez,         Sep.  22 


Washington, 

Natchez, 

Philadelphia, 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 


Oct.  17 

Sep,  29 
Oct.  21 

do 

do 

do 

do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
Oct  22 


CO  days 
do 

IG  Oct. 
10  days 


60  days 

do 

7  days 
Sight 

3  days 
GO  " 


60  days 
75  " 
105  " 
90  " 
60  " 

do 

do 

do 
75 days 
90  « 
40  « 
45  " 
50  " 
GO  « 
70  " 
75  " 
80  " 
55  " 
65  " 
90  « 
115  " 
125  " 
75  " 
60    " 


Amount. 


Rate. 


s.    d.        Per  cent. 


1,200 

1,000 

200 

175 

750 

65  10 
358     6     2 


40 

670 

10,000 

166 

44,946 

30 

60 


35 

6,582     6     6 

10,000 

10,000 

3,500 

190 


55 

150 

10,000 

10,000 

10,000 

8,000 

8,000 

8,000 

9,263  10     4 

8,000 

8,000 

8,000 
12,000 
12,000 

9,263  10     3 
12,000 
12,000 

5,472  19     5 
20,000 


10^ 


10 

iO 

n 

Si 
lOi 


10^  less  ^ 

10 

11 

11 

9iless^ 


10:^  less  i 
10^ 

10^ 

10 

9 
10 

11 


Ul 


10| 
Brokerage 


Armount, 
currency. 


Dolls,  cts. 


5,873  33 


4,888  89 

977  78 

836  H 
3,583  si 

315  86 
1,759  68 


195  46 

3,276  53 

49,333  33 

809  71 

221,735  18 

337  39 


171  42, 

32,399  G3 

113,411  n 

928  89 

266  44 
733  33 


148,000 


592.000 


98  444  44 
246  11 


164 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


11 

Drawer. 

Endorser. 

Drawee. 

1831. 

Oct.   26 

(T.Baggott,P.Baggott,J.  ) 
I      Baggott                           S 

P.  Benson,  cash'r          | 

J.  Baggott,  Esq.,  Lan.) 
caster,  England           ) 

Nov.    2 

Laleah  Wood 

H.  S.  Pratt,  J.  Hunt- 

er, cashier      - 

Curries,  Raikes,  &  Co. 

5 

H.  S.  Connor 

S.  Duncan,  G.  Tichenor 

G.  Green,  &  Son,  L'pool 

8 

Deposite  with  Baring,  Broth- 
ers, &  Co.,  by  Curries,  &  Co., 
for  the  use  of  Josh.  King, 

Greene  co.,  Illinois 

... 

... 

Deposite  by  J.  Comerford, 

iif  i 

(for  the  credit  of  his  postage 

account)    .             -             - 

.             .            - 

«             .            » 

Deposite  by  Simpson,  &  Co., 

of  Whitly,  per  R.  Barclay, 

&  Co.,  for  the  use  of  Robt. 

Duck  with,Cincin.  branch  - 

.             .            • 

- 

H.  C.  Coulon 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r   - 

Wilson  &  Blanshard     - 

10 

,  Jas.  C.  Wilkins       - 

S.  Duncan,  G.  Tichenor 

G.  Green,  &  Sons,  L'pool 

R.  J.  Routh, 

T.  A.  Stayner,  W.'  T. 

The  Lords  Comm'rs  of ) 
the  Treas'y,  London    ) 

n 

Barry,  P.  M.  Gen'l 

12 

Rec'd  by  Baring,  Brothers, 
&  Co.,  from  Messrs.  Wil- 

liamson, &  Co.,  against  W. 

Hallet's  receipt,  transmitted 

them  30  July  last   - 

1             .            . 

- 

22 

Deposite  with  B.B.&  Co.,  for 
the  use  of  James  Jackson, 
of  Turk  Hancock,  with  the 

Wyoming  bk.,  Wilkesbarre 

- 

- 

24 

Charles  Bankhead  - 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r   - 

Sir  John  D.  Paul,  Bart., 
217,  Strand,  London  - 

26 

J.  Smernire 

do 

Harrnan,  &  Co., 

28 

Petit  de  Villers 

Joseph  Auze    - 

A.  A.  Gower,  Nephews, 
&  Co. 

30 

Wm.  Gaston           •            | 

Jas.  Marshall,  cash'r,  J. 
Hunter,  cash'r 

Rathbone,Bro8.,&Co.,  ) 
Liverpool             »        > 

do                   -            - 

do 

T.  &  J.  D.  Thomby     - 

do 

do 

Roskell,  Ogden,  &  Co., 
Liverpool, 

Dec.   10 

Thomas  Biddle,  &  Co. 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r,  - 

Gowan  &  Marx, 

dQ 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

15 

McNicol  &  Davidson, 

Stephen  Watson, 

W.L.Wo3tenholm,  Li- 
verpool, 

do 

d6 

Rob't  Jarvie,  Glasgow, 

do                   •            - 

John  Hiddleston, 

do            -            - 

Jane  Smith, 

James  Smith,   - 

Thomas  Edgar,  16  Lon- 
don street, 

16 

Stetson  &  Avery,     • 

G.  P.  &  W.  C.  Bowers, 

Cyrus  Monde,  Liverp'l, 

19 

Charles  Bankhead,  - 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r,  - 

H.D.  Scott,  F'gtt  Office, 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  LONDON—Continued. 


165 


Where 
payable. 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount, 
currency. 

£     a.    d. 

Per  cent 

Dolls.  Gts. 

- 

Cincinnati,     Oct   18 

10  days 

56     4  11 

9i 

272  3fl 

London 

Savannah,              24 
Natchez,                  15 

60    " 
60    " 

100 
30 

7 
9 

475  55 

145  33 

fit.  Louis      - 

London,         Sep.  15 

. 

340 

9i 

1,664  67 

. 

do                     22 

- 

30 

8 

144 

»                           m 

London 
do 

do                      22 
Philadelphia,  Nov.    8 
Natchez,        Oct,  19 

Sight 
60  days 

166  12 
50 
1,000 

9i 

9i  less  i 

9 

810  78 
242  la 

8,844  44 

*           * 

auebec,                    4 

30    « 

100 

4s.  Id.  pr.  dol. 

439  80 

•            • 

London,         Sep.  29 

- 

32  15     6 

9J  less  i 

158  97 

- 

do            Oct     6 

. 

40 

9i  less  i 

193  70 

- 

Washington,  Nov.  22 
do                      24 

60  days 
5    " 

55 
291  13    2 

8 

264 
1,403  20 

ondon 

Savannah,               19 

15    " 

217  19     7 

8i 

1,051  14 

do 

do                      21 

GO    " 

1,512 

- 

7,291  20 

do 

do                    do 

60    « 

1,160 

• 

5,593  77 

do 

do 
«      4o 
b     do 

do 
J    do         - 
■      do 

do 

do 

do 

do                    do 
Philadelphia,    Dec.  9 
do                     do 
do                    do 
do                     do 
do                     do 
do                    do 
do                     do 
do                    do 
do                    do 

60    " 
40    " 
50    " 
60    " 
70    '* 
75    " 
80    " 
90    " 
100" 
110" 

1,060 
10,000 
10,000 
10,000 
10,000 

23,551     2     9 
10,000 
10,000 
10,000 
10,000 

8i 
10 

5,111  59 
506,250 

do 
do 
do         . 

Charleston,      Dec.  7 
do.                   do 
do                        8 

60    " 
do 
do 

500 
600 
700 

1   8i 

8,679  99 

do 
do 
do 

Savannah,                6 
New  Orleans,  Nov.  28 
Washington,  Dec.  14 

do 
do 
do 

62 

650 

60 

10 

8 
8 

301  39 
3,120 
240 

166 


Date  of 
puicha- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.   16.— REMII 


1831. 
Dec  22 

33 
26 

87 


Drawer. 


Endorser. 


S.B.Parkman,        •  -     E.  Molyneux,  Jr. 

William  Gaston,      -  -     J.  Hunter,  cash'r, 

Humphrey  &  Everett, '        -  \  Charles  Potter,  Henry 

John  Candler,  Jr.    - 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co. 

Charles  Bankhead,  - 

John  Campbell,  treasure^,    - 


Drawee. 


28 


Farnum,  &  Co. 
McNicol  &  Davidson,  - 

Norman  Wallace, 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r,  - 


T.  L.  Smith,   register, 
W.  Mcllvaine,'  cash'r. 


Deposited  with  Baring,  Broth 


do 
do 


do     by  Smith,  Pay 
do     by  Henry  Ans 


Edward  Menlove, 
do 
29  I  Eugene  A.  Vail, 
30 


ers,  &  Co.  by  Curries,  St  C 
of  Marion  c'ty,  AVhitsam, 
ne,  o,  Co.  for  the  use  of  Ra 
ell  for  the  use  of  Thos.  An 

John  Stoney,    - 

do 

V/m.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r, 


1832. 
Jan.      2 

4 
11 

12 

«( 

14 

16 

18 

■  18 

20 

21 


23 

27 


Deposite  by  Mr.  Boulanger,  f 
do  by  Wright,  &  Co.,  fo 
do      by  John  Thomas,  So 

Wm.  Gaston, 

Deposite  for,  the  use  of  Thorn 
H.  Montgomery,  director, 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co. 

Wm.  Gaston, 

Edward  Menlove,     — 

J.  P.  Heiry, 
Gustavus  Colhoun,  Jr. 

J.  Ganahe,  - 
ISlcNicol  &  Davidson, 
Ferdinand  S.  C.  Stewart, 
Wm.  Gaston, 

Deposite  by  Geo.  Green  &  So 
don,  for  the 
R.  J.  Routh,  -  - 

G.  Nichols, 
Charles  Bankhead, 
William  Metcalfe,    - 

James  Metcalfe, 


or  the  use  of  Richard  Smit 
r  the  use  of  Rev.  Edward 
n,&  Co.,  for  the  use  of  Dr. 
J.  Hunter,  cash'r, 

as  Nalton,  of  New  York, 
Rev.  James  Cariey, 

James  Marshall,  cash'r, 

do 

John  Stoney,  Esq.,     - 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co.     - 
Stephen  Duncan, 


W.  C.  Molyneux,  Li- 
verpool, 

Forbes,  Low,  &  Co.  A- 
berdeen, 

Thos.  Dickason,  &Co. 
Maury,  Latham,  &  Co, 

Liverpool, 
Isaac  Low,  &  Co.  Liver 

pool, 
H.D.Scott,  Foreign  Of 

fice,  London, 

Baring,  Brothers,  &  Co 

London, 
o.,fortheuseofT.Pottt 
Sandusky,  per  letter, 
Iph  Turner,  of  Cineinnat 
sell,   of  the  Academy, 
near  Lexington, 
Marriott  &  Rogers,  L 
verpool, 

John    McClure,    Mai 
Chester, 
Aaron  Vail,  Esq.  Sec'r 
of  American  Legatioi 
h,  cash'r,  Washington, 
Fenwick,  of  Cincinnati, 
J.F.N.Guille,  of  Zancsv 
Rathbone,  Brothers, 
Co.,  Liverpool, 

H.  &  J.  Johnston,  &  C 


Andrew  Low,  &  Co.  - 
Stephen  Watson,  Esq. 
W.  Mollvaine,  cash'r,  - 
James  Hunter,  cash'r,  - 


ns,  of  Liverpool,  in  a  bill  o 
useof  Mrs.  .T.C.William 
T.  A.  Stayner, 

do 
W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r,  - 
Thomas  Lawson,  &.Co. 

do 


Thomas  Bannerman, 

Co.,  Aberdeen, 
Roskell,  Ogden,  &  C. 

Liverpool, 
Joseph  Fry,   Esq.,  Li 

verpool, 
Isaac  Low,  &  Co. 
George  Green  &  So 

Liverpool, 
Isaac  Low,  &  Co., 
Rob't  Jarvie,  Glasgo 
Cash'r  Roy alB'k  Scot 
T.  &  J.  I>.  Thome 

Liverpool, 
nHeath,F.&Co.ofLor 
,  s,  of  Natchez,  Miss. 
Commissioners    of 

Majesty's  treasuryi 
Greenwood,  Cox,  &  ( 
Sir  Jno.  Dean PauljBa 
Jon'n  Bakehouse,  &  ( 


do 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  LONDON— Continued. 


167 


Where 
payable. 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount, 
currency. 

£       a.    d. 

Per  cent. 

.Dolls,  cts. 

London,     - 

Savannah,      Dec.  13 

60  days 

3,000 

8i 

14,516  67 

do 

«                       14 

60     " 

2,500 

(( 

12,097  22 

do 

Providence,  R.L      13 

10     " 

890 

9^ 

4,331  34 

do 

Charleston,    Dec.  1 J 

GO     " 

200 

8i 

964  ^4 

do 

Savannah,                17 

1832. 
Washington,    Jan.  1 

60     " 
60     •' 

6,500 
105 

9 

8 

31,438  83 
504 

London,     - 

1831. 
Troas'y  U.  S.  Dec.  22 

I     « 

1,999     6     2 

10 

9,774  40 

- 

Oct.  29 

- 

20 
190 

9|  less  A 

97  06 

826  77 

- 

- 

« 

95 

"  less  i 

461  07 

London,     - 

Charleston,     Dec.  17 

60     « 

646     6  11 

8^           ) 

- 

do                     19 

60     « 

284     4    8 

.'       1 

4,487  44 

- 

Washington,      "   28 
London,           Nov.  5 

1     " 

40 
175 

145     4  11 
472     4     6 

h    : 

193  78 

853  61 

708  47 

2,303  41 

London,     - 
do 
do 

Savannah,      Dec.  24 

Nov.  14 

Northern  Ba'ks  Co'y 

Belfast,          Nov.  2 

60     " 
21     « 

2,500 
700 

130 

9 

12,111  n 
3,314  44 

do 

Savannah,      Dec.  29 

60     " 

1,323  18 

9              i 

16,102  44 

do 

30 

60     " 

2,000 

^ 

do 
do 

Charleston,       Jan.  5 
Savannah,                 3 

60     « 
60     « 

784     7 
625 

8i 

3,782  38 
2,531  67 

do 
do 
do 

Natchez,         Dec.  18 
Savannah,  Jan.  6,  '32 
Charleston,    "         11 

60     " 
60     " 
60     " 

100 

625 

2,000 

8 
« 

8^ 

480 
3,000 
9,644  44 

London,     - 

Philadelphia,"        18 
Savannah,     "        10 

30     « 
60     « 

17,200 
1,000 

8* 

4,811  11 

- 

London,           Oct.  22 

- 

540  14     5 

H 

2,637  51 

London,     - 
do 

Dar'gton  co. 

Durham,Eug. 

do        do 

Cluebec,           Dec.  8 

Washington,  Jan.  24 

19 

30     " 
30     " 
60     « 

30     " 
30     « 

450 

100 

50 

500 
400 

8 

H     - 

2,682  78 

240 
4,360 

168 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


Date  of 
purcha- 


Drawer. 


1832. 

Deposite  with  Baring,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.  by  T.  W.Earle, 
&  Co.,  for  the  use  of  John 
Parker,  syndic  of  V.  Notte, 
&  Co.  per  letter  from  office 
New  Orleans, 
Jan.   30     William  Gaston, 

Henry  L.  Conner, 

Wilson  &  Hallett, 

31     Jas.  Sidford,  himself, 


Endorser. 


Feb.     2 


14 


James  F.  Green, 

Deposite,  bill  on  Coutts,  & 
Co.,  for  the  use  of  Ann  Gal- 
braith,  No.  200,  Chambers 
street,  N.  York,      - 

Deposite  by  J.  Crosby,  &  Co. 
for  the  use  of  Joseph  Hud- 
dant,  of  Cincinnati, 

Deposite  by  Barclay,  Bro- 
thers, &  Co.,  for  the  use  of 
Jos.  Watson,  of  Philadei'a, 

F.  Auon,     -  -  - 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co., 

Charles  Bankhead, 

Deposite  by  Capt.Hammond, 
for  the  use  of  Saml.  White, 
of  Saco,  part  of  a  bill  due 
January  14, 

James  Metcalfe, 

James  F.  Green, 
Gourdin  &  Smith,    • 

D.  Matthias, 

Higginson,  Dean,  &  Scott,  - 

Gourdin  &  Smith,    - 

do 
James  Robertson,    - 
Thomas  Biddle,  &.  Co. 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 


James   Hunter,  cash'r, 

Stephen  Duncan, 

Emanuel  8c  Gains,  L. 
Judson, 
Linn  &  Riche,  - 

Stephen  Watson, 


Andrew  Low,  &  Co.    - 

Themselves, 

Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r, 


Reynolds,  Ferriday,&Co 

S.  N.  Bishop,    - 
P.  Bacot,  cash'r, 

James  Robertson, 
D.  Matthias,  Esq. 

P.  Bacot,  cash'r. 


J.  &  R.  Purvis,  &  Co.    - 
Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r, 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 


Drawee. 


T.  &  J.  D.  Thomly,  Li- 
verpool, 

Geo.  Green  &  Son,  Li- 
verpool, 

Rob't  Wilson,  Liverp'I, 
M.  Stapely,  Tunbridge 

Wells,  England. 
Wm.  Stuart,  Esq.  Li- 
verpool, 


Isaac  Lqw,  &  Co. 
Th.  Bannerman,  &  Co., 
H.   D.    Scott,   Foreign 
Office,  London, 


Geo.  Green  &  Son,  Li- 
verpool, 
Wm.  Stuart,  Liverpool, 
McConnell,&C  O.Man- 
chester, 
Thomas  Roy,  Liverp'I, 
Barton,    Irlam,  &  Hig- 
ginson, Liverpool, 
Benjamin  Smith  &  Sons, 

Manchester,   - 
Joseph  Smith  &  Son,    - 
Thomas  Roy,  - 
Gowan  &  Marx, 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 


C  Rep.  No,  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  LONDON— Continued. 


169 


Where  pay- 
able. 


tondon,     - 
do         I 
do 
do 

London,     > 


Liverpool,  - 
Aberdeen,  - 

London, 


London, 
do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 
Liverpool, 
London, 

do 

do- 
do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 


Date  of  bill. 


1832,  Jan.  12 
Savannah,  Jan.  14 
Natchez,  10 

Mobile,  16 

Philadelphia,  Jan.  31 
Charleston,     Jan.  81 


London, 


Dec.  6 


Nov.  29 


Dec.  22 

Savannah,       Jan.  20 

«'  25 

"Washington,    Feb.  4 


London,         Dec.  30 

Natchez,  Jan.  14 

Charleston,       Feb.  1 


Barbadoes,     Dec.  24 

Charleston,       Feb.  8 

"  8 

"  9 

1832,  Feb.  15 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do  23 

do 
do 
22 


Time. 


60  days 
60     " 

fiO     " 

■?■-}     « 

60     *' 


60 
60 

60 
60 

90 

60 
60 
60 
50 
60 
70 
75 
SO 
90 
100 
40 
60 
75 


Amount. 


1,751  12  11 
1,700 
1,000 
1,500 
20 
1,500 

6     10 

128 


55     8 
2,500 
6,600 

55 


180 

460 
1,845 

1,738  13     1 
650 

353  10    8 


1,500 

1,500 
431 

5,000 

5,000 

5,000 
10,723  19 

5,000 

5,000 

5,000 

5,000 

5,000 
10,723  W 


0    6 


Rate. 


8 


Per  cent. 


H 
H 
Si 

8^ 

9i  less  i 

H 


9i  less  ji 

8i 

9 

8 


Si 

8i 


9 
9 

8i 


lOi 


Amount, 
currency. 


Dolls,  cts. 


8,534  67 
8,178  83 
4,822  22 
7,216  66 

7,233  34 

326  86 

511  26 

268  26 
12,055  55 
31,973  33 

265  22 

876 
2,218  22 

20,415  62 

1,696  94 
16,611  83 


400,000 


170 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEJVIENT  No.   16.— REMIT 


Date  of 

Drawer. 

Endorser. 

Drawee. 

purcha- 

ses. 

1832. 

Thomas  Biddle,  &  po. 

Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r, 

Gowan  &  Marx, 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Feb.    15 

John  N.  Gossler,     - 

Himself, 

Thomas  Wilson,  &  Cck, 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r, 

do 

G.  W.  Tarlcton, 

J.  Emanuel, 

Robert  Wilson, 

16 

Wilson  &  Hallett,     - 

do 

Wm.  Smith  &  Son,  Li- 
verpool, 

Bank  of  Scotland,    . 

Russel  &  Aitkin,  B.  L. 

Lear,  -            -             - 

Coutts,  &  Co.  - 

McNicoI  &  Davidson, 

McNeill    &     Blair,    P. 

- 

Bacot,  cash'r. 

Reed,  Irving,  &  Co.,    - 

18 

Patterson  &  May  wood, 

P.  Bacot,  cash'r. 

H.  &  J.  Johnson,  &  Co., 

a 

do 

do 

do 

21 

Edward  Menlove,    - 

Himself  do        - 

Josh.  Fry,  Esq.  Liver- 
pool, 

Jon'n  Lucas,  Jr. 

Jonathan  Lucas, 

Lucas  &  Ewbank, 

Wni.  Gaston, 

James  Hunter,  cash'r,  - 

Cropper,  Benson,  &  Co.," 

J'.  Anone,    -            -            - 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co. 

Isaac  Low,  &  Co. 

Jos.  Gumming, 

Edw.  Molyneux,  Jr. 

W.  C,  Molyneux, 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co. 

Norman  Wallace, 

Isaac  Low,  &  Co. 

22 

John  N.  Gossler,     - 

J.  D.  Boers,  &  Co. 

Thomas  Wilson,  &  Co., 

23 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co. 

James  Marshall,  cash'r. 

Rich'd  Hames  k  Son, 
Bury,  Lancashire, 

« 

Jon'n  Lucas,  Jr.       - 

Jon'n  Lucas,     - 

Lucas  &  Ewbank, 

Edward  Menlove,     - 

Himself, 

Joseph  Fry,  Liverpool, 

24 

Alexander  Wylly,    - 

Robert  Habersham, 

John  Armstrong,  Batli, 

27 

Jas.  F.  Green, 

Alexander  Sinclair, 

W,  Stuart,  Liverpool,  - 

Andrew  Low,  &  Co. 

Norman  Wallace, 

Isaac  Low,  &.  Co. 

P.  Gibson,   - 

E.  Molyneux,  Jr. 

Wm.  C.  Molyneux, 

Gordon  Forstall,  &  Co. 

Jos.  Le  Carpentier, 

A.  Gordon,  &  Co. 

Charles  Bankhead,  - 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r,  - 

H.  D.  Scott,  Esq.  Fo- 
reign Office,    - 

Stafflcr  &  Assur,     - 

De   Rham,  Iselin,    and 

H.  Chastelain,   Schact- 

Moore, 

ier,  Sc  Co.        - 

•       do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do    , 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

De  Rham,  Iselin,  &  Moore,  - 

F.  C.  Boell,      . 

J.  Les  Lemme,  &  Co.,  - 

, 

do 

do 

T.  W.  Smith,  8c  Co.,    - 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Suse  &  Sibcth, 

27 

J.  D.  Beers,  &Co.,  - 

E.  Wainwright,  &  Co., 

Wainwright  &  Shiels, 
Liverpool, 

do 

do 

do 

Ogden,  Ferguson,  8c  Co.,     - 

John  Greenfield  &  Son, 

Bohon,  Ogden,  &  Ca  - 

do 

V      do 

do 

L.  Trappman,          •            * 

De  Rham,   Iselin,   and 

Moore, 

John  Barandant,  &  Co. 

[  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 

TANCES  TO  LONDON— Continued. 


Where  pay- 

Date of  bill. 

Time, 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount, 

able. 

currency. 

£      s.  d. 

Per  cent. 

Dolls,  cts. 

London,     - 

Feb.  23 

llOd'ys 

5,000 

do 

« 

90     " 

5,000 

- 

do 

(( 

45    '' 

5,000 

do 

« 

105     " 

5,000 

do 

15 

50     " 

10,000 

>11 

do 

(( 

60     " 

10,000 

148,000 

do 

(( 

70     " 

10,000 

do 

New  York, 

Feb.  14 

60     " 

10,000 

\ 

do     '      - 

u 

60     " 

10,000 

Ml 

169,426  67 

do 

(( 

60     " 

14,343     4  10 

) 

do 

Mobile, 

Feb.  3 

60     " 

1,500 

8i 

7,233  33 

do 

(( 

60     « 

1,500 

u 

7,233  33 

do 

Falkirk, 

Dec.  6 

60     " 

11 

9 

53  28 

do 

Charleston, 

Feb.  9 

60     " 

2,000 

9 

9,688  89 

do 
do 

11 

« 

60     « 
60     " 

2,250 
800 

- 

14,775  56 

do 

14 

60     « 

400 

»|      . 

do 

(( 

60     « 

1,000 

6,782  22 

do 

Savannali, 

Feb.  6 

60     « 

,     5,000 

«n 

do 
do 

4 
10 

60     " 
60     " 

731     6     5 

3,000 

?     - 

54,337  69 

do 

9 

60     " 

2,500 

9    J 

do 

New  York, 

«  21 

60     " 

20,000 

H            ' 

97,555  56 

do 

Savannah, 

13 

60     " 

1,000 

9 

4,814  44 

do 

Charleston, 

Feb.  15 

60     " 

1,000 

^*l     • 

5,978  57 

do 

16 

60     " 

[231  16    4 

do 

Savannah, 

Jan.  15 

60     " 

50 

4 

231  11 

do 

Charleston, 

Feb.  17 

60     " 

1,000 

9i 

4,S77  78 

do 

Savannah, 

60     " 

2,500 

H 

12,166  67 

do 

(( 

15 

60     " 

700 

H 

3,398  88 

do 

New  Orleans,         It 

60     " 

2,000 

8| 

9,666  67 

do 

Washington 

24 

GO     « 

55 

8 

264 

do 

Now  York, 

23 

60     " 

800 

^ 

do 

t( 

« 

60     " 

900 

do 

(( 

« 

60     " 

1,000 

...  ♦ 

do 

(( 

(( 

60     " 

1,100 

do 

(( 

« 

60     " 

1,200 

do 

(( 

24 

60     " 

1,500 

do 

(( 

(( 

60     " 

1,000 

do 

« 

« 

60     " 

2,000 

do 

(( 

« 

60     " 

1,500 

do 

u 

25 

60    " 

5,000 

do 

<( 

60      ' 

5,000 

.   9i 

169,956  48 

•  do 

« 

60    « 

5,000 

do 

(( 

60     " 

2,580. 

do 

Charleston, 

11 

60    « 

643  17 

, 

172 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


Date  of 

Drawer. 

.-        '        ,              ■     -      ■         ••'■■=; 

Endorser. 

Drawee. 

purcha 

ses. 

1832. 

Feb.  27 

L.  Trappman, 

De  Rham,   Iselin,  and 

Moore, 

John  Barandent,  &  Co., 

1 

Do 

do 

do 

Do                  *           . 

do 

do 

Do 

do 

do 

Do 

do 

do 

Do 

do 

do 

Do                 -           . 

do 

do 

Joseph  Battersly,     - 

Ogden,  Ferguson,  &  Co. 

Geo.  Jones,  Manches'r, 

Edward  Martireu,    - 

do 

Martireau,  Smith,  &  Co. 
Liverpool, 

Feb.  27 

Joseph  Battersley    - 

Himself 

Gardner,  Outram  &  Co. 

Jon  a.  Lucas,  jr. 

Jonathan  Lucas 

Lucas  &  Ewbank 

Gordon,  Forstall  &Co. 

John  G.  Greeves 

A.  Gordon  &  Co.  L'pool 

28 

Joseph  Marx  &  Son 

J.  L.  &  S.  Joseph  &  Co. 

Gowan  &  Marx 

Do 

do 

do 

Do 

do 

do 

• 

-       Do 

do 

do 

Do 

do 

do 

Do 

do 

do 

Mar.    1 

Gordon,  Forstall  &  Co. 

John  G.  Greeves 

A.  Gordon  &  Co.,  L'pool 

2 

De  Forrest  &  Son     - 

James  Treat      - 

Wm.  Inglis&Co. 

Coster  &  Carpenter 

Gracie,  Prime  &  Co.     - 

Baring,  Brothers  &  Co. 

E.  Molyneux,  jr. 

Joseph  Battersley 

W.  C.  Molyneux,  L'pool 

S.N.  Bishop             -       f     - 

D.  Barnes,  C.  G.  Morris 

Wainwright  &  Shiels    - 

Do. 

do 

do 

Gourdin  and  Smith  • 

P.  Bacot,  cashier 

McConnell  &  Co  ,  Man'r 

Patterson  &  May  wood 

do 

J.  McCameron,  Esq.,  Lp. 

5 

William  Gaston 

James  Hunter,  cashier  • 

T.  &  J.  D.  Thombey    - 

Do 

do 

Rathbone,  Brother  &  Co. 

Do 

J.  Marshall,  cashier,  J. 

Hunter,  cashier 

Cropper,  Benson  &  Co. 

1 

V.  Hazard 

Wainwright    &   Sbiels, 

Wm.  Vernon  &  Co.   - 

Wainwright  &  Shiels    - 

Wilson  &  Hallett     r 

J.  Emanuel 

Wm.  Smith  &  Son 

Jona.  Lucas,  jr. 

Jona  Lucas     - 

Lucas  &  Ewbank 

Patterson  &  Maywood 

P.  Bacot 

Wm.  Stuart,  Esq. 

7 

Hicks,  Lawrence'  &  Co.      - 

Silas  Hicks 

Roskell,  Ogden  &  Co.  - 

Do 

Samuel  Hicks  &  Sons  - 

Cropper,  Benson  &  Co. 

Do 

Ally,  Lawrence  &  Trimble 

do 

William  Barber,  jr. 

J.  A.  Merle  &  Co. 

Latham  &  Gair 

8 

Jona.  Lucas,  jr. 

P.  Bacot,  cashier  - 

Lucas  &  Ewbank 

J.  &  J.  Calders 

do    ^ 

Buchanan,  Land  &  Co.  - 

9 

W.  Gaston  - 

James  Hunter,  cashier,  • 

T.&J.D.Thornby      - 

Do 

James  Marshall,  cashier 

Cropper,  Benson  &  Co. 

Do 

do 

Rathbone,  Brothers  &  Co. 

Do 

do 

Roskell,  Ogden  &  Co.  - 

10 

Charles  Bankhead    - 

W.  M'llvaine,  cashier  • 

H.D.Scott,  For'n  office 

12 

Deposite  with  Baring,  Brother 

s  &  Co.  by  F.  Hunt,  for  th 

e  use  of  Francis  W.  Hunt, 

13 

W.  Barber,  jr. 

Lincoln  &  Green 

R.  F.  Breed,  Liverpool  - 

•  i 

James  Robertson     - 

J.  &R.  Purvis  &  Co.  - 

J.  Robinson,  Liverpool  - 

Do 

do 

Andrew  Taylor  &  Co. 

14 

Gourdin  &  Smith    - 

P.  Bacot 

McConnell  &  Co.,  Man'r 

Do 

do 

Joseph  Smitli  &  Son     • 

[  Bep.  No,  460.  1 

TANCES  TO  LONDON-Continued. 


173 


Where  pay 
able. 

Date  of  bill. 

Time 

Amount 

Rate. 

Amount, 
currency. 

London,     - 

Charleston,    Feb.    1 

1  60  day 

s         450 

do 

«                     « 

do 

500 

do 

«                     ii 

do 

491     5    7 

do 
do 

do 
do 

503     4    6 
490 

do 

«                     11 

do 

550 

do 

((                     « 

do 

439   17    6 

do 

«                           u 

do 

620 

Liverpool,  - 

Mobile,                      8 

do 

1,800 

London 

Charleston,    Feb.  20 

60  days 

634  14 

8i 

do 

«                      (( 

do 

2,000 

12,880  75 

do 

N.  Orleans,         .    13 

do 

1,500 

do 

Richmond,              16 

do 

1,000 

7t2S0 

do 
do 

<C                                            11 

do 
do 

1,000 
500 

do 
do 

do 
do 

500 
500 

\   9 
10 

H 

,    19,377  78 

do 

«                      It 

do 

500 

do 
do 

N.  Orleans,            l5 
New  York,             29 

do 
do 

1,500 
3,000 

7,250 

do 
do 

Savannah,               21 

do 

do 

2,599  11 
1,100 

27,127  61 

do 

Charleston,              23 

do 

1,000 
1,000 

5,377  77 

do 

«                      (I 

do 

4,877  78 

do 

24 

do 

1,500 

10 

4.87r  78 

do 
do 
do 

25 

Savannah,               24 

«                     « 

do 
do 
do 

558  17  10 

2,000 
500 

r,333  33 
2,732  35 

do 

"                     « 

do 

1,000 

) 

17,111  09 

do 

New  York,  March    3 

do 

5,000 

9 

do 

Mobile,  February    18 

do 

1,000 

24,222  22 

do 

Charleston,             27 

do 

1,000 

|io" 

4,844  44 

do 
do 
do 
do 

«                      ti 
New  York,  March  5 

do 
do 
do 
do 

1,000 
3,000 
4,500 
4,500 

9,777  78 
58,266  66 

do 

Ntew  Orleans,  Feb.  18 

do 

2,000 

do 

Charleston,             28 

do 

2,000 

9,666  67 

do 
do 

Mar.     1 
Savannah,     Feb.  28 

do 
do 

2,000 
300               1 

19,511  12 

do 

«                           u 

do 

500 

do 

«                     « 

do 

400 

•  H 

6,828  86 

do 

«                     « 

do 

200 

do 
of  Cincinnati 

London,         Feb.     1 

do 
do 

75 
5 

9   lessi 

361  67 

London 

New  Orleans,         20 

do 

400 

24  10 

do 

Charleston,  March    5 

do 

163    $    6    ) 

850               { 

1,000               ) 

1,946  67 

do 

«                                         i€ 

do 

H 

4,931  26 

do 

'      6 

do 

H 

do 

«                       {( 

do 

1,000               I 

9,733  34 

74 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.-~REMIT 


Dajo  of 

Drawer. 

Endorser. 

: ' '    ■      r 

Drawee. 

purchases 

15 

Mackic,  Howi^  &  Co. 

Alexander  Sinclair 

Alston, Findlay  &  Go.  - 

- 

Patterson  &  Mayvvood 

P.Bacot 

Rathbone,Brothers  &,  Co. 

Robert  Higgin 

John  Boyd  &  Co. 

Archibald  Wilson  &  Co. 

W.  H.  Robertson     - 

F.  Colebert  Ainc 

Keill  &  Courant,  L'pool 

Mar.  15 

David  Crommelin  &  Son 

Themselves 

John  Gore  &  Co. 

16 

Chi^rles  Baakhead    - 

W.  M'llvaine,  cashier  - 

n.  D.  Scott,  foreign  office 

19 

Brothers  Cramer 

Baron  Ch's  De  Sacken  - 

Baring,  Brothers  &.  Co. 

20 

Benj.  Booth  &  Co.    ♦ 

Jos.  Lc  Carpcntier 

Booth,  Dixon  Sc  Co.       - 

Do 

Thomas  Toby  - 

do 

« « 

James  H.  Pratt 

Lincoln  &  Green 

Latham  &  Gair 

21 

Jona.  Lucas,  jr.        -          .  - 

P.  Bacot 

Lucas  &  Ewbank          • 

* 

Do 

do       • 

do 

Steiglitz  &  Co. 

,T.  Smirnoff 

Messrs.  Harman  8c  Co. 

22 

William  Barber,  jr.  - 

Lincoln  &  Green 

R.  F.  Breed,  Liverpool  • 

24 

Gourdin  &  Smith      - 

P.  Bacot 

McConncll  &  Co.,  Man'r 

1  ( 

Edward  Menlore      -          .  - 

Himself 

J.  McClure,  Manchester 

1 

Gourdm  &.  Smith-     ♦ 

P.  Bacot 

Benj.  Smith  &  Sons 

t  ( 

John  A.  Merle  &  Co. 

G.  Merle 

Baring,  Brothers  &  Co.  - 

26 

R.  J.  Routh,  G.  G. 

T.  A.  Stayner,  Esq.      - 

Comm'rs  of  his  Maj  Tre. 

27 

Deposite  for  the  use  of  Joseph 

F.  N.  Guille,  of  Zancsvil 

le,  Ohio;  part  of  bill  due 

Do      by  W.  &  J.  Brown  & 

Co.  of  Liverpool 

_ 

Do     for  the  use  of  Mrs. 

Mary  Murray,  of  Edward 

sville,  Illinois,  in  a  bill  on 

Do     for  Dr.  Jos.  Guille,  o 

f  Zanesville,  Ohio;  sundr 

y  bills  at  15  and  30  days- 

2S 

A.  S.  Warell 

Frost  Thorn,  \V.  L.  Ro- 

beson &  Co.  - 

Wm.  Inglis,  Philpot  lane, 

Gordon,  Forstall  &,  Co. 

Joseph  Le  Carpentier  - 

A.  Gordon  &  Co.,  L'pool 

W.  &  R.  Redmond  - 

Peter  Bacot,  cashier 

Sam.  &  Thos.  Ashton  - 

Jona.  Lucas,  jr.       - 

do 

Lucas  &  Ewbank 

Bank  of  Scotland     - 

Wm.  Frazer      ' 

Coutts  &  Co.     - 

Bank  of  England     - 

R.  A.  Gilpin,  J.  Gilpin 

Bank  of  England 

Mary  Gilpin 

Henry  D.  Gilpin 

Barclay,  Tritten,  Bevan 
&  Co. 

30 

P.  J.  auinlan 

His  order 

A.  T.  &  T.  Maxwell,  Lp. 

Andrew  Low  &  Co. 

Norman  Wallace 

Isaac  Low  &  Co.,  L'pool 

31 

Gordon,  Forstall  &  Co. 

J.  G.  Greeves 

A.  Gordon  &  Co. 

P.  W.  Grayson 

E.  Shippen,  cashier 

J.  Black,  Hammersnutte 

Deposite  by  John  Devonshire, 

for  the  use  of  Wm.  Good 

man  and  Mrs.  Sus'a  Good- 
man, of  Sheffield,  Lo 
raine  county,  Ohio;  - 

• 

SHIPMENTS 

1331. 

Aug.  15 

Per  ship  President  • 

(silver) 

*                                     m. 

1832. 

Feb.  11 

Monongahela 

■ 

(gold) 

[  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  LONDON—Continued. 


175 


Where 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amnunt, 

payable. 

currency. 

£      3.     d. 

Per  cent. 

Dolls,  cts. 

lyondon, 
do 

Charleston,   March     6 

8 

60  days 
do 

1,300 
366  16 

h 

8,074  72 

do 
do 

Mobile                        3 

U                                         (( 

do* 
do 

325 

877    2  10 

1         - 

5,850  41 

do 

Amsterdam,   Jan.     3 

10  days 

72  17    5 

9i 

353  83 

do 

Washington,  Mar.  IG 

60  days 

65 

8i 

313  44 

do 

St.  Petersb'g,  Jan.     8 

do 

400    9  11 

9 

1,940  18 

do 

New  Orleans,  Mar.  1 

do 

4,000 

"   1 

do 

"                        5 

do 

2,500 

33,371  34 

do 

"                       6 

do 

357    2    6 

do 
do 

Chariest  sn,             13 
"                    14 

do 
do 

915  12    5 

1,000 

'    1 

9,280  11 

do 

St.  Petereb'g,  Jan .  14 

3ms.de. 

170  12    2 

9 

826  50 

do 

New  Orleans,  Mar.  7 

60  days 

320 

9^ 

1,557  33 

do 

Charleston,               16 

do' 

1,500 

9i            ) 

do 

"                     15 

do 

183 

9              [ 

15,453  19 

do 

«                     16 

do 

1,500 

H         S 

do 

New  Orleans,            9 

do 

1,000 

n 

4.866  67 

do 

Gluebec,         Feb.   15 

30  days 

500 

10 

2,444  44 

12th  April    - 

London,                   14 

. 

245 

10 

1,197  78 

. 

_             « 

- 

134    2    7 

10 

655  74 

Coutts 

.             — 

_ 

50 

10 

244  44 

- 

- 

_ 

749  17    4 

10 

3,665  28 

London 

Nacoordody,  Jan.  18 

do 

44    2 

Par 

196 

do 

N.  Orleans,  Mar.    14 

60  days 

4,000 

9 

19,377  78 

do 
do 

Charleston               20 

do 
do 

4,000 
2,000 

H 

29,133  33 

do 

Edinburgh,,     Nov.  1 

do 

145 

H 

699  22 

do 

London,                   11 

sight 

20 

\h 

204  94 

do 

Philadelphia,           20 

30  days 

22  10 

) 

do 

March  29, 1832 

7 

80 

10 

392  22 

do 

Savannah,      Mar.  30 

60 

1,500 

H 

7,250 

do 

New  Orleans,          16 

60 

3,000 

14,500 

do 

Louisville,               21 

- 

- 

' 

700 

B.B.atBuffalo 

London,         Feb.  22 

- 

650 

m 

3,185 

OF  SPECIE. 

' 

- 

- 

- 

32,523    7 

- 

155,000 

- 

£ 

20,883    6    8 

n 

100,000 

787,979    1    9 

4,177,230  91 

176 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


O  3 


Drawer. 


Endorser. 


Drawee. 


1832. 

July  5 
11 
14 
16 


21 


23 


Aug.    2 


27 


Sept.    1 


A.  &  J.  Denneston,  &  Co.  - 

J.  H.  Vallance 

Bernard  Nicolay 

A.  &  J.  Denneston,  &  Co.  - 

William  Thomas 

A.  &  J.  Denneston,  &  Co.  - 

Deposited  for  the  use  of  P. 

Frenage  -  -  - 

Deposited  for  the  use  of  M. 

Rollin       - 
Deposited  for  the  use  of  Jno. 

Keating   ... 
Deposited  for  the  use  of  Ma- 
dam Amelia  M.  Proven- 

chur  V.  Merat 
Bank  of  France 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 

do  -  - 

do 

do  -  - 

Deposite,  Mr.    Corneille,  for 

the  use  of  R.  Dutreuil 
Deposite,  Mr.  Adam,  for  the 

use  of  himself 
John  Bohlen,  L.  Clapier,  8c 

Hor.  Binney,  ex'rs  of  Paul 

Sieman     -  -  - 

F.  Guellemin,  Consul 

do 
F,  Guellemin 
F.  R.  Ferret 
Deposite,  C.  deGadlon,  for  the 

use  of  J.  Ldhgpie,  of  N.  O. 
Deposite,  Mr.  cTavier,  for  the 

use  of  Adolphe  Gorman  - 
Deposite,  J.  G.  Cannoy,  for 

the  use  of  L.  A.  Stallenwerk 
Deposite,  Thos.  Gardiner,  for 

the  use  of  himself 
Ve.  Conny  -  -  - 

do      -  -  - 

Deposited  with  Hottinguer, 

&  Co.,  by  John  Henry,  for 

the  use  of  Mad.  Keating 
Deposited  with  Hottinguer, 

&  Co.,  by  John  Henry,  for 

the  use  of  Mr.  J.  Balbe    - 
Deposited  with  Hottinguer, 

&  Co  ,  by  M.  Bickham,  for 

kis  use     -  -  - 


Calder,  Broch,  &  Co. 
John  C.  Lige   - 
Richard  Carnochan 
Calder,  Broch,  &  Co. 
Levi  H.  Gale  - 
Calder,  Broch,  &  Co. 


J.  Denneston,  &  Co.     - 
Dumoustier  &  Gougond 
Portal,  &  Co.    - 
J.  Denneston,  &  Co.    - 

do 

do 


w. 

20, 

No.  463 

0. 

16, 

914 

G, 

5, 

620 

a. 

n, 

238 

V. 

20, 

531 

F. 

17, 

843 

F. 

17, 

706 

M. 

16, 

320 

G. 

15, 

809 

0. 

20, 

163 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r 
Peter  &  Millard 

do 
Mr.  Baron,  jr.  - 
S.  JaudoB, 


Deleesert,  &  Co. 
French  Treasury 

do 
Baguenault,  &  Co. 
I.  V.Du  Pasquier,  &  Co. 


S.  Jaudon,  cash'r 
do 


Ebzear  Preboia 
Hypolite  de  St  Lcger  - 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


177 


TANCES  TO  FRANCE. 


Where 
payable. 

Date  of  bill 

Time. 

Amount 

Rate. 

Amount, 
currency. 

Francs    ctmes. 

Per  cent. 

Dolls,  cts. 

Paris 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 

N.  Orl.,      June,  1831 
Sav,,      Feb.  28,  1831 
Bethels,  Geo. 
N.  Orleans,    July     1 

60  days 
30    " 
15    " 
60    " 

20,750 
405 
5,000 
37,327  24 
13,119  64 
34,839  16 

5,27^     . 
5, 15  less  i 
5,22^      - 
5,25        - 
5,25        - 
5,25        - 

3,933  65 
78  25 

>     16,244  d6 

♦ 

Paris,              May  30 

- 

7,000 

5,m  - 

1,352  65 

••            • 

. 

* 

1,575 

5,17ils.i 

302  83 

r                     - 

•            •■            - 

- 

15,300  45 

5,17i      - 

2,956  61 

•  • 

•  • 

r 

»            •            » 

- 

13,451  48 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 

5,12i,de. 
ducting  $5 
,  notarial 
charges 

2,599  38 
1,946  82 

- 

Paris,    June  8,  1831 

- 

1,200 

5,  iriis.i 

230  72 

»■            » 

"            *            " 

- 

3,000 

5,  17i      - 

579  71 

Paris 

Paris 
do 

Philadelphia,  Aug.    3 

N.  Orleans,    July    5 

do                         5 

do                       25 

do                      28 

60  days 
60    " 

- 

3,876  05 

2,765  07 

472  50 

4,145  S7 

13,125 

5,30 
1    5,25        . 

1   5,  30        . 

745  40 
616  68 

3,258  64 

• 

Paris,             June  21 

' 

190,000 

5,20 

36,533  46 

• 

do                      28 

' 

250 

5,  151s.  i 

43  30 

- 

. 

400 

- 

77  2i 

•             •• 

N.  Orleans,    July  23 

Sight 

252 
58,U0 

5,  17i     - 

48  69 
11,228  93 

Paris,              July    8 

- 

150 

5,12ilB.i 

29  12 

V 

do                         6 

- 

2,860  66 

5,12J      - 

553  IM 

f 

do                        7 

. 

12,600 

. 

8,453  73 

23 


178 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


STATEMENT  No.   16— REMIT 


Drawer. 


r832. 
Sept    3 


17 

80 


30 

Oct.      7 

13 

14 


IS 

• « 

19 

SO 

32 
24 

S6 

31 


Nor. 


Deposited  with  Hottinguer, 

&Co.  by  Mr.  De  la  Grange, 

for  the  use  of  F.  Pasquier  - 
Deposited  with  Hottinguer, 

&  Co.,  for  the  use  of  Ar- 

mand  Desau 
Deposited  with  Hottinguer, 

&  Co.,  for  the  use  of  Mr. 

BaH;c,  ofN.  O.    - 
J.  H.  VaUian 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  A.  V. 

Veolland,  of  Canton,  Ohio 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  Mad. 

V.  Lafitteau 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  Mad. 

Th.  Gaugan 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  Miss 

E.  Gaugan 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  Mad. 

V.  Febree,  vice  Gaugan  - 
Thomasson 
Edward  Fen  wick 
Fk.  Ferret    - 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  Mad. 

V.  Vannier,  and  Mad.  N., 

vice  Vannier 
Deposite,  for  the  use  of  Clues 

net,  of  Philadelphia 
Deposite,for  the  use  of  Doct. 

Lakoche  ,  -  - 

Deposite,for  the  use  of  Mad. 

Legoigne 
Deposite,  for  the  use  of  Mr. 

Dannery,FrenchConsul  at 

Philadelphia 
J.  C,  Villadine  Balliaa 

M.  A.  J,  G.  Villadine 
Thomasson 

Deposite,for  the  use  of  Chas. 
Barbier,  of  N.  Orleans     - 
H.  Perrot  &  Charbonnet 

Bion  Berauld  Berauld 
JuUs  Piscay 

S,  Dannery,  Cons,  de  Fr.,  Ph. 

do  do 

Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  for  the  use  of  Count 
de  Survilliers 

Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  for  the  use  of  Mrs.  De- 
lamere      ... 

X.  de  Choiacul 

Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  for  the  use  of  Cesair 
Bloom      -  -  - 


Endorser. 


P.  P.  Thomasson 


James  Hunter,  cash'r 
P.  Benson,  cash'r 
L.  M.  Reynand 


Drawee. 


Dumoustier  &  Gougaud 


M.  de  Jonquer 
Didier,Petit,&Co.a  Lyon 
I.duPasquier,&Co.Havre 


Thomasson 

do 
Jas.  Hunter 


Ls.  Brugiere     - 

B.  Berauld  Berauld 
Morean  Lislet 

W.  Mcllvaine 


do 


W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r  - 


J.  Hunter,  cash'r,  Measr. 
de  Jonquieres 

do  4**    " 

do  do    - 


S.  Jaudon,  cash'r,  DeLau 
nay,  L.  Burgy,  Havre 

Adolphe  de  Chabineix  - 

F.  Perrot  &  Charbonnet 
J.  M.  de  la  Grange    - 

A.M.  leDerideur,  del  ad- 
ministration de  Tab., 
do  do    • 


Mons.  Herard,  Banquef^ 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  FRANCE— Continued. 


179 


Where 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount, 

payable. 

currency. 

Francs  ctmes. 

Per  cent. 

Dolls,  eta 

• 

Paris, 

July  12 

- 

620 

5, 12i  less  J 

120  37 

do 

IS 

- 

2,750 

5,  12i       - 

536  58 

• 

do 
Savannah 

19 
,      Sep.     7 

^ 

1,161  03 
450 

5,20 

5,  20  less  i 

223  27 

86  10 

T 

Paris, 

July  30 

• 

350 

5,12il8.i 

67  95 

- 

do 

do 

m 

1,503  12 

5,  12h       . 

291  82 

• 

do 

do 

- 

1,471 

do 

285  59 

• 

do 

do 

- 

735  53 

do 

142  80 

Paris 
Paris 

do 
Savannah 
Cincinnat, 
N.  Oriean 

do 
,      Sep.  21 
I,              27 
s,             28 

- 

60  days 
30    " 
60    " 

735  53 
1,705 
20,000 
5,200 

do 
5,  20 

5,  17i        . 
5,  25 

142  80 

327  90 

3,864  73 

990  48 

- 

Paris, 

Aug.  18 

- 

1,953  75 

5,12ils.^ 

379  38 

' 

do 

do 

1,533  51 

do 

297  72 

', 

do 

do 

- 

1,965  80 

do 

381  65 

*            » 

do 

do 

- 

1,965  80 

do 

381  65 

«                                      V 

do 

do 

- 

4,200 

- 

819  51 

Paris 
do 
do             - 

Savannah 

do 

do 
Paris, 

,      Sep.  23 

26 

Oct.     8 

Aug.  31 

30  days 
30    " 
20    " 

338  87 

338  87 

4,750  92 

2,714  50 

1  5,  20 
5,  12^        - 

1,043  92 
529  66 

Paris 
do 

N,  Oricar 
Norfolk, 

IS,    Oct.     5 
17 

60  days 
15    " 

3,903  57 
3,144  22 

5,25 
5,20 

743  54 

604  65 

do 

Pensacok 

I,      Sep,  20 

20    " 

5,000 

5,22i       - 

956  94 

do 
do 

Philadelp 
do 

hia,  Oct.  26 
31 

30    « 

13,000 
6,357 

5,20         - 
do 

2,500 
1,222  50 

- 

Paris, 

Sep.     5 

- 

15,000 

5,16i       . 

2,905  57 

Paris 

do 
Philadelp 

7 
tiia,  Nor.    3 

90  days 

3,200 
2,625 

db 
5,25         -^ 

619  85 
500 

l^i^B^AflB   ■» 

Paris, 

Sep.  12 

. 

450 

5, 1811a.  i 

86  31 

180 


I  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.   16.~RETMl 


Drawer. 


Endoreer. 


Drawee. 


Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  &. 

Co.,  for  the  use  of  Gaudry 
Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  for  the  use  of  Eug. 

Decaix      -  -  - 

Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  for  the  use  of  J,  Hand, 

of  Philadelphia    - 
Louis  G.  DouBset    • 


U.  Chevrier,  M.  Chevrier    - 
Zoe  Lege,  Jno.  C.  Lege 
C.  Nayel,  V.  Nayel 
V.  Parisot,  voure  Dousset    - 
Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  for  the  use  of  Eliza  W. 

Combe,  of  Utica  - 
Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  for  the  use  of  M.  A. 

Mange     -  -  - 

Deposite,  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  for  the  use  of  V.  Sa- 

bal,  vice  Terry     - 
Jno.  Bohlen,  L.  Clapier,  and 

H.  Binney,  Ex'rs  of  Paul 

Sieman    -  -  . 

Jno.  Fraier,  &  Co.  - 
N.  Nott,  &  Co. 

do 
F.  Guilleman 


William  Redmond  - 
Henry  Perrot,  &  Charbonnet 


do 


do 


do  do 

do  do 

F.  K.  Perrot 

Petray  Viel,  &  Co. 

do 

do 

Jno.  Frwcr,  &  Co. 

Deposited  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  by  Blaque,  Certein,  & 

DroilUrd,  on  account  of  S. 

Danney    -  -  - 

Deposited  with  Hottinguer  & 

"Co.,  by  Poncet,  on  account 

of  Mad.  V.  de  Volumbran 

J.  H.  Vallean 

Heman,  &  Co. 

F.  Guilleroin 

J^bn  Colebert,  oin^ 


Vt.  Nayel        - 

" 

J.  Hunter,  cashier,  Du- 
moustier  &  Gou^oud, 
^  Paris 

do 

„ 

do                 do     - 

do 

— 

do                 do     . 

Jas.  Hunter,  cash'r 

- 

do                 do     - 

• 

- 

do                 do     ^ 

W.  Mcllvaine,  cash'r 

P.  Bacot,  cash'r 

R.  D.  Shepherd,  &  Co. 

do 
Peters  &  Millard 


Himself,  P.  Bacot,  cash'r 
S.  Herman,  &  Son,  S. 
Jaudon,  cash'r 
do  do     - 

do  do     - 

do  do     - 

H.  Perrot  &  Charbonet 
P.  Bacot,  cash'r 

do 

do 

do 


Delessert,  &  Co.,  Paris 
J.  Denneston,&Co.,  H're 
S.  Jaudon,  cashier 

do 
Lo  payen  des  Dispenses 
Centrales  du  Tresor  - 

C.  Latham,  &  Co.,  H're 

F.  Courant,  &  Co.,  H're 
Lahure,  Dorcy,  &  La- 

mastre 
H.  Arnold,  Havre 
J.  Paul  Pouti,  Havre  - 
D'l.  du  Pasquiere,  &  Co. 
J.  C.  Davellier,  &.  Co.  - 
L.  Berard,  fils,  Rouen  - 
Petray  Viel,  &  Co.,  H're 
C.  Latham,  8c  Co.,  H're 


M.Prenderga8S,X.Hunter 
Perrot  8t  Charbosnet    - 
N.  A.  Baron,  jr.,  S.  Jau- 
don, cash'r 
Geo.  Poe,  jr.,  easb'r    - 


Dumoustier  &  Gongoud 
O.Sprague&F.Marseilles 
Mr.  Durant,  Faubourg 

du  Roule 
F.Courant,  &  Co.,  Harr« 


r  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  FRANCE— Continued. 


t&l 


Where 
payable. 


Date  of  bill. 


Time. 


Amount. 


Rate. 


Paris 
do 
do 
do 
do 


Paris 
do 
do 


Paris 

do 

do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 


do 

do 

do 
do 

do 

do 


Paris,  Sep.  12 

do  14 

do  16 

Savannah,  Nov.    9 

Savannah,  Nov.  12 

Paris,  Oct,     8 

do  Sep.  20 

do  28 


do 
do 
N.  Orieans, 
do 

do 


Nov.  23 
19 
16 
do 

14 


Charleston,    Nov.  25 
N.  Orieans,  23 


do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

21 

Charie^a, 

30 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Dec,  8 

Paris, 


Oct,  13 


do  do 

Savannah,  Sep.     9 

N.  Orieans,  Dec.     7 

do  10 

Mobile,  17 


30  days 


10 days 
60    " 


60  days 


30  days 
60    " 

30    " 

60    « 


Francs  ctmes. 
404 

13,828 

9,000 


2,878  40 
184  20 
184  20 
184  20 

2,878  40 


574 
2,000 
652  60 


2,167  70 
41,800 
100,000 
30,000 

15,982  36 

24,232  77 

25,000 

46,800 
23,150 
14,000 
52,500 
45,000 
30,000 
15,000 
10,450 


4,419  15 

356 

1,000 
12,041 

14,000 

20,000 


Per  cent. 
5, 18^  less  i 

5,  18|       - 


•5,20 

5,  Ui  Is.  i 

do 

do 

5,  20  less  i 
5,  22i       - 

5,  25 

do 
5,  22i       - 

5,  25 

5,25 
5,25 

5,22i       - 

5, 22^       - 

5,  18^       . 

5,  18^18.  i 

5, 27i      - 

5,26 

5, 27^       . 


182 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


o  2 


1832. 
Jan.     3 


STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


Drawer. 


Deposite,  by  J.  Bouellier,  for 
himself     .  .  - 

Deposite,  by  Denneston&Gou- 
gaud,  for  Mad.  V.  Labal, 
vice  Ferry     -        - 

Deposite,by  J.  Le8ne,for  him- 
self .  -  - 

Jno.  Colebert,  aine  - 
do 

Petray  Viel,  &  Co.  - 

do  •  • 

William  Redmond  - 

Deposite,  by  M.  Chaulct,  for 
Mr.  Roume  de  St.Lawrent 

Deposite,  by  Mr.  Durant,  for 
Mr.  Danney 

Deposite,  by  Mr.  Durant,  for 
Mad.  Chevenet,  of  Rich- 
mond, Va. 

Deposite,  by  Mr.  Durant,  for 
Mad.  Legoigne,  of  Phila. 

Deposite,  by  Mr.  Durant,  for 
Mr.  C.  Carrere,  of  Charl'n 

Deposite,  by  Mr.  Durant,  for 
J.  Rosati,  Bishop,  of  St. 
Louis,  Missouri  • 

Jno.  Colebert,  aine  - 

do  •  - 

do 
Leon  de  Neckere     - 
F.  Guellemin 

Jno.  Longpri 

D.  V.  Fitzgerald      . 
DepositCjby  Mr.LeCombe  de 

Bussy,  for  A.  Girard 
X.  de  Choiseul 
A.  Le  Barbier,  &  Co. 
Ante.  Rousa  Voyce,  &  Co.  - 

A.  Le  Barbier,  &  Co. 

do  •  - 

Ogaisk        •  *  . 

do  *  *^  . 

Wilaon  &  Hallet     ♦ 

Hersant       -  .  . 


Endorser. 


Deposite  for  the  use  of  Jean 

Rigne       -  - 

Deposite  for  the  use  of  Mad. 

Bloomfield  •      j^  -^ 


Geo.  Pope,  jr.,  cash'r 

do 
P.  Bacot,  cash'r 

do 

do 


G.  Poe,  jr.,  cash'r 
do 

do 
M.  Aug.  Jeaujean 
N.  A.  Baron,  jr. 

D.  V.  Fitzgerald 

Jno.  Longpre 

Petray  Viel,  &  Co. 

Themselves     - 

J.  W.  Zacharie,  &  Co. 

Petray  Viel,  &  Co. 

do 
Himself  - 

do 

J.  Emanuel     • 

Feyes  &  Co.    - 


Drawee. 


T.  P.  Poutz,  Havre      - 
F.  Courant,  &  Co. 
J.  C.  Davillier,  &  Co.  - 
Petray  Viel,  &  Co.       - 
J.Denneston.&Co.,  H're 


F.  Courant,  &  C».,  H're 
Homburg,  &  Homburg, 
freres,  &  Co.,  Havre 
J.  P.  Poutz,  Havre 
Rapsaital'evertat  Ghent 
Payen  de  depenses  cen- 
trales de  Tresor 
Marquis  de  St  Maurice, 
Montpelicr  - 
do  do     - 


Herard 

Petray  Viel,  &  Co.,  H're 

Edward  Cluesnel,  I'aine, 
Havre  de  Grace 

Petray  Viel,  &  Co. 
do 

Polish  Central  Commit- 
tee, at  Paris  - 

Mad.  La  Comtesse  Vve. 
Garran  de  Coulon 

Hay,  Witckins  &  Co., 
Havre 

Herard,    banquicr,    rue 
St.  Honore    • 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  FRANCE— Continued. 


189 


Where 
payable. 


Date  of  bill. 


Time. 


Amount. 


Rate. 


Amount, 
currency. 


Paris, 


do 

do  ■ 
Mobile, 

do 
Charleston, 

do 

do 


Paris, 

do 
do 
do 


do 

Mobile, 

do 
do 
N.  Orleans, 

do 

do 
do 


Oct  39 


do 

do 
Dec.  20 
do 
29 
do 
dQ 


Nov.  15 

16 
do 
do 


do 
Dec.  28 

do 
30 
26 

19 

31 

do 


60  days 
60    " 
60    « 
60    « 
60    "♦ 


Paris,  Nov.  29 

Charleston,    Jan.  13 
Savannah,  10 

CannuL.delos,  Dec.  12 
Charleston,     Jan.  18 
do  do 

Philadelphia,  Feb.  11 

Trenton, N.J.    "     3 

Mobile,  Jan.  28 


Parif, 


Dec.  8 
17 


60  days 

60    " 
60    " 

Sight 

60  days 

8    " 
8    " 


90  days 
60    " 

30  " 
60  « 
60    " 

20  days 

15    " 

60    « 


Francs  ctmes, 
7,700 

981  06 

3,500 
19,000 
20,000 
29,000 
31,000 
20,449  24 

300 

3,700 

1,946  30 
1,500 
634  35 

15,355 
10,000 

18,500 

21,200 

2,000 

3,166  72 

9,963  72 
3,843  31 

500 
6,500 
16,000 

4,471 

16,000 
7,300 

150,000 

5,400 

26,375 

5,375 

1,400 

1,063  3S 


Per  cent. 


5,  20  less  ^ 

5,20 

5,  27i      - 

5,  27i       - 

5, 22i       - 


5,  20  less  i^ 
5,  20 

5,  20  less  i 
do 
do 

5,20 

5,  27i       - 

do 
do 
5,i 

5,  27i       - 

5,26 
do 

5,  20  less  i 

5,25 

5,  22^       - 

5,26 
5,25 

5,20 
5,20 
5, 27i      - 


5,  iri     - 

do     \e.i 


Dolls,  ets. 


1^480  09 


187  73 

673  08 
3,601  SO 
3,791  48 

15,396  ^3 


57  40 
711  ^ 

372  43 
287  03 
121  39 

3,953  6d 
1,895  74 

3,507  11 
4,018  9« 
375 

410  75 

1,894  33 
730  07 

95  67 
4,300  20 

850 
4,439  ^0 

28,840  15 
461  54 

5,000 

1,000 
269  Id 
304  44 


184 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


Date  of 

purchase. 


1893. 
1 1 

16 


31 


92 


33 


Mar.    7 

8 
10 

16 


19 


22 


Drawer. 


Deposite  for  the  use  of  Mad. 

Cox 
Deposite,  M.  de  Jonquiere, 

Mr.  Poursine 
Deposite,  Dumoustier  &  Gour- 

guad,  Mad.  Lafithare  nu 

Gaugan  -  -  . 

W.  &  R.  Redmond  - 

Wilson  &  Hallet     . 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  per  rec't  No.  122,  by 
Dumoustier  8c  Gourgaud, 
for  Mrs.  Bloomfield,  Utica 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  per  rec't  No.  126,  by 
M.  Detope  for  Mr.  Balbi  - 

Richard  McManus 

Albin  Michael,  Act.  Consul 
Wilson  &  Hallet     - 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  by  Mr.  Desgalt,  for 
the  use  of  Step.  Reigne    - 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  Dumoustier  &.  Gour- 
gaud, Mr.  Cabos 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  Dumoustier  &  Gour- 
gaud, Pierre  Marie  Regne 
Lunomine  Alfred 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  Dumoustier  &  Gour- 
gaud, Mad.  Ve.  Grand  Pe- 
titbois       .  -  - 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 
Co.,  Mr.  Durant,  L.  Dan- 
ney  -  -  - 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  8c 
Co.,  Dumoustier  &  Gour- 
gaud, Mad.  Veuve  Gra- 
nier  of  Norfolk     - 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  8c 
Co.,  Dumoustier  8c  Gour- 
gaud, J.  P.  Granier,  fils    - 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer,  8c 
Co.,  M.  de  Jonquire,  Mr. 
Mad.  Bijonare 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  *8c 
Co.,  Mrs.  Curel 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  8c 
Co.,  Dumoustier  8c  Gour- 
gaud, Latoussar  Desva- 
reux         -  -  - 

do  do 


Endorser. 


P.  Bacot,  casliier 
J.  Emanuel     - 


Drawee. 


Harrod  tc  Cluarlca 

Antoine  Abat 
J.  Emanuel     - 


Chas.    Latham  8c  C«., 

Havre 
Hay,  Wilckins  8c  Co., 

Havre 


Jas.  Denniston  8c  Co. 

Havre  -  , 

French  Treasury 
Hay,  Wilckins  *8c  Co., 

Havre 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  FRANCE— Continued. 


185 


Where 
payable. 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

: —                    =3 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount 
currency. 

Francs    ctmes. 

Per  cent. 

Df^ls.  cts. 

♦           • 

« 

- 

1,063  32 

do 

204  44 

* 

Q 

21 

- 

400 

5,20        - 

76  9S 

^ 

a 

as 

- 

2,333  60 

5;i7il9.i 

448  68 

Pari* 

Charleeton 

- 

- 

16,557  10 

5, 25        - 

3,153  75 

(U. 

Mobile, 

Feb.  28 

60    " 

26,575 

5, 27i      - 

5,000 

4 

Paris, 

Dec.  12 

- 

Ent'd  before 

••                   • 

«      1832 

,  Jan.    9 

« 

764  18 

5, 17ils.i 

146  93 

?ari8 
do 

^\  Orleans, 
« 

Feb.  18 

20 

^ 

6,330 
9,893  70 

do 

1.200 
1,875  58 

4<» 

Mobile, 

«7, 

- 

8,605 

do 

1,631  28 

4             * 

Paris 

8 

1,600 

5,  20  less  i 

306  If 

4> 

a 

M 

- 

357  14 

do 

68  54 

-*• 

a 

i< 

• 

1,175  17 

do 

224  97 

-• 

u 

({ 

1,911  19 

do 

36£  GS 

'  t 

a. 

M 

- 

3,400 

5,20 

653  as 

m                • 

n 

({ 

- 

408  60 

5,201csb| 

78  19 

4 

u 

M 

• 

506  46 

do 

96  01 

«                * 

u 

Jan.  18 

- 

3,193  12 

5,20        - 

613  8r 

"-*                • 

a 

M 

• 

1.748  54 

5, 20  less  ^ 

334  S8 

«                * 

({ 

M 

- 

4,790  53 
4,790  54 

5,20        - 
d^ 

921  »% 

24 


186 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMIT 


Date  of 

Drawer. 

Endorser. 

Drawee. 

piurchase. 

1833. 

Mar.  22 

Depositc  with  Hottingucr  & 
Co.,  Dumoustier  &  Gour- 
gaud,  for  the  use  of  Mad. 
Ve.  Febre  nu  Gaugan  and 

■ 

Miss  E.  Gaugan 

'*             ^             »■ 

«,             •,            • 

»« 

Deposite  with  Hottinguer  & 

Co.,  Mr.  Herard,  for  Count 

Choiseul               -            • 

• 

^            • 

_             -             - 

24 

W.  k  R.  Redmond 

P.  Bacol 

5           > 

Jas.  Dennlston  8c  Co., 
Havre 

1  ( 

Auguste  Mandrot  8c  Co. 

.. 

*.              - 

Mandrot  St  Co.,  Havre 

•  < 

do               do            • 

» 

••              *  ' 

do                do    - 

<( 

do               do             • 

,♦ 

_              ^ 

do.  .            do     - 

26 

Ve.  Conney 

S.  Jaud 

on,  caahief 

Brechot,  rec'r  of  indirect 
contributions,  Beauvais 

29 

Alfred  auesnel 

J.  Ogde 

n&Coi 

Ed.  auesnel,  Sr.,  Havre 

•  • 

Auguste  Mandrot   - 

d« 

# 

Mandrot  8c  Co.,  Havre 

AprU   3 

Deposited  by  Dumoustier  & 
G.,  for  the  use  of  John 

M.  Chaproo 

» 

••            -• 

«.                           V                           * 

• 

M.  Delape 

r 

♦            • 

M.  Barbaud    «            ♦ 

• 

do                  «■ 

•• 

M.  Balbi 

« 

A.  &  J.  Dennlston  &  Co.    • 

Colder  1 

Jroeh  8c  Co.     ♦ 

Jae.  Dennlston  8t  Co., 
Havre            »            ♦ 

1831. 

July   15 

Gold  and'  silver   per  Wm. 
Penn,  (gold  $40,000,  silver 

$60,000)  - 

*■ 

*•            - 

*•            ♦             ♦ 

Aug.  20 

Silver  per  Sully 

•• 

i^ 

♦             *■             •* 

29 

Gold  per  De  Rham 

& 

» 

*■             *             - 

Oct.    89 

do      Henry  4tb 

1 

■«-            » 

♦    '        •> 

r- 


.  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
TANCES  TO  FRANCE—Continued. 


187 


Where 

Date  of  bill. 

Time. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

Amount 

[       payable. 

currency. 

Francs    ctmes. 

Per  cent. 

Dolls.  cU. 

- 

L 

*< 

•• 

1,000 

5, 20  lees  ^ 

1913^ 

- 

M 

« 

- 

4,000 

5,20 

769  53 

PariB 
do 
do 
do 

Charleston, 
N.  Orleans, 

Mar.  16 
9 

<( 
(1 

60  days 

15,000 
30,000 
15,000 
10,000 

5,231      - 
5,25        ~ 

do 

do 

2,863  96 
\    10,476  20 

do 
do 
do 

1 
13 
14 

• 

1,337  50 
34,787  34 
12,600 

5,20        - 
5,25        - 
do 

257  11 
1      9.026  16 

- 

Paris, 

M 

Feb.  18 

• 

208  80 
1,000 
926  90 

5,20le8ai 
do 
do 

39  9S 
191  35 
177  36 

Pari* 

N.  Orieanfli, 

Mar,  20 

60    " 

105,000 

5,25        . 

120,000 

f            » 

T                              ■ 

- 

• 

537,480 

1,056,980 

385,080 

385,210 

- 

100,000 

200,000 

70,000 

70,000 

4,268,601  87 

802,338  U 

Town  '■> 


f 


188 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  16.— REMH 


Date  of 

purchase. 


Drawer. 


Endorser. 


1831. 
Aug.    5 

»opt.    5 

I 

30 
« « 

Oct.   14 


1832. 
fao.     4 

10 


Deposite  with  Hope  Sc  Co.  for  the  use  of  T.  P.  C.  Haes- 
bert  --.... 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  T.  P.  Auer    - 

Do  do  do  T.G.  Weinman 

Do  do  do  T.  T.  Seyter    - 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  widow  P.  Van 

Ween  and  son         .  -  .  -  - 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  De  Kuypers 

&Co.  -  -  -  - 

Deposite  with^Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  N.  D.  Huyde- 

koper  --...- 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  N.  D.  Huyde- 

koper  -..•-- 

Deposite  with  Hope  k  Co.  for  the  use  of  N.  D.  Huyde- 

koper  -....- 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  ot  N.  D.  Huyde- 
koper  ...... 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  T.  Behrens  - 
Do  do  do  do 

Do  do  do  do  • 

Bo  do  do  do  •• 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  Henri  Otto 
Wulcknitz  -----. 

Deposite  with  Hope  &  Co.  for  the  use  of  widow  P.  Van 
Ween  &  Son  .  .  •  ,  - 


[  Rep,  No,  460.  ] 
t'ANCES  TO  HOLLAND. 

189 

Drawee, 

Date. 

Amount. 

Rate, 

Amount 
currency. 

i            *            ♦ 
y            f            . 

#•               r               ♦ 

♦'              -               • 

1-                 r                 • 
1-                 *                 - 

r             .*■             ♦ 

r                *■                • 

•■             r             •■ 

-             «-             • 

^,              r              - 

*■■*"*■ 

1 

June  3,  1831 
July  20,     • ' 
•  (     (I 
« t     <  1 

Aug.  1,     - 
23,     ♦* 
« <      « • 

t  1           14 
i  C           «  « 
«  i           It 
4   <            4   1 
it            1    ( 

Oct.  28,     •  • 
2a     *' 

G«. 

1,200 

1,200 

1,000 

90 

1,755 

495 

500 

500 

500 

500 
500 
500 
500 
500 

42,800 
551 

401 

40^1689^    - 

do       do   - 
do 

401 

do  leas  i  - 
41 

do 

do 

do 
do 
do 
do 
do 

40i 
40| 

489 
486  56 
405  46 
36  49 

715  16 

200  70 

203  97 

203  97 

203  97 

203  97 
203  97 
203  97 
203  97 
203  97 

17,441 
223  40 

53,091 

m,629  53 

- 

• 

190  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  18. 

TeSTIMONT  of  N.  BlDDLE  AS  TO  LOAN  TO  P.  StEVENS. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Will  you  state  what  you  know  about  the  dis- 
count of  two  notes,  drawn  by  P.  Boyer  k  Co.,  in  favor  of  Piiilander 
Stevens,  one  for  g2,500,  and  the  other  for  g  1,000,  as  they  appear  on  the 
credit  book  of  tlie  Bank  of  the  United  States,  of  date,  March  23,  1832? 

Answer.  My  impression,  in  regard  to  it,  is  this.  On  the  morning  when 
this  Committee  of  Investigation  first  met  in  this  room,  and  while  I  was 
with  them,  I  gave  to  the  Second  Assistant  Cashier,  Mr.  Cowperthwait, 
either  these  two  notes,  or  one  of  tlicm,  or  a  memorandum  of  one  or  both  of 
them,  1  do  not  recollect  which,  though  if  I  did  not  see  the  two  notes  on  the 
book,  I  should  tliink  that  all  I  gave  to  Mr.  Cowperthwait  was  the  memo- 
randum in  respect  to  one  note.  Whatever  it  might  be,  I  gave  it  to  him, 
saying,  that  1  knew  Mr.  Stevens  to  be  a  responsible  man  ;  and  if,  on  in- 
quiry, he  should  receive  a  good  account  of  the  drawer  of  the  note,  that 
he  could  pass  them  to  the  credit  of  Mr.  Stevens,  for  he  was  going  out  of 
town,  before  the  meeting  of  the  Committee  of  Exchange;  and  I  should  not 
myself  be  able  to  be  with  that  committee,  on  account  of  my  presence 
with  the  Committee  of  Investigation. 
41  1  directed  the  discount  on  this  occasion,  without  waiting  for  the  Com- 
mittee of  Exchange,  because,  from  my  own  knowledge  of  the  party,  I  was 
sure  it  would  have  been  done  by  the  committee,  of  which  I  am  myself  a 
member,  and  as  the  applicant  was  about  to  leave  town  I  thought  it  right 
to  give  that  reasonable  accommodation  to  a  stranger. 

Examination  of  Joseph  Cowperthwait, 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  State  what  you  know  of  the  discount  of  two 
notes  for  Philander  Stevens,  one  for  S2, 500,  and  the  other  for  g  1,000, 
drawn  by  P.  Boyer  &  Co. 

Answer.  The  President  directed  me  to  have  one  note  for  S2,500,  (I  did 
not  see  the  other,)  put  on  the  books,  and  I  told  Mr.  Lehman  to  do  so.  The 
President  directed  me  to  make  some  inquiries  about  the  responsibility  of 
the  Boyers  at  Baltimore,  which  I  had  not  time  to  do.  This  committee 
was  just  going  into  session,  when,  as  I  iwssed  into  their  room,  I  handed  the 
note  to  Mr.  Lehman. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  It  appears  from  the  Domestic  Exchange 
Book,  for  March  23,  1832,  that  these  two  notes  were  entered  thereon  after 
the  Book  was  make  up  for  the  Board;  have  they  the  marks  by  which  the 
notes  are  designated,  which  are  regularly  discounted  by  the  Committee 
or  the  Board? 

Answer.  They  have  not  the  marks,  and  were  entered  after  the  Books 
were  made  up  for  the  Board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  How  many  notes  and  bills,  offered  on  23d 
March,  1832,  for  discount  were  rejected  by  the  Committee  and  the  Board? 

Answer.     159  were  offered-— 40  done — and  113  refused. 

Question.  Among  the  notes  rejected  are  there  not  many  drawn,  and 
endorsed,  by  responsible  citizens  oi*  Philadelphia? 

Answer.     There  are,  to  a  considerable  amount. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  191 

Examination  of  John  Andrews, 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.     Do  you  know  by  whom  a  note  for  S  1,000, 

drawn  by  P.  Boyer  &  Co.  in  favor  of  Philander  Stevens,  was  (Jiscounted* 

,  on  the  23d  of  tlie  present  montli? 

■  ■^.      Answer.     Yes.     On  that  day,  I  think  it  was  after  the  session  of  the 

^^  Board,  Mr.  Sullivan  came  to  my  room  with  a  note  of  P.  Boyer  &  Co.  in 

favor  of  Philander  Stevens,  for  discount.  I  received  it.  I  recollect  distinctly 

that  I  asked  M.  Sullivan  whether  he  was  satisfied  with  the  parties,  for  that 

I  knew  nothing  of  them  myself.  He  said  he  was.   In  consequence  of  which, 

I  directed  the  Discount  Clerk  to  have  the  note  extended  on  the  Domestic 

Exchange  Book.     A  voucher  was  I  think  made  out  in  favor  of  Stevens 

which  was  handed  to  Mr.  Sullivan*  *' 


No.  19. 


•^  statement  showing  the  number  of  persons  as  borrowers  from  the  Ba?ik 
at  Philadelphia,  on  bills  and  notes  discounted  in  sums  not  less  tha7t 
jg20,000,  in  sums  not  less  than  g50,000,  in  sums  not  less  than  glOO  000 
in  sums  not  less  than  «200,000,  in  sums  noi  less  than  ^300  000  in 
sums  ?iot  less  than  $450,000,  '       ' 

Loans  not  less  than  i^20,000,  to  72  persons,  -  ♦  .    g[2  404  070 

Do  50,000,       19       do         -  ,  .      /274'8Q2 

Do  100,000,         3       do         -  -  ,        '341 '700 

Do  200,000,         4       do         .  .  .  9954'^R 

Do  300,000,  none,  ' 

Do  450,000,  to    1  person,     -  ,  ,         417  766 


»2E5,434,U1 


*/ipril  7,  1832. 

On  the  state  of  the  bank — bills  discounted,      -             ,  $5,964  085  26 

domestic  bills,         .             ,  1,'975,'594  26 

Per  state  of  the  bank,  9th  April,  1832,        -             *  $7,939  (J79  53 

Jer  state  of  the  bank,  Oct.  14,  1830— bills  discounted,  3,918,625  17 

domestic  bills,  937,705  93 

^856,331    10 


19^ 


[  Rap.  No.  460.  ] 


No.  20. 

STATEMENT  of  the  particulars  of  the  Loans  on  "  other  stocks'^  pe9 
Monthly  Statementy  April  2d,  1832. 


1832 

At  Bank 

Pennnylvania  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  their 

:— 1. .;,:.-■  '.■..tw 

April  2 

United 

property            -           .           .            , 

1,100 

States. 

Insurance  stock       -            -            -            . 

$10,200  Union  Canal  stock 

%  6,000  Schuylkill  Navigation  loan            \ 

6,500 
10,500 

20,000 

220  shares                do        stock           > 

%  .'5,600  Union  Canal          -            '             \ 
5,400          do                 .            .            5 

9,000 

200  shares  Schuylkill  stock     . 

8,000 

SO    do     Museum  stock 

170 

2,000    do     Ches,  and  Del.  Canal  Co.     - 

200,000 

280    do                do                do 

28,000 

120    do                do                do           - 

12,000 

300    do                do                do 

30.000 

50    do    Trenton  Bridge  Company  - 

1,500 

%  8,366  67  Louisville  and  Portland  Canal 

8,300 

40  shares  Lehijjh  Company 

1,900 

130     do                 do 

5,850 

540     do     Philadelphia  Arcade 

17,000 

■rf 

$15,000  Louisville  and  P.  Canal    - 

15,000 

t 

10  shares  Ches.  and  DpI.  Canal 

74    do     Farmers*  Bank  Comp;iny     - 
100     ?lo    Norristovvn  Railroad 

45     do     Lehigh  Company    , 
156     do     Louisiana  Bank 

61     do    American  Fire  Insur.  Co.  - 

69  do     Mechanics*             do 
$86,000  loan  of  Union  Canal  Co. 

70  shares  Newbcra  Bank 

1,800 
1,100 
1,250 
2,000 

11,000 
2,000 
•^,000 

86,000 
5,000 

1 

30     do     Delaware  Bridge  Co. 
137    do    Bank  Mississippi,  Natchez  - 
200    do                do 
112    do    Leliigh  Coal  Co.      - 
179     do                do                  -            7 
Jl33,1001oan  of           do                   -            3 
$11,800U.  S.  4^ 
$  6,927  13  Ches.  and  Del.  Canal 

30  shapes  B.U.S,  and  154  Com.Bk. 

15  do     Manhattan  Company 
$  1,600  Union  Canal 

21  shares  Commercial  Bank  - 

27    do     Schuylkill  Nav.  Company  - 

16  do                    do              -            - 
%  5,400  Union  Canal  loan 

2,900            do                 ... 
3,800            do                 ... 
5,000            do                 .            - 
6,000  Ches.  and  Del.  Can?il  loan 
5,000  Union  Canal  loan  - 
8,000  U.  S.  5of  1821    , 

100  shares  Miners*  Bank,  PottsvUle     - 

100    do            d« 

100    do     Southwark  Bank    - 

1,500 
12,500 
18,700 

5,000 

41,612  67 

12,000 
6,053 
9,200 

ISO 
1,600 
1,050 
1,270 

800 
5,400 
2,900 
3,200 
5,000 
3,000 
5,000 
1,225 
4,000 
4,0(J0 
5,000 

488    do     Com.  Bank  Cincinnati,  %7S 

paid,  and  200  shares  $50  paid 
100  shares  Philadelphia  Bank 

58,750 
9,000 

Note  under  seal  of  the  Union  Canal  Co.  - 

10,000 

[  Hep.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.   20— Continued, 


19] 


Apr. I . 


Ar  Bi.k 

Slates. 


26 


24  W.s  ..nir.   I 
20  "0  vann  »li 


6  s  ar^^s  U   lO't  ChmsI  lo^n,    6  -h.»r  s  Le 
hijfh,  <»  (I  5  sh  «res  VValivitst   Thea  r 
Oh  ill  »  tv'iiire        .  .  .  - 

7  ■a  -».a  esSolni\lk'»l  Navigation  C.> 
$     I,6(i0  <)  io  CnaJ  ^tock 

2U6  s'vtit-s  (;  m    Bink,  Cincinnati  - 
$      1.6JU   Umnn   Caiia',     a"fl    100  s'.ar^ 
srluj   IkHIJ.   k 
80  s!iar<-s  «v»ni.  IVi  ik,  <'incn»«'ti  . 
20     do     FHMn  p   a-i'l   Me  li.'s  nk 
10>     ilo     <>)in.  Ha  i^r,  CJif-ciiinati  * 
M     ''  >     !■">  '•«   '-l|)»tia  Ra  k 
$H)9.5viO  n  I  :i"<l  Htif^oii  Ca.i.  6  ,>  cs.  "J 
JO  UiKJ  Cn   s.  a   rl  I)   I.JJa  al  s  ork 
o2  691  9()       Ho       (io         6  |)   ct.  loan 
9  900  Un  on  ('anal  I'o 

4,40)  (1  •  rio 

6I,.SS0  Hel  'An(\  War  i  .n  (^a-tal  s'nck 
oS  5'jO        .    do  do 

II  500  L  nis  ille  and  I*    Ctnil  >*'ock 
2.5  oOO  do  d.      I(»a.. 

61,850  -«c  »P  I   i  I  Nu'i^ition  sN»ck 
;iOsh^iv>  U.S.  n*  k  s'ork 
7«j     do     \1  n  >n'  Ha  k,  Ho'tsvil 
1.5     do     l»  nnsylvania  Hank 
$    3.000  U  s.  siock '«  x-hcmj^t- 
i.-jao  t  ■  L  lii,<h  (;.>al    till  \  v:if:«ti()n  '  o. 
i)  .     M  n'  IMI  and    >ch.  Have  n  Hai. 

r  .a  I  C  . 
Do     II  III  tr  of*  Itprutj-f' 
I) »      r  vvnsliio  of  M  y<m  ns  ng' 
I)  )     Ci'ii  t    {I  m  ni«4sion  r>    - 
I)  ^     oo    ea'  tr^i' >ie  in  L  uiis  an  i 
'■'.nn  eo  Hi'.k  -.to  k 

V  ■•■o  IS  ^»  rk-*       -    '         . 
'   CEi  \  H.   k  ^t  '  k 

(/  If)  rati-  n  if  VV  ish  n.'too  stork 
,»  r^i  it     k  md  I   !$  II-  nee  slotk 
'»  I  '  r'  R     k 
Hi   k  •'  a  <   (;    ^vif'xA 
u'-iitt-  :n\i\  r  IV  lnSMva.'ice  H'ii<k  - 

I, on  s-iw-i  S  ••»<:•  I',  .nk 

-^'ock    S   ;a-     Vl.sSiO  M'i 
1)  .  IM.   ...18 

Ml  xonr   '^tMf  k  loan 

V^onlf^d  drW' 

V  o'.ons  stocks       .  -  - 


2  001 

9v>0 

.^5.00  J 

14,000 

JO, 6 JO 

1,800 
8,000- 
1  ,000 
10,3  ;0 
1,400 


H7,766  67 


91  ,600 

5  1,000 
2l,0v0 
11.000 
50  000 
50,000 
8.4.50 


16,750 

.i7.1iO 

7 ,  i2."> 


4  ,980 

5.0;>0 
52,500 
Iv'.  /OO 


,71,"., 297  34 
5'),  193  19 
12.700 
32.205  . 
53,510 


61,193 


72,480 
1  .40 ) 
145,058  75 

,151,047  23 


Am- unt '.f  I.ojMs  of  die  s  nic- d«  su-iption,  per     on" I. ly  Statement  Di'cemSer 

3Ut,  18,^,1  -.,-..  -2,483,1^895 

I)  »  do  do  d»  do  January  31.  18  >2,  2  4rt8,5i7  29 

Do  <1»  do  do  do  Marih     31,  1832,  2,115,895  20 

ii5 


194  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  21. 

Statement  of  the  Importation  and  Exportation  of  specie,  by  the  Bank 
of  the  United  Slates,  during  the  year  1831, 

Importation — none. 
Exportation, 

To  London,  in  Mexican  coin,  ...  i^255,000 

To  Paris,  in  Mexican  coin,  -  -       iS8620,000 

in  gold,      -  -  -  -         247,000 

in  mixed  bullion,  -  -  -         180,000 


1,047,000 


Total,     -     ^1,302,000 

N.  B.  The  magnitude  of  the  shipments  to  France,  was  occasioned  by  the 
diminished  export  of  cotton  to  that  country  from  the  United  States. 


» 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


195 


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198  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  23. 

SPECIE  PURCHASED. 

STATEMENT  of  the  amount,  &s'C.  of  silver,  gold,  and  gold  bullion^ 
purchased  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 


Date. 

Purchased  from 

Silver. 

Gold. 

Gold  bul- 
lion. 

Premium 
paid. 

March  17, 1824. 

Lewis  Clapier, 

$47,805 

119  51 

18 

it          t( 

42,275 

« 

„ 

105  68 

( ( 

John  Coulter, 

16,090 

- 

• 

40  22 

31 

M.  L.  Tatum, 

650 

1  62 

Jan*y  19,1825. 

Lewis  Clapier, 

44,452 

_ 

. 

222  26 

July     15 

tS                   <( 

36,970 

_ 

_ 

184  85 

Dec.      9 

T.  S.  &  G.  Biddle, 

15,564 

„ 

_ 

116  73 

Au^.    26,1826. 

Samuel  Archer, 

_ 

. 

2,235 

44  70 

June    18,1827. 

William  Heyl, 

16,264 

. 

- 

40  66 

12 

Lewis  Clapier, 

6,996 

. 

- 

17  49 

13 

(C                    (k 

19,778 

- 

- 

49  44 

16 

<(              (( 

25,57^ 

_ 

. 

88  94 

Oct.     16 

B.  &  J.  Bohlen, 

1,600 

„ 

. 

8 

17 

Lewis  Clapier, 

45,138 

- 

- 

225  69 

i  ( 

Jr.  B.  Mcllvatne, 

9,983 

„ 

* 

49  91 

{ < 

T.H.Jacobs, 

14,357 

_ 

. 

71  78 

18 

J.  Latour, 

1,386 

y    - 

- 

9  83 

Nov.    13 

Bevan  &  Porter, 

8,000 

. 

40 

19 

B.  &  J.  Bohlen, 

4,389 

_ 

«> 

26  87 

Dec.    29 

L.  Veron  &  Co. 

2,100 

_ 

~     . 

21 

( ( 

Thomas  Fisher, 

1 ,090 

. 

. 

5  45 

Jan'y     2, 1828. 

Captain  Hayes, 

15,000 

« 

. 

75 

( ( 

Bowie  &  Lane, 

2,604 

_ 

~ 

24  5A 

3 

<«         .    «< 

49,993 

- 

^ 

499  93 

<  t 

M.  A.  Trinaye 

17,371 

> 

173  71 

5 

Lewis  Clapier, 

40,965 

- 

■" 

409  65 

9 

Alexander  Benson 

5,170 

_ 

25  85 

Feb'y  23 

Lewis  Clupier, 

18,996 

_ 

.. 

83  63 

'< 

M.  Eyre 

3,510 

_ 

^ 

17  27 

May       3 

Lewis  Clapier, 

926 

_ 

4  63 

<  ( 

B.  &  J.  Bohlen, 

1,999 

_ 

_ 

15  6d 

12 

Geisse  Sc  Koikhaus, 

_ 

. 

5,720 

228  21 

July     16 

Perit  &  Co. 

^ 

_ 

163 

4  9C 

2 

J  no.  Latour, 

_ 

. 

2,043 

51  07 

18 

Wm.  Aitkin, 

_ 

.. 

3,662 

109  87 

Sept.   12 

Lewis  Clapier, 

14,542 

- 

- 

72  71 

i  t 

P.  F.  Fontages, 

669 

. 

- 

3  3^ 

Oct.     17 

Rowland  &  Willard,       - 

_ 

_ 

_ 

3  93 

Nov.      5 

Jno.  M.  Ginley, 

_ 

- 

314 

9  44 

22 

Ed.  Hagedown, 

2,174 

Doubloons, 

10  87 

27 

B.  &  J.  Bohlen, 

., 

$3,740 

- 

22  73 

April  20 

William  J.'v::kson, 

. 

769 

23  07 

May     13 

Lewis  Clapier, 

45,858 

_ 

_ 

243  93 

15 

J.  Danieux, 

2,658 

„ 

_ 

13  2S 

26 

P.  F.  Fontages, 

2,954 

. 

- 

14  77 

JUno      1 

S.  &  J.  Kevins, 

10,000 

„ 

- 

100 

6 

William  Jackson, 

_ 

_ 

115 

3  47 

15 

Lewis  Clapier, 

_ 

_ 

1,628 

57  01 

July       6 

R.  G.  Shaw, 

„ 

_ 

1,460 

43  81 

Sept.    18 

. 

_ 

2,350 

70  5C 

April      5,  1830. 

J.  R.  Evans, 

- 

- 

2,189 

54  7'-c 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  23— Continued. 


199 


Date. 

Purchased  from 

Silver. 

Gold. 

Gold 
bullion. 

Premium 
paid. 

May       8,  1830. 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

5,863 

117  26 

29 

R.  J.  Johnson, 

„ 

. 

766 

19  16 

< « 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

. 

_ 

4,400 

110 

June      8 

Vezin  &  Von  L. 

- 

- 
[n  ^  eagles. 

1,298 

32  46 

11 

S.  &  M.  Allen, 

» 

5,500 

7,181 

285  33 

12 

'Geo.  M.  Hicktinff, 

.. 

. 

6,096 

137  17 

24 

Beirs,  Booth  h  St.  John, 

„ 

13,385 

267  70 

26 

((                    {( 

^ 

_ 

18,509 

370  19 

28 

((                   (( 

»    « 

« 

5,911 

1J8  22 

( ( 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

m 

_ 

6,978 

139  58 

29 

G.  W.  Massey, 

_ 

_ 

577 

8  66 

1 1      * 

S.  Lehman,    ' 

_ 

. 

8,400 

168 

i-  i 

G.  M.  Hinkling, 

_ 

- 

669 

13  39 

or> 

Reeves,  Buck  Sc  Co.      - 

_ 

. 

1,845 

36  90 

Julylu 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

- 

Am.  gold. 

(      6,013 
I     7,644 

1     273  17 

3 

Alexander  Benson, 

_ 

3,500 

. 

70 

21 

* 

_ 

.. 

69 

1  39 

22 

„ 

„ 

43 

86 

Sept:   16 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

« 

. 

23,035 

460  70 

21 

((            (( 

_ 

„ 

1,469 

29  40 

27 

t(            tt 

_ 

« 

5,790 

115  SC 

Oct.     11 

WillardW.Welmore,    - 

_ 

• 

6,661 

99  91 

14 

Bryan, 

. 

_ 

760 

15  20 

18 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

_ 

.■ 

2,162 

43  2C 

25 

P.,  Garreit, 

_ 

_ 

281 

5  62 

Nov.      2 

B.&  E.Clark,           «    - 

. 

„ 

43 

88 

23 

((           (( 

_ 

_ 

405 

8  10 

Dec.    24 

W.  T.  Nickols, 

„ 

_ 

165 

4  12 

Jan'y     6,1831. 

A.  J.  Valliele, 

_ 

_ 

245 

7  35 

Feb'y    4 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

« 

„ 

16,215 

405  37 

9 

Konigmacker  h  Co. 

'- 

•  . 

2,090 

52  26 

17 

Wads  worth  &  Wins,       - 

, 

• 

546 

13  62 

March  15 

H'y  Toland, 

. 

„ 

470 

11  75 

16 

_ 

_ 

60 

1  20 

17 

Jas.  Sloan, 

. 

■  _ 

2,620 

65  50 

19 

Konigmacker  &  Co. 

„ 

110 

2  75 

18 

Hale  and  Davidson, 

_ 

. 

4,180 

104  50 

April     7 

B.  &  E.  Clark, 

- 

. 

195 

4  87 

May       3 

B.  Robinson. 

_. 

« 

46 

1  25 

12 

B.  B   Hart, 

. 

. 

120 

4  80 

12 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

_ 

. 

15,875 

793  75 

16 

B.  &  E.  Clark, 

„ 

, 

145 

6  52 

16 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

- 

- 

2,005 

100  25 

17 

Jordan, 

_ 

. 

4,535 

181  40 

18 

S.  &  M.  Allen, 

. 

_ 

1,181 

47  20 

23 

Hule  &  Davidson, 

_ 

_ 

2,570 

89  95 

25 

<«        *    «« 

- 

_ 

1,444 

50  5fi 

June      1 

«<            «< 

- 

- 

9,767 

341  85 

7 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

. 

10,395 

328  05 

21 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

_ 

13,575 

407  25 

July     14 

J.  A.  Della-Bianca, 

- 

» 

3,751 

168  81 

15 

Konigmacker, 

- 

- 

920 

41  40 

16 

H.  E.  Martin, 

- 

_ 

35 

1  57 

20 

Wm.  Bailey, 

- 

« 

1 ,735 

78  07 

21 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

- 

- 

17,060 

767  70 

200 


[  Kep.  No.  4bO.  ] 


STATEMENT  No.   23— CoBflnaed 


Date. 

Piircl  astd  fiom 

S'lvei'. 

(foKl. 

Gold 
l-vudion. 

Premtinn 
I>.d. 

July 

22,  1831 

W  m.  Al  eii, 

6,105 

274  72 

25 

BtriiP,  BfH.  h  8iSt.  John, 

. 

_ 

2.iyu 

58  05 

20 

Hule  &  DaviUbon, 

- 

F.enc'i 

1,370 

51  37 

27 

Degrande, 

. 

4,856 

• 

91  92 

28 

Btirs,  Booth  StSt.     Jol  i 

_ 

. 

6,060 

'iJi  70 

29 

t(                                  M                _ 

« 

. 

395 

17  n 

29 

S.  Lphman^ 

„ 

_ 

5.095 

229  27 

SO 

Hai^  &  Davidson, 

„ 

.. 

1,19J 

53  55 

Aig. 

1 

S.  Lehm  n, 

. 

. 

1 ,400 

6.J 

3 

tt 

- 

755 

33  97 

3 

B    &  K   Cl.irk, 

. 

- 

175- 

7  87 

5 

J.e  man, 

_ 

. 

4,035 

181  57 

8 

.1   C  a    f  ml. 

- 

510 

22  95 

8 

U<JO     U.  PattOM, 

« 

« 

115 

5  17 

12. 

Beii >,  Bo'v^th  &  St.  Jofcn, 

_ 

- 

890 

40  05 

- 

13 

t(                   «» 

_ 

- 

68/ 

.     30  60 

17 

Clark. s. 

_ 

- 

615 

27  68 

18 

r.  r.  Brice, 

. 

- 

4,425 

199  15 

23 

M.  O.  t.allagher, 

_ 

- 

5J0 

23  40 

27 

Halt   &  David  om. 

. 

• 

29,6bl 

1,535  Z7 

Sept. 

1 

B  ir..  Booih&St,John, 

_ 

- 

2*5 

U  02 

16 

F.  Keniri  s, 

_ 

•• 

1,145 

51  SZ 

16 

N«th:in  (Junt,  jr. 

- 

143 

6  43 

16 

,  Kc'fves,  Buck  &  Co. 

, 

- 

1,465 

65  92 

19 

Hde  &  D  »vi<istin,            r 

^ 

- 

405 

18  22 

20 

B    &  K.  Claik. 

_ 

• 

245 

11  02 

27 

11  h   &,  D.vidson, 

^ 

10,505 

503  25. 

28 

P.  Hanliton, 

_ 

- 

2,651 

133  50 

28 

Beirs  Booth  &  St.  John, 

_ 

- 

25,650 

1,^82  50 

Oct. 

5 

J  no.  Tiiompsoii, 

. 

-- 

2,740 

137 

8 

W.  K.  H  ^It, 

_ 

~ 

245 

12  25 

11 

Thos.  Fletcher, 

. 

- 

465 

23  25 

20 

Km  X  &.  B"g.es, 

_ 

- 

1,175 

58  75 

24 

Hale  &  DaVKls(»n, 

« 

- 

17,495 

874  75 

29 

s.  I^thnn  n. 

- 

4,905 

245  25 

29 

Biiis,  B. oh  &  St.  John, 

, 

- 

2,000 

100 

Kov. 

4 

VVm.  O  Connor, 

^ 

"■ 

3  ,360 

151  20 

5 

Bens,  BooUi  &  S*.  John, 

, 

" 

705 

31  72 

7 

«(                    (i 

^, 

- 

1,170 

52  65 

8 

<<                   «<         . 

_ 

- 

7is5 

35  32 

10 

Hale  &  Davidson, 

_ 

- 

5,4.;5 

244  58 

12 

Bt-irs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

_ 

" 

7,411 

296  40 

15 

VV.  WillianiS, 

_ 

" 

121 

4  80 

18 

S    Lehman, 

„ 

* 

901 

36 

22 

VVm.  M.lkr, 

„ 

~ 

31 

1  20 

Dec. 

13 

A.  Benson  &  Co. 

_ 

" 

5  8h5 

235  40 

3 

J  no.  Cansland, 

„ 

■" 

5,930 

237  20 

5 

Knox  &  Bogg^, 

_ 

. 

35 

1  50 

15 

S.  Lehman, 

_ 

_ 

2.805 

112  20 

21 

Keeves,  iJuck  &  Co. 

„ 

_ 

2,.)95 

95  80 

30 

Beirs,  Booth  &  St.  John, 

- 

- 

2,515 
$438,185 

88  02 

$605,850 

$17,596 

«19,171  85 

...       .                    ■     ■— ;_. 

I 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  24. 
SPECIE  SOLD. 


201 


Date. 

Spanish 

« '.towns. 

Francs. 

Americai 

Br.  and  Fi . 

SpanV'li 

'..    ..9 

Prtmium. 

doll.rs. 

gold. 

gold. 

gold. 

1817. 

1818. 

1819. 

18  JO 

Jan.    25 

» 

_ 

„ 

. 

. 

19,491 

467  25 

M^r.  22 

^2,500 

_ 

_ 

_ 

• 

. 

3  12 

24 

2,70u 

. 

« 

. 

. 

- 

3  34 

Dec.  18 

10,000 

_ 

. 

» 

. 

. 

12  50 

ia2i. 

April  10 

— 

„ 

_ 

. 

« 

2,000 

120 

Ni.v.     1 

.  _ 

_ 

— 

_ 

14,500 

_ 

418  87 

1822 

Jan.    23 

_ 

_ 

_ 

„ 

1,388 

65  12 

Mar.     5 

« 

_ 

14,000 

» 

- 

- 

326  55 

11 

_ 

„ 

1.900 

.  . 

. 

« 

35  43 

20 

25,000 

. 

_ 

_ 

. 

, 

250 

22 

_ 

_ 

27,722 

_ 

_ 

« 

277  22 

26 

^ 

_ 

18,660 

. 

. 

. 

186  60 

29 

_ 

_ 

950 

• 

. 

^ 

9  50 

30 

, 

_ 

200 

„  • 

« 

_ 

2  50 

April    4 

_ 

- 

200 

_ 

. 

- 

2  50 

6 

„ 

. 

6,999 

_ 

- 

- 

69  99 

8 

„ 

. 

5 J, 000 

„ 

- 

_ 

375 

11 

_ 

. 

643 

_ 

. 

_ 

8  03 

14 

_ 

. 

12,000 

. 

» 

83  97 

15 

. 

. 

68,993 

> 

. 

517  45 

18 

, 

_ 

1  ,700 

_ 

_ 

12  75 

23 

_ 

„ 

18,660 

_ 

- 

V 

139  95 

25 

. 

. 

« 

7,090 

_ 

. 

338  81 

1 1 

- 

_ 

18,566 

a 

- 

. 

139  24 

May    14 

40.000 

. 

„ 

_ 

_ 

» 

8(;0 

16 

20.000 

„ 

_ 

_ 

„ 

„ 

400 

17 

4,255 

. 

_ 

_ 

_ 

„ 

42  SS> 

20 

4,500 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

45 

21 

5  O'JO 

_ 

_ 

_ 

« 

_ 

l(/0 

" 

30,000 

" 

_ 

_ 

. 

_ 

300 

22 

6,900 

. 

_ 

_ 

_ 

69 

19 

_ 

. 

. 

4,760 

. 

_ 

285  60 

Oct.   30 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

. 

260 

10  81 

1823 

« 

April  26 

. 

. 

. 

. 

752 

48  31 

29 

5,000 

. 

„ 

- 

. 

50 

May     2 

76,000 

» 

- 

. 

— 

760 

14 

10,000 

_ 

. 

. 

. 

2o0 

16 

150,0i/0 

_ 

„ 

. 

_ 

3,300 

( ( 

15,000 

„ 

. 

_ 

. 

3.0 

17 

75,000 

_ 

• 

_ 

. 

1.500 

19 

5,000 

« 

„ 

. 

. 

100 

20 

620 

_ 

_ 

. 

_ 

12  40 

<  t 

220,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

. 

3,000 

22 

100,000 

. 

„ 

» 

_ 

2 ,000 

June  16 

50,000 

» 

•. 

_ 

. 

1 ,250 

20 

30,000 

« 

„ 

_ 

» 

450 

Sept.   4 

60,000 

. 

. 

• 

- 

1  .200 

6ct.   13 

n  n 

- 

215,889 

- 

- 

2,158  89 

26 


202 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  24 — Continued. 


Date. 

Spanish 

Crowns. 

Francs. 

American 

Br.  and  Fr. 

Spanish 

Premium. 

dollars. 

gold. 

gold. 

gold. 

1824. 

April  20 

1,700 

. 

. 

_ 

. 

. 

51 

May     7 

10,000 

. 

• 

. 

. 

- 

300 

21 

6,000 

« 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

75 

22 

2,000 

_ 

. 

„ 

_ 

„ 

25 

1 1 

55,000 

„ 

•«• 

^ 

_ 

_ 

825 

t  < 

4,000 

» 

_ 

. 

. 

. 

60 

C  ( 

5,000 

. 

^ 

_ 

. 

„ 

62  50 

24 

10,000 

« 

^ 

„ 

^ 

„ 

150 

.  25 

20 ,000 

. 

„ 

. 

_ 

. 

600 

( < 

6,000 

. 

„ 

« 

„ 

■^    « 

90 

( ( 

428 

. 

^ 

^ 

_ 

„ 

6  42 

26 

10,000 

, 

„ 

_ 

„ 

_ 

300 

t « 

1,000 

. 

_ 

^ 

_ 

. 

30 

( ( 

9,708 

_ 

. 

. 

_ 

. 

291  24 

(  c 

100,000 

. 

„ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

3,000 

27 

16,000 

. 

_ 

_ 

. 

- 

405 

( 1 

1,285 

- 

_ 

^ 

_ 

. 

33  56 

28 

670 

_ 

. 

_ 

. 

_ 

10  05 

29 

80,000 

_ 

. 

„ 

» 

_ 

1,200 

July  15 

50,000 

. 

_ 

, 

. 

750 

( ( 

. 

_ 

^ 

197  78 

_ 

_ 

11  86 

17 

_ 

„ 

_ 

61  66 

_ 

_ 

3  70 

19 

30,000 

- 

„ 

_ 

_ 

150 

'      20 

» 

' 

. 

_ 

259  85 

— 

15  59 

Aug.    4 

50,000 

. 

_ 

« 

_ 

_ 

875 

5 

8,000 

. 

« 

„ 

„ 

„ 

140 

6 

4,000 

_ 

« 

_ 

_ 

• 

70 

7 

9,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

157  50 

28 

544 

_ 

„ 

_ 

_ 

5  44 

30 

40,000 

_ 

- 

_ 

. 

_ 

200 

Sept.   4 

. 

_ 

I 

« 

238 

» 

8 

7 

_ 

_ 

. 

315 

_ 

_ 

1  34 

25 

1,377 

_ 

^ 

_ 

» 

41  60 

( ( 

15,000 

„ 

. 

„ 

- 

. 

450  31 

29 

2,500 

„ 

_ 

_ 

. 

_ 

75 

Oct.    18 

» 

_ 

_ 

30,115 

. 

. 

1,527  80 

28 

« 

_ 

18,660 

„ 

» 

_ 

373  20 

Nov.     1 

» 

« 

27,990 

« 

« 

« 

559  80 

19 

_ 

- 

36,000 

» 

. 

- 

720 

Dec.     1 

m 

7,478 

. 

_ 

_ 

• 

74  78 

1825. 

Feb.  18 

25,000 

_ 

- 

. 

■• 

_ 

500 

19 

6,000 

_ 

^ 

_ 

. 

„ 

120 

23 

50,000 

. 

« 

_ 

_ 

1,000 

24 

100,000 

_ 

„ 

, 

_ 

2,000 

Mar.  10 

50,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

1,000 

11 

1,000 

_ 

^ 

^ 

^ 

_ 

10 

12 

_ 

_ 

6,000 

_ 

_ 

- 

120 

April  4 

100,000 

_ 

. 

_ 

„ 

- 

2,000 

5 

4,000 

- 

. 

„ 

_ 

. 

120 

8 

„ 

. 

„ 

_ 

_ 

608 

53  20 

12 

, 

11,540 

_ 

_ 

_ 

132  29 

13 

310,000 

^ 

„ 

_ 

. 

6,200 

14 

3,000 

_ 

_ 

C 

„ 

_ 

90 

15 

256,000 

. 

. 

. 

. 

. 

7,680 

19 

200,000 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

4,000 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  24 — Continued. 


503 


Date. 

(Spanish 

Crowns 

Franca. 

American 

Br.  and  Fr 

Spanish 

Premium. 

dollars. 

gold. 

gold. 

gold. 

April  20 

100,000 

2,000 

21 

37,000 

. 

>■ 

_ 

_ 

370 

May   12 

5,000 

. 

_ 

„ 

- 

_ 

150 

June    2 

9,000 

. 

_ 

_ 

- 

" 

270 

8^ 

200 

•  _ 

_ 

_ 

- 

_ 

6 

July   15' 

3,000 

- 

. 

■i 

• 

_ 

67  50 

16 

6,000 

- 

« 

_ 

- 

« 

45 

Aug.    5 

20,000 

- 

_ 

•• 

- 

_ 

500 

6 

55,000 

- 

_ 

_ 

- 

» 

1,375 

18 

., 

. 

.,  • 

_ 

- 

385 

31  18 

Sept.  14 

_ 

- 

_ 

^ 

- 

400 

16 

Oct.     8 

. 

8,176 

7,000 

„ 

- 

_ 

221  65 

15 

« 

- 

^ 

18,450 

- 

_ 

738  05 

17 

200,000 

. 

« 

. 

_ 

, 

6,000 

1826. 

.# 

April  27 

> 

- 

_ 

1,145 

« 

55 

May   18 

31,000 

- 

. 

_ 

» 

775 

(  c 

14,000 

- 

. 

_ 

_ 

350 

20 

13,000 

„ 

. 

_ 

^ 

" 

325 

( ( 

_ 

. 

_ 

. 

523 

~ 

21 

22 

15,000 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

« 

375 

June    8 

. 

. 

» 

^ 

325 

" 

7  m 

19 

„ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

476 

- 

23  80 

26 

_ 

. 

^ 

_ 

1,190 

- 

65  42 

( ( 

« 

- 

50 

_ 

- 

2  5P 

July  11 

- 

- 

- 

3,040 

- 

167  20 

13 

. 

„ 

„ 

283  81 

_ 

15  60 

( ( 

50,000 

- 

_ 

_ 

. 

750 

15 

6,800 

. 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

102 

i  < 

6,000 

- 

_ 

„ 

» 

- 

90  -■■:'' 

( 1 

3,500 

„ 

^ 

^ 

_ 

52  ''' 

16 

10,000 

- 

_ 

_ 

» 

. 

150 

20 

1,000 

- 

_ 

. 

_ 

- 

15 

Oct.     6 

„ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

91 

6  37 

Dec.  23 

75,000 

_ 

_ 

_ 

. 

_ 

1,500 

1827. 

Jan.    30 

. 

_ 

. 

20,000 

_ 

_ 

1,300 

Mar.  13 

100,000 

_ 

„ 

., 

. 

1,500 

24 

12,500 

_ 

_ 

_ 

„ 

_ 

187  50 

C  ( 

12,500 

« 

_ 

„ 

_ 

_ 

437  50 

(  c 

12,500 

_ 

_ 

_ 

» 

_ 

187  50 

(  c 

12,500 

_ 

_ 

_ 

- 

„ 

437  50 

( < 

_ 

_ 

466  50 

_ 

. 

_ 

7 

28 

100 

_ 

^ 

„ 

_ 

50 

April  3 

3,000 

_ 

.. 

_ 

_ 

„ 

45 

11 

10,000 

» 

. 

.. 

- 

_ 

150 

12 

20,000 

„ 

„ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

300 

13 

10,000 

. 

_ 

« 

_ 

„ 

150 

<  ( 

7,000 

_ 

. 

, 

« 

„ 

105 

14 

600 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

_ 

9 

17 

286 

^ 

« 

_ 

„ 

_ 

4  29 

19 

100 

_ 

_ 

_ 

„ 

^ 

50 

May     2 

10,000 

» 

- 

« 

- 

_ 

150 

' 

15,000 

. 

- 

« 

. 

« 

75 

4 

910 

„ 

- 

. 

_ 

_ 

13  65 

t 

150 

_ 

_ 

„ 

„ 

_ 

2  25 

( 

2,500 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

1  20 

204 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  24 — CoMlinued. 


Dale. 

S|)  iiiihii 

•  Jrovt  n 

Fran  OS. 

American 

Br.  and  Fi 

Sp  n'sh 

Hrcmium. 

gol-l. 

go'd. 

K  W 

U^7 

9 

. 

. 

_ 

100 

. 

_ 

5 

• 

100 

. 

„ 

_ 

_ 

• 

50 

• 

, 

« 

„ 

" 

72  45 

.. 

5  06 

10 

_ 

_ 

„ 

'i'i 

■ 

1  78 

16 

500 

_ 

_ 

" 

. 

12  50 

'22 

20,00 

. 

. 

_ 

_ 

500 

2a 

2,672 

_ 

. 

. 

" 

„ 

40  08 

I  * 

40,000 

. 

. 

. 

. 

1,000 

« » 

3,0  JO 

. 

„ 

_ 

_ 

75 

May   2t 

'  200 

. 

_ 

_ 

I 

_ 

1  GO 

24 

I  I/O 

» 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

1  50 

1>5 

50,000 

- 

- 

« 

, 

. 

1 ,250  00 

26 

6J0 

. 

. 

_ 

„ 

, 

15  50 

2y 

-•» 

. 

. 

1,700  00 

. 

' 

25  50 

July     6 

■-'100 

- 

- 

_ 

. 

50 

14 

10,000 

. 

- 

. 

- 

_ 

250  00 

16 

25,0*JO 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

625  00 

17 

10,OOL» 

- 

- 

_ 

. 

_ 

250  00 

17 

1,000 

. 

. 

_ 

_ 

_ 

15  00 

17 

3,0:>0 

_ 

. 

.. 

_ 

75  00 

Oc.   24 

20,0ou 

_ 

. 

_ 

. 

_ 

500  00 

2> 

1-»,0'J0 

_ 

_ 

_ 

250  00 

27 

2,00u 

2 

- 

_ 

_ 

I 

50  00 

H         29 

1  ,00t» 

_ 

. 

« 

. 

25  00 

29 

28  500 

_ 

. 

_ 

„ 

_ 

285  00 

3^ 

3  Oou 

_ 

_ 

\ 

_ 

_ 

75  ()() 

30 

1 ,00.J 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

. 

25  00 

gi,     30 

19  0  *0 

. 

- 

. 

. 

_ 

487  50 

»     31 

7"0 

» 

- 

« 

. 

_ 

17  50 

R7o\.    1 

80 

_ 

- 

» 

_ 

_ 

2  00 

1 

5  000 

. 

- 

. 

_ 

_ 

125  00 

2 

1,500 

. 

. 

. 

_ 

_ 

2>7  50 

27 

_ 

_ 

- 

• 

254  80 

_ 

12  74 

30 

_ 

_ 

. 

_ 

13  ^o 

._ 

67 

Dec.     4 

437 

_ 

. 

. 

. 

_ 

4  37 

28 

50,000 

. 

- 

. 

. 

_ 

750  00 

1828. 

Fib    29 

63,000 

. 

. 

. 

_ 

_ 

472  50 

May   26 

680 

. 

- 

- 

. 

- 

6  80 

'    26 

51 ,000 

„ 

. 

« 

. 

_ 

510  00 

July     7 

3,000 

. 

- 

- 

- 

- 

77  50 

Oct.    28 

» 

21 ,350 

. 

. 

. 

. 

213  50 

Nov.   15 

500 

. 

. 

« 

_ 

10  00 

19 

300 

„ 

. 

_ 

_ 

6  00 

Dec.  17 

_ 

- 

. 

. 

_ 

575 

34  10 

26 

15.000 

. 

» 

„ 

. 

150  00 

27 

6,341 

, 

. 

. 

_♦ 

. 

63  41 

29 

2.436 

_ 

. 

_ 

. 

_ 

24  36 

1829. 

May      5 

15,000 

_ 

. 

. 

- 

. 

500  00 

7 

20,000 

. 

« 

. 

- 

_ 

400  00 

13 

6.000 

. 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

60  00 

18 

32,500 

_ 

. 

_ 

. 

. 

568  75 

20 

2,000 

„ 

„ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

20  00 

June  24 

" 

■- 

. 

. 

. 

1,165 

58  25 

1830. 

■ 

M«y    10 

- 

• 

- 

200  00 

- 

- 

7  00 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  24 —Continued. 


205 


Pate. 

Sp*'ni-h 

downs. 

K^anrs. 

America 

IJ.-.  and  K. 

panisi 

Kr-fmniin. 

(IwliHrs. 

jfotd. 

j...r. 

K<  l«l. 

1831 

Ma..    14 

_ 

„ 

_ 

500  Ov 

_ 

. 

13  00 

ApnI29 

10,000 

. 

_ 

_ 

- 

. 

luo  OQ 

May    14 

16.0('0 

_ 

. 

_ 

. 

_ 

160  {)0 

1« 

3  960 

_ 

. 

_ 

- 

39  60 

20 

10,000 

_ 

. 

. 

- 

_ 

h)U  00 

July     8 

674 

_ 

_ 

_ 

T 

- 

'oS7  (JO 

9 

3  117 

_ 

_ 

. 

- 

- 

'     15  58 

28 

50.(00 

. 

_ 

. 

-• 

. 

500  00 

Ang.    1 

5,000 

_ 

_ 

. 

. 

. 

25  00 

2 

26,000 

_ 

_ 

. 

_ 

260  00 

r. 

29,000 

_ 

_ 

- 

. 

290  00 

19 

100,(00 

_ 

« 

. 

_ 

1  OOO  OQ 

27 

5,000 

. 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

31   25 

Sep.     1 

12.500 

„ 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

9*  75 

2 

9,00(j 

_ 

- 

, 

. 

. 

07  50 

5 

3,8(^0 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

_ 

2H  50 

16 

5,000 

_ 

« 

, 

.          _ 

_ 

50  <V0 

19 

15,(iOO 

_ 

. 

. 

_ 

. 

150  00 

2u 

11.580 

_ 

„ 

_ 

_ 

115  80 

23 

39,000 

_ 

. 

„ 

_ 

4>i7  50 

28 

12,000 

. 

_ 

. 

_ 

_ 

12U  00 

Pet.      6 

5,  COO 

_ 

. 

, 

_ 

_ 

62  50 

Nov.  22 

60,U0u 

- 

553,198  50 

- 

- 

- 

60.^  00 

4,450,142 

48,544 

84,734  44 

-^1  267  3) 

27,024 

97,110  56 

No.  25. 


^TJiTEMENT  of  the  qmoint  of  specie  d^unrn  from  eitch  of  the  muth- 
em  uinl  western  ojffice.Sy  .si ore  IbU',  /o  the  liuok  oj  tite  i'nitvd  States 
and  to  the  brooch  ut  Ativ  I'or/e. 


TEAK 


J  820 


1821 


nalimore 

Kayfttville  - 
rii'sbii  jf 
Cliiliicuitie     - 

Ualiimore 
V\  asiiiiij^ton  - 
l''a.  et'e%ilie   - 
(;iiu!  e^lMU     - 
Si.Vinnali 

d... 
Cluiiles'on     - 
S'W  Oilt-aiu 
I'itisUurg       •» 


Uaitk  United  States 
do 
d<> 
do 

do 

(!•) 
New  Y-.k 

do 

do 
Bai.kUiiitfd  States 

d.> 

do 

do 


S4l,6>5  .ih 

272  24 

4,5i-'4  29 

29.568  lu 


275,352  10 
20,053  9f 

6  AKio 
93.829 

170,000 

240.000 

148 '898 

200  657  70 
59.889 


$75,979  91 


1,221  014  74 


206 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  25— Continued. 


FROM 

TO 

j^^     AMOUNT. 

TOTAI.. 

1825 

Bant  UnitecJ   States 

Baltimore 

101 ,000 

do 

Charleston 

7,150 

New  York 

Richmond           j 

50,000 

158,150 

1826 

Bank  United  States  - 

Louisville 

- 

3oa 

1827 

do 

Washington 

- 

7,000 

1828 

do 

Baltimore 

202,000 

do 

Pittsburg 

1,000 

do              .     - 

St.  Louis 

2,000 

205,000] 

1829 

do 

Washington 

10,000 

do                •    - 

Favetteville 

2.000 

New  York 

Savannah 

50,000 

62,000 

■ 

1830 

Bank  United  States  - 

Washington 

22,000 

do 

BAJtimore 

127,000 

do 

Richmond 

1,323 

-dt) 

Norfolk 

1,000 

do 

Fayetteville     ^^  - 

100 

do 

Chirleston 

2,100 

do 

Mobile 

i^5,000 

do 

St.  Louis 

1,000 

do 

Cincinnati 

1,000 

New  York 

Bank  United  States  - 

Savannah            » 
Baltimore 

200,000 

360,523 

1831 

3,505 

do 

Washington 

15,000 

do      , 

Norfolk 

2,000 

do 

Charleston 

2,000 

' 

do 

Savannah 

2,000 

do 

New  Orleans 

6,000 

do 

St.  Louis 

2,000 

do 

Cincinnati 

6,000 

do 

Pittsburg 

2,000 

40,505 

896,472 

No.   26. 

STATEMENT  of  all  the  bills  of  exchange,  on  London  and  Paris,  furnished  by 
the  Bank  to  go  circuitously;  stating  the  places  they  were  conditioned  by  the  pur- 
chasers to  be  sent  to,  and  the  amount  to  each  place;  the  amount  each  year;  and  the 
amount  noiu  out  unsettled  for. 


WHERE    SENT. 

Totals  for 
each  year. 

Date. 

East  Indies. 

Soiith 
America. 

•    West 
Indies. 

Mexico. 

Continent  of 
Europe. 

Amount 
unsettled. 

1825 
1826 
1827 
1829 
1830 
1831 
Apr.  1,  1832 

£62,187 

10,000 

4,200 

31,602 

36,4£G 

159,448 

5,610 

29,300 

1,700 

3,000 
7,500 

1,000 

s'ooo 

4,400 

62,187 

10,000 

4,200 

36,602 

45,096 

201,648 

1.700 

i 

100,500 

£303 .923 

36,610 

10,500  1     1,000 

9,400 

£361,433 

100,50 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  25— Continued. 


207 


XEAn. 

PROM 

TO 

AMOUNT. 

TOTAL 

1822 

Baltimore      .        -        - 

Bank  United  States  - 

$69,526 

Washington  - 

da 

'      22,525  28 

Richmond      -        -        - 

do 

23,957  31 

New  Orleans 

do 

6,076  38 

Pittsburg 

do 

178,319  25 

#300,403  22 

1825 

Payetteville  - 

New  York 

44,684  43 

New  Orleans 

do 

149,967 

Charleston     -        -        - 

Bank  Unite    States  - 

9,994 

Savannah       ... 

do 

99,930  50 

New  Orleans 

do 

590,119  29 

Pittsburg 

do 

376,310  93 

Baltimore 

do 

1,271,002  15 

1824 

376,681  88 

Richmond 

do 

100,355  33 

Payetteville 

do 

15,333  45 

Savannah 

do 

100,000 

New  Orleans 

do 

284,729  18 

Louisville 

do 

13,970  84 

Pittsburg 

do 

195,804  06 

Payetteville 

New  York 

97.000 

New  Orleans 

do 

350,000 

1,533,874  74 

1825 

Baltimore 

Bank  United  States  - 

304,198 

Washington 

do 

30,000 

Richmond 

do 

50,000 

Payetteville 

do 

22,635  38 

Charleston 

do 

49,991 

New  Orleans 

do 

205,465  96 

Louisville 

do 

200,000 

Cnicinnati 

da 

301 

Pittsburg 

do 

125,879  39 

New  Orleans 

New  York 

723  ,000 

1,711,471  63 

1826 

Baltimore 

Bank  United  States  - 

457,809  98 

Pa  vette  villa 

do 

32,945  36 

Charleston 

do 

5.750 

Savannah 

do 

163,506  53 

New  Orleans      - 

do 

514.850  68 

Louisville 

do 

250,993 

Cincinnati 

do 

215, C JO 

Pittsburg 

do 

70/>'i.9  12 

Payetteville 

New  York 

29,859  01 

New  Orleans     - 

do 

870,000 

1827 

Baltimore 

Bank  United  States  - 

499,100  50 

2,611,663  68 

Norfolk 

do 

70,231  12 

New  Orleans      - 

do 

334,654  56 

Louisville 

do 

199,992 

Cincinnati 

do 

103,071 

New  Orleans      - 

Ne',y  York 

580,000 

1828 

Baltimore 

Bank  United  States  - 

443,757  59 

1,787;049  18 

Norfolk 

do 

151  45 

Payetteville 

do 

6.324  24 

Charleston          -            i. 

do 

104,041  62 

New  Orleans     - 

do 

413,584  23 

Louisville 

do 

100,000 

Pittsburg 

do 

62,897  50 

208 


[  Rop.  No.  460.  ] 

STATEMENT  No.  25--Continued. 


TBAH. 

FIIOM 

TO 

AMOUNT. 

Tl.TAL. 

Ww  OileuMS 

New  Y'.rk 

$725,000 

<;harle>tort 

do 

200,000 

$2,055,756  78 

1829 

Rdiimore 

B.»nk  United  States  - 

200,000 

Norfolk 

dp 

X-Z  34 

FHVentvlUe 

dp 

24,455 

<:  •iul'^st.)  1 

dp 

1.4)3  68 

Vew  Orleans 

dp 

784,587  12 

Va.hvilirt 

do 

101.200 

Lo    Fvdle 

do 

22^80H  16 

i'itici'ar.ili 

do  f 

54,175  47 

Piitsbii'j^ 

do 

I4,4J9  20 

Vew  Orleans      • 

N-w  York 

1,270,00) 

2,673,115  97 

1830 

,H*l'tmore 

Rank  United  States  - 

453.0;»0 

Fa\e  tt'Vil'e 

do 

27,371   03 

•  Ivirliston          - 

do 

11,171   55 

S  vu'wiaii 

do 

9,H92  26 

\V\v  ()  lenns 

do 

633  800  91 

Cincinnati 

do 

1   5, 405  70 

|»i  ts'^nrjj 

do 

71,191 

St   L 'uis         •  - 

do 

20'.  .000 

LoU'^ville 

do 

130, OJO 

I.    xint'tnn 

do 

1 ,0fi9  68 

NVw  O  leans      r 

New  Y  rk 

1,960,000 

3,653,202  13 

J831 

[\  lit  more 

Uank  Uo  ted  States  - 

200.00 

\.)rf.)lk 

do 

13;), 00) 

Favettev.lle 

do 

33.89''  10 

Cln'"leton 

do 

2,257  62 

Sava'n-ih 

do 

65.341 

Ni-w  O  leans 

do 

1,532  358  04 

S'.  Loifw 

do 

100,000 

l,otii>%ille 

do 

ISO,  000 

S;nanntli 

New  York 

125,000 

M,.|)i  It- 

do 

It)!  1, 000 

New  Orleans      -            ? 

do 

1,16;). 000 

3.628.^53  76 

• 

22.52;,.S87  94 

Slatement  of  the  amount  of  specie  sent  to  the  southern  and  western 

offices  since  1819. 


1320 


182: 


1825 


Da 


k  United  Slates 
do 
do 
do 


N(  w 


do 
do 
York 


Bank  United  States 
t'.o 
do 


Wa-hington 
hichm  »kI 
Charles  on 
Louist  ille 

Wa^l-ing-'on 

flha'Uson 

N(.rf(.lk 

W'ac;l,injrtOn 

Tay'tevdle 
ChtUicothe 


$16,070 


35,124 


11,800 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  209 

No.  27. 
Form  of  obligation  given  by  purchasers  of  bills  to  go  circuit- 

OUSLX. 

Memorandum  of  an  agreement  made  the dxiy  nf ^,  J),    18 — 

between  the  Bank  of  the  United  Stales,  and  .5.  B,  of  rhiladelphia,  mer- 
chant. 

The  Bank  of  the  United  States  agrees  to  deliver  to  the  said  A.  B.  its 
bills  of  exchange  drawn  in  his  favor  on  Baring  brotJiers  and  Co.,  London, 
for  one  thousand  pounds  sterling,  payable  one  hundred  and  eighty  days 
after  sight,  which  hills  are  not  to  be  negotiated,  except  to  the  eastward  of 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 

In  consideration  of  these  bills  A.  B.  agrees  to  deliver  to  the  Bank  his 
note,  dated  at  twelve  months  date,  in  favor  of,  and  endorsed  by,  C.  D.  for 
five  thousand  dollars,  being  the  par  value  of  one  thousand  pounds  sterling 
with  twelve  and  a  half  per  cent,  premium  thereon,  or  at  the  rate  of  five 
dollars  per  pound  sterling. 

On  payment  of  this  note  at  maturity,  the  Bank  will  adjust  the  account, 
by  converting  the  pounds  sterling  on  the  face  of  the  bills,  plus  two  and  a 
half  per  cent,  into  dollars,  at  whatever  rate  of  exchange  the  Bank  may  then 
be  drawing  at  sixty  days'  sight  on  London,  and  should  this  amount  in  dol- 
lars exceed  or  fall  short  of  the  said  payme^nt,  the  Bank  shall,  in  the  first 
case,  receive  from  the  said  A.  B.,  and  in  the  last  case  refund  to  him,  the 
difference. 

Should  the  bills  be  returned  unnegotiated  to  the  Bank  before  the  said 
note  be  paid,  the  note  will  be  surrendered  on  receiving  from  the  said  A.  B, 
one  per  cent,  of  its  amount,  or  should  they  be  returned  imnegotiated  after 
the  account  shall  have  been  adjusted  as. above,  the  sum  paid  will  be  refund- 
ed, excepting  one  per  cent,  tliereof  to  be  retained  by  the  Bank. 

Should  the  bills  be  lost,  the  Bank  binds  itself  either  to  surrender  the 
note  or  to  refund  the  money  as  the  case  may  be,  reserving  only  the  said 
one  per  cent,  of  the  amount  after  it  shall  have  received  satisfactory  proof 
of  the  bills  being  entirely  lost,  accompanied  by  a  sufficient  bond  of  indem- 
nity against  their  reappearance;  but  if  the  money  be  received,  no  interest 
will  be  allowed  by  the  Bank,  however  long  the  same  may  remain  in  its 
possession  before  the  delivery  of  tho  bills,  or  of  the  said  proof  of  loss  and 
the  bond. 

If  requested,  the  Bank  will  issue  new  sets  of  exchange,  of  the  same  tenor 
with  that  wiiich  may  be  lost,  upon  receiving  proof  of  loss  and  bond  as  above. 


27 


210  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Report  of  the  Dividend  Committee. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  President  and  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  on  the  2d  of  July,  1821,  the  following  report  was  adopted. 

The  committee  appointed  on  the  27th  iilt.  to  consider  the  state  of  the 
Bank,  and  to  report  whether  any,  and,  if  any,  what  dividend  should  bo 
made  of  the  profits  which  have  accrued  during  the  last  six  months,  respect- 
fully report: 

That,  on  examining  the  accounts  of  the  Bank,  it  appears  that  the  amount 
received  on  account  of  discounts,  exchange,  and  interest,  since  the  first  of 
January  last;  is  gl, 01 1,305  14.  Of  this  sum,  however,  g54,739  39,  has 
been  received  on  account  of  interest,  which  had  previously  accrued,  leaving 
]S956,565  75  as  the  sum  which  has  accrued,  and  been  received  duriHg  the  last 
six  months.  But  to  give  accurately  the  current  profitsof  the  half  year,  to  this 
sum  must  be  added  the  semi-annual  dividend,  about  to  be  declared,  which  the 
Bank  is  entitled  to  retain  on  37,513  shares  of  its  own  capital  stock,  which 
it  holds  as  a  pledge,  and  which  have  been  transferred  according  ta  the  in- 
struments of  hypothecation,  to  the  President,  Directors,  and  Co. 

The  expenses  of  the  Bank,  and  the  offices,  during  the  same  period,  the 
usual  allowance  for  the  extinguishment  of  the  bonus,  and  other  semi- 
annual appropriations,  amount  to  the  sum  ofg280,829,  61  which  being 
deducted,  will  leave  a  balance  that  would  authorise  a  dividend  of  two  per 
cent,  and  give  a  surplus  of  ^50,761  46.  The  Committee,  however,  are  de- 
cidedly of  opinion,  alter  very  mature  deliberation,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Board,  and  the  soundest  policy  of  the  Bank,  to  make,  at  this  particular 
time,  a  smaller  dividend  than  two  per  cent.  The  first  great  point  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  Bank,  is,  to  remove  all  doubts  as  to  the  re-establishment 
of  the  capital.  It  is  not  enough  that  it  may  be  made  whole^ithe  stockhol- 
ders and  the  public  must  be  satisfied  of  the  fact,  for  otherwise  the  one  will 
not  hold,  and  the  other  will  not  acquire,  with  confidence,  and,  like  all  un- 
certain interests,  the  value  of  the  stock  must  be  diminished  in  the  estima- 
tion of  both  buyer  and  seller.  The  Committee,  therefore,  proceed  to  exhibit 
a  brief  view  of  the  situation  of  the  Bank,  and  their  reasons  for  the  opinion 
that  a  less  dividend  should  now  be  declared  than  would  be  authorised  by 
the  nett  profits  of  the  last  six  months,  if  abstractedly  considered. 

The  Committee  have  had  before  them,  estimates  of  losses  furnished  by 
the  respective  offices  of  the  Bank,  except  four  of  the  western  offices, 
brought  down  to  the  1st  ult.  and  some  of  them  to  a  later  date,  which  they 
have  attentively  examined,  and  where  they  have  not  been  satisfied  with  the 
sufficiency  of  the  allowances  made  by  tlie  offices,  the  Committee  have  made 
additions,  but  in  no  instance  have  they  diminished  these  allowances. 

Tliese  estimates  are,  in  some  instances,  a  little  more,  and  in  others  a 
little  less,  than  those  which  were  relied  upon  in  January  last.  In  the  ag- 
gregate, they  exceed  the  estimates  then  made  of  the  losses  of  the  same  of- 
fices 825,363  67  and  in  this  near  coincidence,  perhaps,  is  discoverable  a 
probable  proof  of  the  fidelity  and  accuracy  of  the  estimates  of  both  periods. 

With  respect  to  the  four  western  offices  above  excepted,  the  Committee 
have  thought  it  safest  again  to  rely  upon  the  estimates  of  the  Cashier,  Mr. 
Wilson,  particularly  referred  to  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  State 
of  the  Bank,  which  was  agreed  to  by  the  Board,  on  the  23d  of  January 
last,  and  published  in  tlie  gazettes. 

According,  then,  to  thege  premises,  the  estimated  losses  of  the  Bank  o^ 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ]  .211 

the  1st.  inst,  are  S3, 547,838  80.  But  although  great  pains  have  been  ta- 
ken to  examine  thoroughly,  and  no  hesitation  has  been  indulged  in  stating 
fully  the  losses  which  have  probably  been  sustained,  the  Committee  are, 
nevertheless,  of  opinion,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Board,  and  the  soundest 
policy  of  the  Bank,  to  ensure,  if  possible,  by  adequate  sustaining  means, 
the  certainty  of  that  result  which  the  estimates  now  acted  upon  render  prob- 
able. 

The  sliares  [37,513]  which  have  been  transferred  to  the  Bank,  are,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  pledged  to  the  Bank  to  an  amount,  including  interest, 
over  and  above  any  dividends  which  the  Bank  may  be  able  to  retain,  equal 
to  the  highest  price  which  they  are  likely  to  bring,  though  in  the  estimate 
of  losses  they  have  only  been  valued  at  par.  The  excess,  therefore,  over  par, 
of  any  price  which  they  may  bring,  may  be  made  applicable  to  the  extin- 
guishment of  the  actual  losses,  should  they  be  found  to  exceed  the  estimat- 
ed amount. 

There  are,  also,  very  considerable  sums  now  due  to  the  Bank,  for  inter- 
est which  has  already  accrued  on  suspended  debts,  other  than  those  secur- 
ed by  pledges  of  stock.  The  amount  now  estimated  to  be  due  on  debts  of 
this  description,  which  have  been  estimated  as  good,  is  upwards  of  g200,000, 
exclusive  of  the  interest  due  on  doubtful  and  bad  debts,  the  principal  part 
of  which,  as  well  as  the  interest  wliich  shall  accrue  on  the  same  debts  in 
future,  may  also  be  made  applicable,  in  like  manner,  to  the  extinguish- 
ment of  the  losses,  should  they  exceed  the  estimated  amount.  And  it  is  the 
opinion  of  the  Committee,  that  these  resources,  or  the  greater  part  of  them, 
should  be  pledged,  in  addition  to  the  immediate  application  of  the  past  pro- 
fits of  the  Bank,  to  the  full  amount  of  the  estimates  for  the  extinguishment 
of  the  eventual  loss. 

The  Committee  are  also  of  opinion,  that  several  temporary  charges  upon 
the  profits  of  the  Bank,  which  have  been  under  a  process  of  gradual  extin- 
guishment, by  semi-annual  appropriations,  ought  to  be  immediately  extin- 
guished.    They  therefore  propose 

1st.  That  the  estimate  of  losses  be  increased  to  the  even  sum  of 
SS, 550, 000,  and  be  deducted  from  the  actual  profits  of  the  Bank  which 
have  heretofore  accrued. 

2d.  That  there  be  now  declared  a  semi-annual  dividend  of  one  and  one 
half  per  cent. 

3d.  That  the  whole  premium  paid  the  Government  for  the  two  millions 
loan  of  1820,  be  now  extinguished;  that  the  balance  of  the  commissions  on 
the  loan  obtained  by  the  Bank  in  Europe,  in  1819,  be  now  extinguished; 
and  that  so  much  of  the  unextinguished  balance  of  the  expenses  of  the 
commissioners  for  taking  subscriptions  to  the  Bank,  &c.  as  will  reduce  it 
to  g20,000,  be  now  extinguished.  This  small  balance  may  be  extinguish- 
ed in  January  next,  and  the  Bank  will  then,  besides  iis  ordinary  and  cur- 
rent expenses,  be  encumbered  only  with  the  payment  of  the  interest  of  the 
loan  in  Europe,  which  will  cease  after  July,  1822;  the  extinguishment  of 
the  premium  on  the  four  millions  five  per  cent,  loan;  the  extinguishment  of 
the  bonus;  and  the  establishment  of  an  adequate  fund,  to  cover  any  losses 
hich  may  be  sustained  on  banking  houses  which  have  been,  or  may  be, 

cted  or  purchased. 

If  the  appropriations  thus  recommended  be  now  made,  the  acceunt  of 

fit  and  loss  to  the  1st  instant,  will  stand  as  follows: 


212'  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Balance  to  the  credit  of  profit  and  loss,  according  to  the  account  herewith 
reported,         ------     g4, 107,186  35 

Dividends  to  be  retained  on  37^513  shares  capital  stock  of 
the  Bank  pledged,  and  transferred  to  the  President,  Di- 

.    rectors  &  Co.  at  li  per  cent.  .  -  -  56,269  50 


g4, 163,455  85 
Extinguishment  of  the  premium  on  the  two  millions  six  per 

loan,  -  -  -  .  g40,000  00 

Extinguishment  of  the  balance  of  the  commis- 
sion on  the  loan  obtained  by  the  Bank  in 
Europe,  -  -  -  -  16,000  00 

Extinguishment  of  this  sum  of  the  expenses 
of  commissioners,  &c.  over  and  above  the 
semi-annual  allowance  now  made,       -  26,974  40 

Specific  fund  for  the  extinguishment  of  losses,  3,550,000  00 
Dividend  of  U  percent,  on  350,000  shares,     525,000  00 


4,157,974  40 


Balance  to  be  carried  to  the  credit  of  profit  and  loss,  S5,481  45 

4.  The  Committee  arc  of  opinion  that  the  sum  of  S3, 550,000  thus  ap- 
propriated for  the  extinguishment  of  losses,  should  be  put  to  the  credit  of 
an  account  to  be  denominated  <^ contingent  fund,-'  and  be  thus  distinctly 
set  apart  from  the  current  profits  and  losses  of  the  Bank,  and  that  it  should 
be  declared  to  be  appropriated  inviolably,  together  with  all  excess  over  the 
par  value,  which  may  be  received  on  the  stock  pledged  and  transferred  to 
the  Bank,  as  before  stated,  and  all  interest  due,  and  to  grow  due,  on  the 
suspended  debts,  at  the  offices  of  Louisville,  Lexington,  and  Chilicothe, 
and  the  late  office  of  Cincinnati,  and  particularly  that  it  be  declared  that 
no  part  of  these  funds  shall  be,  on  any  account,  or  under  any  circumstan- 
ces, diverted  to  any  other  object  than  the  extinguishment  of  the  losses 
which  the  Bank  has  sustained  without  the  approbation  of  the  stockholders, 
at  a  regular  meeting  to  be  called  for  the  purpose,  or  at  the  triennial  meet- 
ing required  by  the  charter. 

The  Committee  are  of  opinion,  that  there  should  hereafter  be  a  semi- 
annual appropriation  of  Si 5,000,  in  addition  to  the  semi-annual  appro- 
priation for  the  extinguishment  of  the  bonus  of  S45,000,  to  extinguish  the 
premium  on  the  four  millions  five  per  cent,  loan,  and  to  provide  a  fund  to 
meet  any  losses  which  may  be  sustained  on  the  banking  houses  built  and 
purchased  by  the  Bank,  or  which  it  may  hereafter  build  cp  purchase. 

The  sums  to  be  provided,  are  as  follows,  viz. 
The  bonus,  (original  amount)      -  -  -  -    gl, 500,000  00 

The  cost  of  banking  houses  at  Philadelphia,  Baltimore, 
"Washington,  Richmond,  Norfolk,  Fayetteville,  Charles- 
ton, Savannah,  New  Orleans,  and  Louisville,  which  is  all 
that  the  Bank  has  hitherto  erected  or  purchased,  is 
§775,617  63.  It  will  require  about  S10,000  to  finish 
the  banking  house  at  Philadelphia,  except  the  south  por- 
tico, which  it  is  not  intended  to  finish,  and  it  is  believed, 
if  so  much  be  added  to  the  foregoing  sums  as  will  make 
an  aggregate  o    §900,000,  it  will  cover  all  the  buildings 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  213 

which  the  Bank  will  in  future  probably  build  or  purchase, 
say,  therefore,  -  -  .  -  .  900,000  00 

Premium  paid  on  the  four  millions  five  per  cent,  loan,       -  205,880  00 

g2,605,880  00 


The  Bank  has  heretofore  appropriated,  semi-annually,  commencing  n 
July,  1817,  the  sum  of  g45,000,  which,  if  continued  to  the  end  of  the 
charter,  will  yield         -----       §1,665,000  00 

If  to  this  be  added  a  semi-annual  appropriation  of  gl  5,000, 
and  ic  be  continued  to  the  end  of  the  charter,  it  will  yield  420,000  00 


g2,085,000  00 
which,  it  will  be  perceived,  will  extinguish  the  bonus,  the  premium  on  the 
four  millions  five  per  cent,  loan,  and  upwards  of  40  per  cent,  on  the  cost 
of  the  banking  houses  heretofore  erected,  or  which  will  probably  be  erect- 
ed hereafter. 

The  object  of  the  Committee  in  going  so  fully  into  details,  was  not  only 
to  lay  them  before  the  Board,  for  its  information  and  consideration,  but 
also  to  put  them  in  a  shape  which  would  be  intelligible  to  the  stockholders 
and  the  public,  should  it  be  the  pleasure  of  the  Board  to  give  publicity  to 
the  report,  and  thereby  lay  before  tliem  the  means  of  judging  of  the  situa- 
tion and  circumstances  of  the  institution. 

To  carry  these  views  into  effect,  the  Committee  recommend  to  the  Board 
the  adoption  of  the  following  resolutions: 

1st.  Resolved,  That  §3,550,000  of  the  unapplied  profits  of  the  Bank 
be  appropriated,  and  set  apart,  as  a  fund  to  extinguish  the  losses  which  the 
Bank  may  have  sustained,  and  that  it  be  put  to  the  credit  of  an  account  to 
be  denominated  *<  contingent  fund,"  and  thus  be  separated  from  the  ac- 
counts of  profit  and  loss. 

2,  Resolved,  Tiiat  the  interest  due,  and  to  grow  due,  on  suspended  debts, 
at  the  otfices  of  Louisville,  Lexington,  and  Chilicothe,  and  the  late  office 
of  Cincinnati,  be  also  set  apart  for  the  extinguishment  of  losses  which  the 
Bank  may  have  sustained. 

S.  Resolved,  That  these  several  funds  be,  and  they  are  hereby,  inviola- 
bly pledged  for  the  object  declared,  and  that  they  shall  not  be  directed  to 
any  other  object,  witliout  the  approbation  of  the  stockholders  at  a  regular 
meeting,  which  shall  be  called  for  that  purpose,  or  at  the  triennial  meeting 
required  by  the  charter. 

4.  Resolved,  That  there  be  now  declared  a  semi-annual  dividend  of  one 
and  one  half  per  cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Bank. 

5.  Resolved^  That  §40,000  be  appropriated  for  the  extinguishment  of 
the  premium  paid  to  the  Government  on  the  two  millions  six  per  cent,  loan, 
gl 6,000  for  the  extinguishment  of  the  commission  on  tlie  loaii  obtained  by 
the  Bank  in  Europe,  §26,974  40  for  the  extinguishment  of  so  much  of  the 
expenses  of  commissioners,  5cc. 

6.  Resolved,  That,  in  addition  to  the  semi-annual  appropriation  hereto- 
fore made  for  the  extinguishment  of  the  bonus,  there  be  a  semi-annual  ap- 
propriation of  §15,000  for  the  purpose,  with  the  surplus  of  the  apjiropria- 
tion  for  the  bonus,  of  extinguishing  the  premium  paid  on  the  four  millions 
five  per  cent,  loan,  and  extinguishing  in  part  the  cost  of  banking  houses 
built,  or  to  be  built  and  purchased  by  the  Bank. 


214  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

7.  Resolvedf  That  this  report  be  published  in  the  National  Intelligencer, 
and  the  gazettes  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  which  the  Bank  is  ac~ 
customed  to  publish. 

L.  CHEVES,  President. 
Attest,  THOS.  WILSON,  Cashier. 


No.  29. 
Report  of  the  Ditidend  Committee,  January,  1823. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

6/^  January f  182S. 

Mr,  Fisher,  from  the  Committee  on  the  State  of  the  Bank  and  Dividend, 
offered  the  following  report,  which  was  read,  and  unanimously  adopted: 

The  committee  appointed  on  the  31st  ultimo,  to  inquire  into  the  state  of 
the  Bank,  and  to  consider  whether  any,  and,  if  any,  what  dividend 
should  be  declared  of  the  profits  which  have  accrued  for  the  last  six 
months,  report: 

That,  on  examining  the  accounts  of  the  Bank,  it  appears  that  the  amount 
received  on  account  of  discounts,  exchange,  interest,  &c.  during  the  last 
six  months,  is  81,038,089  06,  including  therein  about  S20,000,  being  the 
iiett  amount  received  on  account  of  contingent  interest  during  the  same  pe- 
riod, and  gl  1,537  S3  received  for  premiums  on  bills  drawn  on  the  credit 
of  the  Bank,  on  Baring,  Brothers  &  Co.  to  which  amount  of  profits  is  to  be 
added  any  dividend  which  may  be  now  declared  on  37,954  shares  of  the 
capital  stock  of  the  Bank,  which  are  pledged  to  it  for  more  than  the  par 
value,  and  have  been  transferred  to  the  President,  Directors,  k  Co. 

From  the  aggregate  of  the  foregoing  profits,  the  current  expenses  and 
the  usual  semi-annual  appropriations  are  to  be  deducted. 

The  committee  further  report,  that  they  have  had  before  them,  and  have 
attentively  examined,  returns  from  the  several  offices,  brought  down  to 
very  late  periods,  exhibiting  the  character  of  the  debts  due  to  them  respec- 
tively, and  estimates  of  the  probable  losses  sustained  by  them.  That  on 
the  current  business  of  the  Bank  and  the  offices,  there  is  a  larger  amount  of 
probable  losses  than  usual,  though  the  total  amount  is  nevertheless  incon- 
siderable; and  that  the  aggregate  estimate  [of  losses  brought  down  to  the 
present  time,  exceeds  very  considerably  that  of  the  last  dividend  commit- 
tee. The  aggregate  estimate  of  that  committee  was  §3,74 3,899,  and  that 
of  the  present  committee  is  §3,934,223  61,  giving  an  apparent  increase  of 
§190,324  61.  The  principal  part  of  this  difi^erence  is  found  in  the  esti- 
mates for  the  offices  of  Baltimore  and  Pittsburg.  The  estimate  of  the  last 
dividend  committee  was  for  the  office  at  Baltimore  §1,671,221  87,  and  that 
of  the  present  committee  is  §1,715,084  04,  making  a  difference  of  §43,- 
862  17;  of  which  last  sum  §34,225  are  supposed  to  have  been  omitted  by 
mistake,  by  the  last  dividend  committee,  in  the  estimate  of  losses  on  stock 
loans  at  that  office.  Of  this  error,  however,  this  committee  are  not  fully 
satisfied,  as  the  last  committee  were  aided  by  the  Directors  from  Balti- 
more, in  forming  their  estimate,  an  advantage  of  which  the  present  com- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  215 

mittee  are  deprived  by  their  absence.  But,  under  these  circumstances, 
the  present  committee  have  deemed  it  to  be  their  duty  to  take  tlie  largest 
sum.  The  estimate  of  the  last  committee,  of  the  losses  at  the  office  at  Pitts- 
burg was  899,717  56^  and  that  of  the  present  committee  is  §176,177  92, 
making  a  difference  of  76,460  36.  It  vyill  be  seen,  by  reference  to  the  re- 
port ot  the  last  dividend  committee,  that  they  did  not  allow  the  amount  re- 
ported by  the  committee  of  the  office,  believing  that  they  had  greatly  over- 
rated their  losses,  as  they  very  much  exceeded  all  former  estimates.  But 
the  report  of  the  office,  last  received,  having  confirmed  the  preceding  one, 
this  committee  have  thought  it  to  be  their  duty  to  adopt  the  estimate  last 
furnished  by  the  office,  though  it  is  nearly  three  times  as  great  as  the  esti- 
mate of  the  Cashier  of  the  Bank  made  when  he  visited  the  office  in  1820 
for  this  purpose,  and  more  than  double  the  amount  of  any  report  of  the  of- 
fice preceding  that  which  was  before  the  committee  in  July  last. 

The  committee  have  again  been  governed  by  the  estimates  of  the  Cashier 
of  the  Bank,  referred  to  in  former  reports,  in  their  estimates  of  the  losses 
at  Louisville  and  Lexington,  and  the  late  office  at  Cincinnati.  The  esti- 
mate returned  by  the  office  at  Chilicothe  has,  on  this  occasion,  exceeded 
the  estimate  of  the  Cashier  of  the  Bank,  and  the  committee  have  increased 
the  estimate  of  that  office  accordingly. 

The  statement  of  the  arrears  of  interest  reported  to  be  due  by  the  last 
dividend  committee,  was  g818,985  09,  which  was  incorrect,  inasmuch  as 
it  omitted  the  contingent  interest  due  on  stock  loans,  which  being  added, 
it  would  have  amounted  to  g  1,279, 520  54.  The  arrears  of  interest  now 
due,  amount  to  Si, 476,692  89,  including  interest  due  on  doubtful  and  bad 
debts.  On  this  view  of  the  state  of  the  Bank,  the  committee  beg  leave  to 
recommend  a  dividend  of  two  and  a  Iialf  per  cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of 
the  Bank,  and,  if  the  Board  shall  so  order,  the  following  statement  will 
result: 

Profit  and  Loss, 

Dr. 

To  Profit  and  loss  for  current  debts,  since  July  last,  ^         g8,878  99 

"  Curifent  expenses,       -----        133,626  75 

«  Interest  paid  on  loan  in  Europe,  ...         26,361 '6l 

<<  Semi-annual  appropriation  for  bonus,  bank  buildings, 

and  premium  on  four  millions  5  percent,  loan,  -         60,000  00 

*<  Dividend  No.  8,  at  2^  per  cent.  -  -  -        875,000  00 

«  Balance,  ......       274,902  78 


81,378,770  13 


Cr. 

By  Balance  of  profit  and  loss  amount  in  July  last,             -  §245,796  07 

♦<  Current  credits  to  ditto,  since  that  date,           -             -  5,132  20 

<<  Discounts,  exchange,  and  interest,         -             ,             .  1,032,956  86 
<*  Dividend  to  be  now  declared  on  37,954  shares  Bank 

United  States  stock,  at  2^  per  cent.               -             -  94,885  00 


§1,378,770  13 


The  analysis  of  the  above  balance  is  as  follows: 

Balance  profit  and  loss  amount  in  July,  1821,         -  -     §5,48145 


216  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Contingent  interest  received,  as  per  report  of  dividend,  Ja- 
nuary, 1822,      •--.-..       4,727  00 
Do.  do.  report,  July,  1822,    -     35,000  00 

Premium  of  exchange,  and  interest  received  on  proceeds  of 
gold  exported,  remittances  to  Holland  on  account  of  loan, 
&c.  as  per  dividend  report,  July,  1822,  -  -  135,000  00 

Contingent  interest  received  during  the  last  six  months,     -     20,000  00 
Premium  received  on  bills  drawn  on  the  credit  of  the  Bank 

during  the  same  period,  -  .  -  .     11,537  33 

Balance,  being  current  profits  of  the  year  1822  undivided,       63. 1 57  00 


S274,902  78 


Of  this  sum,  S245,796  07,  which  stood  to  the  credit  of  profit  and  loss  in 
July  last,  and  whicii  is  amalgamated  in  the  foregoing  balance,  the  stock- 
holders, at  their  last  meeting,  appear  to  have  understood  that  §193,899 
would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be  carried  to  the  credit  of  the  contingent 
fund.  But  they  could  not  have  adverted  to  the  fact,  that  a  portion  of  this 
balance  of  profits  grew  out  of  two  transactions  which  are  not  yet  closed, 
and  ought  to  abide  their  final  result,  viz:  1st.  Tlie  reimbursement  of  that 
portion  of  the  loan  of  g2, 040,000,  which  was  payable  in  Holland;  of  tliat 
loan  there  is  ^3tiIl  due,  and  payable  in  England,  gl, 020,000.  2d.  Pre- 
miums received  by  the  Bank  on  bills  drawn  on  Baring,  Brothers  &  Co., 
to  whom  the  Bank  is  now  indebted^  as  per  statement  of  tlic  2d  instant, 
ttie  sum  of  g262,907  89.  To  meet,  however,  the  views  of  the  stockhold- 
ers, without  leaving  any  charge  on  the  future  operations  of  the  Bank,  on 
account  of  the  balance  of  the  loan,  or  that  due  to  Baring,  Brothers  &  Co., 
in  current  account,  the  committee  recommend  that  the  whole  balance,  be- 
fore stated,  of  §274,902  78  be  carried  to  the  credit  of  the  contingent  rund,^ 
for  the  extinguishment  of  the  losses  of  the  Bank,  subject,  however,  to  the 
payment  of  the  expense  which  may  be  incurred  in  discharging  the  debt 
now  due  to  Baring,  Brothers  &  Co.,  as  well  on  account  of  tlie  loan  as  in 
account  current.  Tire  losses  of  the  Bank,  it  has  been  seen,  have  been  esti- 
mated by  this  committee  at §3,934,223  6!;  to  meet  which,  there  will  be, 
1st,  a  contingent  fund  of  §3,824,902  78,  subject  to  the  expense  of  paying 
tlie  debt  due  to  Baring,  Brothers  &  Co.,  as  aforesaid;  and,  2dly,  the 
sum  of  §1,476,692  89  of  contingent  interest. 

Finally,  the  committee  report,  for  the  consideration  of  the  Board,  the 
following  resolutions: 

1st.  That  thei-e  be  now  declared  a  semi-annual  dividend  of  the  profits  of 
the  Bank,  of  two  and  one-half  per  cent.,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Bank. 

2d.  That  the  balance  of  the  statement  of  profit  and  loss,  viz:  §274,- 
902  78,  be  carried  to  the  credit  of  the  contingent  fund,  for  the  purpose  of 
extinguishing  the  losses  of  tlie  Bank,  subject,  however,  to  the  payment  of 
the  expense  which  may  be  incurred  in  discharging  the  debt  now  due  to 
Baring,  Brothers  &  Co.,  as  w^ell  for  the  balance  of  the  loan  aforesaid,  as 
the  balance  due  them  in  account  current. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


217 


No.   30. 


LOSSES    CHARGEABLE    TO   THE    CONTINGENT   FUND. 

The  following  statement  is  furnished,  in  compliance  with  a  resolution  of 
the  committee,  requesting  "a  statement  of  ihQ particulars  of  the  amount 
of  debts  'considered  lost,'  the  amount,  on  the  1st  of  August,  being 
113,452,976  16;  distinguishing,  in  the  same,  those  contracted  prior  to  the 
30th  of  August,  1822,  from  those  contracted  subsequently;  and  giving  the 
amount  of  each. " 

The  returns  of  suspended  debts,  from  the  respective  offices,  give  the 
dates  whe7i  due  and  protested  or  unpaid,  but  not  the  dates  when  con- 
tracted. The  dates,  **  when  due  and  unpaid,"  are  therefore  presented  in 
the  following  statement  as  the  nearest  practicable  approximation  to  the  in- 
formation required  by  the  committee- 
It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  a  large  portion  of  the  debts  which  became 
'*  due  and  unpaid"  after  the  30th  of  August,  1822,  must  have  been  the 
result  of  transactions  in  which  the  debtors  had  originally  obtained  credit 
at  the  bank  prior  to  that  date. 

BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  PHILADELPHIA. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Due  and  un- 

Due and  un- 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

paid   before 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

paid  after 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

1819,  AprU    4 

Marietta    and   Susque- 
hannah  Trading  Com- 

pany 

. 

15,100 

Sept.    2 

Juniata  Bank  - 

.             . 

13,346  31 

1822,  Sept.  27 

George  Strawbridge  - 

John  Strawbridge 

- 

3,721  30 

1819,  Aug.  31 

John  Thoburn 

John  Steel,  Steel  &  Mercer 

600 

* 
Apr. 

Hugh  Christy 

Anthony  Groves 

2,980 

June 

Anthony  Groves 

Hugh  Christy      - 

1,500 

April  23 

John  Greincr 

Do. 

600 

June    4 

Anthony  Groves 

John  J.  Wheeler 

1,000 

1821,  July    13 

John  H.  Gartley 

John  Jones 

590 

1820,  Mar.  18 

John  Jones 

J.  H.  Gartley     - 

300 

1818,  Dec. 

John  Billmeyer 

G.  &  D.  Billmeyer 

3,871  50 

1819,  June 

Jacob  Clement 

Jacob  Clement,  jr. 

1,040 

1820,  Nov.     3 

R.  &  T.  Morrell 

James  Morrell 

180 

1818,  Sept. 

Baker  &  Ferrand 

Rulon  &  Baker 

8,579  44 

1820,  Mar.     7 

John  Seckel 

Lawrence  Seckel 

400 

1818,  Dec.   22 

Nathan  Smith 

Nathan  A.  Smith 

650 

1821,  April  21 

John  Walsh 

Isaac  Levis 

1,822 

May 

John  Thompson,  S. 

Do. 

1,200 

1819,  Mar. 

John  Y.  Bryant 

Mordecai  Y.  Bryant 

3,750 

(( 

Mord.  Y.  Bryant 

John  Y.  Bryant  - 

3,600 

1318,  Jan. 

Joseph  Clarke 

Samuel  Brooks    - 

2,945  50 

1822,  July 

John.Rugan  &  Sons  - 

John  Claxton 

4,607 

1823,  April  29 

Joseph  Simins 

J.  M.  S.  McCorkle,  Wm. 

McCorkle 

. 

150 

1824,  Sept.  15 

Jno.  P.  Peckworth      - 

Mortgage  debt    - 

. 

615 

1819,  May 

Henry  Sergeant 

Emlen  &  FuUerton 

4,100 

(( 

James  Gibson 

John  Gibson 

1,066  67 

July 

Joseph  Head 

William  Wain      -            fc 

1,520 

(( 

Richard  Bailey 

T.  B.  Freeman     -            ^ 

1,450 

Nov. 

Josiah  Starkey 

Stothart      - 

2,576 

1820,  Feb.     7 

John  Clifford 

John  Pemberton 

7,900 

<( 

Robert  Imlay 

Henry  Shriver     - 

6,620 

* 

Dec. 

Wm.  Schlatter 

Adam  Konigmaker 

24,719  27 

i823,Feb. 

Benjamin  Wilson 

Dockeray  Smith  - 

. 

4,550 

Mar. 

Th.  H.  Roberts  &  Co, 

Daniel  Lamot      - 

- 

1,737  97 

218  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

BANK  U.  S.  PHILADELPHIA— Continued. 


When  due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  rnir 

Due  and  un* 

.  and  unpaid. 

paid  before 

paid  after      ^ 

Aug.  30, 1832. 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

1826,  Feb. 

Wm.  Allen 

Henry  Simpson  - 

2,840 

Jan. 

Henry  Simpson 

William  Allen     - 

. 

4,585 

April 

Chs.  N.  Bancker 

H.  Simpson 

« 

9,748  81 

Feb. 

Do. 

Wm.  Allen 

^ 

3,628 

Jan.    13 

Saml.  Marsh 

R.  M.  Whitney  &  Co.     - 

. 

5,285  30. 

April    8 

A.  W.  Hamilton 

Th.  Johhson,  Th.  Harrison 

„ 

250 

May  13 

Chs.  Biddle 

William   Ohver,    John  G. 

Oliver  &  Co.    - 

. 

2,620  03 

July   13 

Wm.  Oliver 

Thomas  Simpson 

. 

718  36. 

1824,  May  30 

Ansley  Cooper 

•            • 

_ 

45  47 

1826,  May 

CM.  &  W.H.Stokes 

Charles  Biddle    - 

„ 

6,786 

1828,  Jan.   25 

Th.  Philbrook  &  Co.  - 

Nathaniel  Mullikin 

„ 

50 

1820,  Mar.     1 

H.  Dusenbury 

John  Stoddart      - 

364  54 

1818,  Mar.     1 

G.  Frederickson 

Hester  &  Savitz  - 

1,717  64 

1821,  May  18 

Thomas  Amies 

Thomas  Dobson  &  Son  - 

240 

Wm.  Taylor,  jr. 

*  - 

. 

r,lir  35 

1527,  Jan.    19 

Forged  draft 

- 

. 

3,000 

1823,  April  16 

John  Doyle 

John  Cochrane    • 

. 

168  30 

Sundry  overdrafts 

. 

3,190  66 

1319,  Feb.     7 

Andrew  Seguin 

James  L.  Vauclain 

5,000 

May    4 

Ismel  Whelan 

William  Rogers  - 

1,200 

July    11 

S.  Smith  8c  Buchanan 

George  Williams 

32,500 

1822,  Dec.  22 

George  McLeod 

John  Strawbridge 

. 

785  82 

1823,  Dec.     3 

John  C.  Delprat 

Do. 

„ 

1 ,278  14 

April  16 

John  Doyle 

John  Cochrane    - 

_ 

504  90 

1819,  Oct.    19 

Edward  Carroll 

George  Rundle   - 

1,499  46 

1814,  Aug.    5 

J.  W.  Saunders 

L.  HoUingsworth   &  Son, 

1,410  24 

1819,  May  11 

P.  HoUingsworth 

_ 

April  13 

Condy  &  Raguet 

John  J.  Downing 

2,197 

1822,  June  30 

Anthony  Groves 

James  Imbrie  &  Co. 

4,050 

1826,  Aug.  26 

W.  H.  Cowperthwait 

Wm.  W.  Drinker 

956  43 

Samuel  Hays 

E.  Pennington  &  Son 

„ 

494  59 

Oct.    19 

John  Turner  &  Co.     - 

William  Hamilton 

„ 

2,400 

1827,  June     1 

Samuel  Thompson      - 

Jonah  Thompson 

. 

600 

1829,  Oct.    22 

Armon  Davis 

Aug's  C.  Salaignac 

_ 

519  19 

July   22 

Charles  Dilworth 

John  Doughty     - 

. 

391  09 

1826,  May     2 

Smith  &  Bailey 

Edward  Thomson 

, 

2O,0Q0 

1825,  Nov.  21 

Blydenburg  8c  Burns  - 

Do.                B.  Arney 

« 

7,612  43 

1826,  Jan. 

Do. 

Do. 

„ 

8,657  91 

182^,  Dec.  26 

Do. 

Van  Nortwich  &  Miller  - 

« 

8,828  09 

1829,  Oct.    10 

Joseph  Osborne 

Henry    Thomas,    Nevins, 

8c  Co. 

• 

7,000 

1819,  Aug. 

Robert  Graham 

Newkirk  8c  Worth,  (sterling 
bills) 

1,527  60 

Jan.     4 

Joseph  Lynch 

Do.          -            -   (  do.  ) 

2,222  22 

April  28 

Wilson  &  Conyngham 

Do.         -            -    (  do.  ) 

1,777  78 

1825,  Dec.  22 

B.Clark          -             - 

Do.          -    ,       -    (  do.  ) 

. 

5,093  86 

u 

R.  Malone 

Do.          -            -    (  do.  ) 

« 

6,658  97 

<( 

Andrew  Low  &  Co.    - 

Do.          -             -    (  do.  ) 

- 

38,075  95 

1831,  Feb.  24 

Expenses   paid  on  collection  of  sundry  debts  as- 
signed to  Bank  U.  States,  by  the  Pennsylvania 

Manufacturing  and  Agricultural  Bank  of  Carlisle 

» 

1,763  87 

1830,  Aug.  18 

Interest  relinquished  on  Murray,  Fairman,  &  Go's 

debt      -,.... 

« 

- 

598  63 

177,057  02 

169,890  48 

177,057  02 

346,947  50 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
BANK  U.  S.  PHILADELPHIA--Cantmued, 


219 


Deduct  credits: 

Gain  on  sale  of  real  estate    -  - 

Balance  of  account  of  "  contingent  iaterest" 
Discount  on  notes  received  for  Magnolia  Groye  estate 
Protests  repaid        -  _  -  -  - 


450 
4,340  19 
16,050 
4  12 


Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aus.SO,  1822. 


2ft.844  31 


326.103  19 


OFFICE  AT  PORTSMOUTH. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid  before 
Aug.  30,  1822. 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30, 1822.. 

1822,  Feb.     9 

H.  S.  Langdon 

Josh.  Neal,  E.  Thompson 

750 

May     7 

Joshua  Neal 

John  Langdon    - 

225 

Mar.  30 

H.  S.  T.angdon 

Do.              Jos.  Neal 

900 

26 

Do. 

Eben.  Thompson 

400 

April    2 

Do. 

Jno.    Langdon,   Edmund 
Roberts 

900 

May  18 

Do. 

Jno.    Langdon,    Th.    A. 
Harris 

533  33 

1823,  Aug.  20 

Nathaniel  Seward 

Sam'l     Furnal,     D-.    E. 

Frombly 

- 

90 

May  20 

Benj.  Penhallon 

Thinking  Penhallon       - 

. 

1,304  8S 

1826,  Mar.    8 

John  Clark,  jr. 

William  Rundlet 

. 

161  la 

1828,  June    8 

Jas.  S.  Starwood 

A.  &  J.  Wendall 

. 

322  25 

11 

Isaac    Wendall,    Wm. 
HiU 

Jno.   Williams,    A.   &  J. 

Wendall 

. 

1,350 

Aug.  13 

Do.                  do.    - 

Do.                          do.    - 

. 

2,400 

April  29 

Robert  Blunt 

Sherburne  &  Blunt 

» 

1,320 

Aug.  21 

A.  &  J.  Wendall 

J.  K.  Pickering 

- 

996  74 

Edward  Cutts 

Deficiency  pension  office 

. 

17,861  92 

1523,  July     3 

Stephen  Chase 

Jno.  F.  Mendum  &  Co.  - 

- 

74  43 

1828,  June  15 

Joseph  Coe 

Jno.  K.  Pickering 

- 

560  86 

May     6 

A.  &  J.  Wendall 

Do. 

- 

600 

June  17 

Do. 

Do. 

^ 

560 

July    31 

Do. 

Do. 

- 

286  08- 

June    8 

Sherburne  &  Blunt     - 

A.  &  J.  Wendall 

;'        .^ 

120 

10 

A.  &  J.  Wendall        - 

Sherburne  &  Blunt,   Is. 

Wendall 

-. 

800 

10 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

;      1,600 

Aug.  11 

Do. 

Isaac  Wendall    - 

1,390 

7 

Jacob  Wendall 

Do. 

. 

1,250 

11 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

2,200 

June  25 

Abm.  Wepdall 

Jacob    Wendall,     Isaac 

Wendall 

•• 

300 

July   10 

Do. 

Do.                        do.      - 

. 

260 

April  24 

John  Williams 

Abm.  &  Jac.  Wendall    - 

. 

1,220 

June    4 

Do. 

Isaac    Wendall,    J.    K. 

Pickering 

- 

900» 

220 


[  Rep.  No.  4*60. 
OFFICE  AT  PORTSMOUTH— Continued. 


When  due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 

Due  and  un» 

«nd  unpaid. 

paid    before 

paid  after 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.  30, 182^. 

1828,  June  29 

Jno.  Williams, 

Isaac,  Abr'ra,   &  Jacob 

Wendall, 

„ 

_ 

1,950 

July   23 

Do. 

Isaac  Wendall   - 

_ 

_ 

1,950 

Aug.  14 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

. 

4,800 

May     7 

ShexbumeSc  Blunt     - 

A.  &  J.  Wendall,  J. 

K. 

Pickering 

. 

» 

3,972  81 

July    17 

Do. 

Do.                        do. 

_ 

. 

6,250 

June    8 

Jos.  Wiggin  - 

Th.  Batchelder,  D.  Pink-I 

ham 

„ 

„ 

115 

July  24 

G.  M.  Marsh 

Sherburne  and  B.,  J 

K. 

Pickering 

. 

. 

500 

May  14 

Joseph  Coe    - 

J.    K.    Pickering,    Alex.] 

Patten 

. 

. 

1,000 

July     2 

Do. 

Do.                        do. 

. 

. 

1,200 

17 

Do. 

Do.                        do. 

. 

" 

1,500 

21 

Do. 

Do.                        do. 

. 

1,200 

Aug.    4 

Do. 

Do.                        do. 

. 

_ 

1,500 

11 

Do. 

Jno.  K.  Pickering 

- 

. 

1,500 

21 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

. 

1,650 

1828,  Aug.  25 

Joseph  Coe    - 

Jno.  K.  Pickering 

. 

. 

1,250 

Oct.    20 

B.  H.  Palmer 

Thomas  Sheafe 

. 

_ 

283 

July   27 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

« 

563  72 

Aug.  21 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

^ 

466  05 

1829,  April    7 

Jos.  B.  Whidden 

Elisha  Whidden 

_ 

. 

451  84 

Feb.    13 

Walter  Wyatt,  C.Noyes 

Jac.  Patch,  S.  Patch, 

Ez. 

Sibley 

. 

_ 

568  87 

1830,  Feb.     5 

William  Hill  - 

Aaron  Hill 

. 

^ 

350 

17 

John  Rodgers 

Nathaniel  Gjlman 

- 

- 

1,400 

3,708  33 

71,349  55 

3,708  33 

75,057  88 

OFFICE  AT  PORTLAND. 


1829,  Feb.  26 
Mar.    2 

April  11 
May  29 

1828,  Nov.    7 

21 

1829,  Mar.    2 

6 

3 

16 


Nov. 
Dec. 


Millions  &  Levitt 
Atwood  &  Co. 
Emory  &  Smith 
Wm.  H.  Mills 
Burbank  &  Hanson 
Daniel  Fox 

Do. 
Thomas  Dodge 
L.  &  H.  Gooding 
Thomas  Chadwick 

Do. 


Atwood  &  Co. 
Millions  &  Levett 
Thomas  Dodg-e  - 
Millions  &  Levett 

Do. 
George  Fox 
Chs.  Fox 
S.  &  H.  Gooding 
Thomas  Dodge 
Richard  Chadwick 
R.  Chadwick,  Dan'l  Brown 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  AT  BOSTON. 


221 


When    due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid   before 

Due   and   un- 
paid after 

Aug.  30, 1S22. 

Aug.  30,  182?. 

1832,  June  17 

I.  &  J.  Howe 

Asher  Adams     - 

900 

27 

Robert  C.  Ludlow 

Joseph  Grafton  - 

1,000 

July    11 

Do. 

E.  M.  Jef&ies     - 

907  48 

1823,  Nov.  22 

Isaac  Child    \- 

Joshua  Child 

. 

150 

Dec.    13 

Joshua  Child  - 

Isaac  Child 

m 

1,0C0 

1824,  Jan.    17 

Isaac  Child     - 

Joshua  Child      - 

_ 

100 

Mar.  19 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

250 

Abiel  Wenship 

Jonathan  "Winship 

« 

200 

1827,  May  31 

J.  W.  Langdon 

Walley  &  Forstler 

. 

1,336  SO 

Nov.  30 

John  S.  Seller 

Deficiency  pension  office 

„ 

758  30 

1829,  Nov.  30 

Counterfeit  bank  note 

.             - 

. 

10 

May  17 

Hammond  &.  Haveland 

Jno.  A.  Welsh  - 

. 

602  88 

31 

Do. 

Do. 

- 

1,507  16 

June    I 

Do. 

Do. 

« 

904  2S 

May  17 

Jno.  A.  Welsh 

Hammond  &  Haveland 

400 

June  25 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

1,000 

July  24 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

1,000 

1830,  April  15 

J.Fuller,2dteUer      - 

Cash  deficiency 

_ 

100 

li 

Counterfeit  bank  notes 

"             " 

- 

20 

2,807  43 

9,338  90 

2,307  4» 

12,146  33 

OFFICE  AT  PROVIDENCE. 


1829,  Aug. 
Sept. 


Arnold  &  Davenport 
Z.  Lanthrop    - 


Cyrus  Barker     - 
R.G.  Hazard  &  Co. 


635  19 
290  46 


925  65 


OFFICE  AT  HARTFORD. 


1819,  July 
May 
Oct. 

1820,  July 


1819,  Mar. 
1320,  July 


1S21,  April 
1820,  Aug. 


1825,  Nov. 

1826,  July 


22  Jehiel  Johnson 
26  Samuel  Babcock 
is'Samuel  Ackley 


Daniel  Samson 

R.  Doad,jr.,  W.  Dan- 

forth  . 
Austin  Blackslee 
Wm.  Danforth,  jr. 

B.  Wilhamson    R.  H. 

Cumming   - 
J.  Harper,  J.  Bartlett  - 
N.  Wilcox,  J.  Warner, 

E.  Doad,  J.  Adams 
N.  Wilcox,  J.  Warner 
Keeler  S;  Rogers 
Giles  Stebbins 


E.  Fom,  S.  Babcock 
J.  Johnson 
Nathan  Ackley 
Benjamin  Williams 

Do. 
Jacob  Twines 
B.  \Mlliams,  K.  S.  Wet 


Thomas  Child,  jr. 
J.  H.  Bartlett 

Benjamin  Williams 
B.Wilhams,  J.  L.  Lewis 
Isa.  Brown 
David      Brewster,    Phil 
Hayward 


200  67 
60 
50 
80  75 

55 
440 

114 

300 
1,806  60 

130 
120 


2,000 
150 


3d^ 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE,  HARTFORD— Continued. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 


Drawers. 


1827,  May 

1822,  Dec. 

1823,  Jan. 

Feb. 

1828,  May 
1822,  Jan. 
1820,  Aug. 
1825,  April 

1819,  July 

Aug. 


1820,  Aug. 
1819,  Aug. 


1820,  Nov.  16 
1826,  Dec.  18 


12     -     -     - 
26  Fred.  Pearl  - 

6  Do. 
28  Do. 
20      Do. 

31  Seth  D.  Wolf 
4  W.  C.  Hall    - 

7  Benj.  Williams 

11  Jos.  Williams  &  Co.  - 
10         Do. 
19  H.  Southmayd 
15         Do. 
9         Do.  - 

26  Do. 

Do. 
Eleazer  Doud 
Jchiel  Johnson 

R.  Doud,  jr.,  W.  Dan 

forth 
J.  West,  J.  West,  jr., 

C.  Foot 


Endorsers. 


1827,  July  28 
1826,  Feb.  19 
•1830,  Nov.  30 


R.  Moody 
Silas  Spencer 
Loss  on  sale  of  real 


Cash  deficiencies 

R.  Miles,  R.  Whittlesey 

Do.  do. 

Do.  do. 

Do.  do. 

Josiah  Sage 
Geo.  W.  Bull     . 
Hiram  Grant      - 

Do. 
W.  Southmayd  - 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 
Nathan  Wilcox  - 
Lysander  Wells,  Samuel 

Babcock 

J.  Fairchild,  S.  Crowell  - 

J.  M.  Batelle,  E.  West 
T.  N.  West,  J.  Foot, 
Manhem  Van  Demson 

A.  Moody,  Th.  Moody  - 

Pierpont  Hollester 

tateNo.  5 


Deduct  gain 


Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30,1822. 


24 
200 


400 
300 
640 
400 
450 
50 

128 

150 


Due  and  un- 
paid  after 
Aug.  30, 1822. 


263 
,500 
400 
400 
500 
9 


252  50 
155 


6,299  02 


on  real  estate 


84 
,000 

65 
950 


7,708  50 
6,299  02 


14,007  52 
129  13 


13,878  39 


OFFICE  AT  NEW  YORK. 


1818,  Jan.     4 

Bailey,  Wm.  - 

J.  HefTerman 

1,804  80 

May     3 

J.  W.  Leaman,  jr. 

Townsend  &  White 

3,446  84 

1820,  July  14 

Tricon  &  Messillier    - 

Labourse  &  A.  C.  Duff  - 

109  28 

« 

George  Johnson 

Post  &  McKinley 

979  20 

(( 

Benton  &  Phelps 

No  endorser 

1,347  35 

June  19 

J.  Corvill  &  Son 

D.  Sullivan 

2, -500 

(( 

Jno.  Lambert 

Geo.  D.  Grass   - 

310 

(( 

Titus  C.  Waring 

Underbill  &  Dusenbury  - 

200 

1823,  Jan.     9 

Walley,  Foster,  &  Co. 

J.  Underbill,  P.  V.Ledyard 

- 

423  10 

1822,  May  31 

Counterfeit  drafts 

- 

9,997  67 

1826,  May  31 

Branch  notes  stolen     - 

... 

- 

3,630 

» 

Cash  deficiency 

- 

2,556  16 

(( 

Overdrafts      - 

- 

- 

3,495  38 

1825,  Nov.  17 

Robert  Stewart 

McClintock,  Hawthorn, 

&  Co. 

- 

2,885  7^ 

Dec.   17 

Ulshoeffer  &  Groome  • 

Thomas  Day      - 

. 

1,500 

1828, 

James  Rikeman 

Cornelius  Rikeman 

- 

220 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  AT  NEW  YORK— Continued. 


223 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30,1822. 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30,1822. 

1826,  May  30 

Amount  short  in  2d  tel 

lers'  cash 

900 

1827,  May  22 

Amount  short  in  specie 

- 

- 

1,000 

Aug.  10 

Amount  short  in  tellers 

cash     - 

. 

100 

Oct.    15 

Counterfeit  check 

- 

. 

1,555 

July     7 

Do. 

- 

. 

750 

1820,  Dec.   il 

Jones  &  Clinch 

J.     Corville  &    Son,    R. 
Despeau,  Baker,  &  Hop- 
kins   ... 

3,133  11 

1827,  Dec.  22 

J.  C.  &  G.  Newton    - 

Joseph  Newton 

. 

2,800 

1828,  Jan.    30 

Do. 

Do. 

. 

3,200 

1827,  June     1 

J.  &  J.  Cbddington     - 

-         "       - 

m 

384  96 

1826,  Aug.  10 

Golding  &  Matherbee 

Overdraft 

m 

203  81 

Nov.  26 

Ross  &  Freeman 

Do. 

_ 

189  44 

1819,  July  14 

Philetus  Havens 

F.  Jenkins  &  Son 

5,111  54 

1826,  Dec.  15 

Le  Roy,  Bayard,  &  Co. 

S.  D.  Ogden      - 

. 

2,000 

1827,  Dec.     3 

Jeremiah  Thompson  - 

Jno.  Grimshaw  - 

.. 

2,039  19 

Jan.    14 

Nathaniel  Cogswell    - 

Forged  check     - 

_ 

100  50 

1823,  Feb.     6 

Winthrop,  Rogers,  and 

Williams 

Moore  &  Hoffman 

. 

1,350 

<c 

Do.                      do.    - 

Do. 

„ 

700 

u 

S.  Lounsbury 

Do. 

- 

128  06 

28,939  79 

32,110  34 

■ 

28,939  79 

61,050  13 

OFFICE  AT  BALTIMORE. 


1821,  Nov.  10 

J.  Bumeston  •• 

Jacob  Myers 

4,974  38 

1823,  Jan.  21 

W.  Child 

No  endorser 

3,200 

Feb.  21 

Do. 

Do. 

2,400 

25 

Do. 

Do. 

2,400 

1821,  Feb.  15 

C.  Deshen 

Do. 

20,299  13 

1820,  May   15 

Hy.  W.  Gray 

W.    Gray,^N.    Stanley, 
T.  Sheppard 

544  93 

1819,  Nov.  26 

S.  G.  Griffith 

A.  H.  Falconer 

3,500 

June    4 

R.  W.  Gill      - 

George  Williams 

7,150 

May  17 

P.  A.  Guestiers 

Finlay  8c  Vainlear 

1,504 

Nov,  30 

Thomas  Higinbotham 

P.  Higinbotham,  Lemuel 
Taylor,     HoHins    and 
McBlair,    D'Arcy  and 
Didier 

13,047  42 

July     2 

R.  Higinbotham 

Lemuel  Taylor 

5,937  50 

1821,  May     1 

C.  S.Konig    - 

D.   A.  Smith,  D'Arcy  & 
Didier 

1,250 

1819,  July     9 

J.  A.  Morton,  jr. 

A.  A.  Williams,  Colhoun 
&  Mathew       - 

585 

10 

Do. 

George  Williams 

19,000 

.    7 

J.  &  A.  Levering ' 

Wm.  Penniman 

472  46 

I 

T.  Marean      - 

L.  .  Taylor,    N.    F.  WU- 
liams 

4,079  35 

June  21 

F.  W.Maher 

C.  D.  Williams 

628  42 

;tJuly  12 

Do. 

Brown  &  Alleby 

507  73 

224 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE,  BALTIMORE— Continued. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.    5 

J.  W.  McCuUoch       .  - 

No  endorser 

9,500 

i< 

Do. 

Do. 

11,000 

July  27 

R.  Purviance  - 

R.  Higinbotham 

6,175 

Aug.  10 

Do. 

Do. 

4,375 

July     3 

S.  Smith  &  Buchanan 

HoUins  &  McBlair 

17,257  86 

June    2 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

17,500 

May  28 

Do.                do.      - 

Lemuel  Taylor 

15,000 

July     2 

Do.                do.      - 

George  Williams 

9,788  80 

15 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

3,893  33 

20 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

20,145 

June    1 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

12,562 

15 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

2,500 

17 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

35,000 

July     6 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

20,000 

1821,  April  10 

Do.                do.      - 

Lemuel  Taylor 

400 

13 

Do.                do.      - 

Do. 

400 

1819,  July     1 

A.  S.  Schwartze 

N.  F.  Williams 

5,000 

15 

Do. 

Do. 

2,700 

29 

Do. 

Do. 

3, (-00 

^                      9 

S.  Smith  &  Buchanan 

J.  W.   McCuUoch,  Geo. 
Williams 

2,136  12 

Oct.     1 

Henry  Thompson 

J.  H.  Bowly,  C.  Wrig- 

man 

4,304  75 

t 

1821,  July  20 

C.  D.  Williams 

L.   Taylor,  George  Wil- 
liams, A.  A.  Williams 

26,500 

5 

G.  Weems      - 

C.  Deshon 

2,300 

1819,  May  26 

Geo.  Williams 

S.    Smith    &    Buchanan, 

, 

A.  A.  Williams 

15,000 

July  23 

Do. 

S.  Smith  &  Buchanan    - 

25,000 

24 

Do. 

S.    Smith    &    Buchanan, 
L.  Taylor       - 

13 ,000 

May  26 

Do. 

S.  Smith  &  Buchanan    - 

15,000 

12 

Do. 

J.  W.  McCuUoch 

31,500 

July     6 

Do.             -            -  , 

G.  Miles,  jr.       - 

1,750 

June    4 

A.  A.  Williams 

Geoge  WiUiams 

20,000 

15 

Do. 

Do. 

27,000 

25 

Do. 

Do. 

25,000 

July  26 

Do. 

Do. 

r,ooo 

20 

Do. 

Do. 

10,000 

1820,  Mar.    7 

Wilson  &  Foster 

No  endorser 

1,079  42 

1819,  June  22 

N.  F.  Williams 

Do 

4,500 

July  20 

Do. 

Do 

3,000 

Aug.    6 

J.  Johnson,  J.  T.  John- 

Wm.  Ward,  R.  M.  John- 

to 

eon 

son 

10,000 

May  29 

N.  F.  Williams 

G.  0.  Van  Amringe 

3,250 

J.L.  La  Raintree,  teller, 

Deficiency  in  cash 

23,849  75 

Specie    lost   by  Union 

Bank 

. 

11,933  06 

Chace  &  Tilyard 

Overdraft 

2,410  71 

John  Coates   - 

Do 

66  59 

Jas.  C.  Dew  - 

Do 

181  11 

Finlay  &  Van  Lear    - 

Do 

2,676  97 

R.  W.  Gill     - 

Do 

223  99 

R.  Higinbotham 

Do 

959  60 

R.  Hyatt 

Do                  -           - 

2,497  70 

, 

R.  M.  Johnson 

Do 

7,181  22 

L.Reinsted    - 

Do 

50 

* 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  AT  BALTIMORE-Continued. 


i2S 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 

Aug.  30„  1822. 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

J.  W.  IMcCuUoch        - 

Overdraft. 

27-, 605  40 

R.  Piirviance 

Do 

119  74 

S.  Smith  &  Buchanan 

Do 

54,013  66 

Dennis  A.  t>mith 

Do 

10,229  18 

Lemuel  Taylor 

Do 

27,038  40 

S.  J.  Thompson  &  Co. 

Do 

130  66 

C.  D.  Williams 

Do 

3.491  22 

Geo.  Williams 

Do 

31,367  27 

N.  F.  Williams 

Do 

13,176  03 

"  Bad  debts  lost  by  sun 

dry  compromises" 

16,514  11 

Fanneis'  tk.  iViechanics' 

Bank  of  Georgetown      - 

26,481  78 

Counterfeit  check 

_             -             - 

8,796 

Deficiency  in  real  and 

personal  estate  account  - 

4,962  45 

1820,  May  30 

fhomas  Sheppard 

Lem'l  Taylor,  D'Arcy,  & 
Didier 

4.768  50 

1821,  :May  20 

John  Ruckle  - 

No  endorser 

4,230  39 

1818,  Oct.    13  George  Hussey 

G.  Hussey  &  D.  Keyser 

793  70 

1819,  June  30 

Richard  Hyatt 

Finlay  &  Van  Lear,  N.  F. 
Williams 

1,323  93 

Aug.    9 

Geo.  WiUiams 

R.  Hyatt,  J.  L.  La  Reint- 
zel 

3,500 

1819, 

Do  (bal.  6und.  notes) 

S.    Smith    &    Buchanan, 
J.  W.  McCulloch      V- 

220,029  85 

1821,  July      5 

F.C.Graff     - 

J.  Bundt,  Van  W.  &  Mor- 
gan 

834  54 

1819,  July      9;R.  Hyatt 

George  Williams 

1,000 

1826,  Oct.      2 

N.  McGurle   - 

Kyser  &  Crawford 

- 

80 

George  Williams 

, 

24,186  43 

1823,  Oct.      4 

Lindenberger  &  Head 

G.  &  J.  Lindenberger     - 

- 

1,036  4& 

1821,  Oct.    30 

Harris  &  Donaldson    - 

No  endorser 

1 ,260  61 

1827,  Sept.  n 

Jona.  Rogers 

Hammond  &  Newman   - 

' 

261  70 

19 

Do 

Do                   do 

- 

245  63- 

181;),  May   13 

Lemuel  Taylor 

Stock  note 

28,500 

1819, 

S.  Smith  &  Buchanan 

Geo.    Williams,     J.     W. 
McCulloch      > 

333,538  48 

(( 

J.W.  McCulloch       - 

Geo,  Williams,   S.  Smith 
&.  Buchanan   - 

256,721   96 

1,696,643  09 

l,e2H  74 

* 

1,696,643  09 

1,698,266  83 

Deduct  credits: 

Gains  on  sales  of  forfeited  Bank  U.  S. 

-    stock           -             .             -             -     51,523  72 

Less  loss       "        real  estate  -             -     16,488  45 

35,034  77 

• 

1,663,2:  a  06 

29 


££6 


^  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  AT  WASHINGTON. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before   , 
Aug..30,  1822. 

Due  and  un- 
,   paid  after 
Aug.  30, 1«22. 

1820,  Oct.     3 

Thomas  Brocehus 

A.  Holbrook 

1,600 

1821,  Aug.    7 

David  Bates    - 

F.  Ronckendorff 

- 

523  10 

1823,  Oct.    28 

Do 

Do 

_ 

439  96 

Arnold  Boone 

G.  Harrison,  L.  H. 

Johns 

625 

1824,  June     8 

Do 

R.  Kerby  &  Co. 

- 

_ 

3,090 

1320,  Jan.    25 

Walter  Cox    - 

Barron  &.  Mason 

_ 

275 

(( 

Samuel  Cox  &  Co.      - 

Do 

'  _ 

945 

" 

Do 

Do 

_ 

450 

1824,  Jan.    24 

John  Coxe 

John  Threlkeld 

_ 

_ 

4,586  89 

1817,  April  26 

Edes,  Allen,  &  Co.     - 

A.  C.  Hanson,  Mullofy,  & 

Watzs 

_ 

200 

1820,  April  11 

Richard  Eno  - 

W.  GooJy       •  - 

_ 

150 

Jan.    251 

Walter  Goody 

W.  Cox 

- 

535 

1824,  June  29 

P.  R.  Fcndall 

M.  Fendall,  A.  Holbrook 

„ 

1,035 

182,.%  May   20 

John  Goszler 

S.  Smoot 

. 

_ 

1,475 

1821,  July   31 

Joseph  lleston 

Hor.  Field 

« 

3L0 

1822,  June  25 

J,  K.Hanson  - 

C    C    Jones       - 

. 

390 

1823,  May     6 

Thomas  Hyde 

Barec  &  Kurts,  Jas 

Hyde 

« 

1,550 

27 

Do 

Bunnel  &  Robertson 

_ 

135 

April  2'j 

Do 

Do 

- 

. 

259 

June     3 

John  Hughes 

A.  Boone 

. 

- 

75 

1820,  Feb.    29 

Thos.  C.  Hodges 

R   H   Fitzhugh 

. 

543  62 

181  y,  April  13 

Jno.  Jackson  &. Go.    - 

J.  Stu'-ges^  .    - 

- 

1,094 

Mar.   30 

Do 

Do 

_ 

385 

2 

Do 

Do 

- 

35Q 

16 

Do 

Do 

_ 

1,575 

1822,  Nov.  19 

L   H.  Jtinns  - 

B  Williams       - 

. 

_ 

4,600 

15 

James  Irvin    - 

J.  Adams,  W.  Ramsay,  ir. 

_ 

125 

1819,  Jan.    26 

D.&  B.Kurtz 

L.  Labille 

_ 

320 

1820,  Ap..-il  11 

Rich'd  Libbys 

L.  Hipkins 

- 

850 

25 

Do 

Ch.  Slade 

' 

3,400 

Sept.  19 

John  Love 

E.  W.  Clark      - 

_ 

230 

1818,  April    7 

Wm.  G.  Miller 

Geo.  Cook 

^ 

439  20 

May    11 

Do 

Do 

. 

297  63 

Aug.  IS 

Jas.  Meevin  &  Son     - 

C.  P.  Reading-  - 

- 

2,798  03 

1819,  June  29 

Jas.  Meevin    - 

Do 

- 

1,350 

l;^20,  Mar.   28 

P.  J.  &  P.  H.  Horner 

L.  Hipkins 

- 

385 

1821,  April    8 

B.  F.  Mackall 

Wm.  Whann     - 

- 

3,130 

1820,  April  18 

Thomas  Mount 

Ch.  Slade 

- 

690 

25 

Do 

S.  Smith 

- 

690 

May   16 

Do           -        .    - 

Do 

- 

920 

1822,  Oct.    15 

John  Moore    - 

WetzeU&  Mills 

- 

_ 

34  47 

June  11 

Do 

Do        - 

- 

100 

Nov.     5 

Do 

L.  Stewart 

- 

_ 

684  37 

»23,  Nov.  25 

T.  L.  McKenney 

Wetzell  &  Mills 

- 

_ 

/   1,140 

'24,  Mar.     2 

Do 

John  Agg 

- 

_ 

1,530 

^23,  Nov.  25 

J.  S.  Nicholls 

John  Cox 

- 

_ 

837  50 

'91,  April    8 

John  Peter 

B.F.  Mackall    - 

- 

3,000 

'22,  Nov.  12 

Do 

Wm.  McKenney 

- 

» 

221  87 

May    21 

Do           - 

L.  Stewart 

~ 

1,550 

Nov.  12 

Lloyd  Pumphrey 

E.  Patterson      - 

- 

. 

150  06 

May    17 

Do 

J.  S.  Nicholls,  L.  Stewart 

179  92 

'22,  Dec.   17 

Joseph  RadcMff 

N.  Hedges 

. 

. 

60 

Oct.    29 

Wm.  Ramsay,  jr. 

John  Adams 

> 

_ 

200 

Nov.     5 

Do 

Do 

.. 

. 

180 

12 

Do 

Do 

. 

» 

150 

Dec.     3 

Do 

Do 

- 

" 

120 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


B^7 


OFFICE,  WASHINGTON-:-Continued. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30,  lH2v: 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30,  1822. 

Dec.   10 

Wm.  Ramsay,  jr. 

John  Adams 

300 

'18,  Dec    22 

John  W.  Smith 

S.  Meade 

250 

'20,  April  1 1 

Chs.  Slade      - 

L.  Smith 

340 

25 

Do           -      .      • 

L.  HipkJns 

3,175 

May      2 

S.  Smith 

C'h.  Slade 

1,030 

9 

Do 

Th.  Mount 

550  . 

30 

Do 

Charles  Slade 

690 

June    6 

Do 

Thomas  Mount 

690 

Jan.    IS 

Wm.  Smith     - 

Wm.  Cox 

250 

^22,  May    21 

Levm  Stewart 

J.  S.  Nicholls '  - 

315  08 

Nov.  12 

R.  F.  Semmes 

Richard  Parrott 

_ 

1,680 

'23,  June  17 

Jno.  K.  Smith 

L.  H.  Johns      - 

_ 

1,470 

April  15 

Do 

L.  H.  Johns,  Dr.  Duvall 

_ 

4,500 

May   27 

Edward  Stone 

Thomas  Hyde 

_ 

14§ 

April  22 

Do 

Do              - 

- 

155 

'19,  Oct.      5 

Wm.  F.  Thornton      - 

B.  G.  Thornton,  L.  Hip- 
kins 

2,820 

'20,  July  26 

Micajah  Tucker 

David  Ott 

300 

'19,  July   20 

Sara'lWard    - 

S.  &  T.  Piummer 

610 

'21,  April    8 

Wm.  Whann  - 

B.  P.  Mackall 

2,350 

a 

Do. 

Do 

1,500 

Aug.  21 

Wm.  Wedderburn       - 

H.  Field 

90 

'26,  Feb.   28 

Josiah  Watson            r 

H.  Forest 

_ 

lOt 

'17,  June     7 

Robert  Young 

R.  &  J.  Mandeville 

310  22 

'18,  Sept.    9 

John  Yerby    - 

C.  P.  Reeding 

500 

21 

Do 

Do              -          '  - 

2,510 

Franklin  Bank  of  Alex 

-             - 

81  31 

Sundry  overdrafts 

-             - 

1,026  33 

Cash  deficiency 

-             - 

435 

'21,  July   17 

Hor.  Field       - 

E.  Gilman 

90 

24 

Do 

R.  S.  Blacklock 

,     180 

Aug.  14 

Do 

W.  Wedderburn 

225 

Sept.  11 

Do 

Thomas  Preston 

520 

826,  Sept.     5 

Charles  Glover 

John  Davis 

- 

a,*^5a 

5 

John  Davis      - 

Charles  Glover 

#_ 

70 

5 

Do 

Do 

_ 

430 

'22,  April  23 

Ch.  C.  Jones 

J.  K.  Hanson,  S.  Hanson, 
ofS. 

•         85 

'23,  Jan.    14 

Richard  Parrot 

Wm    King, jr.    - 

- 

390 

'21,  April    3 

Hugh  Smith,  Ex. 

D.  &L  J.  Ross       - 

3,400 

"27,  April    3 

L.  Edwards     - 

- 

350 

(( 

A.  C.  Mitchell 

- 

237  18 

(( 

Law  expenses 

Irrecoverable 

- 

4,462  06 

'24,  May  11 

Amos  Alexander 

A.  Holbrook,  T.  Brocchus 

- 

3,675 

'20,  April  18 

Adam  Baer     - 

John  Crabb 

1,300 

Feb.  29 

Do 

Do 

400 

Aug.  15 

J.  D.  Barry     -             - 

Thomas  Fovles 

375 

Sept.  19 

Elijah  BroM^n 

vV.  Cox      "       - 

430 

'22,  July  23 

Samuel  Blunt 

T.  L.  McKqnney 

249  56 

'20,  June  20 

Charles  Cutts 

Richard  Cutts 

660  20 

'19,  Dec.  24 

Walter  Cox 

Thomas  Swan 

620 

'20,  Sept.  19 
19 

E.  W.Clark 
Do 

Thomas  Foyles 
Do 

600 
225 

19 

Do 

Thos.  Foyles,  Wm.  Smith 

1,900 

'18,  May  26 

George  Cook 

William  G.  Mills 

353  74 

'23,  May  17 

Richard  Elliott 

Wetzeil  &  M«ls 

- 

I'lO* 

'W,  Feb.  92 

Richard  Fitzhujtjh  •    - 

R.  H    Fitzhugh,    F.  C. 

Hodges* 

^330 

a«8 


r  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE,  WASHINGTON— Continued. 


When  due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 

Due and  un- 

find unpaid. 

paid  before 

paid  after 

Aug.  30,1822. 

Aug.  30, 1822, 

Feb.      1 

R.  Fitzhugh 

R.H.Fitzhugh,F.C.Hodges 

1,360 

'25,  Jan.   25 

l].  Gilman 

R.  S.  Blacklock 

. 

*    120  . 

Feb.      9 

blenry  Jackson 

Charles  Neall      - 

_ 

69 

'22,  Nov.  12 

John  Moore 

Richard  Elliott 

. 

800 

Oct.     8 

Do 

Do 

_ 

166  3^ 

July     9 

\Vm.  McKenney 

S.    McKenney,     W.    S. 
Ringgold 

174  65 

i( 

Do 

Do                 do 

270 

{( 

Do 

Do                 do 

620 

Aug.  13 

Do 

Do                 do 

750 

'24,  ?:iay    4 

Samuel  Mark 

Gcorijf  Taylor 

. 

525 

'21,  July  31 

Villiam  O'Neale 

J.  B.  i  imberlake " 

625 

<27,  Mar.  27 

S.J.  Potts      - 

Andrew  Ross      - 

_ 

360 

'23,  May    6 

Andrew  Rosa 

S.  J.  Potts 

_ 

1,309  5t 

'31,  May     8 

D.  &  J.  Ross 

Wm.  Gilham      - 

1,550 

'18,  Dec.  22 

John  W^.  Smith 

S.Meade 

111  44 

»23,  Nov.  25 

Jolm  Threlkeld 

John  Cox 

. 

3,165 

'22,  Oct.   20 

Brook   V/illiamB 

L.  H. Johns 

, 

320 

Nov.  19 

Do 

Do 

,  - 

850 

19 

Do 

Do 

- 

4,600 

/ 

Bank  of  Missouri 

. 

- 

1,409  Oi 

Protests 

-            -             -             - 

_ 

213  7 

•»t, 

James  Davidson 

Cash  deficiency 

« 

1,206  2 

Ri.'.hard  Johnson 

P'O 

7,057  21 

Wm.  B.  "Williams       - 

Do 

1,534  4 

Henry  Weightman 

Do 

- 

443  8 

Cash    deficiency    on 

hooks 

-            .            .             - 

_ 

40,505  3 

'24,  Jan.   29 

Vi&ry  Fcndall 

A.  Holbrook,  P.  R.Fendall 

- 

600 

'29,  Mar.  3i 

Andrew  Way 

E.  Patterson,  D.  Ott's  ad- 

minis,  and  R.  Cutts 

8,251   7 

'23,  June  10 

Bunnel  Robertson 

Thomas  Hyde 

« 

483   15 

'27,  Jwiie  30 

Satterlee  Clark 

- 

_ 

4,104 

'26,  SOpt.    5 

John  I^vis 

J.Graeff,jr. 

- 

1,355^ 

6 

Do 

Do 

_ 

455 

12 

J.  C  raeff,  jr. 

J.  Davis 

_ 

640 

'27,  Oct.      2 

JauiHs  Davidson 
Richard  Elliott 

John  Davidson 

- 

1,120 

'23,  June    3 

John  Moore 

- 

1,400 

'24,  April  27 

John  Lipscomb 

W.  C.  Lipscomb 

- 

393  a 

'27,  Aug.  Ur 

vV.  C.  Lipscomb 

John  Lipscomb 

- 

440 

'21,  May  2i) 

B.G.Orr 

W.  O'Neale 

1,876  87 

'19,  May     2 

D.  McLeod      - 

Stock,  Mechanics'  bank 

27S  26 

2 

W.  F.  Thornton 

Do 

15  66 

Feb.     9 

•:.  P.  Taylor 

Sam.  Burch,  errror  in 

Do 

26  07 

settlement  of  old  ac't 

-            -             -             - 

70 

70,794  8£ 

124,971  5 

" 

70,794  8 

195,766  3 

Deduct  gain  on  sales 

of  real  estate 

3,295  1 

192,471  8 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  AT  RICHMOND. 


229 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid befo;:' 
Aug.  30, 182; 

D^e  and  un- 
paid n^er 
AnciOj  1822. 

1820,  Aug.    2 

Reuben  Johnson 

John  J.  Johnson 

2,000 

'18,  July     8 

Samuel  McCraw 

Alexander  McCrea,    M. 
Burwell 

1,500 

'20,  Feb.     2 

Carter  B.  Page 

Th.  Taylor,  M.W,  Han- 
cock 

.     246  85 

Jan.    12 

Beverly  Smith 

Fred.  Clarke,  M.  Bott    - 

1,02{;  82 

'19,  April  14 

Fred.  Clarke 

Miles  Bott 

1,239  57 

14 

J.  B.  Kursheedt 

- 

1,957  69 

'21, 

Late  2d  teller's  cash  de- 

ficiency 

. 

4,566  05 

'20,  Jan.  12 

John  J.  Johnson 

Rueben  Johnson 

1,000 

Feb.   13 

Do 

Do 

2,000 

'22,  Dec.     4 

Bernard  &  Morris 

A.  Strange,  T.  Johnpon, 

M.  H.  Rice,  S.  Ferguson 

_ 

800 

'20,  Aug.  30 

Carter  B.Page 

Harry  Hatch,  H.Tomp- 
kins &  Co. 

3,300 

'19,  June  23 

Ralston    &  Pleasant's 

Bond  and  deed  of  trust     - 

2,040  38 

Overdrafts 

- 

5,302  94 

'21,  Dec.  26 

M.  W.  Hancock 

^.  Perkins,  D.  McKinzie 

4,000 

/ 

'24,  April  28 

Samuel  Jones 

Benjamin  S.  Harris 

- 

2,940  50 

'19,  April    3 

John  Mutter  &  Co.      - 

Tompkins  &  Murray 

2,§26  90 

Dec.   29 

Charles  M.  Mitchell   - 

William  Mitchell 

3,350 

^20,  Feb.     7 

Do 

Do 

2,000 

38,057  20 

3,740  50 

38,057  20 

41,797  70 

Deduct  gain  on  sales 

of  real  estate           -       900 

Contingent  interest 

-       500 

1,400 

40,397  70 

OFFICE  AT  NORFOLK. 


1819,  J«ly 

14 

James  Dykes  &.  Co.     - 

Deed  of  trust     - 

3,533  50 

June 

1 

S.  &  P.  Christian 

H.  Allmand        - 

11,400 

1 

Do 

John  Tunis 

12,000 

1 

Do 

FortescuG  Whittle 

7,000 

July 

19 

Wilson  &  Cunningham 

Butler  Maury 

1,160 

^18.  Dec. 

21 

Jno.  B.  Taylpr 

Lawson  &  Barnett 

2,644 

■L 

12 

Samuel  Robertson 

Chandler  8c  Finney 

923  60 

■♦ 

^K    Nov. 

4 

James  Jolliff 

Parry  &  Boush,  N.  Boush 

1,000 

^^H 

5 

Do 

Do 

380 

V 

23 

Do 

Chandler  &  Finney 

1,203  13 

28 

Do 

Samuel  Robertson 

500 

Dec. 

2 

Do 

Perry  &  Boush 

591 

■ 

19 

Do          -      .      - 

Do             N.  Boush 

612  40 

21 

Do 

Do 

631  24 

• 

30 

Do 

Do             N.  Boush 

483  26 

'19,  Jan. 

2 

Do 

Do 

500 

• 

Feb. 

8 

Do 

Chandler  &  Finney 

1,000 

nS,  Nov. 

28 

Lawson  &  Barnett 

Perry  h  Boush 

546 

Dec 

16 

Do 

Chandler  &  Finney 

3,253  67 

230 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE,   NORFOLK— Continued. 


WhenHne    ' 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 

ano  unp  i'c'. 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

'19,  Jan.      4 

P.  Henop  &  Co. 

John  W.  Henop 

650     ' 

• 

11 

Do 

James  Jolliff 

686  12 

17 

Do 

John  B.  Taylor 

1,162  50 

25 

Do 

Jacob  Klein 

C67  39 

Mar.     1 

Do 

James  Thornburn 

1,576  40 

Feb.    15 

George  Raincock 

George  Murray 

•    700 

22 

Do 

Do 

1,500 

Mar.  29 

Do 

Do 

1,150 

April  12 

Do 

Do 

1,930  48 

K^ 

Do 

James  Thorburn 

2,250 

May  iV 

Do 

George  Murray 

900 

Mar.     1 

Jacob  Klein 

EdAvard  S.  Waddey 

299  71 

22 

Do           - 

James  Thorburn 

795  55 

30 

Do 

S.  &  W.  Cameron 

1,000 

15 

George  Murray 

George  Raincock 

2,200 

. 

April    5 

Do 

Do 

749 

12 

Do 

James  Thorburn 

'1,950 

19 

Do       . 

George  Raincock 

1,437  12 

24 

Do 

Do 

1,150 

May  17 

.Do 

Do 

900 

AprU  12 

James  Thorbuni 

Do 

1,000 

12 

Do 

G.  Raincock,  Geo. Murray 

962  12 

26 

Do 

G.  Raincock 

1,150 

26 

Do 

Jacob  Klein 

676  70 

May  17 

Do 

George  Raincock 

1,105  50 

5 

Samuel  Myers 

C.  H.  Smith 

4,250 

July   12 

Do 

Do       J.  Myers  &  Co. 

1,600 

June  21 

Wilson  &  Cunningham 

Do 

1,280 

21 

Do 

Samuel  Myers 

593  72 

July      5 

Do 

James  Young-                 - 

1,850 

April  19 

C.  H.  Smith 

Samuel  Myers 

2,222  22 

19 

Do 

Do          N.B.Barnett 

1,137  83 

May  24 

Do 

Do 

1,968  50 

June     1 

Do 

Do           W.  L.  Stone 

3,100 

« 

21 

Do 

Do 

1,000 

21 

Do 

Do 

1,027  78 

24 

Do 

Do           "W.  L.  Stone 

6,250 

July     5 

Do           -            - 

Do                 Do 

2,200      , 

April  26 

M.  V/.  Peters 

J.  F.  Cunningham 

575 

May     3 

Do 

Do 

900 

31 

Do 

Do 

1,200 

June    7 

Do 

Do 

1,000 

14 

Do 

Do 

1,000 

21 

Do 

Do 

1,685 

14 

James  Young 

Wilson  &  Cunningham 

2,160 

21 

Do 

Do                        - 

1,340 

2-8 

Do 

Do 

1,350 

July   23 

Do 

Do 

1,690 

Aug.    2 

Do 

Do 

1,780 

7 

Do 

Do 

3,000 

April  26 

J.  F.  Cunningham 

M.  W.  Peters 

900 

May     3 

Do    , 

Dq 

430 

31 

Do                     - 

Do 

1,470 

June     j 

Do 

Do 

1,020 

■ 

Do 

Do 

1,100 

2] 

Do 

Do 

800 

July   12 

Moses  Myers  &  Son  - 

Wilson  &  Cunningham 

698  98 

21 

Do 

Do                   - 

1,450  41 

[  Rep,  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE,   Norfolk— Continued, 


5231 


^ 

\ 

, 

When  tiuc 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 

^jaid  before 

Aug.  30, 1 82^ 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

July   23 

Moses  Myers  &  Soh  - 

Wilson  &  Cunningham 

1,856  25 

28 

Do 

Do 

1,450  42 

Aug.    9 

Do 

Do 

1,275 

Sept.    6 

Butler  Maury 

Do 

900 

-21,  Sept.  19 

Thomas  Seaman 

Jane  Collins 

3,868 

ne,  Feb.     3 

Jacob  Klein 

James  Thompson,  Lock- 
head  &  Davis 

2,000 

Mar.  17 

Do 

James  Thompson,  Lock- 
head  &  Davis 

1,000 

. 

Overdrafts 

- 

2,215  69 

-21,  Jan.  29 

A.  &  W.Caldwell      - 

J.  Tunis,  S.  &  F.Christian 

400 

29             Do 

Do 

6,241  49 

Mar.     5             Do 

Do 

1,337  46 

'20,  Dec.  30  Owen  &  Gibbon 

A.  &  W.Caldwell 

106  50 

'22,  July   15  Butler  Coche 

Butler  Murray 

2,562  92 

'19,  Feb.     1 

Perry  &  Boush 

Chandler  &  Finney 

7,632  49 

June  30 

Arthur  Cooper 

Do 

3,500 

'21,  Jan.   29 

Do 

William  Webb 

1,010  62 

'22,  Oct.    S8 

Dennis  Dawley 

N.  Wallington 

• 

1,907  87 

Overdrafts 

• 

- 

2,050  12 

28 

N.  Wallingtou 

D.  Dawley 

. 

1,492 

^24,  Nov.  22 

Jane  Collins 

Jacob  Hull,  jr. 

- 

7,541 

Law  expenses 

- 

- 

4,318  61 

'25,lS'ov.  28 

Jonathan  Langley 

Thomas  B.  Seymour 

- 

4,900 

'22,  May  27 

Butler  Maury 

Butler  Cocke 

1,031  31 

U9,  July  19 

Do 

James  Young 

990 

19 

Do 

Moses  Myers  &  Co. 

681 

Aug.    9 

Do 

Wilson  &  Cunningham 

990 

Feb.     8 

James  Heron 

P.Henop  &  Co.,  J.Meany, 
J.  B.  Taylor 

7,175  59 

17 

N.  Boush 

Perry  &  Boush,  Jos.  JoUiff 

10,807 

•^28,  Aug.  28 

John  R.  Harwood 

Daniel  G.  Fisk 

_ 

1,800 

'22,  Dec.   10 

William  Cammack 

William  B.  Lamb 

. 

9,604  06 

'28,  July     7 

Jasper  Moran 

James  Boyle 

~ 

2,400 

191,082  66 

35,913  6C 

191,082  66 

226,996  32 

Deduct 

credits: 

^27,  May  31 

J.  B.  Taylor,  on  account 

of old  debt          -     199  89 

'28,  Sept.  11 

Joseph  R.  Hubbard 

do                     -     191  35 

'29,  Mar.  12 

Do 

do                    -     191  34 

* 

Sept.  15 

Do- 

do                    -     191  34 

'30,  Mar.  13 

Do 

do                    -     191  34 

'29,  May  31 

Gain  on  sales  of  real  est 

ate          -             -    367  82 

•■■•■■          .,:;.,.>.?■,; 

1,333  OS 

225,663  24 

.■SMCT' 

232 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


OFFICE  AT  FAYETTVILLE. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  3L>,  1822. 

^.:V 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

1818,  Aug.  18 

Bristow  &  McKay    - 

Geo.  Jones,  J.  McKay, 
sen.,  A.  McDuffy,  Jno. 
Rae,  sen'r 

500 

»19,  Nov.    2 

Duncan  McLean 

II.  McLean,  Archibald 
McLean 

515 

»20,  April  16 

Wm.  Cameron 

Wm.  Waddle,  jr.,  R.  & 
K.  Mcintosh 

92 

Oct.      4 

R.  &  K.  Mcintosh    - 

Do           - 

652 

'21,  Feb.     7 

Joseph  Armstrong    - 

B.  &  R.  McKInnie, 

2,783  46 

♦20,  May   31 

J.  E.  Lumsdcn 

John  Lumsden,    J.    E. 
Douglass,  A.  McDon- 
ald, N.  Pearce 

455 

April  26 

AVm.  Cameron 

Thomas  McKay,   John 
Armstrong,  Jos.  Arcv 

700 

^♦19,  June     2 

Daniel  Bryant 

R.  A.  Taylor,  W.P.Wii 
liams,  M.  N.  Jeffrey, 
J.  R.  Stuther 

2,roo 

'23,  Dec.    18 

Gurdon  Robins 

A.  Wilcox 

1,496 

Feb.      5 

Ch.  Chalmers 

Wm.  Warden  - 

. 

812 

'20,  July    12 

J.  F.  Bonguin  U  F.  C. 
Riston 

E    Bridge,  jr.,  Levy  & 
Gomes,  Wm.  C.Lord, 
J.  B.  Lord,  and  Seth 
King 

4,490  66 

»23,  Mar,  14 

Jno.  Evans    - 

Thomas  Evans 

_ 

250 

»21,  May     7 

H.  McLean  - 

A.  MciNeill,A.  McLean 

167 

James  Townes 

Over  draft. 

337  19 

'22.  April  25 

Alex-:  'VicKay 

M.D.King,  D.D.Salmon 

150 

'23,  July    14 

*Alva,i  Wilcox 

G.  Robins,  J.S.Steinmets 

- 

1,973 

»21,  Feb.    14 

H.  Haioldson 

A.  D.   Murphy,   James 
Graves,    A.    Graves, 
Jac.  Graves 

2,165 

♦20,  Oct.    15 

Wm.  H.  Leppitt 

John  Leppitt  &  Co, 

- 

875 

;'.- 

John  I^eppitt  &;  Co.  - 

Wm.  H.  Leppitt 

- 

100 

Nov.     5 

Do 

Do 

_ 

500 

26 

Do 

Do 

- 

700 

Oct..    8 

Do 

Do 

- 

1,000 

Dec.    10 

Do 

Do 

625 

Do 

Do 

475 

Do 

Do 

- 

380 

Nov.     6 

Wm.  H.  Leppitt 

TalcottBurr,  John  Lep- 

pitt, &  Co.     - 

- 

1,000 

♦27,  Mar.  28 

D.  Hepkinson 

Anson  Bailey,  E.  Arnold 

- 

^1,350 

June  27 

E^.fk.  Arnold 

Do      E.  Stephenson 

- 

995    • 

Jan.      3 

WiUiam  Cameron 

Thos.  N.  Cameron 

. 

323  50 

'29,  July    23 

1  NeillBrice    - 

An<?us  Taylor 

- 

220 

June  95 

Do       - 

Do            - 

- 

300 

Feb.   27 

John  Taylor 

Alex'r   McRae,    Angus 

Taylor 

- 

500 

♦20,  Jan.      5 

Jacob  Levy  &  Co,     - 

J. E.Burguin,  A.Lazarus 

4,278  57 

'28,  Aug.  30 

Thomas  Davis 

Good  Davis 

- 

640 

'23,  Feb.    19 

Thomas  Evans 

Waddle  Cade,  J.  Evans 

_ 

306^ 

Do 

A.  McKay 

. 

950 

'39,  July    15 

John  McLeran 
Do 

H.  McLaurin     - 

Do            J.  &   S. 

- 

1,755 

Birdsall 

- 

68ff 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  FAYETTEVILLE— €ontinued. 


233 


w :-.  .   . 

—  _._  _         



Due  and  un- 

Due and  un- 

When due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

1 

paid  before 

paid  after 

and  unpaid. 

- 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.40,18i2. 

'29,  June  24 

John  McLeran 

Jesse  &  Stephen  Birdsall 

350 

'27,  Aug.    1 

John  Armstrong 

Alexander  Elliott 

- 

475 

. 

21,481  88 

17,159  50 

21,  Vl  88 

38,641  38 

Deduct  gain  of  sales  on  real  estate 

35 

38,606  38 

'     OFFICE  AT  CHARLESTON. 

1820,  Aug.  14 

John  S.  Bee.. 

Hugh  Smith      . 

144 

♦19,  Sept.  14 

John  Cagnet 

P.  Catonnet 

130 

Thomas  Fitch 

Silas  Howe,  John  Fitch 

2,800 

J.  F.  Hoff     . 

Charies  Happoldt 

440 

Silas  Howe   . 

Joseph  Fitch      . 

10,901 

1 

Michael  Kelly 

John  Ling 

665 

John  Ling     . 

Michael  Kelly    . 

550 

Samuel  Lord 

Howe  &  Fitch,  E.Cheney 

3,000 

» 

A.  B.  Markley 

Henry  Rose 

700 

Anthony  Newton 

James  Sparrow 

170 

C.  &  H.  O'Harra       . 

■ 

E.McPhelton,  J.  Robert- 
son   . 

5,885 

Aug.  Panjaud 

P.  Catonnet 

1,450 

John  R.  Rodgers 

William  Blamyor 

400 

• 

Henry  Rose  . 

B.  A.  &  Ab'm  Markly   . 

1,500 

James  Sparrow 

Anthony  NeAVton 

320 

Jos'^ph  Trescott 

Henry  Trescott 

4,700 

Forged  Draft 

. 

4,225  50 

'21,  June  29 

Richard  H.  Fishburn 

Robert  Cochran 

325 

D.  Adams  &  Son 

John  Riley 

160 

'25,  May  18 

Margaret  Bethune     . 

Ch.  Williman    . 

- 

102 

^21, 

Barthol.  Carroll 

Wrn.G.  Steel    . 

805 

Duke  Goodman 

J'^s.  T.  Weyman 

5,659  9S 

Leary  &  Thomas 

Stephen  Thomas 

.3,410 

Edward  Lynah 

J.  Lynah,  J.  B.  Lemaiti'e 

18,560 

Wm.  G.  Steele 

Barthol.  Carroll 

2,883 

' 

Francis  Saltus 

Saltus  &  Bythwood,  J. 
Bonnell  &  Co. 

670 

James  T.  Weyman  . 

Duke  Goodman 

13,800      ' 

John  Wilson's  estate 

, 

521  68 

*85,  June  23 

S.  Davenport  &  Co.  . 

S.  Dand  &  Co. 

_ 

4,770 

»20,  Oct.    25 

Thomas  Ferrand 

Aug.  Panjaud    . 

8,245  57 

'21,  Feb.     3 

Georcre  Hall  &  Co.     . 

Balance  of  compromise 

130 

'24,  Dec.     3 

J.  M.^Happoldt 

Chr.  Happoldt  . 

. 

1,718  9S 

'21,  May     3 

Andrew  Moffitt 

Balance  of  compromise 

■  385.  40 

'20,  Oct.    '^b 

Wagner  &  Cowing    . 

Do 

5,547 

John  Robinson  &  Co. 

Do 

1,325 

'27,  April  18 

Frederick  Naser 

Fred.  Wesner    . 

_ 

100 

May    30 

Wm.  Ov^-street 

Oliver  S.  Dobson 

- 

175 

,March28 

Fred  Wesner 

Patrick  Casimir 

. 

-112 

July   13 

0.  L.  Dobson 
30 

William  OversUeet 

- 

460 

234 


C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  CHARLESTON— Continued. 


When  due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 

Due and  un- 

and unpaid. 

paid  before 

paid  after 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.  30, 1522. 

'25,  April  13 

Hyman  Harris 

Simon  Levy 

137 

'27,  April  13 

Hurlbut  &  Lioyd 

Robert  Mills      . 

-. 

360 

'25,  Oct.    12 

Samuel  H.  Lathrop   . 

James  T.  Wayraan 

- 

2,000 

'26,  June  14 

Thomas  R.  Smith 

Wm.  S.  Kerving  Smith 

- 

7,300  38 

'27,  Dec.  12 

Samuel  Wharton 

George  Kickley 

- 

1,330 

'26,  May   19 

Barth.  Clark 

N.  Cooper 

- 

16,560  64 

'24,  Nov.  13 

James  Lynah 

Edward  Lj'nah           '    . 

- 

1,770 

100,428  13 

36,945  93 

' 

100,428  13 

137,374  OG 

OFFICE  AT  SAVANNAH 

; 

1820,  Feb.   29 

Isaac  Minis    . 

J.  P.  Henry       . 

27,382  58 

'24,  Nov.     9 

Nicholas  &  Neff        . 

Perry  &.  Wright,  (sur- 

viving partner 

'- 

4,512 

'23,  Mar.   26 

David  Licon  . 

Elea.  Early,  Bullock  & 

Dunwody 

- 

617  86 

'25,  Oct.      1 

A.  Richards  . 

John    Meigs,    Johnson 

• 

' 

Hills,  &  Co.  . 

- 

15,281  56 

Sept.  26 

Johnson  Hills  &  Co. 

A.  Richards,  Price  and 

McKenzie 

- 

20,000 

'24,  No'v.  17 

Thomas  Wright,  sur- 
viving   partner    of 

Ferry  &  Wright      . 

Nicholas  &  Neff 

- 

5,400 

'20,  Sept.  20 

James  Rea    . 

. 

178  13 

Spurious  notes 

Bank  of  Georgia 

- 

297  94 

'82,  Jan.    16 

Alex.  Hunter 

Thomas  Bourke 

340  56 

'23,  Mar.    12 

R.  &  J.  Habersham    . 

R.  Richardson  &  Co.     . 

- 

10,089  02 

'25,  Sept.  26 

A.  Richards  . 

Prince  &  McKenzie,  J. 

Hills  &  Co.    . 

. 

14,400 

»21,  Dec.  19 

Thomas  Bourke 

G.  L.  Cope        . 

730 

5 

Do 

F.  S.  Fell,  Jas.  Morrison 

463 

19 

G.  L.  Cope    . 

Thomas  Bourke 

670 

ns,  April  29 

Ballard  &  Spencer     . 

Chamberlain  &  Burnett 

44  50 

29 

B  &  G.  Lathrop 

C.  W.  Carpenter  &  Co. 

1,620  50 

May      9 

William  C.  Mills 

Stebbens  &  Mason 

840  05 

Nov.  18 

J.  &  E.  Hughes 

J.  k  J.  Thomas 

700 

June     1 

A.  J.  Bryan  Sc  Co.      . 

David  Hill  &  Co.,  Seth- 
bridge    &    Duel,    E. 
Wallen,    J.   Barttelle 

&  Co. 

3,455  78 

I 

'20,  Jan.    30 

John  Tanner 

Barn.    McKennie,    W. 

• 

Scarborough 

2,900 

26 

Do        . 

Barn.  McKennie,  Isaac 
Minnis 

3,720 

11 

Do        . 

■  W.  Scarborough,  C.Kel- 
sey  &  Co.,  I.  Minnis 

1,960 

Feb.     18 

Do        . 

Do 

3,276 

Do       . 

Do 

2,463  96 

16 

Do       .     ,        . 

B.  McKinnie,  M.  Herbert 

2,552 

-     ' 

32 

Do        . 

Do      C.Kelsey  &  Co. 

2,189  82 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


235 


OFFICE  SAVANNAH— Continued. 

When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due   and  un-    Due  and  un- 
paid before         paid  after 
Aug.  30, 1822.  Aug.  30, 1822. 

'20,  Feb.  21 

E.  R.  Billings 

• 

John  Tanner,  W.  Scar- 
borough,   S.  IN'Iinnis, 
B.McKinne,C.Kelsey 
&  Co  ,  M.  Herbert      . 

775  55 

*22,  April  10 

Scott  &  Fahn 

Guerard  &  Polhill 

1,800 

17 

Do       . 

Do 

1,408 

24 

#>o        . 
Do 

Do 

2,700 

May      1 

Do 

2,021 

8 

Do 

Do 

2,546 

22 

Do 

Do         Jas.  Bilbo 

1,881 

Jan.      9 

William  McClueen     . 

J.  P.  Williamson 

1,295  54 

^24,  Jan.    13 

John  Shick,  jr. 

Pouyat  &  Holland 

- 

308 

-23,  Nov.  12 

Robert  Worrell,  jr.     . 

Do 

« 

720 

»22,  May   22 

John  McNish 

Scott  8c  Fahn,  Geurard 
&  Polhill        . 

2,700 

'23,  Jan.    22 

Eleazer  Early 

John  Grebbin    . 

_ 

3,920  48 

'20,  Dec.  27 

W.  S.  Gillit  &  Co.     . 

J.  Carnochan,  P.MitchcU 

1,900  05 

'21,  Feb.   21 

Do       . 

Do           C.M.Kinff 

1,754 

'20,  May     3 

G.  W.  Collins 

John  Tanner,  B.McKin- 
ne,  W.    Scarborough 

310 

»21,  April  24 

James  Bilbo  . 
Solicitor's  commission 

on  Richardson  and 

Co.'s  debt  . 

Guerard  &  Polhill 

897  52 
565  75 

■:JI,  May  31 

John  R.  Coatcs 

Deduct  credit 

Mortgage  debt 
s. 

- 

255 

78,041  ':9 

75,802  44 

Contingent  interest 
Gain  on  sales  of  real 

.  7,274  16 
estate                .      200 

78,04'    29 

i5.^,>...    73 

~ 

V',474    :6 

146,369  57 

OFFICE  AT  NEW  ORLEANS. 


1819,  Mar. 

1 

Harlow  J.  Torrey 

Peter  Krimbell 

3,540  96 

1 

Peter  Krimbell 

Harlow  J.  Torrey 

3,808 

-20,  Mar. 

11 

Robertson  &  Palmer 

W.  Davidson 

602 

Feb. 

26 

. 

. 

502 

Oct. 

7 

W.Ross          .             . 

J.  B.  Jilly 

252      ' 

'21,  Jan. 

26 

P.  R.  Grandmont 

L.  Deynand 

282 

19 

M.  T.  Bouvart 

A.  Durand 

418 

Feb. 

27 

Thomas  Shields 

D.  C.  Kerr 

1,923 

Aug. 

IS 

Flenry  Fox 

S.  Neilsen,  J.  Fox 

317  25 

'18,  Mar. 

2 

W.  Gibbs,  S.  N.  Arney 

. 

3,000 

'19,  May 

27 

Gilly  &  Pryar 

Benjarpin  Mol-gan 

2,855  10 

Mar. 

28 

W.  &  N.  M^yer 

Ward  8c  Goodale 

882 

April 

4 

Do 

Do 

562 

May 

2 

Do 

1    0 

722 

April 

8 

Ward  &  Goodale 

W.  8c  N.  Wyer 

50^ 

May 

2 

Do 

Teller's  deficiencies     . 

Do 

602 
9,199  59 

Suspense    account  for 

sundry  errors 

3,9.34  67 

Overdrafts 

3,704  94 

Costs  of  suit,  vs.  Vail 

. 

. 

28  83 

Stoddard  &  Hewitt 

. 

10  27 

37,609  51 

37,60.  51 

39   10 

Deduct  gain  on  sale  of  real  estate^ 

37,645  61 
3,90  i 

33,74>^  61 

235 


[  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 
OFFICE  AT  NASHVILLE. 


"When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30,1822. 

-■--...  m 

Du«  and  un- 
paid after 
Aug.  30,  1822, 

1829,  Nov.  30    Cash  deficiency    and 

counterfeits 

:   .i.,..: m=—. 

- 

405  28 

OFFICE  AT  LOUISVILLE. 


ISlci,  April  28 

Samuel  i '.  Al ward 

Walter  E.  Powers 

'seo  67 

'25,  Mar.  30 

■VTartin  Blake,  ix.  S.  F. 

Fitahugh 

J.  C.  Johnson 

, 

2,640 

'20,  Fpb.   26 

John  Black  &  Co. 

M.   H.    Wickoff,    P.    W. 
Grayson  &  Co. 

600 

• 

'19,  June    2 

W.Bard 

James  Cox,  T.  O,  &  H. 
H.  Roberts 

4,847 

'25,  Nov.  29 

Richard  Barden 

David  L.  Ward 

450 

^23,  April  SOiThbmas  Berry 

Jas.  C.  Johnson,  W.    F. 

Peterson  &  Co. 

, 

1,700 

Norborn  B.  Beall 

. 

1,984  30 

'20,  Feb.  23^>oo.  M.  Bibb 

Chs.S.Todd,P.G.Voorhies 

5,590 

]Sov.     1 

A.  L.  Campbell 

Balance  mortgage  debt 

2,085 

'19,  Mar.     1  Robert  Crockett 

J.  Crockett,   W.  F.  Peter- 

^ 

son*  8c  Co.,   J.  C.  John- 
son, W  .Vernon,  A.Bay- 
less,  cashier 

1,500 

'22,  Sept.  22  J.  T.  Fountain 

Fortunatis  Cosby 

100 

'19,  Sept.    1  James  L.  Hickman     . 

J.  vV.  Hawkins,  J.  H.Todd 

1,225 

'20,  Aug.  30  James  L.  liolmes 

L.  Griffith,  C.  Griffith,  R. 

Griffith 

927  \ 

Ott.    11  A.  Hujonin 

W.Farquar,  A.L.Campbell 

2,800' 

»19,  July   27  H.F.Hume 

Dec.    191. -^uu  cv  ^.Ariffith 

Rich'd  Taylor,  W.  A.  Lee 

3,367  84 

J.L.  Hohncs,  R.  Griffith, 

(.Griffith 

2,077 

>21.  Feb.     7  Samuel  N.  Luckett 

C.  P.  Luckett,  C.M.Thrus- 

"J 

ton 

1,970 

. 

'20,  May     6  J.  J.  Marshall 

J.  W.  Hawkins,  T.A.Mar- 

shall,   Humphrey   Mar- 

i 

shall,  G.  P.  MiUer 

3,000 

June     5         Do 

Same  parties 

4,000 

27         Do 

Do 

3,000 

'21,  July     4  Anderson  Miller 
'22,  Feb.     4  Hector  A'  ci.ean 

J.  T.  Gray,  Levi  Tyler 

6,774  63 

Samuel  McLean 

1,700 

'20,  Aug.  22  J.  McCulloh 

J  as.Kennedy,B.Bridges,  jr. 

77 

'23,  May  21.  J.  H.  Miller 

Ths.  Glass,  vVm.  Munday 

. 

144  95 

'19,  Sept.  30  A.  Morehead 

H.  H.    Haniium,    W.    W. 

Whil.aker,  A.  L.  Camp- 
bell, H.  M.  Shreve 

2,400  89 

Sept.     7 

William  Neill 

Logan  St   Griffith,     VVm 

Neill,  jr.,  NeiU  &  Davis 

1,820 

Aug.  10 

Gordon  Neill 

Logan  &  G.  W.  Neill,  W. 

Neill,  jr. 

3,078 

July     6 

Do 

Logan  &G.W.  Neill,  W. 
Neill,  jr.,    S.  T.  Beall, 
W.  L.  Diny 

5,837  61 

June    2 

T.  a.  &  H.  H.  Roberts 

James  Cox,  VVm.  Bard,  ^s. 
T.  Beall 

4,700 

'20,  June  17 

Do 

Wm.  Bard,  Jas.  Cox,  Goi- 
don  Neill,  C.  P.  Lucketi 

2,000 

»19,Jan.    17 

Minor  Sturgis 

James  Hunter     . 

99 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


237 


OFFICE  LOUISVILLE— Continued. 


Due  and  un- 

Due and  un- 

When due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

paid  before 

paid  after 

and  unpaid. 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

'20,  July    10 

Charles  S.  Todd 

J.  H.  Todd,  J.  P.  Blair,  J. 
A.  >^itchell,  J.   T.  Pen- 
dleton, G.     .  Bibb       . 

6,750 

Feb.   23 

Levi  Taylor 

g.  Vance,  James  C.  John- 
son, Anderson  Miller  . 

3,862 

'22,  Oct.    16 

Samuel  Vance 

Rich.  Steele,  J.  W.Denney 

. 

1,715 

16 

William  Van  Winckle 

Samuel  Vance 

. 

750 

'21,  May    8 

Ruggles  W  biting 

W  m.Stackpole,  J.FI.Crane, 
W.  F.  Peterson  &  Co. 

9,390  85 

Overdraft         .            ^ 

. 

1,140 

Aug.  20 

G.  R.  C.  Floyd 

James  Pry  or,  Levi  Tyler 

1,650 

'24,  July      4 

John  A.  Tarascon 

William  Dubocq 

. 

2,550 

'20,  April  19 

John  J.  Marshall 

E.  L.  Starling,  T.  A.  Mar- 
shall,  H.  Marshall 

'5,193  72 

Overdrafts 

» 

. 

180  72 

'26,  Feb.  22 

J.  W.  Beckwith 

F.  W.  Grayson,  D.L.Ward 

. 

490 

'20,  Oct.    25 

Fortunatus  Casby 

James  T.  Fountain 

100 

Nov.  23 

SViUiamC.   Gait 

. 

10,304  57 

'21,  July  27 

J.  &F.  Jackson 

Geo .  Waller,  Brite &  Miller 

3,140 

'19,  Oct.    30 

R.  A.  Maupin 

N.  B.  Beale,  vv.  C.  Gait 

6,762 

'20,  June  U 

Do            ' 

Do 

5,483  30 

Mar.  29 

.    Do 

W.C.Galt,  C.  P.  Luckett 

243 

Aug.  23 

James  Pry  or 

David  L  Ward,  F.  W.  S. 
Grayson 

6,669 

'J  9,  June     1 

James  Baker 

T.  a.  &  H.  Roberts,  Jas 
R   Black 

757  50 

« 

July     1 

S.  T.  Beall 

W  H.Conway, F  Dent,  R. 

♦ 

Breckenridge,  A.  Miller 

8,160 

Aug.    9 

fi.  M.  Shreve 

J.D.Breckenridge,A.Miller 

5,000 

'26,  June    1 

Bank  of  Missouri 

. 

, 

620  99. 

'19,  Oct.      3 

N.  B.  Beall 

^^V.  C.  Gait,  W.  Booth,  R. 
A.  Maupin 

6,599  86 

'24,  Dec.     1 

C.  P.  Luckett 

J.C.Johnson,J.  W.Denney 

. 

1,640 

'20,  Aug.    2 

H.  M.  Shreve 

Jo'in  T.  Gray 

1,357  91 

'21,  Oct.    24 

Ruggles  &  Whiting 

• 

102  62 

y 

1819,  Aug.  25 

Arclubald  Allen 

C.B.King,  Jac.  Frederick, 
A.  L.  Campbell 

3,450 

'20,  Aug.J23 

J.  G.  W.  Baylor 

R.  Baylor,  John  Washing- 
ton, S.  Ball 

1,300 

v'l9,  Oct.    30 

W.  H.  Booth 

N.  B.  Beale,  R.A.  Maupin, 
J.  C.Johnson,  J.WDen- 
ney 

399  65 

Sept.  22 

G.W.-Graham&Co. 

Brenham  &  Marshall,    J. 
W.  Hawkins 

1,200 

'20,  Aug.  23 

James  W.  Hawkins 

J.J.Marshall,  A.  Marshall 

3,420 

'19,  May  24 

Lee  &  Rhenick 

Do            R.     Tavlor, 
•  J.W.Hawkins       "    . 

4,601  35 

>20,  April  19 

Sproat,  Armstrong  &  Co. 

W.  S.  Waller,  J.  J.  Mar- 
shall, T.    A.  Marshall, 
H.  Marshall 

.     5,852  23 

»2"2,  April  10 

Charles  Todd 

J.  A.  Mitchell,  Jno.H.Todd 

2,850 

'20,  June  21 

Brenham  &  Marshall 

E.L.  Starhng,  H.  Marshall 

5,700 

Sept.  26 

P.  G.  Voorhies 

Daniel  AVeisaker,  J  no.  H. 
Hanna 

2,560 

'21,  Jan.    31 

David  L.  Ward 

T)pHiir 

Mortgage  debt 
t  credits: 
count  of  old  debt      116  67 

26,422  43 

UtdV/C 

Richard  Barbour,  6n  ac 

205,446  83 

14,865  96 

Gains  on  sales  of  real  es 

tate      50,148  65 

205,446  83 

Less  losses  on        ditto 

2,335  94 
47,812  71 

220,312  79 

0 

-                        1  •   ■"   =5=; 

^         - 

4r,929  ,^8 

172,383  41 

.     I'l- 

238 


[  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 


OFFICE  AT  LEXINGTON. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  3'J,1822. 

-; : rrat; 

Due  and  un^ 

paid  after 
Aug.SU,  1822. 

181S,  April    4 

B.  Lanphear 

J.  &  T    G.Prentiss 

1,000 

JIO,  June  30 

Jacoh  Goxo 

H.  Wingate 

300 

April    7 

Isriac  Watkins 

B.  F-  Drifourg 

4,000 

July     5 

S.  T.  Beall 

T.  Q..  &  H.  H.  Roberts 

700 

7 

T .  Gt.  &  H.  H.  Roberts 

JohnT.  Mason 

525 

Sept.    8 

lohn  H   Todd 

.« .  T.  Pendleton 

750 

11 

C.  W.  Cloud 

Sebrie^  Johnson 

1,450 

18 

•Joshua  Norvell 

Richard  M.  Johnson 

400 

22 

.lames  Tilford 

J.   Whitesides 

1,000 

^'30,Jan.    22 

Lee,  Sc  Rennick  et  al. 

. 

2,500 

22 

Do 

. 

1,500 

22 

W.  A.  Lee 

. 

750 

Feb.     9 

Fayette  Paper  C  ompany 

B.  Stout 

7,000 

26 

F.  P.   Blair  et  al.       . 

, 

1,334  53 

Mar.  11 

T    W.  Loofborrow 

. 

1,500 

April  22 

N.  Bvirrows 

B.  Stout 

1,767  50 

May     3 

Do 

Do 

500 

July   29 

George  M.  Bibb 

Do 

6,000 

16 

C.  S.  Todd 

Do 

3,300 

Oct.    25 

Tandy  &  Allen 

Do 

1,500- 

■22,  Jan.   30 

lames  Maccoun 

Do 

1,000 

Feb.     2 

R.  Crockett 

Do 

7.5UU     * 

no,  May     5 

Jacob  Meyers 

G,  Meyers 

750 

June  19 

Do 

Do 

700 

Dec.     1 

Thomas  Bodlcy 

. 

283  27 

'20,  Jan.    15 

Do 

J.  H.  Morton     . 

500 

'24,  Feb.     3 

S.  H.  Disforges 

. 

. 

QOQ 

'20,  June    3 

Daniel  Driesback 

•                                    4                                       .                                        . 

1,000 

'23,  Oct.      4 

James  Maocoun 

. 

. 

'21,  Dec.  22 

1.  Fisher,  S.  Ayres      . 

306  25 

95a 

'18,  Mar.  14 

J.  B.  N.  Smith,  cashier 

E   Saloman,  cashier  Sch 
bank 

1 

8,417  27 

♦• 

Stock  of  Bank  of  Vin- 

cennes 

.           .             .             . 

7,000 

' 

J  .   R .  Underwood      . 

Compromise 

l,y2S  84 

' 

ilichard  Sebric 

Do 

721 

'20,  June    3 

T.   A.   Marshall 

J.    A.    Marshall,    Richar 
Blanton,  VV.  Starling,j] 
11.  Marshall,  E.  S   Sta 
ling  &  to. 

d 

r 

3,033 

July   15 

Brenhaan  &  Marshall 

T.   A.   Marshall,   Richar 
Taylor,  John  Samuel 

d 

2,196  24 

Aug.  19 

'ames  W.  Hawkins 

J  no  Marshall,  J.  t;astlema 

n           2,850 

Overdrafts 

• 

. 

122  5^ 

'23,  April    4 

i  arrison  Blanton 

. 

. 

1,660 

'19,  Oct.    27 

G.  &R.  C.  Floyd 

N.  B    Beall   Levi  Tyler 

228 

20,  Feb.    16 

W.  C.Galt 

Norljourn  B .  Beall 

700 

23 

Greorge  Baltzell 

T.  V.  Loof burrow,  Wm 
Girard 

50 

• 

Jane  19. 

John  C.  Walker 

G  Walker,  W   Walker  i 
Co    VV.  G.Bruce 

4            ' 

23 

'21,  Sept.  14 

Rugh  Offutt 

John  Johnson 

5,600 

^9,  May     5 

Samuel  Sanders 

Kentucky  bank  stock     . 

644 

Sept.  15 

C.W.Cl-ud 

D.  Halsted,  Daniel  Rider 

2,775 

Nov.  17 

R.  A.  Maupin 

W.  C.  Gait,  N.  B    Beall 

4,750 

Dec.  29 

N  B.  Beall 

Oo        R  A.  Maupi 

n            3,000 
8,000 

•20,  Dec.  26 

dllijah  Stapp 

John  J .  Johnson 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

OFFICE  LEXINGTON— Continued. 


289 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

■  Endorsers . 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30, 1822. 

Due  and  un  - 

paid  after 
Aug.  3'/,  1822. 

Sept.    2 

W.  Starling,  jr. 

Jac.  Castleman,  E.S.Star- 
ling  &  Co. 

2,500 

Jan.    15 

Thomas  Bodley 

J.  (i.  Morton 

1,809  16 

19 

Do 

Do 

1,809  16 

27 

Do 

Do 

1,809  16 

'19,  Nov.  17 

Do 

Do        C.  S.  Todd 

4,500 

'20,  April    8 

Do 

Do        Jas.  E.  Davis 

500 

May  20 

Thomas  January 

• 

5,748  32 

' 

Nov,     1 

^V  illiam  Massie 

.... 

2,223 

'21,  Oct.    31 

John  Montague 

. 

2,100 

31 

John  G  Pendegraft    . 

. 

765  93 

'26,  Mar.  14 

Richard  Monks 

• 

. 

290 

'20,  May  10 

Benjamin  Stout 

Edward  How 

1,000 

Mar.  25 

William C.  Gait 

N.B.  Bcall,  Levi  Tyler 

750 

'19,  July   14 

Andrew  Walker 

Adam  Rankin,  sen. 

200 

'20,  April  29 

Nathan  Burrows 

B.  Stout,  Thos    January 

650 

'22,  Aug.  20 

Benjamin  Stout 

» .  Stout 

221  74 

'19,  Aug.  14 

WilUam  Shackleford 

Jas .  Shackleford,  H  Bruce 
Thomas  Bodley 

150 

'24,  June  15 

Thomas  Wallace 

Mortgage  debt 

. 

1,603 

'23,  Sept.  16 

David  R.  Stout 

Kentucky  bank  stock      . 

, 

184  71 

'19,  Dec.  18 

Richard  Taylor 

J.J.  Marshall,  G.M.Bibb 

5,376  10 

'20,  Sept.    2 

E.  S   Starling  &  Go. 

J.  J.  Marshall,  Wm.  Star- 

* 

hng,jr. 

1,900 

'21,  July  19 

William  Starling,  jr. 

JohnH.  Hanna,  E.L.  Star- 
ling 8t  Co. 

2,850 

'20,  Oct.    23 

B.  S.  Chambers 

Mortgage  debt 

304  37 

'21,  Oct.   23 

Do 

Do 

299  92 

Nov.    2 

William  M.  Nash 

Do 

1,722  60 

'19,  Sept.    1 

William  R.  McPerran 

H.  Clelland,   Josiah  Moss, 
Geo.Rogers,(:hs.Harvey 

1,347  00 

'20,  July     8 

John  Crozier 

James  T.  Pendleton,  Wm. 
Shadburne 

400 

'24,  Aug,    3 

Adam  Steele 

Richard  Steele 

. 

1,125  3S 

'20,  Oct.  24 

William  Sebrie,  marshal 
of  Pensacola 

1,527  10 

'21,  Oct.   13 

Samuel  Dupny 

J.   &   F.  Jackson,    James 
Moore,  T.  W.  Rankin 

410  83 

'23,  May  15 

Samuel  Lewis 

Steele,  Donally,  &  Steele 

1,427  50 

*24,  July   20 

William T.  Barry 

Daniel  McC.  Payne 

. 

609  04 

'26,  May    2 

Do 

Thomas  Fletcher 

3^00 

'19,  Aug.  14 

Georgfe  Walker 

William  T.  Barry 

769  14 

Sept.  28 

James  Clarke 

Do       • 

450 

8 

Hudson  Martin 

Wm.  T.  Barry,  J.  T.  Ma- 
son 

1,300 

'20,  May  20 

Edward  Howe 

B.   Stout,    D.    Stout,  S 
Chiplcy 

573  62 

'25,  Jan.    25 

Samuel  Sheppard 

Mortgage  debt 

1,60& 

'20,  Oct.      7 

WilUam  Sebrie 

B.  S.^  Chambers,  John  C. 
Buckner 

700 

'20,  Jan.     5 

Anthony  Butler 

Amos  Edwards,  S.  N.  At- 
kinson            .         -    . 

4,500 

1*19,  Sept.    2 

H.  CJelland 

J.   R.  Underwood,  Thos. 
B.  Monroe,  Jno.  McFer- 

•    ■ 

ran,  P,  Shirley  &  Co.  . 

2,350 

240 


[  1?ep.  No.  460.  1 
OFFICE   LEXINGTON— Continued. 


When  due 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 

Due and  un- 

paid before 

paid  after 

Aug.  30, 1822. 

Aug.  30,  1822. 

^•olicitor's  fee,  affecting 

a  compromise  of  above 

debt 

, 

250 

'20,  Jan. 

19 

A.  McCalla 

Thomas  January,  Sterling 
Allen,   Stephen  Chipley 

1,788  43 

'?9,  Auft. 

4 

*  V'illiam  Thompson 

.             . 

, 

3,980 

June 

.^ 

■'.     'arkland 

.•ohn  J.  J.  Vivion 

. 

100 

'26,  Sept. 

1  ;> 

r.  T.  Crittenden 

Alexander  Parker 

. 

80  28 

'19,  July 

7 

James  C.  Johnson 

Josa.    Headington,    John 
T.  Gray 

500 

'20,  June 

12 

J.  Black  &  Co. 

P.    W.    Grayson   &  Co. 
McDonald  &  Stoughton 

158  16 

'22,  Dec. 

o 

James  Finlay 

, 

81  51 

'19,  June 

14 

T.  a.  &  H.  H.  Roberts 

W.  Bard  &  Co.,  T.    T. 
Townley  k  Co. 

500 

Aug. 

11 

Do 

J.  Perciful,   J.  Cox,   Wm. 
Bard,   G.   R.  Tomkins, 
ri.  H.  Roberts      ^      . 

3,000 

'20,  Feb. 

7 

John  W.  McKenney,  jr. 

N.  B.   Cooke  &  Co.,    Mc- 
Neill, Fisk,&Rutherford 

2,000 

165,846  64 

18,013  91 

Losses  on  sales  of  real  estate          .       18,610  36 

Less  gains  on           ditto                  •         5,450 

13,160  36 

31,174  27 

165,846  64 

197,020  91 

CINCINNATI  AGENCY. 

1821. 

Deficiency  by  robbery 
Counterfeit  note 

7,723  14 
20 

i 

Costs  of  suits  consid- 

ered irrecoverable  . 

. 

11,258  33 

'Se,  April  21 

Sundry  taxes  and  ex- 
penditures from  1825, 
charged  at  the  times 
to   *'  unadjusted  ac- 

counts" 

- 

2,001  86 

*20,  July   IS 

Z.  &  A.  Ernst 

H.  &  J.  Glenn . 

80 

June  27 

T.  L.  Payne 

Jas.  Chute,  D.   Chute, 
0.  Lovell,  F.  Barrett, 
Justus  Smith 

1,263  75 

'21,  Aug.    8 

Arthur  Henrie 

Daniel  Drake   . 

9,020 

( 

'26,  May     4 

Jacob  Fowler 

Mortgaee 

- 

3,035  40: 

'19,  Dec.    14 

William  Harlow 

S.  D.   Whipple,  Calvin 
Washbnm,D.  Brooks 

3,700 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
CINCINNATI  AGENCY— Continued. 


24 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Dawers. 

Endorsers. 

D;ie  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30,  1822. 

Due  and  un- 
paid after 

Aug-.  30,  1925. 

'30,  Nov.  30 

Donation  to  Columbus 
and  Wooster  turn- 

pike 

. 

- 

1,500 

»20,  May   30 

Job  Stansbery 

Hon  Reed,Th.L.  Pierce 

574  57 

'24,  Nov.     1 

Uriai  Butler 

N.  Longworth  . 

- 

713  8 

'20,  Oct.    17 

Nicholas  Sinks 

William  Lytle  . 

293  29 

May     2 

Justus  Smith 

T.  L.  Paine,  J.  Chute, 
D.  Chute,  Jos.  Ruffner 

578  22 

Jan.    13 

Do 

Same  parties     . 

2,200 

Oct.      3 

Do 

John  F.  Keys    . 

281 

A.  H.  Wood 

G.  Ebert 

1,003  29 

May     4 

William  Butler 

E.  Clement,  W.  Butler, 
jr.,  S.  Butler,  Thomas 
Graham,  E.  Graham 

9,563  62 

»27,  April  11 

James   Conn's  estate 

. 

- 

100 

'20,  Oct.    10 

Alex.  Gray  . 

Hugh  Glenn     . 

200 

Nov.     1 

Do 

T.  D.  Carneal 

600 

July    2u 

Hugh  Glenn 

J  s.  Gibson,  Jno.  Gibson 

1,000 

Aug.  22 

Do 

Jas.  Glenn,  J.  Fowler  . 

4,870 

May    16 

H.^  J.  Glenn 

R.  &  J.  Brackenridge,  J. 
&.  J.  Gibson 

1,248  88 

Aug.  15 

Do 

Do 

400 

,          22 

Jos.  Gibson  . 

J.S.Wallace,  J.P.Wallace 

249  52 

May     2 

J.  &  J.  Gibson 

Do      H.  &  J.  Glenn 

550  48 

Aug.  15 

Do 

Do 

3,300 

•18,  Aug.  11 

Ichabod  Halscy 

L.Reese,  L.  Reese  &  Co. 

1,600 

18 

Do 

Do       W.  Wiles       . 

1,700, 

'20,  Oct.    17 

G.  Hubbell   . 

James  Conn      . 

1,056  22 

May  31 

Chas.  Paxson 

T.  Graiiam,  E.  Pearson 

9,S33  70 

June  26 

E.  Pearson    . 

Do      i 

500      • 

'19,  Dec.  31 

Jos.  Prince,  jr. 

A.  Mack,  J.  Bates,  J.  H. 
Piatt,  P.  Grandcn,  J. 
Armstrong    . 

6,930' 

^20,  Oct.    21 

William  Steele 

Wm.  Lytle       . 

9,1)48  82 

Nov.  14 

Do 

David  Halloway 

876  50 

Do 

C.  Paxson,    E.  Pearson 

430  47 

'IS,            21 

R.  Westlake 

C.  Marsh- 

290 

'20,            26 

Amasa  Delano 

J.  Mathews,  E.  Stone  . 

492  58 

'22,  Jan.    15 

Samuel  Newell 

Jacob  Wheeler 

Gm  79 

94,156   17 

^3   I  12 

S                     Credits. 

91,156  17 

Gains  on  sales  of  real  estate            .   173,914  23 

101,507  29 

Less  loss     do             t 

/ 
Balance  of  gain  on  sa 

0                     .     77,324  99 

es     .              .     96,589  29 

Discounts  on  sundry  judgments,  &c. 

purchased  for  the  purpose  of  clear- 

mg  titles  held  by  the  bank           -     10,689  84 

107,279  13 

Rir>npf>    trt    orftYit   nf  lo«i«f»a    nhowrrrtnUlA    f^   n^^ 

• 

;  indent  fund 

t^kj^^'-f  ^''•u.igtia.un:/     lu   tiUH- 

. 

5,771  M 

Note.  —The  balance  in  this  case  being  on  the  credit  side  of  the  account,  is  not  brought '  nto  vien 
in  the  tabular  statement,  to  reduce  the  amount  of  the  column  under  the  caption,  '  'losses  charge 
able  to  contingent  fund,"  but  merely  operates  in  reduxjing  the  amount  of  the  next  column,  "totai 
of  estimated  losses." 

31 


242 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
CHILLICOTHE  AGENCY. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 

Drawers. 

Endorsers. 

Due  and  un- 
paid before 
Aug.  30,  1822. 

Due  and  un-J 

paid  after 
Aug.  30, 1822, 

1821,  Nov.  58 

George  Brown 

Jas.  Moore,  Benj.^ Duncan 

3,400 

Dec.     5 

Do 

Samuel  Brown 

3,200 

'20,  June  28 

Joseph  Brown 

Geo.  Brown,  Sam.  Brown 

813  78 

'22,  July  30 

Samuel  Brown 

Jos.  Brown,  John  Hoffman 
Wm.  Gill,  Jacob  Eichel- 
berger 

1,350 

Aug.   13 

Do 

George  Brown,  Jos.Brown 

1,250 

»19,  June     1 

Thomas  Brown 

Sam  Findlay,  Jas.Purdem 

800 

29 

Do 

Do 

200 

'SO,  June    7 

Isaac  Cook 

Jno.  Prcbles,  Dr.Kinkead 

1,150 

Oct.    15 

Do 

A.  C   Looke 

990  64 

»19,  June    2 

John  C.  Clark 

.1.    S.   Swearingen,   Wm. 
Gill,  Jno.  P.  Rappelyea 

450 

Oct.     6 

Samuel  Corner 

B.  Ruffner,   C.    Cazy,  L. 
P.  Corner               *      : 

1,725 

^26,  Nov.  25 

George  Denney 

David  Ross,  J.Myers,Jno. 
Gracy,  names  of  endor- 

sers forged 

. 

92  52 

Feb.  23 

Joseph  Gardner 

Isaac  Davis,  James  Miller 

. 

270 

*18,  July     1 

Samuel  .Monnett 

J.  Hotsinpiller,  D.  McCol- 

William  Rutledgo 

lister 

2,500 

»20,   Vug.    2 

Thomas  Scott 

S.  M.  Coimick,  D.Madeira 

370 

'18,  June  20 

A.  Sheppard,  B.  Purdem, 

'19,  Sept.  22 

Ab.  H.  Wood,  George 

S.  Monnett      . 

1,074 

Ebert 

Peter.  Mills,  Alex.  Adair 

1,203  96 

March  1 

John  Carlisle 

F.Renick,  Hum.  FuUerton 

6,000 

April  26 

Samuel  Finley 

Drayton    M.    Curtis,    A. 
Delano,  ').  Kinkead    . 

522  2.^ 

May   27 

William  Lewis 

John  Davis,  Wm.  Lamb 

758  05 

' 

Isaac  Cook 

John  Waddle 

88  62 

^2,  June  12 

T .  S.  Pcirce 

N.  C.  FintUay,  E. Granger 

733   15 

23,579  45 

362  62 

Cr 

edits.- 

28,579  45 

rrninQ  nn  raIps  nrronl 

estate                      S  544  27 

Less  Losses 

17 

- 

28,942  07 
8,527  27 

20,414  80 

OFFICE  AT  PITTsnUHG. 


IfilS,  Oct.   22 

Wm.  B.  Fester 

Dunninff  McNair 

8,rf;8  78 

'19,  July      1 

William  Wallace 

W.  Robinson,jr  ,  J.  &  11. 
Wallace 

,3,850 

Sept.    9 

'ohn  Osborne 

George  Steward 

950 

9 

George  Steward 

John  Osborne 

855 

Oct.      7 

lohn  Osborne 

George  Steward 

90 

^20,  Feb.  14 

Thomas  Baird  &  Son 

A.  TannehiU 

600 

14 

Do 

John  Johnson 

755 

Mar.     2 

A.  TannehiU 

A  Beelen,  Thomas  Baird 
&  Son 

1,334  26 

2 

G.  H.  McNair 

J.  8t  H.Wallace,  Brown  & 
B.  L.  Peters 

79  73 

16 

Thomas  Baird  St  Son 

John  Johnson 

52r 

30 

Do 

Do 

545 

30 

G.  H.  McNair 

J.  &  H.  Wallace,  C.  Wal- 
lace,   Brown   &   B.  L. 

Peters 

440 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


24S 


OFFICE,  PITTSBURG— Continued. 


When  due 
and  unpaid. 


Drawers. 


Endorsers. 


April  13 


13 


May 
Dec. 

?21,  Jan. 


'22,  A;ig. 


Lewis  Peters 


G.  McNair 


13  Do 

2S  1).  &  J.  Chute 


Sep. 


Oct. 


>23,  May 


(> 

do 

Aug. 

14 

[I'd  Geary 

Sep. 

26 

'  liarles  Lutshaw 

20,  Feb. 

17 

Thos 

Baird  &  Son 

n 

do 

24 

do 

(( 

do 

Mar. 

9 

do 

April 

13 

do 

Mar. 

30 

do 

June 

4 

VVm. 

Hill  &  Broth 

J.  Whiting,  agent 
Samuel  Roberts 
J.  Whiting,  agent 
Robert  Graham 
Robert  McCorkle 
J.  Whiting,  agent 
C.  Lutshaw 

do 

do 
J.  Black,  &  Co. 
C.  Lutshaw 
James  C.  Butler 
R.Patterson  &.Lamdin 


>22,  Aug. 
1824,  Jan. 

10 

1 

do 
Isaac  Bean 
Do 

1922,  Sep. 

Oct. 

1823,  Mar. 

May 

12 

17 

6 

1 

S.  &  J.  Thomson 

Do 
Wm.  Masson 
Geo.  0-  Robinson 
Costs  of  suit  irrecoverab 

J.H.  Wallace,  E  Wallace, 

Wm.  Robinson,  jr.,  Selr- 

son  &  McNair 

J.   H.  Wallace,  Brown  & 

B.  L   Peters 

Do 
Whiting,  agent 
Richard  Bowen  &  Go. 
George  Morgan 
Richard  Bowen  &  Co. 
John  Johnson 
Thomas  Baird  &  Son 
Richard  Bowen  &  Co. 
R.  T.  Leech,  R.  Patter 
son  &  Lamdin 
do  do 

do  do 

do  do 

do  do 

Thos.  Baird  &  Son 
Aushutz    &    Rahm,    M 

S'tackhouse 
C.  Lutshaw,  R.  T.  Leech 
Dennis  S    Scully 
Aushutz  &  Rahm,  and  T 

Leggett 

Anthony  Beeleu 

do 

do 

do 

do     ^ 
do 

A.   Tannehill,  A   Eeclen 
■>Vm.  Wilkins,  R.  Patter 
son  &    Lamdin.   Geo 
Sutton,  C.  Lutshaw  & 
Leech,    Hy.   Baldwm, 
Alex'r  Hill' 
fohn  Hill,  &  Co. 
Isaac  Mcason,  A.  Barker, 
las    R.  Butler,  Auskuts 
&  Rahut,   J..  Meason, 
J.  Reno 
II.  Patterson  &  Lumden 
"  R.F.Leech 

Samuel  Smith, 
Do 


Due  and  im- 

paid  before 

Aug.  30,  1822 


Deduct  credits. 
Gains  on  sales  of  real  estate 
Less  losses 


Contin":eat  interest 


$6,900 
700 

1,199  62 


2,649  93 

100 

862  10 

555 

535 
1,560 
1,900 

256 

104  50 

500 

962 


Due  and    un- 
paid after    • 
lug.  SO,  1822. 


1,058  27 

700 

760 

250 

356 
1,804 

611 


24,289  90 
489  22 


5i,547  69 


465 
4  630 
4,436 
3,046 

114 

6  575  58 

13,000 
230 

908 


4,560 


1,183  60 
1,113 

880 

480  70 

250 
1,697  32 


43,479 
58,547  69 

102,026  69 


7.399  612 


244 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
RECAPITULATION. 


Debts  due  anr' 

Debts  dut& 

Total  of 

Total 

Balances  on 

inpaid  betor. 

tinpa  dafteridebtB  chargec 

of  credits 

the  1st  Aug. 

August  30, 

August  30, 

to 

to 

1831,  to  tUe 

1822, 

1822, 

debit  of 

and  charged 

and  chargM| 

to 

to 

1 

The  account  of"  Losses  chargeable  to  the  Contingent  Fund." 

Bank  U.S. Philadelphia- 

177,057  02 

169,890  48 

346,947  50 

20,844  31 

326,103  19 

Office,  at  Portsmouth 

3,708  3.) 

71,349  55 

75,057  S8 

. 

75,057  88 

Do         Portland 

- 

2,100  22 

2,100  22 

. 

2,100  22 

Do        Burlington 

Do        B  )ston 

2,80r  48 

9,338  90 

12,146  38 

_ 

12,146  38 

Do        Providence    - 

. 

925  65 

925  65 

. 

925  65 

Do         Hartford 

6,299  02 

7,708  50 

14,007  52 

129  13 

13,878  39 

Do        New  York     - 

29,939  79 

32,110  34 

61.050  13 

. 

61,050  13 

Do         Baltimore 

1,696,643  09 

1,623  74 

1,698,266  83 

35,034  77 

1,663,252  06 

Do        Washington  - 

70.794  as 

124,971  53 

195,766  38 

3,295  15 

192,471  23 

Do         Richmond      - 

38,057  2') 

3.740  50 

41.797  70 

1,400 

40,397  70 

Do        Norfolk 

191,082  66 

35,913  66 

226,996  32 

1,333  08 

225.663  24 

Do        Fayetteville  - 

21,481   88 

17,159  50 

38,641  38 

35 

38,606  38 

Do         Charleston    - 

100,428  13 

36,945  93 

137,374  06 

., 

137,374  06 

Do         Savannah 

78,041  29 

75,802  44 

153,843  73 

7.474  16 

146,369  57 

Do         Mobile 

Do        Nfw  Orleans- 

37,609  51 

39  10 

37,648  61 

3,900 

33,748  61 

Do         Natchez 

Da         St.  Louis 

Do        Nashville       - 

_    ' 

405  28 

405  28 

_ 

.  405  28 

Do         Louisville 

205,446  83 

14,865  96 

220,312  79 

47,929  38 

172  383  41 

Do         Lexington     - 

165,846  64 

31,174  27 

197,020  91 

V- 

197,020  91 

Do         Cincinnati 

Agency,    Cincinnati*    - 

94,156  17 

7,351  12 

101.507  29 

107.279  13 

Do        Chillicothe    - 

28,579  45 

3^i2  62 

28,942  or 

8,527  27 

20,414  80 

Office,      Pittsburg 

58,547  69 

43,479 

102,026  69 

7  399  62 

94,627  or 

Do        BuffUlo 
Do         Ulica 

244,581  00 

Deduct  excess  of  credits- 

at  the  Agency  at  Ciw- 

cinnati          - 

~ 

••         " 

- 

5,771  84 

3,005,527  05 

687,258  29 

3,692,785  32 

238,809  16 

3,453,976  16 

SUMMARY. 

Amount  of  debts  due  ar 

»d  unpaid  before  Aujjust  3 

3,   1822,   j»nd  charged  to 

"  Losses  chargeable  t 

o  the  Coniingent  Fund," 

3,005,527  03 

Do            do            do 

do      after         do 
0  **  Losses  chargeable  to  t 

do              do               do 
le  Contingent  Fund,"     - 

687,258  29 

Total  of  debts  charged  t 

3,692,785  32 

Total  of  credits  to 

do            do 

do            do                    - 

238,809  16 

Amount  of  balances  on  { 

he  Ist  of  Aug. 

1831,  to  th< 

s  debit  of    do 

do 

3,4^3,976  16 

*  5,771  84  crtdii  balance. 


[  Rep.  No.  460,  ] 


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5,301,132  43 

CD 
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Th*-  present  balance  of  the  contingent 
fund,  per  contra,  is     - 

The  estimated  probable  loss  now  to  be 
provided  for,  (per  statement  above,) 
is        -             -            -             .            . 

Leaving  a  surplus  in  the  balance  of  the 
contingent  fund,  beyond  the  losses  to 
be  provided  for,  of    - 

The  surplus  at  the  last  semi  annual  pe- 
riod, was              -             -  172.637  52 
There  is  now  a  surplus  of  -  310,614  14 

Increase  in  last  six  months,  137,976  62 

5,476,648  10 
130,840  26 

4.258  21 
5,611,7^6  57 

The  balance  on  the  leger,  at  this  date, 
being  the  last  semi-annual  period,  was 

By  a  resolution  of  the  board  this  day 
adopted,  the  excess  over  $1,750,000 
of  the  balance  to  the  credit  of  the 
pr.ilt  and  loss  account,  has  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  credit  of  ihs."i  fund,  viz. 

There  is  now  to  be  added,  the  interest 
received  on  the  suspended  debt  at  the 
following  Offices  and  Agencie.s,    ap- 
propriated by  a  standing  resolution  of 
the  board  to  this  funri,  viz: 

Office  at  Louisville,         1,©08  66 

Lexington,           913  30 

Agency,  at  Cincinnati,     1,068  86 

Chillicothe,     1,267  39 

Present  balance, 

4 

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Profit  and  loss,  int 
received  at  Le 
cinndii  and  Chili 
Do                     d 

Profit  and  Loss, 
to  this  account 

u 

.So 

^^ 

5S 

-at? 

Xi  <                  1 
CQ 

1831. 
Jan.     3 

July     4 

1831. 
July     4 
Aug.     1 

>-« 

o 

K. 

VO 

1 

•  » 


352  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  33. 
SALES  of  Forfeited  Slock  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 


1824 


July  3 
7 


Aug.21 


Hale  &  Davidson 
Brokerage  i  $o02  50  and 
div.2ioff 

Office  Hartford 
Hale  &  Davidson 


Brokerage  i 

R.  Lenox: 
June  16 


Brokerage  i,       60  14 
,  Div.    ^,  500 


By  whom  sold. 


June  17 

4  days'  interest 
June  21 

21 

5  days*  interest 


Brokerage  i,     150  37 
Div.  2i,         1,250 


June  23 


Brokerage  i 

June  29 

8  days'  interest 
June  29 

8  days'  interest 


Brokerage 
2i  Div. 


June  29 

9  days'  interest 
July     3 


44  58 
3  75 


Brokerage  i,      44  52 
Dividend  2^,    375 


Shares 


1,000 


25 
800 
700 


50 
150 


300 

150 
50 


300 
200 


100 

50 


50 
100 


Uate 


121 


118 
118^ 


120? 
I20i 


120i 


1171 


12H 
121^ 


94.400 
82,950 


6,018  75 
18,037  50 


24,026  25 


560  14 


36,075 

20  04 

18,037  50 

6,012  50 

4  18 

60.149  22 


1,400-37 


35 ,325 
23,550 


5§,875 
147  18 

12.112  50 
13  46 
6,075 
6  75 


18,207  71 


- 

419  58 

121^ 
121 

6,075 
7,59 
12,100 

18,182  59 


419  52 


121,000 
2,802  50 


177,350 
443  37 


23.496  11 


58,748  85 


58.727  82 


17.788  13 


17,763  07 


Nett  proceeds. 


Rep.  No. 

460.  ] 

253 

No.  33— Continued. 

By  whom  sold. 

Shares 

itate 

>iett  ppoceedft 

1824 

July     3 

250 

121 

30,250 

AugSl 

Brokerage  i,       74  06 
Dividend   2^,     625 

- 

- 

699  06 

1 

29,550  94 

July   15 

150 

117^ 

17,625 

2  days*  interest 

. 

. 

1  96 

- 

100 

1171 

11,762  50 

5  days*  interest 

• 

3  26 

29,392  72 

Brokerage  i,      73  48 

Postages                  5 
Power  of  att'y        5 

83  48 

29,309  24 

235,384  16 

Dec.l5 

R.  M.  Whitney: 
N.  Y. 

days.    rate.       ami. 

15 

19        5        4r  21 

150 

n9i 

17,887  50 

17 

ir        5        42  32 

150 

119i 

17,925 

17 

17        5        5&  54 

200 

119J 

23,950 

18 

16        5         19  97 

75 

119^ 

8,981  25 

18 

16        5      '    6  67 

25 

120 

3.000 

20 

14        6        41  7o 

150 

119A 

17,887  50 

2.4 

No  interest 

100 

119^ 

11,925 

17 

17         5         14  11 

50 

119^ 

5,975 

20 

14        5         11  62 

50 

119^ 

5,975 

10 

31         5      256  72 

500 

H9i 

59.625 

16 

22         6      219  08 

500 

119^ 

59,750 

22 

14        5       115  94 

500 

119i 

59,625 

11 

30        5        49  68 

100 

ll9-i- 

11,925 

16 

25        6        49  90 

100 

119| 

11,975 

16 

25        6        49  79 

100 

119^ 

11,950 

16 

25        6      _  74  69 

150 

119* 

17,925 

24 

No  interes' 

4,750 

ll8i 

562,875 

In  Boston               do 

200 

119 

23,800 

do 

400 

119i 

47,700 

m.  d.              do 

400 

wn 

47,850 

10 

1  10        6      795  00 

1,000 

119i 

119,250 

20 

1               5        99  58 

200 

119| 

23  ,900 

20 

14        5      564  31 

1,000 

119^ 

119,500 

.      25 

15        5        87  13 
Interest,  $2,601  99 

150 

119^ 

1,7,925 
1,309,081  25 

f 

Add  intercs' 

_ 

_ 

2,601  99 

{ 

Div.  on  11,000  shares 

1,311,683  24 

27,500 

M, 

R.  M.Whitnev*3  ex- 

1, 

penses  to  N.Y.        65 

> 

i 

Com.  \  per  ct.  on 

sales                    3,272  69 

- 

- 

—            — 

30,837  69 

1825 

1,280,845  55 

Eeb.  6 

Baring,  Brothers  &Co.  Lon- 
don. 1000  shares,  £239,230 
8  6,  the  nett  pro-eeds  cal- 

culated at  9;J  per  cent . 

10,000 

- 

- 

- 

1,164,254  73 

254 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


No.  33— Continued. 


To  whom  scld. 

Shares 

Kate 

Nett  proceed  s 

1825 

Apr.26 

T.&J.  G.Biddle 

500 

120 

60,000 

- 

266 

I20i 

31 ,986  50 

91,986  50 

Brokerage  i. 

- 

- 

- 

229  96 

91,756  54 

28 

T.Wilson,  cashier 

58  120 

_ 

_ 

6,960 

30 

r.  &  J.G.B.ddle 

500;  120 

'   60.000 

Brokerage  }, 

" 

- 

150 

59,850 

Jan.   3 

B.U.S.  to  W  Cotterill       - 

32?;  117 

_ 

_ 

38,259 

May  14 

T.  &  J.G.  Biddle 

121 

119| 

- 

.    14,489  75 

Brokerage  i 

- 

- 

- 

36  22 

14,453  5^ 

28 

B.U.S.  to  B.M.Carter 

1,031 

120g 

124,106  62 

Do     D.  Woodbridge 

25 

120§ 

_ 

3  ,009  37 

Oct.   6 

Do     W.  Cotterill 

10» 

118 

■J 

Do     Leatham,T.T.&  Co.- 

6 

118 

>' 

13,806 

Do     W.  Leatham 

3 

118 

\ 

8 

Do     F.A.Thornton 

100 

I17i 

.. 

11,775 

22 

Do     J.  Cow  per,  Norfolk  - 

40 

1171 

_ 

4,705 

18 

Do     L.VVarringion,  U.S.N. 

37 

117A 

••             ■» 

4,347  50 

19 

T.  J.  G    Biddle 

82 

117i 

9,635 

Brokerage  ^ 

- 

- 

24  09 

.     9,610  91 

25 

Prime,  Ward,  King  &  Co.  - 

400 

llfii 

46,500 

, 

600 

116 

69,600 
116,100 

Brokerage  i 

-    . 

- 

290  25 

115,809  75 

Nov,  3 

Prime,  Wrrd,  King  &  Co.  - 

1,250 

116 

145,000 

Brok..i,362  50,'int.lOO- 

- 

- 

462  50 

144,537  50 

12 

T.&  J.G.  Biddle 

600 

list 

68.175 

Brokerage  ^ 

- 

- 

150 

68,025 

16 

Prime,  Ward,  K.  &  Co.      - 

1,000 

116 

116,000 

Brokerage  ^ 

- 

.. 

290 

* 

^ 

115,710 

25 

B.U.S.  to  J. A.  Brown 

100 

115 

_ 

11,500 

1827 

626,942  65 

May  15 

T.  &  J.  G  Biddle           ,     - 

10 

1221 

^ 

1,222  50 

Brokerage  ^ 

il 

- 

- 

3  05 

1,219  4^ 

Oct.  20 

T.  ScJ.  G.Bi.Idle 

1,000 

124 

124,000 

Brokerage  i 

- 

• 

310 

l'''^  690 

Nov.  6 

T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle 

10 

123^ 

1,235 

l^O  ,  \JJ\J 

Brokerage  ^ 

■" 

3  09 
' 

1,231  91 

124,921  91 

Oct.  13 

Bank  United  Stales 

190 

?''5 

. 

23,501  10 

Do             do 

46 

52i 

5,669  91 

29,171  (tt 

! 

[Rep. 

No.  33- 

No.  460.  1 

—Continued. 

255 

By  whom  sold. 

Shares 

Rate 

Nett  proceeds 

1828 
Dec.  19 

1829 
Jan.  30 
June 18 
Auff.25 
Dec.   5 

Baring',  Brothers  St  Co. 

Do             do 

Do             do 
liaiik  United  States 
Uai-ing-,  Brothers  &  Co 

Sh 

ares, 

2,950 

1,050 

150 

88 

1,350 

121 

120 
120 
123 
120 

- 

1.  117.548. 

3.56,950 

126,000 
18,000 
10,824 

162;000 

-»^ : r 

39,523 

Average  rate  per  si 

4,645,859  16 

No,   34. 


KEPOUTS  OP  THE  DIVIDEND  COMMITTEE,   JULY,    1829, 

The  committee  appointed  on  the  3d  instant,  to  enquire  whether  any,  and, 
if  any,  what  dividend  should  he  declared  of  the  profits  of  the  Bank  dur- 
ing tlie  last  six  monXiis,  report: 

That,  from  the  statement  herewith  exiiihited,  marked  A,  it  appears 
that  the  amount  of  profits  arising  from  discounts,  exchange,  interest,  and 
other  sources,  duritig  the  hist  six  montlis,  is  one  million  six  hundred  and 
seventy-six  thousafid  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  six  cents, 
(gl, 676,750  06)  including  thereiji  the  sum  of  eleven  thousand  six  hun- 
dred and  thirty  four  dollars  forty-severj  cents,  (Si  1,634  47)  received  on 
account  of  interest  on  the  suspended  deht  at  the  oliices  of  Lexington  and 
Louisville,  and  the  Cincinnati  amf  Chilicothe  agencies.  Deducting  from 
the  gross  receipts  this  sum,  and  al!  the  expenses  and  charges  of  the  bank 
for  the  same  period,, amounting  in  the  whole  to  three  hundred  thousand 
six  hundred  and  sixty  dtdlars  nineteen  cents,  (S300.660  19)  the  nett  pro- 
fits will  amount  to  one  million  three  hundred  and  seventy-six  thousand 
eighty-nine  dollars  eighty-seven  cents,  (Si, 376, 089  87.)  To  this  amount 
must  be  added,  the  sum  of  one  million  six  hundred*nineteen  tliousand  eight 
hundred  and  twenty  dollars  fifty-two  cents,  (Sl,6lf\820  52)  being  the 
balance  remaining  to  the  credit  of  profit  and  loss,  on  the  5i;h  of  January 
last,  the  sum  of  seven  hundred  fourteen  dollars  ninetyrfour  cents,  (S7  !4  94) 
heing  for  sundry  loan  otlice  expenses,  re[)aid  by  the  Government  of  tho 
United  States,  and  the  mint  value  of  broken  dollars;  and*  also  t!ie  (}ivi- 
dend  now  to  be  declared  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  bank,  transferred  to 
tJje  I'resident,  Direct/>rs,  and  Company,  which,  at  the  rate  proposed  by 
the  committee,  would  amount  to  five  thonsand  one  hundred  and  ten  dol- 
lars, (g5,ll0.) 

These  sums  form  an  aggregate  of  net  projfits  of  three  million  one  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  thirty-five  doilftrs  thirty -three  cents,  (g3,001, 
T35  S3)  as  will  be  more  particularly  seen  by  tho  foHov.ing  «tatcraent: 


Sr>,940 

62 

-        217J95 

rt 

7,£89 

8S 

60,000 

00 

I  U634 

47 

-     1,225,000 

00 

-    1,776,735 

33 

B3.302.395 

52 

-  gl, 619,820 

52 

714 

94 

-     1,676,750 

06 

5,110 

00 

g3. 302, 395 

52 

256  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

"•Trojii  and  Loss. 

X)r. — To  sundr}'  charges  since  January, 

Cuirent expenses,    -         -         -         - 
Sundry  losses,        -        -        -        - 
Semi-annual  appropriation, 
Contingent  lund,      -         -         -         - 
Dividend  No.  21,  at  3^  per  cent. 

Balance,      -        .        -        - 


Cr. — By  balance  in  January,         -        -        -      ,  - 
Loan  expenses,  &c.  .        -        -        . 

Discount,  exciiange,  and  interest,     - 
Dividend  now  to  be  declared  on  1,460  shares, 
at  3^  per  cent.  .        -         -        - 


The  committee  further  report,  that  the  statement  marked  B,  herewith 
submitted,  exhibits  t!je  latest  returns  of  the  susj)endcd  debt,  and  real 
estate  at  the  bank,  and  its  offices  and  agencies,  with  an  estimate  of  the 
losses;  also  an  estimate  of  the  contingent  interest  on  the  better  class  of 
debts;  and  the  {)rogress  of  arrangements  and  settlements  oC  the  suspended 
debt  and  real  estate  since  the  last  semi-annual  pei'iod.  The  statement 
marked  C,  presents  a  comparative  view  of  the  condition  of  these  several 
subjecis,  at  tlie  last  and  present  semi-annual  and  annual  peiiods. 

The  statement  marked  D,  exhibits  the  situation,  cost,  and  present 
value,  of  all  tlie  banking  houses,  ami  the  state  of  t!ie  fuml  provided  by  the 
semi-annual  appropi-iation  for  extinguishing  any  loss  on  them. 

I'he  statement  marked  E,  shows  the  state  and  progi*ess  of  the  contin- 
gent fund  to  meet  the  losses  of  ti»e  Bank. 

From  these  statements,  it  will  appear,  that  the  estimated  probable  loss 
on  the  suspended  debt  and  real  estate,  (exclusive  of  banking  hou-<es,)  is 
five  millions  six  hundred  thirty-three  thousand  twenty-two  dollais  ten 
cents,  being  eleven  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty- nine  dollars  ten 
cents  (Si  1,289  10)  less  than  the  estimate  on  the  same  class  of  debts  mado 
in  January  last,  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  contingent  fund  has  been 
augtne!!ted  since  that  period,  by  interest  received  at  the  western  ofiices  attd 
agerjcies,  on  tlie  sus[)ended  debt,  and  by  the  excess  above  par  on  t^velve 
hundred 'shares  of  the  forfeited  bank  stuck  since  sold,  one  hun.lred  seven- 
ty-nine thousand  four  hundred  forty-eight  dollars  twelve  cents.  (§179.448 
12)  making  the  total  amount  of  that  fund,  four  milliun  six  hundred  and 
ninety -eight  thousand  eight  hundred  seventy-one  dollars  eight  cents  (4,698, 
871  08.)  The  difference  between  this  sum,  and  the  .estimate  of  loss,  is 
nine  hundred  thirty-l\)ur  thousand  one  hur.tlred  filty-one  dollars  four  centvS, 
(S934J51  04)  being  one  hundred  ninety  thousand  seven  hundred  thirty- 
seven  dollars  twenty-two  cents  (Si 90,737  22)  less  than  the  difference  ex- 
hibited by  the  returns  of  January  last,  and  is  abundantly  provided  for  by 
ihe  various  resources  of  the  Bank,  particularly  detailed  in  the  accompany- 
ing statements.     The  committee,  nevertiieless,  are  desirous  of  hastening 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


257 


tire  arrival  oF  the  time  when  this  deficiency  will  be  nominally,  as  well  as 
really,  repaired,  and  they  thrref(»i*e  recommend  tlmt  an  addition  be  now 
made  t<>  tlie  contingent  fund  of  two  Juindred  seventy-six  thousand  seven 
liuiidied  and  thirty-five  dollars  thirty. three  cents,  (S276,735  35)  being 
tlie  excess  of  the  balance  of  profit  and  h)ss  above  one  million  five  liundred 
thousand  (h)llars,  (§1,500,000)  which  will  render  that  fund  stronger  by 
the  sum  of  foui*  hundred  fifty-six  lliousand  one  Imndied  eighty-tliree  dol- 
lars forty -five  cents,  than  it  was  at  the  last  semi-annual  report. 

The  general  result  of  ihe  operations  of  the  Bank  during  the  semi-annual 
pei'iod  just  terminated,  is, 

'i'hat  the  gross  profits  have  amounted  to     -         -         -     gl, 682,575  00 
The  expenses  to       -         -         -         -         ^217,795  27 
Losses,  and  extra  charges,  to  -  11,230  45 

229,025  72 


Leaving 
Frofn  which  is  to  be  reserved, 
The  semi-annual  appropriation  of 
Interest  carried  to  contingent  fund,  of 


gl,45S,549  «8 


g60,000  00 
11,634  47 


71,634  47 


Leaving  a  balance  of  -     gl, 38 1,9 14  81 
Which,  at  the  rate  of  dividend  the  committee  propose  to 
declare,  namely,  three  and  a  half  per  cent.     -         -        1,225,000  00 


Would  leave  the  sum  of        S156,914  8: 


Being  the  surplus  profits  of  the  last  six  months,  to  be  carried  to  the 
credit  of  tiie  profit  a?id  loss  account,  making  the  balance  of  that  account, 
after  deducting  the  appi-opriation  to  the  contingent  fund,  which  the  com- 
mittee have  [)rdposed,  one  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  (g  1,500, 
000.) 

Tlie  committee  therefore  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  res(j 
lotions: 

Restdved.  'I^hat  there  be  now  declared  a  dividend  of  three  and  a  half  per 
cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Bank. 

Resolved,  That  the  sutn  of  two  hundred  seventy-six  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred an;l  thirty-five  (hdlars  tliii-ty  three  cents,  (S276,735  53)  be  carried 
from  the  profit  and  lo.ss  account,  to  tlie  contingent  fund,  to  meet  losses. 

J  NO.  PO  ITIiH,   Chairman  Committee. 
Bank  of  tiik  Umtro  States,  1 
Jultj  6t/h  1 829.  J 


S3 


Q5S  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

January  4th,  18S0, 

Mr.  Hoffman  on  behalf  of  the  Committee  appointed  on  the  3lst  ultimo,  to 
report  upon  the  Dividend,  submitted  the  following  report,  whicli  was 
read,  and  together  with  the  resolutions  therein  embraced,  was,  on  mo- 
tion, adopted. 

The  committee  appointed  on  the  31st  ultimo,  to  inquire  whether  any, 
and,  if  any,  what  dividend  should  be  declared  of  the  profits  of  the  Bank 
during  the  last  six  months,  report: 

That,  from  the  statement  herewith  exhibited,  marked  A,  it  appears  that 
the  amount  of  profits  arising  from  discounts,  exchange,  interest,  and  other 
sources,  during  the  last  six  months,  is  one  million  six  hundred  and  ninety- 
three  thousand  four  hundred  and  eighty-nine  dollars  eighty-three  cents, 
(Si, 693, 489  83)  including  therein  tlie  sum  of  sixteen  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  forty  dollars  forty-six  cents,  (S16,740  46)  received  on  account 
of  interest  on  the  suspended  debt,  at  the  offices  of  Lexington  and  Louis- 
ville, and  the  agencies  at  Chilicothe  and  Cincinnati,  deducting  from  the 
grovss  receipts  this  sum,  and  all  the  expenses  and  charges  of  the  institution 
lor  the  same  period,  amounting  in  the  whole  to  three  hundred  and  one 
thousand  five  hundred  and  fifteen  dollars  nineteen  cents,  (gSO  1,5 1 5  19) 
the  nett  profits  will  amount  to  one  million  three  hundred  and  ninety- 
one  tiiousand  nine  hundred  and  seventy-four  dollars  sixty-four  cents, 
(Sl»391,974  64.)  To  this  amount  must  be  added  the  sum  of  one  million 
n\e  hundred  thousand  dollars,  (Sl,500,000)  the  balance  remaining  to  the 
credit  of  profit  and  loss  on  the  6th  of  July  last,  and  the  sum  of  four  hun» 
dred  and  sixty-seven  dollars  fifty-one  cents,  for  sundry  loan  office  ex- 
penses, repaid  by  the  United  States,  which  sums  form  an  aggregate  of 
nett  profits  amounting  to  two  millions  eight  hundred  and  ninety-two  thou- 
sand four  hundred  and  forty-two  dollars  fifteen  cents,  which  will  be  more 
particularly  exhibited  by  the  following  statement: 

Profit  and  Loss, 
Dr. 

To  sundry  charges  since  July,             -            -            -  g3,n7  15 

«  (Current  expenses,              ....  220,160  89 

*<  Sundry  losses,       .....  1,496  69 

♦*  Semi-annual  appropriation,            -            -             -  60,000  00 

"  Contingent  fund,  -             -             -             -             .     '  16,?40  46 

<*  Dividend  proposed  by  committee,  31  percent.      -  1,225,000  00 

"  Balance,  --.-.-  1,667,442  15 

!S3. 193.957   34 

Cr. 

By  balance  in  July  last,          ....  gl, 500,000  00 

^<  Loan  Office  expenses  refunded,      -             -             -  467  51 

<'  Discount,  exchange,  and  interest,  received,            -  1,693,489  83 

g3. 193.957  34 

The  Committee  further  report,  that  the  statement,  marked  B,  herewith 
submitted,  exhibits  the  latest  returns  of  the  suspended  debt  and  real  estate. 


[  Eep.  No.  460.  ]  259 

at  the  Bank,  and  its  offices  and  agencies,  with  an  estimate  of  tlic  losses 
also,  an  estimate  of  the  contirigeiit  interest  on  the  better  class  of  debts, 
and  the  pi-ogress  of  ai-rangerncnts  and  settlements  of  the  siisj)ended  debt 
ami  real  estate,  since  the  last  semi-annual  period.  Tlie  statement,  marked 

C,  presents  a  comparative  view  of  the  condition  of  these  several  subjects  at 
the  last  and  present  semi-annual  and  annual  periods.  The  statement,  marked 

D.  exhibits  the  situation,  cost,  and  present  value  of  all  the  banking  houses, 
and  the  state  of  the  fund  j)rovided  by  the  semi-annual  apjU'opriation  foi* 
extinguishing  any  loss  on  them.  The  statement,  marked  E,  sliows  the 
state  and  progress  of  the  contingent  fund  to  meet  the  losses  of  the   Bank. 

From  these  statements  it  will  appeal*,  that  the  estimated  j»robable  loss 
on  the  sus|)ended  debt  and  real  estate,  is  five  millions  six  hutKli-ed  and  six- 
teen thousand  two  hundred  and  four  dolla.rs  fifty-two  cents,  (§5.6 1 6.204  52) 
being  sixteen  thousand  eight  Inindred  and  seventeen  dollars  sixty-cents 
less  than  the  estimate  of  July  last. 

The  contingent  fund  now  amounts  to  four  millions  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-one  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifteen  dollars  fifty-three  cents,  tiie 
difference  between  which,  and  the  estimate  of  loss,  is  six  htindred  and 
twenty-four  thousand  nine  hundred  and  eighty-eight  dollars  ninety-nine 
cents,  (S624,988  99)  being  three  hundred. and  nine  thousand  one  hundred 
and  fil'ty-two  dollars  five  cents,  (S309,152  05)  less  than  the  difference 
exhibited  in  the  returns  of  the  last  semi  annual  period,  and  is  abundantly 
provided  for  by  the  various  resources  of  the  Bank,  particularly  detailed 
in  the  statements  above  alluded  to. 

Anxious,  however,  that  the  fund  set  apart  to  meet  the  losses  of  the  Bank, 
should  be  more  speedily  brought  to  equal  the  estimate  of  them,  the  Com- 
mittee propose  that  an  addition  be  now  made  to  the  contingent  fund,  of  tlie 
surplus  profits  of  the  last  six  months,  amounting,  as  already  stated,  to 
one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand  foui*  luunlred  and  forty-two  dollars 
fifteen  cents,  (Sl67,442  15)  which  will  \esi\e  the  balance  of  tlie  profit  an<l 
loss  account,  as  at  the  last  semi-annual  period,  one  million  five  hundred 
thousand  dcdlars,  (Si, 500,000.) 

The  general  result  of  the  operations  of  the  Rank  during  the  semi-annual 
period  just  terminated,  is,  that  the  gross  profits  have 
amounted  to,  -  -  -  -  -  Si, 693, 957  34 

The  expenses,  to  -  -  g220,160  89 

Losses  and  extra  charges,  to        -  4,613  84 


224,774  73 


Leaving,         -  -  Si, 469,182  61 

from  which  is  to  be  reserved, 

The  semi-annual  appropriation  of,  -    S60.000  00 

And  the  interest  carried  to  contingent  fund,     1 6,740  46 


76.740  46 


Leaving  a  balance  of,  g 1, 392,442  15 

Which,  at  the  rate  of  dividend  the  Committee  propose  to 

declare,  namely,  three  and  a  half  per  cent.,  -  1,225,000  00 


Would  leave  the  sum  of,  §167,442  ?5 

being  the  surplus  profits  of  the  last  six  months. 


260  '    '      L  K^p-  No-  46^-  3 

Tl»e  Committee,  tlicreiore,  rccommeiul  the  adoption  o,f  the  fallowing 
resolutions; 

Resolved,  That  there  he  now  declared  h  dividend  of  three  and  a  half 
per  cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Btink. 

Resolved,  That  the  sum  of  one  Iiundre<l  sixty-seven  tlioiisand  four  hun- 
dred forty -two  dollars  fifteen  cents,  (gi 67.442  15)  he  carried  from  thp 
profit  and  loss  account  to  the  contingent  fimd  to  m«"ct  losses. 

GEOUG^  tiOf  FMAN,   Chairman. 
.   January  Ath^  1830, 


Tlie  Comtnittee  appointed  on  the  2d  instant,  to  inquire  whether  any,  and^ 
if  any,  what  dividend  should  he  declared  of  the  profits  of  the  Bank 
during  the  last  aix  monthst  report: 

That,  from  the  statement  herewith  exhibited,  marked  A^  it  will  appear, 
that  the  amount  of  profits  arising  from  discounts,  exchange,  interest,  and 
other  sources,  during  the  last  six  months,  is  one  million  seven  hundred 
a^id  forty-two  tliQusatid  nine  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  and  fifteen  cents 
(gl,74.i,920  15)  including  therein  the  sum  ol*  thirty-four  thousand  four 
liundred  and  eighty-one  dtdlars  and  ninety-one  cents  (^34,481  91)  received 
an  account  of  interest  on  tlie  suspended  debt  at  tlie  olhces  of  Louisville  and 
Lexington,  and  the  agencies  at  Cincinnati  and  Chilicothe.  Peducting 
from  tl)e  gross  receipts  this  sum,  and  all  tlie  expenses  and  charges  of  the 
institution  lor  tlie  same  i>eri()d,  amounting  in  liie  whole  to  thi*ee  hundred 
and  twenty-nine  thousand  and  seventy-nine  dollars  (§329,079)  tlie  nett 
profits  will  avnount  t()  one  million  four  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  forty-one  dollars  and  fifreen  cents  (Si, 4 1 2, 841  15.)  To  Uiis 
must  be  added  the  sum  of  one  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars 
(Sl,jOO.OOO)  the  balance  remaining  to  the  credit  of  profit  and  loss  on  the 
4th  of  January  last,  and  the  sum  of  five  hundred  and  ten  dollars  and 
eighty -one  cents  (S5I0  81)  for  stmdry  loan  office  expenses  repaid  by  the 
United  States,  whiciisums  form  an  aggregate  of  nett  profits,  amounting  to 
two  million  nine  luuulred  and  thirteen  tliousand  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
one  dollars  and  ninety  six  rents  (§2,913,351  96)  which  will  be  more  par- 
ticularly exhibited  by  the  following  statement: 

Profit  and  Lo$s. 
Dk. 

Sundry  charges  since  .fanuary  last,          -  ^  r  S3, 198  06 

Current  expenses,              ^             ^             -  -  -  221,566  78 

J^undry  losses,      -              -              -           ,  -  ^  -  6.832  25 

Semi-annual  appropriations,         -             -  -  .  60.000  00 

Contingent  fund,               .             .             -  .  ,  34.481   9i 

Dividend  proposed  by  tlie  cfnnmitlee  at  2^  •>er  cent.,  -  L;^25,000  Ou 

lUiUncc,                 ^              ,              .              .  *  -  -  1,689.35!   96 


83,245.430  96 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ]        •  261 

Cr. 

By  balance  of  January  last,         ....  1,500,00000 
Loan  office  expenses  rcfurxled,      -             -             -             -  510  81 

Discount,  exchange,  interest,  &c.  ,  .  .  1,742.920   15 

^3.243  430  96 

The  committee  further  report,  that  the  statement,  marked  B,  herewith 
suhmitt<»d,  exhibits  the  latest  returns  of  the  susperlded  debt,  and  real  estate, 
with  an  estimate  of  tlie  probable  loss;  also  an  estimate  of  the  contingent 
interest  on  the  better  class  of  debts.  The  statement,  marked  G,  presents 
a  comparative  view  of  these  several  subjects  at  the  last  and  present  annual 
and  semi-annual  periods.  The  statement  marked  D,  exiiibits  the  situa- 
tion, cost,  and  present  value  of  all  tlie  Banking  liouses,  and  the  state  of 
the  fund  provided  by  the  semi-annual  appropriation  for  extinguishing  airy 
loss  on  them.  The  statement  marked  K,  siiows  the  state  and  progress  of 
the  contingent  fund  to  meet  the  losses  of  the  Bank.  From  these  state- 
ments it  will  appear,  that  tlie  estimated  probable  loss  on  the  suspended 
debt,  and  i-eal  estate,  is  five  millions  four  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand 
one  hundred  and  filty  dollars  and  sixty-eight  cents  (S5,413,150  68)  being 
two  hundred  and  three  thousand  and  fifty-three  dollars  and  eiglity-fonr 
cents  less  than  the  estimate  of  January  last. 

The  contingent  fund  now  amounts  to  five  million  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
three  tiiousaitd  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  dollars  and  fifty-nine  cents 
(S5,193,1S9  59)  having  been  increased  by  the  appropriation  of  January 
last,  and  the  ititcrcst  on  the  suspended  debt,  two  hundred  and  one  thou- 
sand nine  hundred  and  twenty -four  dollars  and  six  cents  (S20 1.924  06)  and 
leaving  a  deficiency  of  two  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  and  eleven  dol- 
lars and  nine  cents (S220, 01 1  09)  which  is  four  hundred  and  four  thousand 
nine  bund n?d  and  seventy-seven  dollars  and  ninety  cents  (§404,977  90^ 
less  tlian  the  difference  exiiibited  by  tlie  last  semi-annual  returns. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  tlie  rapid  reduction  which  has  thus  been 
effected  in  tlie  difference  between  the  estimate  of  the  losses  of  the  Bank, 
aiid  the  fund  provided  to  meet  them,  and  although  the  funds  already  appro- 
priated for  that  purpose  are,  in  the  opinion  of  the  committee,  adefjuate 
thereto,  yet  they  are  still  desirous  that  the  mf)st  ample  provision  should  he 
made  against  any  contingencies  which  might  occur,  they  therefore  propose 
ro  ad<l  t«)  the  "  Contingent  Fund  to  meet  the  losses  of  the  Bank,"  the  sur- 
plus profits  of  the  last  six  months,  amounting,  as  already  shovVit,  to  one 
hundred  and  eighty-nine  tjjonsand  three  hundred  and  fifty-one  dollars  and 
ninety-six  cents  (^189,351    96.) 

,  The  general  result  of  tlie  ojierations  of  the  Bank,  during  the  semi-an- 
nual period  just  terminated,  is, 

That  the  gross  profits  have  amounted  to         -  -       Si, 74 3,4 30  96 

The  expenses  to  -  -  -         8224,566  78 

Losses  and  extra  charges  to  -  10,030  31 


234,597  09 


Leaving  -  -  -  ...      551,508,833  87 

From  which  is  to  be  reserved  the  semi-an- 
nual appropriation  of         -  -  §60,000  00 


262  ,        [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

And  tlie  interest  carried  to  the  Contingent 

Fund,        -  -  -  -  54,481   91 


94,481   91 


Leaving  a  balance  of  -  -  -         1,414,351  96 

Which,  at  the  rate  of  dividend  the  committee  propose  to 
declare,  namely,  three  and  a  halt  per  cent.,       -  -  1,225.000  OO 


Would  leave  the  sum  of  -  -  .  Si  89. 351  96 


Being  the  surplus  profits  of  the  last  six  mouths. 

The  committee  therefore  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  re- 
solutions: 

HesolvecU  That  there  be  now  declared  a  dividend  of  three  and  a  half  per 
cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Bank. 

Resolved^  Tliat  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-nine  thousand  three 
hundred  and  filt/-one  dollars  and  ninety-six  cents(Sl89,S5l  96)  be  carried 
from  the  Profit  and  Loss  account  to  the  *'  Contingent  Fund  to  meet  losses. "^ 

ROSWELL  L.  COLT, 

Chairman  nf  Committee. 

Bank  United  States,  July  5,  1830. 


The  Committee  appointed  on  the  51st  ultimo,  to  inquire  whether  any,  aiid> 
if  any.  what  dividend  should  be  declared  of  the  profits  of  the  Bank, 
during  the  last  six  months,  report: 

That,  from  the  statement  herewith  exhibited,  marked  A,  it  will  apj)ear 
(hat  the  amount  of  profits  ai'ising  from  discounts,  exchange,  interest,  and 
other  sources,  during  the  last  six  montlis,  is  one  millit)n  seven  hundred  'jlthI 
seventeen  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty-five  dollars  seventy-five  cents, 
(Si, 7 17.555  75)  including  therein  the  sum  of  seventy-seven  tiiousand  0!ie 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  dollars  forty  cerjts,  (S77,157  40)  received  on  ac- 
(jount  of  interest  on  the  suspended  debt,  at  the  offices  of  Louisville  and 
Lexington,  and  the  agencies  of  Cincinnati  and  Chilicothe;  deducting  from 
the  gross  receipts,  and  all  the  expenses  and  charges  of  the  institution  for 
the  same  period,  amounting,  in  tl)e  whole,  to  three  hundred  atul  seventy- 
two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  seventy-six  dollars  and  seven  cents. 
(S372,776  07)  the  nett  profits  will  amount  to  one  million  three  hundred 
and  forty-four  thousand  seven  hundred  and  seventy-nine  dollai's  and  sixty- 
eight  cents  (81,344,779  68.)  To  this  must  be  added  the  sum  of  one  mil- 
lion five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  the  balance  remaining  to  the  credit  of 
profit  and  loss,  on  the  5th  of  July  last,  and  the  sum  of  lour  hundred  and 
twenty-nine  d(dlars  and  ninety-four  cents,  (8429  94)  forsundry  loan  ofiice 
expenses,  repaid  by  the  United  States,  which  sums  form  an  aggregate  of 
nett  profits,  amounting  to  two  millions  eight  hundred  and  forty- five  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  nine  dollars  and  sixty-two  cents,  (S2, 845.209  62; 
which  will  be  more  particularly  exhibited  by  the  following,  statement: 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]            ^  263 

Frojit  and  Loss. 

Dr — To  sundry  charges  since  January,            -            -  82.709  74 

Current  exj)enses,         -             -             -            -  232,346  17 

Sundry  losses,               -             -             -             -  562  76 

Contingent  fund,           -             -             .            -  77,157  40 

Semi-annual  appropriation,       ...  60.000  GO 

Dividend  j)roposed,  3^  per  cent.            -             -  1,225,000  00 

Balance,       ....  1,620,209  62 

SS.217.985  69 


Cr.-— By  balance  of  July  last,  ...       §1,500,00000 

By  Loan  office  expenses  refunded,  -  -  429  94 

By  discounts,  exchange,  and  interest,      -  -         1,717,555  75 


S3.217.985  69 


The  Committee  further  report,  that  the  statement,  marked  B,  herevvitli 
mibmitted,  exhibits  the  latest  returns  of  the  suspended  debt  and  real  estate, 
with  an  estimate  of  the  probable  loss;  also  an  estimate  of  the  contingent 
interest  on  the  better  class  of  debts.  The  statement,  marked  C,  presents 
a  com|)arative  view  of  these  several  subjects  at  the  last  and  present  an- 
nual and  semi-annual  periods.  The  statement,  marked  D,  exhibits  the 
situation,  cost,  and  present  value  of  all  the  banking  houses,  and  the  state 
of  the  fund  provided  by  the  semi-annual  appropriation  4ov  extinguishing 
any  loss  on  thera.  Tlie  statement,  marked  E,  shows  the  state  and  pro- 
gress of  the  contingent  fund,  to  meet  the  losses  of  the  Bank. 

From  these  statements  it  will  appear  that  tiie  estimated  probable  loss, 
on  the  suspended  debt  and  leal  estate,  is  five  million  four  hundred  and 
forty-six  thousand  seven  hundred  and  seventy-one  dollars  and  ninety-four 
cents,  (S5,446,771  94)  being  thirty-three  thousand  six  hundred*  and 
twenty  dollars  and  twenty-six  cents,  (833,620  26)  more  than  the  estimate 
of  July  last 

The  contingent  fund  now  amounts  to  five  million  four  hundred  and  fifty 
two  thousand   and  forty  dollars   and   ninety-five  cents,  (85,452,040  95) 
which  is  five  thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  dollars  and  one  cent 
(85,269  01)  more  than  the  estimate  of  loss. 

The  general  result  of  tiie  operations  of  the  institution,  during  the  semi- 
annual period,  just  terminated,  is 

That  the  gross  profits  have  amounted  to  -  -     81,717,985  69 

That  the  expenses  to  -  -         8232.346  17 

That  the  losses  and  charges  to         -  3,272  50 

235,618  67 


Leaving,         -  -     81,482,367  02 

From  which  is  to  be  reserved  the  semi-anriual  appro- 
priation of  -  -  -  60,000  00 
And  the  interest  carried  to  the  contingent 

fund,  -  -    ,         -  -  77,157  40 

137,157  40 


Leaving  a  balance  of        -  81,345,209  62 


264  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Which,  at  the  rate  of  dividend  the  Committee  propase 

to  declare,  namely,  three  and  a  half  per  cent*        -        1,225,000  00 


Would  leave  the  sum  of    -  -         gi 20.209  62 


One  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  two  hundred   and  nine  dollars  and 
sixty  two  cents,  heing  the  sui'plus  profits  of  the  last  six  months. 

The  Committee  tlierefore  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  re- 
solution: 

Resolved^  I'hat  thei-e  he  now  declared   a  dividend  of  three  and  a  half 
per  cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Bank. 
On  hehalf  of  the  Committee, 

ALEXANDER  HENRY,  Chairman. 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  Jan,  3,   1831. 


The  committee  appointed  on  the  1st  instant  to  inquire  whether  any,  and  if 
any,  what  dividend  should  be  declared  of  the  profits  of  the  Bank  during^ 
the  last  six  months,  report: 

That,  from  the  statement  herewith  exhibited,  marked  A,  it  will  appear 
that  the  amount  of  profits  arising  from  discounts,  exchange,  interest,  and 
other  sources,  during  the  last  six  months,  is  one  million  nine  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  thou^nd  four  hundred  and  sixty-one  dollars  forty-seven  cents, 
(§1.937,461  47)  including  therein  the  sum  of  twenty-four  thousand  six 
hundred  and  seven  dollars  fifteen  cents,  (S24,607  15)  received  on  account  of 
interest  on  the  suspended  debt  at  the  ottices  of  Lotiisville  and  Lt^xington, 
and  the  agencies  of  Chilicothe  and  Cincinnati.  Deducting  from  tiie  g.-oss 
receipts  this  sum,  and  all  the  expenses  and  charges  of  ihe  institution  for 
the  same  period,  and  also  the  several  special  appropriations  wljich  the  com- 
mittee are  about  to  recommend,  amounting,  in  the  whole,  to  fi\  e  hundred 
and  eighty-eight  thousand  seven  hundred  and  foi*ty-three  dollars.  (^588,743) 
the  nett  profits  will  amount  to  one  million  tliree  hundred  and  forty-eight 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighteen  dollars  forty-seven  cents  (§1,348,- 
718  47.)  To  this  must  be  added  the  sum  of  one  million  six  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  two  hundred  and  nine  dollars  sixty-two  cents,  (Si, 620,- 
209  62)  tlie  balance  remaining  to  the  credit  of  profit  and  loss  (mi  ihe  3d 
January  last,  the  sum  of  five  thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty-two 
dollars,  for  dividends  on  forfeited  Bank  stock,  and  the  sum  of  three 
hundred  and  eighty-nine  dollars  ninety-one  cents,  (S389  91)  f(U*  Loan  Of- 
fice expenses  repaid  by  the  United  States,  which  sums  form  an  aggregate 
of  nett  profits  amounting  to  two  millions  nine  hundred  and  seventv-five 
tliousand  dollars,  (§2,975,000)  which  will  be  more  particularly  exhibited 
by  the  following  statement: 

Projit  and  Loss. 

Dk. 

To  losses  at  Bank  of  the  United  States,  -  7,482  05 

*<  Requisition  dividends,             ...  -  2.204  74 

«  Current  expenses,      -            -            •            -  -  255.459  5T 

♦'  Losses  at  Offices,       -            -            -            •  -  3,538  86 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  ^65 

Contingent  B'und,      .            -            .  -  .  24,6or  15 

Semi-annual  appropriations,                -  -  -  60.000  00 

Balance  of  the  bonus,              -             -  -  •  100,880  00 

Capital  stocli  deficiency,         -             -  -  -  3,730  37 

Contingent  Fund,       -             .             -  -  -  130,840  26 

Dividend  proposed  3 5  percent.           .  -  -  1. 2^25, 000  00 

Balance,             .....  1,750,000  00 


SS,563.743  00 


Cr. 

By  balance  of  January  last,          ....  1,620,20962 

**'  Sundry  forfeited  dividends,    -             -             -             -  5,682  00 

»*  Loan  Office  expenses  refunded,            -             -             -  389  91 

♦•  Discount,  exchange,  and  interest,       ...  1,937,461  47 


i 


S3.563.743  00 


The  committee  further  report,  that  the  statement,  marked  B,  herewith 
submitted,  exliibits  tlie  Intest  returns  of  the  suspended  debt  and  real  es- 
tate, with  an  estimate  of  llje  probable  loss,  also  an  estimate  of  the  contin- 
gent interest  on  the  better  class  of  debts.  Tiie  statement,  marked  C,  pre- 
sents a  comparative  view  of  these  several  subjects  at  the  last  and  present 
semi-annual  periods.  Tlie  statement,  marked  D,  exhibits  the  situation, 
cost,  and  jircsent  value  of  all  the  Banking  houses,  and  tlie  statement,  mark^ 
cd  E,  shows  tlie  state  and  progress  of  t,he  contingent  fund  to  meet  the  losses 
of  the  Bank. 

From  these  several  statements  it  will  appear,  that  the  estimated  proba- 
ble loss  on  the  suspended  debt,  and  real  estate,  is  live  million  three  hun- 
dred and  four  thousand  and  ten  dollars  fifty-eight  cents,  (S5, 304,0 10  58) 
being  one  hundred  and  forty-two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty-one 
dollars  forty  cents  less  than  the  estimate  of  January  last. 

The  contingent  fund  now  amounts  to  live  millions,  four  hundred  and 
seventy  six  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-eight  dollars  ten  cents, 
(S5,4?6,648  10)  exceeding  tiie  estimate?  of  probable  loss  one  hundred  and 
seventy-two  thousand  six  hundred  and  thirty -seven  dollars  fifty-two  cents, 
(Sl72,637  52.) 

The  committee  have,  notw^ithstanding  the  large  increase  in  the  profits 
of  the  Bank,  during  the  j)ast  six  months,  deemed  it  most  prudent  to  ab- 
stain at  the  present  time  from  recommendiug  any  increase  in  the  rate  of 
dividend  to  be  now  declared,  but  have  preferred  to  appropriate  the  surplus 
profits,  by  extinguishing  the  remaining  ])ortion  of  the  bonus,  and  the  pre- 
mium paid  on  the  four  million  loan  of  1821,  amounting  to  one  hundred 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  eighty  dollars,  (§100,880)  by  sup[)lying  a  de- 
ficiency in  the  capital  of  the  Bank,  of  three  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
thirty  dollars  thirty  seven  cents,  (SS,730  37)  arising  from  errors  in  the 
i*eturns  of  the  commissioners  appointed  to  receive  subscriptions,  and  by  ap- 
plying to  the  contingent  fund  the  balance  above  one  million  seven  hundre<l 
and  fifty  thousand  dcdiars,  (Sl,750,000)  which  will  add  to  that  fund  one 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  eight  hundred  and  forty  dollars  seventy  six 
cents. 

34 


266  [  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

The  general  result  of  the  operations  of  the  institution  during  the  semi- 
annual period  just  terminated,  is 

That  the  gross  profits  have  amounted  to         -  -       gl,943,533  38 

The  expenses  to         -  -  -       g255,459  57 

The  losses  and  extra  charges,  -  13,225  65  268,685  22 


Leaving,         -  -  -  -  .       Sl,674,848  15 

From  wliich  is  to  he  reserved,  the  semi- 
annual appropriation  of      .  -  60,000  00 
and  the  interest  carried  to  the  contingent 

fund,  ...  -  24,607  15  84,607  15 


Leaving  a  balance  of  -  -  -       Sl,590,241  01 

which,  at  the  rate  of  dividend  the  committee  propose  to 

declare,  namely,  three  and  a  half  per  cent,  -       1,225,000  00 


would  leave  the  sum  of   -----        §365,241  01 
being  the  surplus  profits  of  the  last  six  months. 

Tlie  committee,  therefore,  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  re- 
solutions: 

Resolved^  That  there  be  now  declared  a  dividend  of  three  and  a  half  per 
cent,  on  the  capital  stock  of  the  Bank. 

Resolved,  That  there  be  appropriated  the  sum  of  three  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  thirty  dollars  thirty-seven  cents,  (SS,730  37)  to  supply  the 
deficiency  in  the  capital  stock;  that  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  eighty  dollars  be  applied  to  the  extinguishmeHt  of  tiie  portion 
of  the  bonus  and  premium  on  the  four  million  loan  remaining  unpaid;  and 
that  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  eight  hundred  and  forty 
dollars  twenty-six  cents,  (§130,840  26)  (being  the  balance  of  surplus  pro- 
fits above  the  sum  of  one  million  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars) 
be  carried  to  the  credit  of  the  contingent  fund. 

ROBERT  GILMOR,  Chairman. 

BANr^  OF  THE  United  States,  July  4,  1831. 


[  Rep.  No.  4fi0.  ] 


267 


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[  Rep.  No.  460,  ]  .  271 


GENERAL  STATEMENT—Continuea. 


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t    1 

s 

[  Rep.  No;  460.  ] 


275 


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r-C  <M  (M         tHCMCM         T-t  tH  cm  rH  C^  CM         »-l  rH  CM  iH  C^  r-l  C^  <M 


o 


276 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


*n  CO  00  00  CO  00  00  CO  00  CO  ci  00  ri  00  CO  r^  CO  CO  c^  80  00  00  CO  CO  M  K  CO  CO  00 

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a. 


[  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 


277 


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[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


279 


No.   37. 

Statement   of  public  deposit es  for  each  month  from  March,  1818,  to 
March,  1832,  inclusive. 


1818,  March 

7,369.911  47 

1823,  March 

5,331,693  96 

April 

8,623,787  07 

April 

5,831,865  28 

May- 

7,313,731  34 

May 

5,782,833  55 

June 

8,184,470  55 

June 

7,006,408  40 

July 

7,967,775  14 

July 

7,733,239  85 

August 

8.560,187  72 

August 

7,681,454  71 

October 

9,136,527  57 

September    - 

8,415,333  51 

November     - 

5,259,251  10 

October 

8.615,268  38 

December     - 

6,069,875  15 

November     - 

8  512,881  84 

1819,  January 

2,856,393  55 

December     - 

9,300,789-50 

Tebruary 

3,075,159  93 

1824,  January 

10,181,865  37 

March 

3,458,488  53 

February 

9,000,149  72 

April 

3,273,855  45 

March 

8,100,674  66 

May 

2«883,329  79 

April 

8.225,353  84 

June 

2,882,399  33 

May 

6,749,960  32 

July 

3,670,281  21 

June 

7,316.534  61 

August 

3,132,361  17 

July 

8,158,748  2>6 

September    - 

3,047,135.50 

August 

7,214.173  10 

October 

2,862,964  14 

September    - 

7,777,953  48 

November     - 

2,230,750  95 

October 

8,107,276  61 

Dtcember     - 

2,155,497  52 

November     - 

7,950,328  17 

1820,  January 

3.560,712  55 

December     - 

8,189,905  53 

February 

2.592,082  37 

1825,  January 

6.702,444  19 

March 

3,332,826  46 

February 

4,173,529  45 

April 

3,560,643  12 

March 

4,920,271  32 

May 

3,326.580  16 

April 

5,966,953  82 

June 

3,040,874  34 

May 

6,297,935  90      . 

July 

2,925,802  28 

June 

7,156,541  30 

August 

2,707,664  63 

July 

7,992,714  03 

September    - 

•      2,823,004  12 

August 

8,489,133  24 

October 

3,119,962  47 

September    - 

9,363,697  88 

November     - 

2,355,51999 

October 

7,489.040  09 

December     - 

2,234,550  57 

November     - 

3,544,780  85 

1821,  January 

2,928,821  86 

December     - 

4,623,358  91 

February 

1,800,618  41 

1826,  January 

5,281,524  85 

March 

2,018,432  48 

February 

5,648,103  78 

April 

1,738,507  27 

March 

6,922,441  97 

May 

4,040,694  10 

April 

8,029,428  37 

June 

2,651,354  54 

May 

7,907,347  28 

July 

2,944,203  78 

June 

8,762,219  45 

August 

1,790,202  93 

July 

6,820,331  77 

September    - 

2,296,356  13 

August 

6,216,624  28     . 

October 

2,097,652  27 

September    - 

6,830,867  48 

November     - 

1,741,639  20 

October 

7,072.645  73 

December     - 

1,996,374  61 

November 

6.393,035  59 

1822,  January 

2,617,555  64 

December     - 

8,035,629  85 

February 

2,007,969  32 

1827,  January 

7,732,173  15 

lUvch 

2,983.135  85 

P'ebruary 

7,463,944  07 

April 

3,568,620  29 

Murcii 

8,922,495  05 

May 

3,104,160  20 

April 

8,853,312  40 

June 

3,587,075  96 

May 

9,085,465  10 

July 

3,388,247  65 

June 

9,641,541  92 

August 

3,294,328  28 

July 

7,395,871  47 

September    - 

3,559,792  96 

August        .  - 

5,259,013  49 

October 

3,885,671  46 

September    - 

6,093,764  58 

November     - 

4,247,474  65 

October 

6,894.210  77 

December     - 

5,577,388  41 

November 

6,666,3.55  29 

1823,  J an Mary 

4,275,331  07 

December     - 

7,470,590  89 

February 

4,005,919  68 

1828,  January 

7,428,438,  97 

380 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 
STATEMENT  No.  47— Continued. 


1828,   February 

6,789,234  76 

1830,  March 

8,580,292  43 

March 

7,656,600  24 

April 

8,905,501  87         i 

April 

9,617,173  75 

May 

9,486.084  91 

May 

9,101,520  45 

June 

10,331,331  17 

June   . 

10,251,832  53 

July 

10,437,070  69 

July 

9.090,127  58 

August 

6  024,883  62 

August 

5,849,247  34 

September    - 

5,631,228  08 

September    _ 

6,810,460  78 

October 

9,432.258  57 

October 

7,316,112  36 

November     - 

5,741,409  02 

November     - 

7,614,316  47 

December     - 

5,813,610  30 

December     - 

9,862,004  40 

1831,  January 

9.131,964  13 

1829,  January 

10,696,966  84 

February 

7,238,270  88 

February 

8,655,102  34 

March 

8,959,983  U 

March 

7,531,939  76 

April 

9.001,169  55 

April 

8,629,733  57 

May 

7,531,532  35 

May 

9,194,826  51 

June 

7,833,637  55 

June 

10,876,815  22 

July 

7,655,803  97 

July 

11,657,419  23 

August 

7,252,249  42 

August 

4,999,276  67 

September    - 

8,415,792  14 

September    - 

5,585,271  57 

October 

9,513,434  99 

October 

6,327,619  08 

November     - 

6,843,356  33 

November     - 

6,547,493  45 

December     - 

8,857.700  20 

December     - 

7,313,843  05 

1832,  January 

12,589,363  62 

1830,  January 

6,795,405  93 

February 

8.947,204  07 

February 

7,619,774  96 

March 

'    9,09.7,724  00 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


281 


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282  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  S9. 
,  Resolution  OF  March  IS,  1832. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

March  13,   1832. 

The  President  submitted  to  the  Board  his  views  in  relation  to  the  proba- 
bility of  the  redemption  by  the  Government,  in  the  course  of  the  present 
year,  of  a  large  portion  of  the  three  per  cents  of  the  United  States;  more 
than  one  half  of  which  stock  he  stated  to  be  held  by  foreigners,  the  magni- 
tude of  whose  claims  upon  this  Bank  might  possibly  expose  the  communi- 
ty to  great  inconvenience,  unless  some  measures  should  be  adopted  for  de- 
ferring a  part  of  the  payments  that  may  be  required,  and  suggested  the 
expediency  of  empowering  a  Committee  of  this  Board  to  enter,  for  that 
purpose,  into  such  arrangements  with  the  holders  of  that  stock,  as  mighl 
combine  the  interests  of  the  Bank  with  those  of  the  public. 

Whereupon  it  was,  on  motion, 

Resolved,  That  the  subject  of  the  communication  just  made  by  the  Pre- 
sident, be  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Exchange,  with  authority  to  make, 
on  behalf  of  this  Bank,  whatever  arrangements  with  the  holders  of  the  three 
per  cent  stock  of  the  United  States,  may,  in  their  opinion,  best  promote  the 
convenience  of  the  jjublic  and  the  interests  of  this  institution. 
Extract  from  the  minutes. 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 


No.  40. 
N.  BiDDLE  TO  L.  M'Lane. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

March  29,  1832. 

Sir:  I  have  received  from  the  acting  Secretary  of  tlie  Treasury,  a  letter 
of  the  24tli  instant,  apprising  me,  that  it  is  proposed  to  give  notice  on  the 
1st  of  next  month,  of  the  intention  of  the  Government  to  discharge  one  half 
of  the  three  per  cent  stock  on  the  1st  of  July  next,  by  paying  one  half  of 
each  certificate  at  tlie  proper  loan  office,  and  lie  has  the  goodness  to  add, 
that  if  any  objection  occurs  to  me  cither  as  to  the  amount  or  as  to  the  mode 
of  payment,  he  would  tliank  me  to  suggest  it. 

I  have  the  honor  to  state  in  reply,  that  so  far  as  the  Batik  is  concerned, 
no  objection  occurs  to  me;  it  being  suilicient  that  the  Government  has  the 
necessary  amount  of  funds  in  the  Bank  to  make  the  contemplated  payment. 

In  regard,  however,  to  the  community  generally,  and  more  especially  to 
the  debtors  of  tlie  Government,  there  is  a  view  of  tlie  subject,  which  the 
inquiry  rendei*s  it  proper  for  me  to  present  to  your  consideration.  It  is 
this:  owing  to  a  variety  of  causes,  but  mainly  to  tlie  great  amount  of  du- 
ties payable  for  the  last  few  months,  there  !ias  been  a  ])ress!n'e  upon  the 
mercantile  classes,  w!jo  have  been  obliged  to  make  very  gr'cat  efforts  to 
comply  with  their  engagements  to  the  Government.  That  j)re6SHre  still 
continues,  and  as  it  may  be  prolonged  by  tlie  same  cause — the  amount  of 
duties  still  payable  during  tlie  next  three  months;  this  state  of  things  seems 
to  recommend  all  the  forbeai-ance  and  indulgence  to  ti»c  debtors  which  can 
be  safely  conceded.  Tlie  inconvenience  then  of  the  proposed  measure,  is, 
that  the  repayment  of  six  or  seven  millions  of  dollars,  more  than  one  half  of 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  283 

which  is  held  in  Europe,  may  crpate  a  demand  for  the  remittance  of  these 
funds,  which  would  operate  injuriously  on  the  community,  and  by  abridg- 
ing the  facilities  which  the  debtors  of  the  Government  are  in  the  habit  of 
receiving  from  the  Bank,  may  endanger  the  punctual  payment  of  the  reve- 
nue; as  the  Bank  would  necessarily  be  obliged  to  commence  early  its 
preparations  for  the  reimbursement  of  so  large  an  amount  of  public  debt. 

My  impression  therefore  is,  that,  with  a  view  to  tlie  sale  and  punctual 
payment  of  the  public  revenue,  the  Government  would  be  benefited  by 
pjDstponing  the  proposed  payment  of  the  public  debt  to  another  quarter, 
by  which  time  the  country  will  sustain  less  inconvenience  from  the  de- 
mands on  foreign  account. 

In  regard  to  the  mode  of  payment,  I  should  think,  it  \Vi)uld  be  more 
agreeable  to  tlie  stockholders,  to  receive  reimbursement  of  the  whole 
amount  of  his  certificate  at  one  time,  than  to  have  it  divided. 

Tlicse  suggestions  are  \evy  respectfully  submitted  to  your  better  judg* 
ment  by 

Your  obedient  servant, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 

Honorable  Lewis  M'Lane, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury ^  Washington,  D.  C. 

P.  S.  As  an  illustration  of  the  effect  of  the  measure  I  have  suggested,  I 
may  mention^  that  in  the  month  of  February  last,  the  Collector  of  New 
Yoi-k,  with  a  laudable  anxiety  to  protect  the  public  revenue,  applied  to  the 
Bank  to  authorize  an  extension  of  loans  in  that  city,  in  order  to  assist  the 
debtors  to  the  Government.  This  was  promptly  done:  this  I  should  desire 
U)  do  again,  as  the  payments  to  the  Government  during  the  n^xt  quarter 
will  probably  be  very  large. 


No.  41. 

ruoxiES. 

How  many  votes  have  you,  or  any  of  the  Directors,  given,  by  virtue  of 
proxies? 

'J'hc  annexed  statement  of  the  proxies  on  file  in  the  Bank,  will  show 
their, amount  and  distribution. 

in  regard  to  voting  at  elections  it  may  be  said,  in  general,  that  the  great- 
est difficulty  is  to  induce  the  stockholders  to  vole  at  all.  The  stockholders 
resident  at  a  distance  have  bren  in  the  habit  of"  delegating  their  powers, 
cither  to  some  residents  in  Philadelphia,  or  to  some  committee  in  their  own 
State,  who,  in  turn,  at  the  approacli  of  an  election,  substitute  some  resi- 
dent at  Piiiladclphia,  in  case  it  is  inconvenient  to  attend  in  person. 

But  the  stockholders  resident  in  Philadelphia,  so  long  as  they  are  satisfied 
with  the  administration  of  the  Bank,  will  not  put  themselves  to  the  inconve- 
nience of  coming  to  the  Bank  for  the  purpose  of  voting.  The  consequence 
is,  that  the  responsibility  of  voting  at  elections  devolves,  in  a  great  de- 
gree, on  tiie  representatives  of -the  distant  stockholders. 

The  responsibility,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  is  an  anxious  one;  and, 
so  far  li'orn  desiring  it,  I  have  endeavored  to  divide  it,  as  much  as  possi- 
l)le,  by  procuring  tfie  appointments  of  delegates  from  the  Pennsylvania 
fttockliolders  to  assist  in  the  election.  As  an  illustration  of  this,  I  now  ex- 
Libit  the  original  minutes  of  a  meeting  of  stockholders,  called  by  myself, 


<284 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


on  the  18th  December,  1828,  for  the  purpose  of  inviting  them  to  name  some 
gentlemen  to  represent  the  stockhohJers  of  Pennsylvania,  and  take  a  share 
in  the  elections;  and  it  was  in  consequence  of  this  invitation  that  Josej)lt 
Hemphill,  Robert  Ralston,  and  Horace  Binney,  received  the  proxies  of  the 
Pennsylvania  stockholders,  so  as  to  entitle  them  to  a  voice  in  the  selectioifc 
«f  Directors. 

The  minutes  of  the  proceedings  are  as  follows: 

At  a  meeting  of  certain  stockholders  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States* 
assembled  at  the  Banking  House,  on  Thursday  afternoon,  the  18th  De- 
cember, 1828,  in  pursuance  of  an  invitation  by  the  President, 

Alexander  Henry  was  called  to  the  Chair,  and  E.  S.  Burd  appointed 
Secretary. 

Whereupon,  upon  a  recommendation  by  the  President  to  that  effect,  a 
committee  was  appointed,  (on  motion  of  General  Cadvvalader)  consisting 
of  Joseph  Hemphill,  Robert  Ralston,  and  Horace  Binney,  for  tlie  purpose 
of  receiving  proxies  from  such  Pennsylvania  stockholders  as  may  be  dis- 
posed to  execute  them,  in  order  that  their  interest  may  be  duly  represented 
in  the  Bank. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Binney,  it  was  Resolved,  That  the  proxies  be  drawn 
in  iavor  of  the  said  three  gentlemen,  or  any  two  of  them. 

(Signed) 

E.  S.  BURD,  Secretary. 

n  Is  impossible  for  me  not  to  have  felt  deeply  sensible  of  the  confidence 
"which  induced  these  voluntary  delegations  of  proxies  to  me;  but,  at  the 
same  time,!  very  naturally  distrusted  my  own  judgment,  and,  therefore, 
sought  the  aid  of  others,  to  assist  in  the  important  duty  of  selecting  the 
list  of  Directors  of  the  Bank. 


List 

of  Proxies  on  fie  in  the  Bank, 

Residence  of  Stockholders. 

By  whom  represented. 

No.  of 
Votes. 

Massachusetts, 

Thomas  Cadvvalader,           .         -         - 

5S8 

Do. 

Nicholas  Biddle,          .         .         -         - 

504 

Connecticut, 

Enoch  Parsons,           -         -         -         - 

194 

New  York, 

Nicholas  Biddle,          -         -         - 

611 

Pennsylvania, 

H.  Binney,  Jos.  Hemphill,  Robert  Rals- 

ton, and  Nicholas  Biddle, 

922 

Maryland, 

Wm.  Pattersoji,  Robert  Oliver,  Alexan- 
der  Brown,    J.   Wilson.   R.  Gilmor, 

G.  Bloffman,  and  T.  Ellicott, 

583 

South  Carolina, 

Stepljen   Girard,    G.    Colhoun,    T.    P. 
Cope,    S.   E.    Weir,    and    Nicholas 

Biddle,             ....         - 

762 

Virginia  &N.  Carolina, 

Nicholas  Biddle,          _         -         -         - 

144 

Miscellaneous, 

Thomas  P.  Cope,        .         -         -         - 

93 

Do. 

Nicholas  Biddle,          .... 

177 

4,533 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


g§5 


A— 42. 
f 

Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  from  the  year 

1816    to   18S2,   INCLUSIVE. 


Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  elected  jyovember^  1816, 


Government* 
William  Jones, 
Stephen  Girard, 
Pierce  Butler, 
John  Jacob  Astor, 
James  A.  Buchanan, 

Stockh  alders, 
Robert  Ralston, 
Chandler  Price, 
Tl.'omas  M.  Willing, 
John  Sergeant, 
Janies  Lloyd,  of  Boston^ 
Elihii  Channcey, 
Dennis  A.  Smith,  Bait. 


John  Bohlen, 

Csesar  A.  Rodney,  Del, 

Thomas  Lei  per, 

Cadwalader  Evans,  Jun. 

Brockholst  Livingston,  o/ JV.  F. 

Samuel  Wctherill, 

William  Boyd, 

Manuel  Eyre, 

John  Savage, 

Thomas  McEuen, 

Guy  Bryan, 

Joiin  Goddai'd, 

Jolni  Donnell,  of  Baliimore. 


Directors  elected  January ,  18 


Government, 
William  Jone*s, 
Stepiien  Girard, 
Fiei'ce  Butler, 
George  Williams, 
Walter  Bowne,  rnftTW't/;  York, 

Stockholder's, 
R.  Ralston, 
C  Price, 

D.  A.  Smith,  of  Baltimorey 
John  Bohlen, 
'I\  Lei  per, 
John  Savage, 
Gu^'  Bryan, 


Richard  Cutts,  Washington, 

James  Lloyd,  Boston^ 

S.  W\>therill, 

T.  McEuen, 

T.  M.  Willing, 

C.  Evans,  Junr. 

John  Connelly, 

J.  Goddard, 

J.  Donnell,  Baltimore^ 

J.  C.  Fisljer, 

John  Bolton,  Savannah^ 

Isaac  Laurence,  JVew  Fork^ 

M.  Eyre. 


Directors  elected  Jannarij,  1818. 


Government. 

William  Jones, 

Pierce  Butler, 

Walter  Bowne,  New  York, 

George  Williams, 

J.  Cimnelly. 

Stockholders. 

R.  RalKton, 

C,  Price, 

T.  M.  Willing. 

J.  Donnell,  of  Baltimore, 

D.  A.  Smith,        do. 


J.  Bohlen, 

T.  Lei  per, 

Cad.  Evans,  Jun, 

John  Savage, 

James  C  Fisher, 

Henry  Clay,  Kentuckv, 

^^lth.  Prime,  JNew  York, 

Joshua  Lippincott, 

S.  Wetherili, 

T.  McEuen, 

J.  Goddard, 

J.  Bolton,  Savannah, 

John  Sergeant, 

John  Coulter, 

John  Lisle. 


286 


I  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


Directors  elected  January,  1819. 


Government 

John  Connelly, 
John  Steele, 
Nicholas  Biddle, 
Walter  Bowne, 
John  McKim,  Jun. 

Stockholders, 

W.  Jones, 
J.  C.  Fisher, 
John  Sergeant, 
Cluules  Chauncey, 
Jos."  Dugan, 


James  Schott, 

J.  Bolton,  Savannah, 

Joshua  Lippincott,, 

John  Coulter,. 

John  Lisle, 

Gustavus  Colhoun, 

Daniel  Lammott, 

Henry  Toland, 

Langdon  Clieves,  of  S.  Car* 

J  oil!  J  Potter,  '      do. 

John  Oliver,  Baltimore, 

George  Williams,     do. 

George  Hoffman,       do. 

Archibald  Giacie,  New  York. 


Directors  elected  Januartj,  1820. 


Oovernment, 

Langdon  Cheves,  of  Penn. 
Niciiolas  Biddle,         do, 
Manuel  Eyre,  do. 

J.  McKim,  Jun.  Baltimore, 
Charles  E.  Dudley,  N.  York. 

Stockholders* 
Pierce  Butlci-, 
Richard  Ruudle, 
Jolni  Sergeant, 
Josh.  Lippincott, 
Gustavus  Colhoiin, 
James  Schott, 


Th.  M.  Willing, 

Horace  Binn 

Thomas  Astley, 

S.  Wetherill, 

Hai'tman  Kuhn, 

Silas  E.  Weir, 

J.  Potter,  of  South  Carolina, 

J.  Oliver,  Maryland, 

J.  Donneil,       do. 

Geo.  Hoffman,  do. 

A.  Gracie,  New  York, 

Curtis  Bolton,     do. 

N.  Silsbee,  Massachusetts, 

James  Lloyd,       do. 


Directors  elected  January ^  1821. 


Government, 

Langdon  Cheves,  Pennsylvania, 
N.  Biddle,  do. 

J.  C<mnelly,  do. 

Jaujes  Wilson,  Baltimore, 
Charles  E.  Dudley,  New  York. 

Stockholders, 

Pierce  Butler, 
T.  M.  Willing, 
G.  Colhoun, 
James  Schott, 
S.  Wetherill, 


S.  E.  Weir, 

J.  C.  Fisher, 

Thomas  P.  Cope, 

Samuel  Cars  well, 

Henry  Pratt, 

William  Stevenson, 

J.  Coulter, 

Robert  Flemming, 

J.  Poiter,  South  Carolina, 

Geo.  Hoffman,   Maryland, 

G.  R.  Gilmor,  Jun.  do. 

Robert  Lenox,  New  York^ 

A.  (iiacie,  do. 

N.  Silsbee,  Massachusetts, 

David  Sears,         do. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  J 


287 


Directors  elected  January,  182^. 


Government. 
L.  Cljeves,  of  Pennsylvania, 
J.  Connelly,  do. 

P.  Butler,  do. 

C.  E.  Dudley,  New  York, 
James  Wilson,  Baltimore. 

Stockholders, 
T.  M.  Willing, 
S.  Wetlierill, 
S.  E.  Weir, 
J.  C.  Fisher, 
T.  P.  Cope, 
H.  Pratt, 
J.  Coulter, 


R.  Flemming, 

J(xsh.  Lippincott^ 

John  Bohlen, 

Daniel  W.  Coxe, 

R.  M.  Whitney, 

Charles  Brugiere, 

Simon  Magvvood,  S.  Carolina, 

William  Patterson,  Maryland, 

R.  Gilmor,  Jr.  do. 

Cornelius  Ray,  New  York, 

B.  W.  Rogers,        do. 

D.  Sears,  Massachusetts, 

3»  W.  Crowninshield,do. 


Directors  elected  January,  1823. 


Government, 
Nicholas  Biddle,  of  Penn. 
J.  Connelly,  do, 

E.  J.  Dupont,  Delaware, 
Henry  Eckford,  New  York, 
I.  McKim,  Jr.  Maryland, 

Stockholders, 
Jas.  C.  Fisher, 
T.  P.  Cope, 
H.  Pratt, 
J.  Coulter, 
R.  Flemming, 
J.  Lippincott, 
J.  Bohicn, 


D.  W.  Coxe, 
R.  M.  Whitney, 
Thomas  Cadwalader, 
Richard  Willing, 
Alexander  Henry, 
Jos.  Hemphill, 

S.  Magwood,  of  S.   Carolina, 
W.  Patterson,  Maryland, 
R.  Gilmor,  Jr.         do. 
Thomas  Knox,  New  York, 
Walter  Rownc,       do. 
James  Lloyd,  Massachusetts,, 
Jona,  Mason,  dc\ 


Directors  elected  January,   1824. 


Government. 
N.  Biddle,  of  Pennsylvania, 
Manuel  Eyre,  do. 

E.  J.  Dupont,  Delaware, 
H.  Eckford,  New  York, 
I.  McKim,  Jr.  Maryland. 

Stockholders. 
J.  Bohlen, 
D.  W,  Coxe, 
3.  Lippincott, 
R.  M.  Whitney, 
Thomas  Cadwalader, 
R.  Willing, 
Alexander  Henry, 


Joseph  Hemphill, 

S.  Wetherill, 

Lewis  Clapier, 

Paul  Beck,  Jr. 

J.  A.  Brown, 

C.  Evans,  Jr. 

J.  Potter,  of  South  Carolina, 

W.  Patterson,  iSlaryJand, 

R.  L.  Colt,  do. 

T.  Knox,  New  York, 

Daniel  C.  Verplanck,  do. 

James  Lloyd,  Massachusetts, 

B.  W.  Crowninshield,  do. 


Q88 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


Directors  elect cdjannary,  1825. 


Government, 
N.  Bidtlle,  of  Pennsylvania, 
M.  Evre,  do. 

K.  .f.  Diipont,  Delaware, 
B.  Ecldord,  New  York, 
W.  Patterson,  Maryland, 

Stockli  older  s, 
T,  Cadwalader, 
R.  Willing, 
Joseph  Hemphill, 
S.  Wetheriil, 
L.  Claj>ier, 
P,  Beck,  Jr. 
J.  A.  Brown, 


C.  Evans,  Jr. 
T.  P.  Cope, 
John  Sergeant, 
S.  E,  Weir, 

J.  Colljoun, 

J.  C.  Fisher, 

J.  Potter,  of  South  Carolina, 

R.  Gilmor,  Maryland, 

R.  L.  Colt,        do. 

R.'Leiiox,  New  York, 

D.  C.  Verplanck,  do.- 
James  Lloyd,  Massachusetts, 
B.  W.  Crowninsliield,  do. 


Directors  elected  Januarij,  1826, 


Government. 
N.  Biddle,  of  Pennsylvania, 
M.  Eyre,  of         '   do. 
J.  W.  Patterson,  Maryland, 
Victor  Dupont,  Delaware, 
Campbell  V,  White,  N.  York, 

Stockholders. 
S.  Wetheriil, 
L.  Clapier, 
p.  Beck,  jun. 
J.  A.  Brown, 
C.  Evans,  jun. 
T.  P.  Cope, 


S.  E.  Weir, 

J.  C.  Fisher, 

H.  Binney, 

D.  W.  Coxe, 

J.  Bohlen, 

H.  Pratt, 

William  Mcllvainc, 

J.  Polter,  of  South  Carolina, 

R.  Gilmor,  of  Maryland, 

George  Hoffman,  of  do. 

D.  C.  Verj)lanck,  New  York, 

Walter  Bowne,  do. 

B,  W.  Crowninshield,  Muss. 

D.  Sears,  do. 


Directors  elected  Januarij^  1 827. 


Government. 
N.  Biddle,  of  Pennsylvania, 

C.  P.  White,  of  Nevv  York, 
J.  McKim,  jnn.  Maryland, 
Benjamin  Hatcher,  Virgiiiia, 
>E.  J.  Dupont,  Delaware, 

Stockholders. 
T.  P.  Coi)e, 
S.  E.  Weir, 
J.  C.  Fisher, 
H.  Binney, 

D.  W.  Coxe, 
J.  Bohlen, 


H.  Pratt, 

T.  Cadwalader, 

ft.  Willing, 

Henry  I'oland, 

Ambr-ose  White, 

Matthew  L.   Bevan, 

John  Heiupliill, 

J.  II.  Priiigie,  of  S.  Carolina, 

R.  Gilmor,  of  Maryland, 

Alexander  Brown,  of  do. 

W.  Bowne,  of  New  York, 

Philip  Hone,  do. 

N.  Silshee,  of  MassachusetW, 

Daniel  Webster,         do. 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  ] 


SS9 


Directors  elected  January,  1 828. 


Government. 
N.  Biddle,  of  Pennsylvahia, 
John  B.  Trevor,     do. 
C.  P.  White,  New  York, 
E.  J.  Diipont,  Delaware, 
B.  Hatcher,  Virginia. 

Stockholders. 
H.  Binney,        , 
J.  Bohlen, 
H.  Pratt, 
T.  Cadwalader, 
R.  Willing, 
H,  Toland, 


A.  White, 

M.  L.  Bevan, 

John  Hemphill, 

M.  Eyre, 

P.  Beck,  jun. 

L.  Clapier, 

Samuel  B.  Morris, 

J.  Potter,  of  South  Carolina, 

George  Hofiinan,  Maryland, 

R.  L.  Colt,  do. 

W.  Bowne,  New  York, 

W.  B.  Astor,       do. 

N.  Silsbee,  Massachusetts, 

D.  AVebster,  do. 


Directors  elected  January,  1 82^. 


Government* 
N.  Biddle,  of  Pennsylvania, 
B.  Hatcher,  Virginia, 
3.  B.  Trevor,  Pennsylvania, 
E.  J.  Dupont,  Delaware, 
C  A,  Davis,  New  York. 

Stockholders. 
N.  Biddle, 
T.  Cadwalader, 
R.  Willing, 
A.  White, 
M.  L.  Bevan, 
J,  Hemphill, 


M.  Eyre, 

P.  Beck,  jun. 

L.  Clapier, 

T.  P.  Cope, 

A.  Henry, 

J.  C.  Fisher, 

J.  Sergeant, 

J.  Potter,  of  South  Carolina, 

G.  Hoffman,  Maryland, 

R.  L.  Colt,         do. 

R.  Lenox,  New  York, 

W.  B.  Astor,  do. 

N.  Silsbee,  Massachusetts, 

D.  Webster,  do. 


Directors  dected  January f  1830. 


Government. 
N.  Biddle,  Pa. 

B.  W.  Richards,    do. 
B.  Bailey,  N.  Y.  Resigned. 
5.  S.  Donnell,  Md. 
W.  J.  Duane,  Pa.  Resigned, 
J.  Campbell,  N.  Y. 
D.  M.  Durell,  N.  H, 

Stockholders. 
N.  Biddle, 
Manuel  Eyre, 
P.  Beck,  jr., 
L.  Clapier, 
T.  P.  Cope, 
'67 


A.  Henry, 
J.  C.  Fisher, 
J.  Sergeant, 
J.  Bohien, 
H.  Pratt, 
John  R.  Neff, 
Edward  Coleman, 
Wm.  Piatt, 
J.  Potter,  of  S.  C. 
G.  Hoffman,  Md. 
R.  L.  Colt,     do. 
C.  P.  White,    N".  Y. 
Isaac  Carow,     do. 
T.  H.  Perkins, 

B,  "W.  Crowninshield,  do. 


Mass. 


£90 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Directors  elected  January,  1831. 


Government, 

H.  Pratt, 

N.  Biddle,           Pa. 

J.  R.  Neff, 

G.  M.  Dallas,     do. 

Edward  Coleman, 

J.  Campbell,  N.Y. 

W.  Piatt, 

J.  S.  Donriell,  Md. 

T.  Cadwalader, 

D.  M.  Durell,  N.  H. 

R.  Willing, 

J.  Lippincott,  Pa. 

M.  L.  Be  van. 

L.  Cheves,  S.  C.  Resigned 

Stockholders. 

J.  Potter,     do. 

N.  Biddle, 

R.  Gilmor,       Md. 

T.  P.  Cope, 

J.  McKim,  jr.  do. 

A.  Henry, 

C.  P.  White,  N.Y. 

J.  C.  Fisher, 

I.  Carow,         do. 

J.  Sergeant, 

T.  H.  Perkins,           Mass. 

J.  Boblgn^ 

B.  W.  Crowninshield,  do. 

Directors  elected  January,  1832. 

Government. 

T.  Cadwalader, 

N.  Biddle,                Pa. 

R.  Willing, 

Joshua  Lippincott,    do. 

M.  L.  Bevan, 

John  T.  Sullivan,     do. 

Horace  Binney, 

James  Campbell,      N.  Y. 

M.  Eyre, 

Hugh  McElderry,    Md. 

A.  White, 

John  S.  Henry, 

Stockholders. 

John  Potter,  of  S.  C. 

N.  Biddle,  Pa. 

Robert  Gilmor,  of  Md. 

John  Bohlen, 

John  McKim,  jr.    do. 

H.  Pratt, 

I.  Carow,            of  N.  Y. 

J.  R.  Neff, 

John  Rathbone,  jr.     do. 

Edward  Coleman, ' 

T.  H.  Perkins,           Mass. 

Wm.  Piatt, 

B.  W.  Crowninshield,  do. 

No.  43. 
Stockholdsbs  is  Connecticut. 

Did  Mr.  Ellsworth,  or  any  one  else  of  the  State  of  Connecticut,  as  as- 
ossor  of  taxes  of  that  State,  write  to  request  you  to  give  him  a  list  of  stock- 
holders belonging  that  State,  for  the  purpose  of  taxing  them  according  to 
a  law  thereof?     If  yea,  pleasesstate  your  answer. 

in  December,  1829,  Henry  L.  Ellsworth,  of  Hartford,  in  Connecticut, 
addressed  aletter  to  me,  requestingto  be  furnished  with  a  list  of  the  stock- 
holders of  the  Bank  residing  in  Connecticut,  for  the  purpose  of  taxing  the 
stock.  The  request  was  declined,  for  reasons  which  will  appear  in  the 
correspondence  hereto  annexed. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  291 

[This  letter  has  no  date,  eitlier  of  place  or  time,  but  is  postmai-ked  Hartford,  Dec.  6.] 

Sir:  The  State  of  Connecticut  have,  by  statute,  directed  the  assessors, 
M'ho  make  out  the  list  for  taxation  in  the  several  towns,  to  assess  the  in- 
dividual stockholders  in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  residing  in  such 
towns,  at  the  just  value  of  their  stock.  Some  doubts  have  hitiierto  arisen, 
whether  a  State  ta^  on  the  stock,  was  constitutional;  but  the  convenient 
decisions  in  4  Wheatwh,  McCuIIoch  rs.  State  of  Maryland,  9  Wheaton,  and, 
very  lately,  2d  Peters,  leave  no  doubt  but  tliat  tiie  States  Ijave  the  rigbt  to 
tax  tlje  proprietory  interest  of  individnids*  Judge  Kent,  in  bis  Commen- 
taries, lays  down  tlie  same  doctrine.  Tlie  assessors  in  tliis  town  (and  I 
am  cbosen  one,  much  against  my  wishes)  liavc  concluded  to  put  the  stock 
into  the  list  I  would  here  remark,  that  the  Cashiers  of  the  several  Banks 
in  this  State  are  compelled  to  furnish  a  list  of  stockholders  in  the  Banks, 
upon  application  of  the  assessors,  so  far  as  they  want  the  same  for  their 
res2)ective  towns.  The  law  may  not,  in  letter,  reach  the  Cashier  of  your 
Branch;  and  indeed  I  do  not  know  that  he  has  the  requisite  imformation. 
The  assessors  have  called  upon  him,  but  he  has  declined  (and  perhaps  wQvy 
properly)  giving  any  information.  The  assessors  have  power  to  three-fold 
those  who  neglect  to  put  in  their  stock;  still,  this  is  an  unpleasar.t  task, 
and  one  which  I  wish  to  avoid.  The  object  of  this  letter,  written  at  the 
request  of  the  assessors,  is  to  request  your  Bank  to  furnish  the  assessors 
with  a  list  of  the  stockholders  of  said  Bank,  on  the  1st  day  of  October, 
1829,  residing  in  this  town.  Messrs.  Bulkely,  Parsons,  Burr,  Goodwin, 
Cooke,  Huntington,  Bran,  and  many  others,  are  known  to  possess  stock; 
and,  permit  me  to  lemark,  if  the  tax  is  constitutional,  and  property  of  the 
stockholders  taken,  and  a  suit  commenced,  the  defendants  would  he  en- 
titled to  an  affidavit,  at  the  Bank,  of  the  amount  of  stock  owned  by  the 
individuals  who  seek  redress;  and,  may  I  further  remark,  while  a  belief 
is  so  generally  entertained  that  the  tax  is  lawful,  a  refusal  to  furnish  tlio 
necessary  information,  to  lay  the  tax  justly,  will,  1  fear,  add  to  the  nume- 
rous complaints  against  an  institution  wljich  has  been  of  such  essential 
service  to  the  operations  of  the  General  Government.  I  must  presume 
upon  your  candor  to  believe  that,  in  making  this  request,  1  am  actuated 
by  an  imj)erious  sense  of  duty,  as  assessor  under  oath;  and,  whatever 
may  be  the  result  of  this  inquiry,  I  beg  you  to  rely  upon  my  best  exertions 
to  promote  the  interest  of  the  Brancii  in  this  city. 

I  am,  yours,  most  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

HENRY  L.  ELLSWORTH. 
Nicholas  Biddlb,  Esq.,  President  Bank  of  the  United  States, 


Bank  of  tue  United  Statks, 

December  14,   1829, 

Sir:  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  and  receiving,  submittifjg  to  the  Board, 
the  letter  in  which  you  inform  me  that  the  State  of  Connecticut  has  directed 
the  assessors  to  tax  the  owners  of  stock  in  this  Bank,  and,  lor  that  purpose, 
you  request  to  be  furnished  with  a  list  of  the  Stockholders  of  the  Baidv,  on 
the  1st  of  October,  1829,  residing  in  your  town. 

The  Board  are  always  desirous  to  avoid  giving  unnecessary  trouble  in 
the  execution  of  the  laws  of  the  States,  and  your  letter  was  accordingly 


S92  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

submitted  to  the  counsel  of  the  Bank,  Mr.  Sergeant,  to  know  how  far  it 
would  be  advisable  to  comply  with  your  request.  His  opinion  is,  insul>- 
staiice,  this — 

The  general  rule  and  practice  of  the  Bank  is,  to  furnish  evidence  when 
called  upon  by  a  judicial  tribunal,  and  not  otherwise.  This  is  the  only 
sale  rule,  from  which  it  would  be  inconvenient  and  hazardous  to  depart.  On 
the  present  occasion,  the  measure  requested  would  be  a  voluntary  interfer- 
ence by  the  Bank,  to  assist  in  enforcing  the  penal  enactments  of  a  State 
law,  and  detecting  delinquents — a  position  which  the  Bank  should  abstain 
from  assuming  towards  its  stockholders. 

The  Board  concur  in  these  views,  and  instruct  me  to  decline  acceding  to 
your  request  for  a  list  of  stockholders. 

It  is,  I  am  sure,  superfluous  to  add,  that  this  decision  is  the  result  ot  ge- 
neral considerations,  and  that  it  would  be  more  gratifying  to  us  to  accede, 
if  it  were  deemed  proper,  to  any  request  from  one  who  has  been  so  long, 
and  so  advantageously  known  to  the  Board. 
Vei'y  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 

Henky  L.  Ellswokth,  Esq.  Hartfordf  Conn. 


No.  44. 

Examination  of  William  Fry. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle,  the  President  of  the  Bank.  Are  you  a  printer, 
and  have  you  done  the  printing  for  the  Bank? 

Answer.  I  am  a  printer.  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  doing  the  print- 
ing for  the  Bank,  more  or  less,  since  its  establishment. 

Quetion  by  Mr.  Biddle.  Do  you  recollect  my  applying  to  you  to  print 
the  Reports  to  Congress  of  Mr.  McDuffie  and  Smith?  If  yea,  state  what 
occurred. 

Answer.  I  do.  On  the  reports  being  shown  to  mo,  by  Mr.  Biddle,  I 
told  him  I  had  sold  my  book  printing  office.  1  was  still  glad,  however,  to 
get  em]>loyment  for  it;  for  it  increased  the  ability  of  the  ])urchasers  to  pay 
me.  I  am  not  sure  whether  I  gave  Mr.  Biddle  an  estimate  of  the  cost 
at  that  interview.  I  sent  one  of  the  purchasers  of  my  printing  office  to 
Mr.  Biddle.  They  went  on  with  the  job,  I  forget  at  what  price;  but  one 
of  the  ])art  es  has  since  complained  to  me  of  not  being  compensated  for  his 
trouij>lc,  to  the  extent  he  thought  it  deserved.  The  printers  were  William 
Garden  and  John  Thompson. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  Did  any  thing  occur  between  us  which  in- 
duced you  to  suppose  I  had  ever  known  tliese  persons  before? 

Answer.  From  all  that  paSvSed  at  that  interview  I  had  not  the  slightest 
reason  to  suppose  Mr.  Biddle  knew  any  thing  of  these  parties. 

Question  by  Mr.  Biddle.  From  any  thing  that  passed  at  that  interview 
had  you  any  reason  to  suppose  I  knew  of  the  existence  of  a  newspaper 
called  the  Mechanics'  Free  Press  ? 

Answer.  I  am  perfectly  convinced,  without  a  distinct  recollection  of 
the  manner  in  which  I  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion,  that  at  that  time  Mr. 
Biddle  knew  nothing  of  such  a  paper.     I  will  add,  tliat  I  believe  it  was 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  293 

subsequently,  and  while  they  were  doing  the  work,  I  informed  Mr.  Biddle 
frf"  the  existence  of  such  a  paper,  and  that  Garden  and  Thompson  were  the 
printers  of,  it.  They  were  merely  printers  of  it,  and  had  no  concern  in,  or 
influence  over  it.  1  have  always  understood  that  they  were  the  mere  em- 
ployed  printers. 

Question  hy  Mr.  Clayton.  Had  these  printers  before  that  tiiri*  evqf 
published  any  thing  against  the  Bank?  ,    , 

Answer.  I  do  not  know  accurately,  hut  I  believe,  from  a  conversation 
1  have  since  had  with  one  of  the  Editors,  that  they  had  been  squibbing 
against  the  Bank. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Have  they  published  any  thing  since  that 
time  in  its  favor? 

Answer.     I  cannot  say. 


294 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


SALES  of  United  States^  Bank  Shares — with  dividend  to  the  buyer. 


18^4.' 

Dec  10 

To  Buckner 

1,00C 

Shares  at 

119.i 

P.  &  D.  with  6  p.  ct.  int. 

Jan.  20. 

<  < 

Do. 

lOG 

« « 

119  J 

Opn.  of  B.      5        do. 

53  days. 

( < 

Nathan 

.     200 

« 

119i 

Do.            5        do. 

60  days. 

' « 

Warren 

200 

<  ( 

119i 

Do.            5        do. 

41  days. 

♦-'   11 

Warren     » 

100 

>  i  c 

119i 

Do.            5        do. 

Jan.  10. 

"   15 

Warren  &  son 

150 

1 1 

im 

With            5        do. 

Opening. 

*•   16 

R.  Wells 

100 

4  t 

119J 

Do.            6        do. 

Jan.  10. 

1  < 

Buckner 

500 

<  ( 

119^ 

Do.            6        do. 

7. 

" 

Nathan 

100 

<  1 

n9i 

Do.            6        do. 

10. 

( < 

Huntington 

150 

(  1 

119i 

Do.            e        do. 

10. 

c«  IT' 

J.  Waid,  &  Co. 

50 

«  ( 

119^ 

Cash 

Dec.  18. 

i  ( 

Do. 

150 

t  < 

119i 

With          5  p.  ct.  int. 

Opening. 

( < 

J.  G.  Warren 

&Son 

200 

f( 

119| 

Do.            5        do. 

Do. 

'•   18 

Laurence,&Co. 

25 

(« 

119| 

Do.            5        do. 

Do. 

(  r 

Do. 

25 

«  « 

120 

Do.            5        do. 

Do. 

t  * 

Allen 

50 

4< 

119^ 

Do.            5        do. 

Do. 

"  20 

J.  Ward,  8c  Co. 

1,000 

(  < 

119i 

Do.            5        do. 

Jan.  24  to 
Feb.  5. 

(  c 

Huntingdon 

200 

(  C 

119i 

Do.            5        do. 

Jan.  20. 

<  1 

W.  Lavvten,  & 

Co. 

50 

1  i 

119i 

Do.            5        do.   ■) 

Jan.  25  to 
Feb.  1. 

( « 

Bebee 

50 

*  ' 

119^ 

Do.            5        do.    C 

t  ( 

R.  Wells 

50 

1   ( 

119^ 

Do.            5        do.  3 

(  1 

Camman 

50 

t  1 

119^ 

Cash. 

(   4 

Rengoyne 

150 

<  ( 

119i 

With  6  per  ct.  interest 

Opening, 

''  22 

Buckner 

500 

(  ( 

119^ 

And  5  per  ct.  int.  at  our 
option,  giving  10  days 
notice 

Jan.  3  to 
Feb.  1. 

'*   24 

G.  Graham 

100 

/  ♦ 

119i 

Cash. 

5,250 

By  Dana  &  Fenno, 

Boston. 

«'   24 

, 

200 

Shares  at 

119 

Cash  in  Boston                « 

Jan.  6. 

t '. 

. 

400 

( ( 

119i 

.            -            . 

Do. 

1 1 

_ 

400 

1  ( 

119f 

-            -            - 

Do. 

< « 

To  a  Company 

4,750 

( < 

118i 

Paid  and  delivered  at  buy- 
er's option  on  or  before 
the  1st  March  next,  with 

interest  at  5  per  ct.from 

Shares, 

11,000 

Ist  January. 

E.  E. 

Ne-w  Youk,  December  24,  1824. 


PRIME,  WARD,  SANDS,  KING  &  CO. 


MsKORAVDTTMc 

For  the  opening 

41  to  60  days  from  10th  Dec. 
January    7  -  - 

Do.         10 
Do.         20 
At  sellers*  option  from  January  3,  to  February  1 
buvers's  option         do.         24,  do.  5 

Do.  do.         25,  do.         6 

In  Boston  from  3d  to  6th  January         -  - 

To  a  Company  at  buyers*  option,  payable  and  deliverable  on  or  be 
fore  the  1st  March  next,  with  interest  at  5  per  ct.  from  1st  Jan. 


U.  B.  Dividend  to  the  buyer. 


950  Shares. 

500     Do. 

500     1)0. 

450     Do. 
1,200     Do. 

500  giving  10  days  notice. 
1,000  Do. 

150  Do. 

1.000  Do. 


4,750 


11,000  Shares. 


« 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  S8»*/ 


BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


Mat  11,  1832. 


REPORT  OF  THE  MINORITY, 

Mr.  McDuPFiE,  from  the  Select  Com mittqje  appointed  to  examine  the  books 
and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  submitted  the  follow* 
ing  as  the  views  of  the  minority  of  the  said  committee; 

The  minority  of  the  Committee  appointed  to  examine  the  books  and  pro- 
cfeedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  dissenting  from  the  report  of 
the  majority,  beg  leave  to  present  the  grounds  of  their  dissent  for  the  coi> 
sideration  of  the  House. 

The  majority  of  the  committee  have  submitted,  without  expressing  any 

decided  opinion  on  them,  six  cases  which  they  allege  to  have  become  sub» 

jects  of  imputation  against  the   bank   touching   the  violation   of  its  charterj 

The  first  of  these  cases  relates  to  usurious  loans,  and  occurred  as  far  back 

as  1822,  during  the  presidency  of  Mr.  Cheves.     The  Branch  Bank  atLex^ 

ington   had  received  a  large  amount  of  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Kentucky, 

a  portion  of  them  as  Government  deposites.     These  notes  were  considera-' 

bly  depreciated.     The  branch  having  declined  issuing  any  of  its  own  notes, 

in  obedience  to  orders  of  the  mother  bank,  an  individual  applied  for  a  loan 

of  these  depreciated  bank  notes,  alleging  that  he  wanted  them  to  pay  a  debt, 

and  that  they  would  answer  his  purpose  as  well  as  any  other  bills.     The 

loan  was  granted.     The  Bank  of  Kentucky  was,  at  the  time,  regularly  pay»- 

ing  to  the  branch   interest  on  these  notes,  and  finally  redeemed  all  that  re^ 

mained,  a  few  months  after  the  loan  in  question.     It  thus  appears  that  thes© 

bills  were  as  good  as  cash  to  the  bank,  and  the    borrower  alleged  that  they 

were  of  equal  value  to  him.     It  is  difficult  to  conceive  any  solid  ground  for 

considering  this  a  case  of  usury.     It  would  be   as  reasonable  to  say  that  it 

would  have  been  usury  for  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  itself,  to  make  a  loan  of 

ts  own  depreciated  notes.     The  utmost  fairness  was  exhibited  by  the  branch 

ank  in  this  transaction;  the  loan   was  made  with  reluctance  after  repeated 

^plications,  and  yet  the  directors  of  the  mother  bank,  many  years  afcep- 

ards,  and  since  Mr.  Biddle  has  been  at  the  head  of  the  institution,  refund^ 

to  the  borrower  of  the  Kentucky  notes  the  full  amount  of  the  difference 

jween  their  nominal  and  their  real  value  at  the  time  of  the  loan,  with 

i^rest.     This  has  been  also  done  in  another  similar  case;  so  that,  in  the 

Ot-  two  cases  which  have  been   brought  to  the  view  of  the  directors  at 

J  adelphia,  for  the  purpose  of  having  the  amount  of  the  depreciation  r&. 

jy.3d,  the  application  has  been  granted  with  a  promptness  and  liberality 

'^ty  creditable  to  the  institution, 

38 


/ 

'  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

/ 

/minority  of  the  committee  will  barely  remark,  upon  these  transatJ- 

/  that,  being  free  from  all  imputation  of  intentional  usury,   and  never 

/ng  been  sanctioned  by  the  directors  of  the  mother  bank,  but,  on  the 

Co/trary,  corrected,  they  cannot  furnish  the  slightest  ground  for  alleging 

(hat  the  charter  has  been  violated. 

The  second  ground  of  imputation,  noticed  by  the  majority  of  the  commit- 
tfee,  is,   "the  issuing  of  branch  orders  as  circulation." 

On  this  point,  the  minority  deem  it  sufficient  to  remark,  that  a  branch 
(Jirder  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  draft  or  bill  of  exchange  drawn  by  a 
Branch  upon  the  mother  bank;  and  that  the  charter  expressly  authorizes, 
as  one  of  the  primary  operations  of  the  bank,  the  buying  and  selling  of  bills 
of  exchange.  If  the  bank  has  a  right  to  issue  these  drafts  at  all,  it  cannot, 
fUrely,  be  made  a  ground  of  just  complaint  against  it  that  they  are  used  as 
circulation.  That  is  exclusively  the  affair  of  the  community.  The  bank 
cannot  be  justly  made  responsible  for  the  use  which  the  public  may  choose 
to  make  of  these  drafts.  It  is  the  high  credit  of  the  bank  that  gives  the 
Character  of  circulation  to  this  paper;  and  it  is  the  voluntary  act  of  the  com^ 
munity  to  receive  it  as  such. 

In  fact,  there  is  no  part  of  the  bank  circulation  which  has  been  so  benefi- 
d!al  to  the  public.  It  has,  in  practice,  furnished  the  southern  and  western 
States  with  the  means  of  effecting  their  exchange  with  the  north  without 
any  expense  whatever. 

It  may  be  well  doubted,  however,  whether  an  extensive  and  permanent: 
rssue  of  these  drafts  might  not  prove  very  inconvenient  to  the  bank  itself 
In  a  certain  state  of  the  domestic  exchanges,  and  it  would  be,  therefore,  a 
judicious  measure  to  supersede  the  necessity  in  which  these  drafts  original 
ted,  by  authorizing  other  officers  than  the  president  and  cashier  of  the  moth- 
er bank   to  sign  notes  for  circulation. 

The  third  ground  of  imputation,  as  relates  to  the  violation  of  the  charter, 
is,   **  the  selling  of  coin,  particularly  American  coin." 

The  minority  would  respectfully  suggest  that  the  majority  have  entirely 
(Overlooked  the  nature  and  essential  purposes  of*  the  bank.  It  may  be  well 
defined  to  be  "an  institution  established  for  the  purpose  of  dealing  in  mo- 
ney." Now,  money  is  a  current  coin;  yet,  a  committee  of  Congress  very 
gravely  bring  it  forward  as  a  charge,  touching  the  violation  of  its  charter, 
too,  that  it  has  been  guilty  of  dealing  in  current  coins,  and,  particularly, 
American  coins,  the  very  end  for  which  it  was  created. 

As  relates  to  dealing  in  current  coin,    the  right  to  do  so  is  involved  i 
fhe  right  of  lending  money  and  of  receiving  it  buck.     The  authority  tode 
in  bullion  is  expressly  granted  in  the  charter,  because  bullion  is  not  curre 
Coin,  and,  of  course,  the  right  to  deal  in  it  is  not  necessarily  involved  in  1* 
right  of  carrying  on  banking  operations. 

The  fourth  ground  of  imputation  is  ''the  sale  of  stock,  obtained  fr"^ 
Grovernment,  under  special  acts  of  Congress." 

'i  his  charge  is,  if  possible,  -more  extraordinary  than  the  last.  If  the  -^ 
of  Congress,  which  expressly  authorized  the  bank  to  subscribe  for  Go'^n- 
ment  stock,  had  any  meaning  at  all,  they  certainly  meant  to  authoriz';ne 
bank  to  acquire  the  right  of  property  in  the  stock  for  which  it  was  aut^iz- 
edto  subscribe.  The  right  to  sell  this  stock  at  pleasure,  is  of  the  ve  es- 
sence of  the'right  of  prpperty,  and  is  as  clearly  conveyed  to  the  corp^^o^ 
by  the  act  authorizing  a  subscription,  as  the  right  to   receive  the  inte't- 

The  right  to  sell,  therefore,  is  indisputable. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  29^9 

But  the  majority  of  committee  'seem  to  suppose  that  the  policy  which 
forbids  the  bank  to  speculate  in  stocks,  with  its  immense  resources,  by 
which  the  price  might  be  "raised  and  depressed  at  pleasure,"  equally  for- 
bade the  bank  to  sell  the  stock  for  which  it  had  subscribed  by  the  express 
authority  of  the  Government.  Now,  it  is  apparent  that  the  evil  of  dealing 
in  stocks,  by  such  an  institution, "can  only  exist  in  cases  of  buying  andselT- 
ing  stocks  at  the  pleasure  of  the  bank.  To  raise  and  depress  prices,  the 
bank  must  have  the  right  both  to  buy  and  to  sell  alternately,  as  may  suit 
its  purposes  of  speculation.  But  it  has  never  pretended  to  claim,  much  less  to 
exercise,  the  right  of  buying  Government  stocks,  except  under  the  express 
authority  of  Congress,  and  by  an  express  stipulation  with  the  Treasury  De*- 
partment.  And  after  it  has  obtained  a  large  amount  of  Government  stocks 
in  this  mode,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  it  could  raise  the  price  of  these 
stocks  by  coming  into  the  market  as  a  seller,  or  how  it  could  promote  the 
purposes  of  a  stock-jobbing  speculation,  by  depressing  the  price,  the  only 
effect  which  could  result  from  offering  them  for  sale.  When  these  stocks 
were  sold  in  1825,  there  was  an  extraordinary  pressure  upon  the  money 
market  of  the  whole  commercial  world.  They  constituted  the  very  re* 
source  which  the  bank  most  required  in  such  an  emergency;  audit  is  now 
matter  of  history,  that  it  was  partly,  by  the  wise,  judicious,  and  timely  use 
of  this  resource,  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  averted  from  this  coun- 
try the  calamity  of  a  general  failure  of  the  banks,  and  a  widely  extended 
Scene  of  commercial  bankruptcy. 

The  majority  of  the  committee  seem  to  regard  it  as  a  matter  of  complaint, 
that  the  Government  permitted  the  bank  to  subscribe  for  these  stocks  in  pre^ 
ference  to  individuals.  If  this  is,  indeed,  a  just  cause  of  complaint,  it  should- 
be  made  against  the  Government,  and  not  against  the  bank.  When  Con- 
gress expressly  authorizes  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  obtain  a  loan 
Irom  the  bank,  and  the  Secretary  stipulates  the  terms  for  that  loan,  it  is  im* 
possible  to  conceive  how  any  blame  can  be  imputed  to  the  bank,  if  it  faith* 
fully  performs  its  engagements. 

The  fifth  ground  of  imputation  presented  in  the  report  of  the  majority, 
£s,  "making  donations  for  roads,  canals,  and  other  objects." 

In  two  instances,  the  directors  subscribed  small  sums  to  certain  internal 
improvements  in  the  vicinity  of  the  real  estate  of  the  bank.  This  they  did 
in  the  exercise  of  their  proprietary  right,  and  with  a  view  to  the  improve* 
ment  of  the  value  of  their  property.  For  this  exercise  of  power,  they  are 
responsible  to  the  stockholders  alone;  and  the  question  is,  whether  they 
have  or  have  not  made  a  proper  application  of  the  funds  of  the  corporation,  • 
with  a  view  to  the  promotion  of  its  interests?  To  what  extent  the  value  of 
the  real  estate  of  the  bank  has  been  increased,  by  the  internal  improvements 
in  question,  has  not  been  ascertained;  but  it  may  be  well  supposed  that  it 
exceeds  the  sum  appropriated  by  the  directors  to  aid  in  the  construction  of 
these  improvements. 

The  other  "donations"  to  which  the  report  refers,  consist  of  small  sums 
crontributed  to  fire  insurance  companies  for  the  safety  of  the  bank  property, 
and  against  which  it  is  not  pretended  that  any  objection  can  be  fairly  raised* 
The  last  ground  of  imputation,  as  touching  the  violation  of  the  chai  ter, 
is,  "building  houses  to  rent  or  sell,  and  erecting  other  structures  in  aid  of 
that  object." 

The  bank  is  expressly  authorized  to  purchase  real  estate  which  has  been 
mortgaged  to  secure  debts  previously  contracted,  and,  also,  such  as  may  he 


300  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

s6ld  under  judgments  and  executions  in  its  own  favor.  In  the  exercise  of 
this  right,  the  debtors  of  the  bank  are  as  much  interested  as  the  bank  itselC 
For  it  must  be  apparent,  that,  if  the  bank  were  not  permitted  to  bid  at  these 
sales,  the  property  of  its  debtors  would  be  frequently  sacrificed  at  a  sum 

f'eatly  below  its  value.  It  has  been  only  for  the  purpose  of  saving  itself 
om  loss,  and  the  property  of  its  debtors  from  being  thus  sacrificed,  that 
the  bank  has  ever  purchased  any  real  estate,  except  what  has  been  necessa- 
ry for  its  banking  houses.  There  is  no  description  of  property  which  a 
banking  indtitulion  is  so  unwilling  to  own  as  real  estate.  Such  an  institu- 
tion is  entirely  unsuited  to  the  management  of  such  property — as  much  so  ag 
a  farmer  would  be  to  manage  the  discounts  of  a  bank. 

Owing  to  the  extensive  failures  of  the  persons  indebted  to  the  bank  in 
fhe  western  country,  prior  to  1S19,  the  directors  were  unavoidably  compel- 
led to  take  a  very  large  quantity  of  real  estate,  as  the  only  means  af  avoid- 
ing still  greater  losses  than  they  have  actually  sustained.  They  have  dis- 
posed of  this  estate  as  rapidly  as  they  could,  consistently  with  the  interests 
of  the  institution.  On  a  portion  of  it,  they  have  erected  improvements  to 
prepare  it  for  sale,  and  by  means  of  which  they  will  save  the  stockholders 
irom  a  great  portion  of  the  loss  which  would  have  otherwise  occurred,  and 
will  recover  a  large  amount  of  the  debts  which  were  some  years  ago  se£ 
down  as  desperate.  If,  for  this  course  of  conduct,  the  directors  are  render- 
ed obnoxious  to  censure,  then  will  they  be  condemned  for  the  very  faith- 
fulness of  their  stewardship.  It  is  too  obvious  to  require,  or  to  justify  the 
use  of  argument,  that  the  right  ofthebankto  improve  its  real  estate,  is  inse» 
parably  connected  with  the  right  to  purchase,  to  hold,  or  to  own  it.  On  this- 
subject,  the  House  is  referred  to  the  exposition  of  the  president,  marker!  A, 
The  next  subject  to  which  the  report  of  the  majority  adverts,  is  the  loan  to 
James  Watson  Webb  and  Co.  It  is  prroper  to  remark,  in  the  first  place, 
tliat  the  only  sums  ever  loaned  to  this  copartnership,  were  the  sums  of 
twenty  and  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  the  former  in  August,  and  the  lat- 
ter in  December,  1831.  It  is  also  proper  to  remark,  that  the  first  sum  was 
reduced  to  ^18,000,  at  the  maturity  of  the  note^iven  for  it;  and  that  the  latter 
,  sum  was  entirely  paid  ofli,  in  iVIarch  last,  by  Mr.  Webb;  and,  as  he  express- 
ly states  on  oath,  without  being  requested  by  the  bank  to  do  so.  The  whole 
amount  of  the  accommodations  ever  obtained  from  the  bank,  by  JVlessr^ 
Webb  and  Noah,  was  ^35,000,  and  the  whole  amount  now  due  by  them, 
if  gl8,000. 

The  grounds  and  securities  upon  which  these  accommodations  were  grant- 
ed, will  now  be  stated.  Mr.  Webb  produced  to  the  directors  a  full  state- 
ment of  the  afiairs  of  the  copartnership,  setting  forth  the  value  of  their 
property,  and  the  annual  income  derived  from  their  paper.  From  this  state- 
ment, which  was  authenticated  by  the  oath  of  their  book-keepers,  it  appear- 
ed that  the  nkt  annual  income  of  the  paper,  from  advertisements  and  sub- 
scriptions, was  $^5,150,  after  deducting  ten  per  cent,  for  bad  debts,  and  de- 
fraying all  the  expenses  of  their  establishment.  Upon  the  whole,  it  ap- 
peared that  this  was  one  of  the  most  profitable,  as  it  is  certainly  the  largest 
commercial  newspaper  in  the  Union,  with  an  immense  advertising  patron? 
age,  and  a  large  and  rapidly  increasing  subscription  list 

With  these  exhibits,  Mr.  Webb  produced  the  letter  of  Mr.  Walter  Bowne, 
mayor  of  the  city  of  New  York,  and  formerly  a  director  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  a  man  of  wealth  and  high  character,  enclosing  the  appli. 
(j^tionfor  the  loan,  and  stating  that  "he  did  so  with  pleasure,  and  saw  np 


[  Rep.  No.  4e0.  ]  301 

reason  against  this  being  treated  as  a/«i>  business  transaclwn.'^  Several 
of  the  directors,  as  well  as  th&  president  of  the  bank,  were  examined,  on 
oath,  in  relation  to  this  transaction,  and  as  the  clearest  mode  of  exhibiting 
its  true  character  to  the  House,  extracts  from  these  examinations  will  be 
given. 

The  following  is  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Biddle  relative  to  these  loans. 

Question. — **Did  you  consider  the  loans  made  to  James  Watson  Webb 
&  Co.  fair  business  transactions,  such  as  you  could  not  refuse  without  subj 
jecting  the  bank  to  the  imputation  of  indulging  political  partiaMty?  State 
fully  the  views  and  considerations  on  which  you  voted  in  favar  of  those 
loans. 

Answer. — **I  certainly  considered  them  as  fair  business  transactions,  or 
I  should  not  have  consented  to  them.  At  the  request  of  the  committee,  I 
will  explain  the  reasons  of  that  opinion. 

If,  in  making  loans,  every  transaction  was  perfectly  safe,  and  every  bor- 
rower perfectly  good,  banking  would  be  an  easy  office;  but  as  men  generally 
borrow  to  employ  the  funds  in  some  profitable  pursuit,  subject,  of  course, 
to  vicissitudes,  all  that  can  be  expected  in  making  loans  is  a  fair  and  reason- 
able caution  as  to  the  situation  and  prospects  of  the  borrower.  Tried  by 
these,  the  only  tests,  I  think  the  loans  in  question  are  unexceptionable.  The 
first  was  done  by  a  board  of  directors,  consisting,  besides  the  "presiding  offi- 
cer, of  six  gentlemen,  Mr.  Lippincott,  Mr.  Fisher,  Mr.  Bohlen,  Mr.  Neff, 
Mr.  Piatt,  and  Mr.  Willing,  merchants  and  men  of  business,  with  no  par- 
tialities towards  the  applicants,  with  whom  none  of  them  had  the  least  ac- 
quaintance. The  grounds  of  their  judgment  may  be  thus  stated.  In  mak- 
ing ordinary  loans,  the  board  judge  by  the  general  standing  of  parties  with- 
out any  examination  of  their  affairs.  But  in  this  case  the  parties  began  by 
an  exposition  of  their  whole  situation.  This  was  forwarded  by  Walter 
Bovvne,  esq.  the  mayor  of  the  city  of  New  York,  where  the  applicants  re- 
sided, who,  in  addition  to  his  being  personally  known  and  respected  by  all 
the  members,  had  been  one  of  the  oldest  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  arid,  for  many  years,  sat  at  the  board  around  which  the  directors  were 
then  assembled.  In  his  letter,  he  says,  **  I  cheerfully  forward  [the  papers,] 
and  I  see  no  reason  against  this  application  being  treated  as  a  fair  business 
transaction.^'  He  does  not  expressly  say  it  ought  to  be  granted,  because  he 
transmits,  at  the  same  time,  some  of  the  materials  on  which  the  directors 
were  to  form  their  own  judgment,  to  which  others  were  added  by  Mc 
Webb.  But  when  an  old  director  of  the  bank  forwards  "cheerfully^'  an 
application  to  his  ancient  colleagues,  which  he  says  should  be  treated  as  *'a 
fair  business  transaction,"  it  implies  certainly  no  responsibility;  but  it  may 
be  well  regarded  as  a  declaration,  that,  were  he  still  a  member  of  the  board, 
he  would  sanction  it.  Under  these  auspicies,  the  board  proceeded  to  consider 
it. 

One  of  the  parties  had  been  appointed  by  the  President  and  Senate  of  the 
United  States  to  a  confidential  and  lucrative  pokst  under  the  Government; 
the  other  had  already  invested  jg33/)00  in  the  paper,  and  his  father-in-law, 
Mr.  Stewart,  whose  letter  accompanied  the  application,  was  known  to  be  a 
wealthy  man.  Both  were  considered  men  of  talents  and  peculiar  aptitudt 
for  the  business  in  whichthey  were  engaged.  Then,  what  was  that  business? 
It  was  the  conducting  of  the  largest  newspaper  in  the  country,  requiring, 
of  course,  considerable  means,  and  giving  employment  to  a  great  mass  of  ac- 
tive industry.     Its  situation  was  represented  to  be  this: 


302  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Mr.  Webb  declared  that  there  were  then  3,300  daily  subscribers,  at 

^10      -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  ^33,000 

2,300  others,  at  an  average  of  $4  50         -  -  -  .     10,350 

275  yearly  advertisers,  at  $30       -  -  -  .  .       8  250 

aUO  days' advertising,  at  ;g55  per  day       .  *  ,  »     17,05Q 


Making     -----..     68,650 

Deducting  from  this,  10  per  cent,  on  the  daily  subscriptions  and 
advertisements,  (of  which  about  one-sixth  is  paid  in  advance,) 
say       ------  -    5,830 

And  20  per  cent,  on  the  other  subscribers,  say    •  -    2,070 


7,900 


There  remains  a  gross  income  of  •  *  ,  -     60,750 

The  annual  expenses  were  stated  at  •»  -  -  -     35,000 


Leaving  a  nett  annual  income  of  -  -  -  .     25,750 

This  statement  is  confirmed  by  the  affidavits  of  the  book-keepers  and 
pressmen  of  the  establishment. 

The  total  value  of  the  paper  was  thus  stated:  James  Watson  Webb  had 
invested  in  it  ^§3,000,  for  which  $40,000  had  been  offered,  provided  the 
other  half  could  be  had  for  ^25,000.  This  he  declined,  but  it  was  men- 
tioned to  prove  that  the  whole  might  have  been  sold  for  -     ^65,000 

Then  it  was  an  improving  establishment. 
It  had  owed  a  debt  to  ihe  banks  of  1  5,000,  which  it  had  paid  off  in 
April  and  May,  1831,  out  of  the  collections   of  the   last  six 
months,  which  had  amounted  to  -  -  -  -     20,000 

It  had,  in  1829,  owed  a  total  debt   of  29,000  which  it  had  since 
paid  off.    And,  at  the  present  moment,  its  outstanding  claims  were 

more  than  its  debts  by  -  ...  -      10,000 

For  its  responsibilities  and  means  stood  thus — 
Outstanding  debts  in   the  country  more   than   25,000,  of  which 

could  be  collected  on  presentation  of  bills,         -  .  -      10,000 

Due  in  New  York  more  than  four  months'  subscription,  which,  with 

the  unpaid  arrears  of  the  last  six  months,  may  be  safely  estimated 

at--------      20,000 

And  the  property  owned  by  the  applicants  amounted  to  -  -       8,000 

Making         38,000 
While  the  whole  amount  of  debt  was      -  ,  -  -      28,000 


Leaving  an  excess  of       --.--.      10,000 
That  they  had  been  deemed  worthy  of  credit  in  New  York,  appeared  from 
tvvo  facts : 

1.  That  the  banks  of  New  York  had  lent  them  15,000,  which  they  had 
repaid . 

2.  That  the  respectable  mercantile  houses  of  J.  L.  &  J.  Joseph  &  Co.,  a 
firm  well  known  to  the  directors,  had  lent  them  §20,000,  which  had  been 
repaid  out  of  the  profits  of  the  establishment,  as  those,  gentlemen  themselves- 
certify  in  a  document  accompanying  the  papers. 

Finally,  they  had  no  accommodation,  direct  or  indirect,  out  of  any  bank. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  303 

The  case  then  stood  thus:  Here  are  two  persons  of  skill  in  their  profession, 
engaged  in  an  establishment  of  which  the  capital  is  65,000 

The  gross  income,  -  -  -  -  -  60,750 

The  expenditures  ...  -  -  85,000 

And  the  nett  income        -----  25,750 

In  conducting  such  a  business,  where  the  receipts  are  semi-annual,  th^ 
payments  daily  and  weekly,  they  naturally  require,  like  other  men  in  busi- 
ness, some  credit.  They  accordingly  apply  to  borrow  20,000  dollars.  They 
wish  to  borrow  it,  not  to  pay  previous  debts,  not  to  spend  it  on  objects  unr 
connected  with  their  business,  but  for  the  purpose  of  employing  it  all  in  a  waj 
to  increase  the  profits  of  the  concern  itself,  by  procuring  a  new  press,  anj 
enlarging  their  means  of  obtaining  early  commercial  information,  and  thy^s 
make  the  paper  more  valuable. 

<'  Now,  the  statements  may  be  presumed  to  present  the  most  favorably 
aspect  of  the  case,  from  the  sanguine  temper  in  which  men  are  prone  to  es- 
timate their  own  professions  an djD respects;  and  yet,  unless  they  were  wholly 
fallacious,  the  board  saw  enough  to  warrant  the  loan.  It  was  further  justi- 
fied by  the  eveijt:  for,  when  the  note  fell  due,  2,000  dollars  were  pai^ 
off  at  a  time  when  the  demand  for  money  induced  man^  other  debtors  io 
a^k  for  a  renewal  of  their  notes. 

<<  So  much  for  the  loan  of  20,000  dollars." 

The  other  loan  rested  on  the  same  principles  as  the  first,  with  this  addi- 
tion: The  parties  stated  that,  owing  to  the  part  which  they  had  taken  in 
'regard  to  the  bank,  they  had  been  deprived  of  their  usual  accommodations 
in  their  business.  Whatever  might  be  the  reason,  the  fact  of  an  abridg- 
ment of  these  facilities  furnished  a  reason  for  extending  the  loan,  in  addir 
(ion  to  the  belief  of  its  safety,  which  was,  that,  by  so  doing,  any  hazard  tp 
the  original  loan  might  be  prevented;  and  the  best  evidence  of  its  security  is, 
that  the  parties  have  since  repaid  the  loan. 

In  regard  to  the  other  loans,  which  appear  in  their  names,  they  were 
given  without  any  knowledge  of  their  bei?ig  discounted  at  the  bank* 
They  were  done  at  the  request  of  a  person  of  undoubted  solidjty,  which  ha» 
been  proved  in  the  most  decisive  way,  by  the  actual  payment  of  the  noteg. 
That  they  were  intended  to  aid  Mr.  Noah,  the  drawer  of  the  notes,  in  purchas- 
ing a  share  in  a  newspaper,  was  stated  at  the  time.  But  that  formed  no  ob- 
jection to  them.  He  borrowed  money,  as  thousands  borrow  money  every 
day,  to  employ  it  in  his  active  business.  If  Mr.  Noahhimself  had  applied  tp 
the  bank  for  a  loan  to  buy  a  share  in  a  newspaper,  and  the  security  w^is 
Satisfactory,  the  purpose  of  the  loan  would  have  made  no  difference.  Nine- 
tenths  of  the  loans  made  of  the  bank,  probably  are  made  to  persons  to  buy 
something,  or  to  pay  for  something  already  bought.  Men  borrow  money 
to  buy  a  share  in  a  ship — a  share  in  a  cargo — a  share  in  a  bank — a  share  i^ 
a  canal — why  not  a  share  in  a  newspaper?  The  bank  had  no  difficulty  about 
the  loan,  because  it  was  thought  secure;  nor  about  the  object,  because  that 
was  not  the  concern  of  the  bank.  It  does  not  inquire,  and  does  not  care, 
where  its  money  goes.  Its  only  anxiety  is,  that  it  should  come  safely 
back;  and  whether,  in  the  interval,  it  is  employed  by  a  merchant  or  a  far- 
mer, or  a  lawyer,  or  an  editor,  is  a  matter  of  which  it  takes  no  cognizance." 
*'  In  respect  to  loans  generally  to  editors  of  newspapers,  the  bank  pro- 
ceeds on  the  principle  of  knowing  no  class  of  citizens,  and  proscribing  non^ 
Even  with  this  rule,  its  situation,  in  regard  to  such  loans,  is  a  little  pe- 
culiar.    From  the  nature  of  iheir  occupations,  editors  engaged  in  the  (jU?- 


304  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

cusslon  of  matters  of  national  concern,  have  generally  expressed  opinioirt 
in  regard  to  the  bank,  and  their  dealings  with  the  bank  render  it  difficult  to 
escape  censure.  When  an  editor,  friendly  to  the  bank,  applies  for  a  loan> 
if  it  is  granted,  it  is  ascribed  to  favoritism;  if  it  is  refused,  the  party  natur- 
ally thinks  it  ingratitude.  When  an  editor,  opposed  to  the  bank,  applies  for 
a  loan,  if  it  is  granted,  it  is  deem-ed  an  attempt  to  influence  him,  while,  if  it 
is  refused^  it  is  called  a  persecution  on  account  of  his  free  opinions.  The 
bank  has  endeavored,  in  these  matters,  rather  not  to  deserve  reproach  than 
to  escape  it.  In  reply  to  that  part  of  the  question  which  relates  to  politics^ 
I  believe  that,  if,  in  granting  the  loans  in  question,  there  was  insensibly 
blended  with  the  mere  business  considerations,  any  political  feeling,  it  was 
probably  this,  that,  charged  as  the  bank  habitually  is,  with  hostility  to  the 
present  administration,  it  was  due  to  the  interest  of  the  stockholders  to  cor- 
rect so  unfounded  an  impression,  when  a  fair  opportunity  occurred  of  giving 
acccanmodation  to  those  who  were  considered  as  the  most  strenuous  and 
efficient  supporters  of  that  administration.  The  directors  of  the  bank  under- 
stand too  little  of  the  subject  to  attempt  to  adjust  the  balance  of  accommo 
dation  to  particular  parties,  nor  have  I,  myself,  ever  had^  even  curiosity 
sufficient  to  notice  it^  until  the  inquiry  of  the  committee  has  suggested  it. 
But,  undoubtedly,  as  the  committee  cannot  fail  to  perceive,  by  far  the 
greatest  amount  of  loans  to  editors,  is  to  the  friends  of  the  present  ad- 
ministration, and  a  large  portion  of  that  to  the  decided  opponents  of  the 

bank." 

Ail  the  directors  who  were  examined,  testified  that  they  granted  thesfe 
loans  under  the  full  belief  that  they  were  safe  loans,  and  Mr.  Cope,  a  gentle- 
man of  intelligence  and  high  character,  gave  the  following  explanation  of 
the  views  and  motives  by  which  he.  was  governed  in  voting  for  the  second 
loan  of  $  15,000. 

<'  Documents,"  said  he,  *«  were  exhibited  to  the  committee,  containing  a 
statement  of  the  means  of  the  parties  to  the  note,  by  which  they  appeared 
to  be  worth  about  ^30,000,  with  a  prosperous  business,  and  a  large  subscrip- 
tion list.  The  loan  was  made,  as  all  other  loans  are  made,  without  any  re- 
gard to  the  politics  or  business  of  the  parties,  but  solely  because  it  was  the 
business  of  the  bank  to  lend  on  adequate  security." 

<<I  was  well  aware,  at  the  time,  that  they  were  partisan  printers,  and  I 
knew  that  if  we  made  the  loan,  it  might  be  ascribed  to  improper  motives, 
and  that  if  we  rejected  it,  it  might  be  said  we  persecuted  the  individuals  on 
account  of  their  politics." 

Such  are  the  grounds  upon  which  the  directors  granted  these  loans  td 
James  Watson  Webb  &  Co. 

It  will  be  readily  perceived  that  the  directors  of  the  bank  were  placed  in 
very  peculiar  circumstances  by  this  application.  They  had  been  accused,  ia 
Tarious  quarters,  of  having  brought  the  power  of  the  institution  to  bear  up- 
on the  politics  of  the  country,  and  particularly  with  having  taken  sides 
aga'nst  the  present  administration.  Having  invariably  pursued  a  course  in 
their  transactions  which  recognized  no  distinction  of  political  parties,  it  was 
very  natural  that,  while  laboring  under  the  imputation  just  stated,  they 
should  have  been  scrupulous  to  avoid  giving  any  color  of  foundation  for  it. 

As  the  evidence  and  recommendation  produced,  satisfied  all  the  directors 
of  the  safety  of  the  loan,  they  could  not  but  feel  that,  if  they  refused  to 
grant  it,  they  would  give  countenance  to  an  imputation  which  they  were 
laudably  anxious  to  avoid. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  305 

It  is  proper  to  add,  that  James  Watson  Webb  &  Co.,  in  their  paper,  the 
Courier  and  Enquirer,  had  declared  themselves  in  favor  of  renewing  the 
charter  of  the  bank  some  months  before  the  application  for  their  first  loan; 
and  that  they  stated  to  the  directors,  on  making  the  application,  that  the  City- 
Bank  of  New  York  had  cut  them  off  from  their  accustomed  facilities,  as  they 
believed,  in  consequence  of  their  espousing  the  cause  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States. 

It  is  also  proper  to  add,  in  this  place,  that  the  loan  of  §17,975,  which  was 
made  in  March,  1831,  was  not  a  loan  to  Webb  &  Noah,  or  to  either  of  them. 
The  money  was  borrowed  by  Silas  E.  Burrows,  a  man  of  large  fortune,  up- 
on his  own  responsibility,  without  the  knowledge  of  either  Webb  or  Noah. 
They  both  testify  that  they  had  never  been  apprised  that  Mr.  Burrows  had 
obtained  this  loan  from  the  bank,  until  a  very  short  time  previous  to  the 
visit  of  this  committee  to  Philadelphia.  They  had,  until  that  time,  been 
under  the  impression  that  the  money  was  obtained  from  the  father  of  Mr. 
Silas  E.  Burrows,  in  Connecticut.  The  following  extract,  from  the  testimo- 
ny of  Mr.  Biddle,  will  exhibit  a  clear  view  of  this  transaction: 

'•  These  notes  were  discounted  by  the  exchange  committee  under  the  re- 
solutions just  referred  to.     They  were  done  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Silas  E. 
Burrows,  of  New  York.     Mr.  Burrowslhad,  sometime  before,' brought  me^ 
particular  letter  of  introduction  from  an  old  friend,  Mr.  Monroe,  the  Ex- 
President.     Mr.  Burrows  had  been  very  liberal  to  Mr.  Monroe  in  his  pecu- 
niary misfortunes,  and  he  had  recently  received  from  the  President  of  the 
United  States  particular  thanks  and  commendations  for  his  generous^  con- 
duct towards  a  Russian  ship  of  war.     I  understood  him  to  be  a  very  rich 
merchant,  of  kind  and  benevolent  disposition,  and  constantly  engaged  in  do- 
ing acts  of  liberality.     In  one  of  his  visits  to  Philadelphia,  he  said  he  was 
desirous  of  befriending  Mr.  Noah,  and  assisting  him  in   the  purchase  of  a 
share  in  a  newspaper,*  and  he  asked  if  the  bank  would  discount  the  notes  of 
these  parties,  adding  that,  although,  as  a  merchant,  he  did  not  wish  to  ap- 
pear as  a  borrower,  or  put  his  name  on  a  paper  not  mercantile,  yet  he  would 
at  any  tiwe  do  so  whenever  it  might  be  necessary  to  secure  the  bank.^' 
<*  The  committee  being  authorized  to  discount  any  paper,  the  security  of 
which  they  might  approve,  agreed  to  do  them.     As  Mr.  Burrows  was  go- 
ing out  of  town,  I  gave  him  the  money  out  of  my  own  funds,  and  the  notes 
were  afterwards  put  in  my  possession.     They  remained  with  me  for  a  long 
time,  as  I  had  no  occasion  to  use  the  funds,  nor  was  it  till  the  close  of  the 
year  that  my  attention  was  called  to  them  by  the  circumstances  that,  as  a 
new  board  of  directors,  and  a  new  committee  of  exchange,  would  soon  be 
appointed,  the  same  committee  which  made  the  loan  should  consummate  it. 
I  had  seen,  also,  in  the  public  prints,  many  reproaches  against  the  bank  for 
lending  money  to  printers  and  editors,  and  I  v/as  unwilling  that  any  loan 
made  by  the  bank  should  seem  to  be  a  private  loan  from  one  of  its  officers. 
Having  no  use  for  the  money,  it  would  have  been  perfectly  convenient  to 
let  the  loan  remain  as  it  was,  but  I  thought  it  right  that  every  thing  done  by 
the  bank  should  always  be  distinctly  known  and  avowed,  and  I  therefore 
gave  the  notes  to  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  Mr.   Thomas  P.  Cope, 
who  entered  them  on  the  books.     On  the  2d  day  of  March,  Mr.   Burrows 
called  at  the  bank,  and  paid  the  notes.     I  ought  to  add  that  the  loan  was  made 
at  the  request  of  Mr.  Burrows,  and  that  neither  I  nor  any  of  the  commit- 
tee had  ever  seen  Mr,  Noah  or  Webb,  or  had  any  communication  with  them, 
39 


806  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

direct  or  indirect,  about  the  loan.     It  was  made  on  the  credit  of  Mr.  Bur- 
rows, who  afterwards  raid  it." 

It  appears  that  Messrs.  Webb  &  Noah  avowed  themselves  in  favor  of  a 
renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on  the  81h  of  April, 
1831.  It  is  difficult,  therefore,  to  conceive  what  possible  influence  could 
have  been  produced  upon  their  course  by  a  loan  to  Mr.  Burrows,  of  which 
they  had  no  knowledge.  It  is  equally  difficult  to  perceive  how. the  loans  of 
August  and  December,  1831,  could  have  had  any  possible  agency  in  pro- 
ducing the  change  which  it  is  alleged  took  place  in  the  course  of  these  edi- 
tors upwards  of  four  months  before.  • 

Under  all  the  circumstances  of  this  case,  the  minority  of  the  committee 
declare,  without  any  reserve,  that  there  is  nothing  in  these  transactions  cal- 
culated to  induce  them  to  doubt  the  honor  and  integrity  of  the  directors, 
and  'this,  they  feel  authorized  to  say,  is  the  opinion  of  a  majority  of  the 
committee,  from  the  opinion  already  publicly  expressed  of  one  of  its  mem- 
bers.* They  also  deem  it  to  be  due  to  the  occasion,  and  to  their  own  sense 
of  justice,  that  they  should  add,  that  they  do  not  believe  there  exists  in  the 
United  States  a  bank  direction  composed  of  more  upright,  independent,  and 
honest  men,  than  that  which  granted  the  loans  in  question. 

Most,  if  not  all  of  them,  are  men  of  independent  fortunes,  having  no  con- 
nection with  politics,  and  being  entirely  independent  of  banks.  They  are 
generally  men  who  are  engaged  in  a  safe  and  successful  business,  with  for- 
tunes, which  they  have  made,  not  by  adventurous  speculations,  but  by 
steady  industry,  and  moderate  but  certain  profits.  This  is,  indeed,  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  merchants  and  capitalists  of  Philadelphia — a  circum- 
stance which  renders  the  location  of  the  bank  in  that  city  peculiarly  fortu- 
nate for  the  stockholders  and  for  the  country. 

The  next  subject  brought  to  the  view  of  the  House,  by  the  report  of  the 
majority,  which  it  is  now  deemed  necessary  to  notice,  is  that  of  the  transac- 
tions of  the  bank  with  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co. 

Mr.  Thomas  Biddle,  the  principal  member  of  the  firm;  is  a  distant  rela- 
tion of  the  president  of  the  bank,  and  it  was  owing  to  this  circumstance, 
probably,  that  his  accounts  underwent  a  most  prying,  not  to  say  inquisitorial, 
examination.  ,  . 

The  first  thing  that  struck  the  attention  of  a  part  of  the  committee,  as 
worthy  of  scrutiny,  was  the  fact  that  this  house  had  obtained  from  the  bank, 
in  August,  1831,  loans  to  the  amount  of  upwards  of  a  million  of  dollars, 
on  a  pledge  of  stocks, — a  sum  which  had  been  gradually  reduced,  however, 
to  about  six  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

On  examination,  it  was  found  that  this  loan  had  been  made  at  the  special 
instance  and  urgent  solicitation  of  the  directors  of  the  bank;  and  that  the 
bank,  and  not  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  was  the  party  accommodated.  The 
Government  having  then  recently  paid  oflf  several  millions  of  its  stock, 
which  the  bank  had  owned,  the  consequence  was,  that  a  large  portion  of  the 
money  capital  of  the  institution  was  rendered  unproductive,  and  it  became  a 
matter  of  great  importance  to  have  it  invested.  In  this  state  of  things,  the 
directors  adopted  a  resolution,  authorizing  the  loan  of  a  large  sum  at  less  than 
the  legal  interest  upon  the  security  of  any  good  stocks.  It  is  to  be  here 
remarked,  that  this  was  that  portion  of  the  capital  of  the  bank  which  had 
never  been  invested,  and  which   it  was  not  deemed  expedient  to  invest,  in 

+  Coi.  R.  M.  Johnson. 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  ]  307 

the  active  business  of  discounts.  The  loan  to  Thomas Biddle  &  Co.,  on  the 
pledge  of  stocks,  was  analogous  to  a  loan  to  the  Government.  The  stocks 
could,  on  any  emergency,  be  sold  and  converted  into  cash;  so  that  this  in- 
vestment had,  in  some  sort,  the  twofold  attribute  of  money  in  the|vaults  of 
the  bank,  to  meet  any  pressing  demands  against  it,  and  money,  at  the  same 
time,  drawing  interest. 

All  the  directors,  who  were  examined  on  the  subject,  stated  that  they  con- 
sidered this  transaction  more  for  the  benefit  and  accommodation  of  the  bank 
than  of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co. ;  and  the  president  of  the  Bank  of  Pennsylvania 
stated,  on  oath,  that  the  bank  over  which  he  presided  would  have  been  very 
glad  to  have  made  large  loans  to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  at  the  same  time,  and 
upon  the  same  terms;  the  board  of  directors  of  that  bank  having  authorized 
such  loans  at  4^  percent. 

There  was  one  occurrence  during  the  examination  of  the  transactions  of 
Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  with  the  bank,  which  merits  particular  notice. 

An  informer  and  witness,  by  the  name  of  Whitney,  who  had  formerly 
been  a  director  of  the  bank,  was  produced,  who  declared,  upon  oath,  that, 
in  May,  1824,  two  of  the  cashiers  of  the  bank,  had  informed  him  that  Thomas 
Biddle&Co.  had  been  in  thehabitof  dra wing  money  out  of  the  bank,  on  ade- 
positeof  stock  in  the  teller's  drawer,  z^^zVAow/jocym^m/ere*/,  and  that  the  pre- 
sident of  the  bank  had  discounted  two  notes,  one  for  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  and 
and  one  for  Charles  Biddle,  without  the  authority  of  the  directors.  This  wit- 
ness stated,  that  he  went  with  these  officers  of  the  bank,  and  examined  the 
teller's  drawer  and  the  discount  book,  and  found  the  facts  which  had  been 
stated  to  him  verified  by  the  examination.  He  also  stated,  to  give  additional 
certainty  to  his  averments,  that  he  made  a  memorandum  at  the  time,  with 
the  dates  of  the  transactions,  which  memorandum  he  produced  to  the  commit- 
tee. Having  thus  unalterably  fixed  the  date  of  the  transaction,  as  if  by  some 
fatalit}^,  he  went  on  to  say  that  he  immediately  proceeded  into  the  room  of 
Mr.  Biddle,  the  president,  and  remonstrated  with  him  against  these  irregu- 
lar proceedings,  and  that  Mr.  Biddle  promised  him  that  they  should  not 
occur  again. 

Mr.  Biddle  was  present  during  the  examination  of  this  witness.     On  that 
day,  being  on  oath,  he  said,  that  he  was  utterly  astonished  at  the  testimony 
of  the  witness,  and  could  only   oppose  to  it  his  solemn  declaration  that 
there  was  not  one  word  of  truth  in  it  from  the  begining  to  the  end.     He 
added,  that,  from  the  relation  in  which  the  witness  stood  to  him,  he  would 
have  sunk  into  the  earth  sooner  than  he   would  have  dared  to  come  to  him* 
with  such  a  remonstrance  as  he  pretended  to  have  made.     The  officers  of; 
the  bank,  from  whom  the  witness  alleged  that  he  derived  this  information,,- 
were  examined,  and  all  of  them  positively  contradicted  him.     They  testi-^ 
fied,  and  demonstrated  from  the  books,  that  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  had  never 
obtained  money,  in  any  instance,  without  paying  interest,  and  that  the  two> 
notes  which   Whitney  asserted  to  have  been  discounted  by  the  president; 
alone,  had  been  discounted  regularly  by  the  directors.  rij 

In  the  interval  between  the  adjournment  of  the  committee,  that  day,  andi 
its  meeting  the  next,  a  member  of  the  board  of  directors  suggested  to  Mr, a 
Biddle,  that  he  was,  about  the  time  of  his  alleged  transaction,  in  the  city  of, 
Washington.  On  examining  the  journals  of  the  board  and  the  letter-boak>;) 
it  was  found  by  entries  and  letters,  that,  for  several  days  previous  to  the  al-r 
leged  interview  between  the  president  and  Whitney,  and  for  several  daysi 


308  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

afterwards,  the  president  was  absent  on  a  visit  to  this  city  on  the  business  of 
the  bank,  and  General  Cadwallader  was  acting  as  president  in  his  place! 

Thus  was  this  artfully  devised  story,  which  was  intended  to  blast  the  re- 
putation of  a  highminded  and  honorable  man,  through  one  of  those  extra- 
ordinary interpositions  by  which  Providence  sometimes  confounds  the 
contrivances  of  the  wicked,  made  to  recoil  upon  the  head  of  its  inventor, 
who  must  for  ever  stand  forth  as  a  blasted  monument  of  the  speedy  and  re- 
tributive justice  of  Heaven. 

The  minority  of  the  committee  will  avail  themselves  of  this  occasion  to 
say,  that  they  had  the  most  conclusive  evidence,  that,  in  all  the  transactions 
of  the  bank  with  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  and  Charles  Biddle,  the  president 
has  been,  not  only  free  from  the  slightest  imputation  of  partiality  or  favorit- 
ism, but  that  his  conduct  has  been  inv^iriably  governed  by  a  nice  and  srupulous 
sense  of  delicacy  and  propriety.  And  this,  they  feel  authorized  to  say,  is 
the  opinion  of  a  majority  of  the  committee.  The  following  resolution  was 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  committee: 

Resolved,  That  the  charges  brought  against  the  president,  of  lending  mo- 
ney to  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  without  interest,  and  of  discounting  notes  for 
that  house,  and  for  Charles  Biddle,  without  the  sanction  of  the  directors,  are 
without  foundation;  and  that  there  does  not  exist  any  ground  for  charging 
the  president  with  having  shown,  or  manifested  any  disposition  to  show, 
any  partiality  to  these  individuals,  in  their  transactions  with  the  bank. 

The  report  of  the  majority,  adverting  to  the  withdrawal  of  specie  from 
the  southern  and  western  branches,  and  the  substitution  of  paper  in  its 
stead,  suggests  a  doubt  whether  this  operation  may  not  be  highly  injurious 
to  the  southern  and  western  States.  So  far  from  concurring  in  this  doubt, 
the  minority  are  of  tho  opinion  that  there  are  no  portions  of  the  Union 
so  much  benefited  by  the  general  operations  of  the  bank  as  the  southwestern 
and  western  States,  and  that  the  change  produced  by  the  bank  in  the  system 
and  in  the  rates  of  domestic  exchange,  has  been  particularly  beneficial  to 
the  whole  of  the  southern  and  western  States.  Connected  with  the  ex- 
change operations  of  the  bank,  the  transmission  of  specie  from  New  Orleans 
to  the  northern  Atlantic  cities,  is  nothing  more  than  a  natural  operation  of 
trade,  carrying  the  specie  imported  at  New  Orleans  to  its  appropriate  mar- 
kets. This  operation  is  carried  on  by  the  bank  instead  of  being  left  to  in- 
dividuals, to  the  undoubted  advantage  of  the  community. 

With  a  view  to  connect  itself  more  completely  with  the  commercial  op- 
erations of  the  country,  the  bank  has  also  deemed  it  expedient  to  deal  freely 
in  foreign  exchange.  It  is  obvious  that  this  branch  of  its  business  is  as  im- 
portant to  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  country,  as  dealing  in  domestic  ex- 
change is  to  our  internal  commerce. 

Having  heretofore  had  large  funds  in  Europe,  and  having  still  extensive 
credits  there,  it  has  been,  and  still  is,  the  policy  of  the  bank  to  afiford  to  the 
mercantile  community  every  facility  for  carrying  on  fpreign  commerce.  At 
the  south,  where  the  staples  of  exportation  are  produced,  it  is  constantly 
in  the  market  as  a  purchaser  of  bills  on  Europe,  to  the  great  benefit  of  the 
planter;  and,  at  the  north,  where  foreign  merchandize  is  imported,  it  is  as 
constantly  in  the  market  as  a  seller,  to  the  like  benefit  of  the  importing  mer- 
chant. In  this  way,  the  price  of  foreign  bills  is  kept  uniform  and  steady, 
and  those  injurious  fluctuations  are  prevented,  which  would  otherwise  ope- 
rate as  heavy  taxes  upon  the  business  classes  of  the  community  for  the  bene- 
fit tvAj  of  private  dealers  in  exchange. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  S09 

The  majority  of  the  committee  have  selected  for  commentary,  a  particular 
branch  of  the  foreign  exchange  business  of  the  bank — that  which  is  connect- 
ed with  the  trade  of  India  and  South  America.  This  subject  has  been  al- 
ready explained  in  another  form,  and  it  will  be  sufFjcient  to  remark  here 
that  it  has  almost  entirely  arrested  the  direct  exportation  of  specie  from  this 
country  to  China,  and  that  it  saves,  to  this  branch  of  our  trade,  the  whole  of 
the  interest  upon  the  entire  amount  of  every  commercial  adventure,  for  at 
least  six  months  out  of  twelve.  On  the  subject  of  the  general  facilities 
which  the  bank  has  afforded  to  the  country  in  the  operations  of  foreign 
commerce,  the  minority  of  the  committee  will  refer  the  House  to  the  per- 
spicuous exposition,  furnished  by  the  President,  of  the  general  operations  of 
the  institution,  marked  A. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  document  that,  during  the  recentpressure  upon 
the  commercial  community  produced  by  the  excessive  imprtations  of  the 
last  two  years,  the  bank  furnished,  since  September  last,  ''from  its  own  ac- 
cumulations and  credits  in  Europe,  the  means  of  remittances,  in  its  own  bills, 
to  the  amount  of  ^5,295,746,  and  parted  with  its  surplus  specie  to  the  amount 
of  five  millions,  making  an  aggregate  contribution  to  our  commerce  of 
^10,295,746." 

The  extent  to  which  these  and  the  other  operations  of  the  bank  must  have 
relieved  the  country,  are  too  obvious  to  require  comment.  Without  this  tem- 
porary relief — and  it  was  only  temporary  relief  that  the  community  required 
— the  greatest  commercial  distress  would  have  probably  ensued.  The  crisis  is 
now  nearly  passed.  The  pressure  on  the  money  market  has,  in  a  great  measure, 
ceased;  commerce  has  had  time  to  correct  its  own  excesses;  importations 
have  been  diminished,  the  unfavorable  state  of  the  foreign  exchanges  no  longer 
exists;  specie  has  ceased  to  flow  from  thfe  country,  and  has  begun  to  flow  into 
it  Since  March  last,  the  specie  in  the  bank  has  increased  more  than  a  mil- 
lion of  dollars,  and  every  thing  is  rapidly  assuming  a  sound  and  healthy 
condition. 

The  majority,  in  the  concluding  part  of  their  report,  intimate  the  opinion 
that  the  bank,  by  its  imprudent  and  excessive  issues,  has  had  a  considerable 
agency  in  producing  the  overtrading  and  excessive  importations  of  the  last 
year. 

Whatever  show  of  plausibility  there  may  be  in  this  opinion,  facts  demon- 
strate that  it  is  entirely  erroneous.  It  will  be  seen  from  the  statements 
herewith  exhibited,  that  the  domestic  discounts  of  the  bank  had  not  in- 
creased perceptibly  from  March,  1829,  to  March,  1S31;  but  that  they 
maintained  an  almost  uniform  level  during  the  whole  of  the  intervening 
period.  The  excessive  importations,  however,  commenced  in  March  and 
Aprilj  1831,  and  must  have  had  their  origin  in  causes  some  months  ante- 
rior. It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  these  excessive  importations  were  not 
produced  by  the  excessive  issues  of  the  bank,  and  must  have  originated  in 
other  causes  connected  with  the  state  of  Europe.  The  more  correct  view 
of  the  subject,  is  to  consider  the  excessive  importations  as  producing  a  state 
of  things  which  rendered  it  necessary  for  the  bank  to  extend  its  discounts, 
with  a  view  to  relieve  the  community  from  the  temporary  pressure  to  which 
it  was  thus  exposed. 

It  80  happened,  that,. at  the  very  time  the  country  stood  most  in  need  of 
bank  accommodations,  the  bank  had  increased  means  and  inducements  te 
extend  those  accommodations.  The  Government  having  paid  off,  within 
the  last  eighteen  months,  ten  millions  of  its  stock,  which  was  held  by  the 


310  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

bank,  the  directors  found  that  if  they  did  not  increase  their  discounts  con- 
siderably, some  millions  of  their  capital  must  be  idle  and  unproductive. 
It  thus  happened  that  the  wants  of  the  community,  the  means  of  the  bank, 
and,  it  may  be  added,  the  obligation  of  the  directors  to  the  stockholders 
and  to  the  community,  all  co-operated  to  call  for  that  extension  of  bank 
accommodations,  which,  so  far  from  having  produced  over-trading  and  ex- 
cessive importations,  has  been  ihe  means  of  correcting  and  mitigating  the 
temporary  evils  and  embarrassments  which  these  irregularities  of  trade 
would  otherwise  have  unavoidably  produced. 

The  minority  of  the  committee  deem  it  to  be  their  indispensable  duty 
to  notice  that  part  of  the  report  of  the  majority  which  institutes  a  compa- 
rison between  the  resources  of  the  bank,  and  the  condition  of  the  country 
in  1819,  and  at  the  present  time.  They  cannot  but  regard  the  comparison 
thus  presented  by  the  report,  as  unfair  and  partial,  and  calculated  to  pro- 
duce impressions  on  the  public  mind  as  absolutely  erroneous  as  they  would 
be  positively  pernicious. 

If  it  had  been  the  design  of  the  majority  to  produce  a  scene  of  general 
embarrassment  and  distress  in  the  commercial  community,  in  the  absence 
of  any  natural  causes  for  such  a  state  of  things,  they  could  not  have  adopt- 
ed a  more  effectual  means  of  accomplishing  such  an  object  than  they  have 
done  in  this  part  of  their  report. 

Fortunately,  however,  for  the  country,  the  commercial  community  of  the 
United  States  has  too  much  intelligence  to  be  thrown  ijito  a  panic  by  the 
loose,  disjointed,  and  garbled  statements,  the  crude  speculations,  and  the 
random  conjectures,  in  which  a  part  of  the  committee  have  thought  it  expe- 
dient to  indulge.  If  a  general  alarm  has  liot  ensued,  producing  a  run  upon 
the  banks,  a  curtailment  of  discounts,  and  a  general  scene  of  failure  and  dis- 
tress, particularly  among  the  Government  debtors  in. our  principal  import- 
ing cities,  it  is  because  the  community  understand  the  subject  better  than  a 
portion  of  the  committee,  and  have  placed  a  proper  estimate  on  their  state- 
ments and  speculations. 

There  are  no  two  periods  of  our  commercial  history  so  utterly  dissimilar 
as  those  which  have  been  selected  for  the  comparison  instituted  by  a  part  of 
the  committee.  In  1819,  the  bank  was  engaged  in  the  painful  but  necessa- 
ry office  of  correcting  a  redundant  and  depreciated  currency,  produced  by 
political  causes,  and  having  scarcely  any  connection  with  the  state  of  trade. 

At  this  moment,  whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary,  our  currency  is  in 
as  sound  a  state  as  that  of  any  country  in  the  world;  and  this  is  conclusively 
proved  by  the  state  of  our  foreign  exchanges,  and  the  relative  value  of  bank 
paper  and  coin  in  our  own  markets.  The  foreign  exchange  is  an  infallible 
barometer  to  indicate  the  soundness  or  unsoundness  of  our  currency.  A 
reference  to  the  state  of  the  exchange  between  this  country  and  Great  Bri- 
tain, at  this  time,  will  furnish  a  conclusive  reply  to  the  charge  brought 
against  the  bank,  of  having  encouraged  over-trading  by  excessive  issues,  and 
a  depreciated  currency.  In  fact,  specie  is  now  flowing  into  the  country  by 
the  natural  course  of  trade,  a  phenomenon  which  is  utterly  inconsistent  with 
the  alleged  depreciation  of  our  currency. 

After  making  a  partial  and  imperfect  statement  of  the  relative  resources 
and  responsibilities  of  the  bank  in  1819,  and  at  the  present  time,  the  report 
expresses  the  opinion  that,  <«at  no  period  in  1819,  when  the  bank  was  very 
near  suspending  payment,  was  it  less  able  to  extend  relief  to  a  suffering 
community,  as  [than]  at  the  present  moment." 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  311 

Now,  the  very  complaint  urged  by  a  part  of  the  committee  qgrainst  trio 
bank  is,  that  it  has  been  too  liberal  in  its  discounts,  or,  in  other  wo^g,  that 
it  has  granted  too  much  relief  to  a  suffering  community  ah^eady;  and  ye^itis 
here  set  down  as  af  subject  of  lamentation  that  the  bank  is  notable  to  extend 
this  relief  still  further!  The  country  has  just  been  laboring  under  a  consi- 
derable, but  temporary  pressure  upon  the  money  mai-ket,  during  which  tl# 
bank,  with  as  much  liberality  as  judgment,  has  put  forth  all  its  resources  to 
sustain  and  relieve  the  commercial  community.  The  crisis  of  this  pressure 
has  already  passed  by,  and  the  necessities  of  the  merchants  for  bank  accom- 
modations are  gradually  diminishing;  and  it  is  precisely  at  this  point  that  a 
pai^of  the  committee,  having  complained  that  the  bank  went  too  far  in  its 
accommodations  when  they  wer-e  necessary,  complain,  also,  that  it  cannot 
go  still  further  now   that  the  emergency  is  passing  away. 

The  actual  resources  of  the  bank  will  now  be  stated,  with  a  view  to  show 
its  perfect  ability  to  meet  all  its  engagements.  The  specie  in  its  vaults  on 
the  first  of  the  present  month,  was  J57,S90,347,  being  upwards  of  a  million 
more  than  it  was  in  March  last. 

There  was  due  then,  from  the  State  banks,  ^726,196.  The  domestic 
bills  of  exchange  held  by  the  bank  on  the  1st  of  May,  amounted  to 
^23,052, 972,  ten  millions  of  which  will  be  paid  in  the  cour'se  of  a  month, 
and  none  of  which  have  a  longer  period  to  run  than  ninety  days.  *  These 
sums  united,  make  \531, 669,515 — a  fund,  tho  greater  part  of  which  may  be 
considered  as  available,  for  any  probable  emergency  of  the  bank,  as  so  much 
specie  in  its  vaults.  These  domestic  bills  of  exchange  are  founded  upon 
the  actual  operations  of  our  internal  tr-ade,  and  are  in  fact,  drawn  in  antici- 
pation of  the  southern  and  southwestern  crops,  which  regularly  arrive  in  the 
northern  and  eastern  cities  in  time  to  pay  them.  They  are  uniformly  and 
promptly  paid  at  their  maturity,  without  any  expectation  of  a  renewed  ac- 
commodation from  the  bank,  as  in  the  case  of  discounted  notes.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  sum  already  stated,  the  bank  has  good  notes  discounted  on  per- 
sonal, and  other  security,  amounting  to  ^47,375,078,  and  real  estate  and 
foreign  bills,  amounting  to  ^3,012,825. 

The  whole  of  the  available  resources  of  the  bank  will  be  thus  seen  to 
amount  to  ^82,057,483,  at  least  one  half  of  which  could,  on  any  emergency, 
be  converted  into  cash,  in  the  course  of  a  (ew  months.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  whole  amount  of  the  responsibilities  of  the  bank,,  including  the  cir- 
culation, foreign  debt,  and  public  and  private  deposites,  amount  to  only 
iS43,6S5,603. 

So  that,  instead  of  being  reduced  to  the  frightful  predicament  of  having 
only  "an  aggregate  of  §9,640,000  to  meet  an  aggregate  responsibility  of 
\g42,643,000,"  which  the  author  of  the  report  might  well  set  down  with 
two  notes  of  admiration,  the  bank  has  undoubted  resources  amounting  to 
^^2,057,438,  to  meet  a  responsibility  of  §43,685,603. 

In  the  actual  state  of  the  country,  it  is  visionary  in  the  extreme  to  ima- 
gine the  bank  is  in  the  slightest  danger  of  being  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
'*  suspending  payment."  The  whole  amount  of  its  circulation  is  now  only 
§22,000,000,  and  this  is  the  only  portion  of  its  responsibility  which  can  be 
properly  taken  into  the  estimate  in  the  view  now  under  consideration. 
The  deposites,  except  in  periods  when  all  commercial  confidence  is  lost,  so 
far  from  being  properly  regarded  as  a  debt  lor  which  the  bank  should  make 
provision,  as  for  its  circulation,  are  universally  considered,  by  all  banks,  as 
a  fund  upon  the  faith  of  which  they  may  safely  issue  their  paper  to  an  eqwal 


312  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

amount  "^♦'liatever  may  be  the  amount  of  the  deposites,  ?.t  any  given  time, 
it  is  a  ^'^^^  calculation,  founded  on  actual  experience,  that  it  will  be  equally 
as  g-^eat  at  any  future  time. 

if  this  were  not  the  case,  the  Government  deposites,  about  which  so  much 
has  been  said,  would  be  of  no  value  to  the  bank;  but,  on  the  conti-ary,  a 
"^ry  great  incumbrance. 

Upon  the  whole,  then,  the  bank  is  not  only  fully  able  to  meet  all  its  en- 
gagements, but  is  in  a  state  of  the  highest  prosperity.  And  it  is  but  bare 
justice  here  to  remark,  that  its  general  operations  have  been  conducted  with 
singular  judgment  and  ability,  in  those  very  p-^rticulars  which  a  part  of  the 
committee  have  selected  as  topics  of  disapprobation  and  censure.  a 

The  minority  of  the  committee  will  barely  advert  to  some  of  the  oiner 
topics  introduced  into  the  report. 

It  is  alleged  that  the  bank  has  given  an  undue  extension  to  its  branches, 
and,  by  some  process  of  reasoning,  difficult  to  comprehend,  it  seems  to  be 
inferred  that  the  alleged  excess  of  the  circulating  medium,  is  owing,  in  part, 
to  that  cause.  ,Jt  is  sufficient  to  remark,  on  this  point,  that  the  greatest 
improvement  which  has  been  made  in  the  administration  of  the  bank,  and 
that  which  gives  it  its  true  federal  character,  has  been  effected  by  the  esta- 
blishment of  branches  wherever  the  commerce  of  the  country  required  them; 
and  by  the  system  of  exchange  operations  which  these  branches  have  ena- 
bled the  bank  to  cairry  into  eflect. 

The  whole  business  of  dealing  in  domestic  bills  of  exchange,  so  essential 
to  the  internal  commerce  of  the  country,  has  been  almost  entirely  brought 
about  within  the  last  eight  years.  In  June,  1819,  the  bank  did  not  own  a 
single  dollar  of  domestic  bills;  and  in  December,  1S24,  it  owned  only 
to  the  amouHt  of  §2, 378, 980;  whereas  it  now  owns  to  the  amount  of 
323,0,52,972. 

The  opinion  of  Mr.  Cheves,  in  1819,  is  adverted  to  in  the  report,  to 
prove  the  impolicy  of  increasing  the  number  of  branches:  and  the  fact  is 
stated,  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  losses  sustained  by  the  bank  have  been 
owing  to  the  mismanagement  of  the  branches. 

The  opinion  of  Mr.  Cheves  was  founded  on  the  peculiar  state  of  things 
which  existed  at  the  time.  He  felt  the  difficulty  of  controlling  these  branches, 
of  which,  as  he  stated,  the  *'  directors  were  frequently  governed  by  individu- 
al and  local  interests  and  feelings;"  and  he  came  into  the  administration  at  a 
time  when  immense  losses  had  been  suffered  by  their  mal-administration. 
But  it  is  very  important  to  remark — what  the  report  does  not  bring  to  view — 
that  almost  all  the  disproportionate  losses  incurred  by  the  branches  were 
previous  to  1819;  and  that,  since  the  extension  of  the  branches,  of  which  the 
report  complains,  they  have  not  sustained  greater  losses,  in  proportion,  than 
the  mother  bank;  while  nine-tenths  of  the  commercial  facilities  afforded  to 
the  country,  and  nine-tenths  of  the  profits  secured  for  the  stockholders,  have 
resulted  from  the  operation  of  these  branches. 

The  report  makes  reference  to  the  obligation  of  the  bank  to  transfer  the 
funds  of  the  Government  to  any  point  where  they  may  be  wanted  for  dis- 
bursement, and  seems  to  have  made  the  extraordinary  discovery  that  this 
operation  is  no  burden  at  all,  but  an  actual  benefit  to  the  bank!  For  the 
satisfaction  of  those  who  rriight  be  sceptical,  the  words  of  the  report  will  be 
given: 

"  The  largest  portion  of  the  revenue,  particularly  from  imports,  as  is  uni- 
versally known,  is  collected  in  the  Atlantic  cities  north  of  the  Potomac. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  313 

These  cities  being  the  great  marts  of  supply  to  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Unit- 
ed States,  and  places  to  which  remittances  centre  from  almost  every  part  of 
the  country,  creates  a  demand  for  funds  upon  them  from  nearly  every  quar- 
ter, constantly  and  generally  at  a  premium.  Therefore,  so  far  as  the  bank 
is  calle  I  upon  to  transfer  funds  from  those  cities  to  other  places,  it  becomes 
(t  matter  of  profit,  and  not  of  expense  to  it;  and  the  greater  the  distance 
the  greater  the  premium;  and  the  larger  the  amount  thus  required  to  be 
transferred  by  the  Government,  and  the  greater  the  distance,  the  greater 
the  profit  and  advantage  to  the  bank.^^ 

If  these  views  of  the  report  bo  correct,  the  bank  is  certainly  an  invaluable 
institution.  It  has  not  only  annihilated  time  and  space,  but  it  has  done 
something  more.  It  has  produced  such  a  state  of  the  exchanges,  that  it  is 
much  easier  for  a  man  in  New  York  to  pay  a  thousand  dollars  in  St.  Louis 
tiian  to  pay  it  in  Wall  street;  and  in  which,  consequently,  the  New  York 
debtor  actually  makes  a  profit  by  being  required  to  pay  his  debt  a  thousand 
miles  off  instead  of  paying  it  at  his  own  door!  If  this  be  a  correct  view  of 
the  subject,  it  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  modern  discoveries 
in  finance  and  commerce. 

But  the  minority  are  still  incredulous.  They  cannot  understand  how  it 
is  possible  for  the  bank  to  make  a  profit  by  transferring  funds,;when  it  is  ex- 
pressly stipulated  that  they  shall  transfer  them  for  nothing.  Nor  can  they 
conceive  how  the  loss  which  the  bank  sustains  by  the  operation  of  transfer- 
ring funds  for  the  Government,  can  be  less  than  the  difference  between  the 
*<  nothing"  which  it  receives  from  the  Government,  and  the  profit  which  it 
would  derive  from  the  same  operation  if  performed  for  individuals. 

li  the  Government  collected  its  revenue  in  specie  at  New  York,  and  had 
occasion  to  expend  it  at  St.  Louis,  it  would  liertainly  cost  it  something  to 
transport  the  'specie  from  one  place  to  the  other.  If,  in  the  absence  of  a 
Federal  bank,  it  collected  its  revenues  in  the  bills  of  State  banks,  as  it  would 
be  obliged  to  do,  the  operation  of  transferring  these  funds  to  distant  places 
would  involve  a  still  greater  expense.  But,  under  the  existing  system,  the 
bank  is  responsible  for  the  safe  custody  of  the  Government  funds,  and  for 
placing  them  wherever  they  may  be  required,  without  any  expense  what- 
ever to  the  Government. 

If,  then,  the  bank  has  not  **  aided  the  fiscal  operations  of  the  Govern- 
ment,'' as  the  report  seems  to  intimate,  a  uniform  currency,  and  a  revenue, 
safely  kept,  and  universally  trensferred  at  the  risk  of  the  bank,  and  without 
expense  to  the  Government,  affords  no  aid  to  its  financial  operations. 

The  report,  adverting  to  a  letter  from  the  president  of  the  bank,  of  the 
29th  March  last,  in  which  he  informs  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  that 
the  collector  of  New  York  had  requested  the  *<bank  to  authorize  an  ex- 
tension of  loans  in  that  city  in  order  to  assist  the  debtors  of  the  Government,*' 
and  that  this  had  been  promptly  done,  gives  a  view  of  the  discounts  of  the 
office  at  that  place,  calculated  to  make  the  impression  that  no  extension  of 
loans  had  taken  place.  This  is  an  error:  it  proceeds  from  confounding 
notes  discounted  with  bills  of  exchange  purchased  by  the  bank.  It  will  bo 
seen  by  the  weekly  statement  of  the  New  York  board,  that  the  amount  of 
notes  discounted  ou  the  1st  of  September,  1831,  was  ^4,103,134,  and  that, 
on  the  21st  of  March,  1832,  a  few  days  before  the  date  of  the  president's 
letter,  the  amount  was  ^4,834,917,  exhibiting  an  increase  of  ^731^782,  in  . 
a  little  more  than  six  monLhs. 

If  the  amount  of  domestic  bills  falling  due  at:  a  distance,  during  the  same 
40 


S14  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

period,  were  larger  than  the  amount  purchased  by  the  bank,  this  fact  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  extent  of  the  accommodation  afforded  by  the  bank 
to  the  merchants  of  New  York:  the  true  measure  of  that  accommodation 
is  the  amount  of  domestic  notes  discounted,  and  not  the  amount  of  these 
notes  united  to  that  of  the  domestic  bills  purthased. 

That  the  bank  has  relieved  the  commercial  community  of  New  York, 
during  the  recent  pressure,  is  a  fact  well  understood  and  practically  felt  by 
the  merchants  there;  and  it  will  be  difficult  to  reason  them  out  of  the  con- 
victions of  their  own  experience  by  artificial  statements  and  conjectural  in- 
ferences. Upon  a  review  of  the  whole  ground  occupied  in  the  examina- 
tion they  have  made,  the  minority  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  affairs  of  the 
bank  have  been  administered  by  the  president  and  directors  with  very  great 
ability,  and  with  perfect  fidelity  to  all  their  obligations  to  the  stockholders, 
to  the  Government,  and  to  the  country.  They  regard  the  bank  as  an  institu- 
tion indispensable  to  the  preservation  of  a  sound  currency,  and  to  the  finan- 
cial operations  of  the  Government,  Jind  should  consider  the  refusal  of  Con- 
gress to  renew  the  charter  as  a  great  national  calamity. 

They  will  add,  in  conclusion,  that  they  are  equally  decided  in  the  opin- 
ion that  Congress  is  called  upon  by  the  most  weighty  and  urgent  considera- 
tions to  decide  this  important  question  during  the  present  session.  The  un- 
certainty which  prevails  on  this  subject,  is  calculated  to  exert  a  very  perni- 
nicous  influence  over  the  industry,  enterprise,  and  trade  of  the  country. 
If  the  charter  of  the  bank  is  not  to  be  renewed;  if  the  tremendous  operation 
of  withdrawing  from  the  community  fifty  millions  of  bank  accommodations, 
and  twenty-two  millions  of  its  circulating  medium,  must  take  place,  it  is 
full  time  that  it  should  be  distinctly  known,  that  the  shock  of  this  operation 
may  be  mitigated  by  timely  arrangements  on  the  part  of  the  bank;  and  that 
the  community  may  have  time  to  provide  the  necessary  substitutes.  Con- 
sidering the  immense  extent  of  the  operations  of  this  institution,  the  time 
which  its  charter  has  yet  to  run  will  be  scarcely  sufficient  iov  the  winding 
ing  up  its  affairs. 

To  the  report  of  the  majority,  is  appended  a  great  number  of  questions, 
proposed  to  the  president  of  the  bank  by  a  member  of  the  committee,  on 
the  general  subjects  ofbanking  and  currency.  As  the  questions  alone  throw 
very  little  light  on  these  matters,  the  answers  are  herewith  submitted  for 
the  information  of  the  House. 

GEO.  McDUFFIE, 

J.  Q.  ADAMS, 

JOHN  G.  WATMOUGH. 


[  Rep.  No,  460,  "j  315 


DOCUMENTS 

ACCOMPA5rYI3fG    THE 

REPORT  OF  THE  MINORITY  OF  THE  SELECT  COMMITTEE, 
Relative  to  the  affairs  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 


Bank  op  the  United  States, 

Jlpril  16,  1832. 
Honorable  A.  S.  Clayton, 

Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Investigation, 

At  the  request  of  the  committee,  I  proceed  to  commit  to  writing  the  sub* 
stance  of  the  statement  which  I  had  the  honor  of  presenting  to  them  at  our 
first  interview,  on  the  23d  ultimo.  I  then  stated  the  pleasure  which  the 
board  of  directors  feel  at  receiving  the  committee.  That,  while  the  sub- 
ject was  under  deliberation  in  Congress,  they  thought  it  might  have  been 
deemed  intrusive  to  express  to  that  body  their  desire  for  the  investigation, 
but  the  visit  of  the  committee  was  not  the  less  welcome  on  that  account,  and 
the  board  were  anxious  that  the  committee  should  thoroughly  investigate 
the  affairs  of  the  bank;  for  which  purpose,  they  had  deputed  three  of  their 
body,  Mr.  Binney,  Mr.  Cadwalader,  and  Mr.  Eyre,  to  meet  the  com- 
mittee, and  give  them  every  assistance  and  every  facility  in  their  power. 
With  the  same  view,  I  had  thought  it  might  be  useful  to  the  committee,  and 
not  unacceptable  to  them,  if  I  were  to  present  a  short  vievv  of  the  mechan- 
ism of  the  institution,  its  general  operatiors,  and  its  present  situation. 

The  establishment  consists  of  the  Bank  ^^  Philadelphia,  and  twenty-five 
.branches.  The  general  administration  is  con.'ded  to  twenty-five  directors; 
twenty  chosen  by  the  stockholders,  and  five  >y  the  Government  of  the 
United  States.  The  principal  officers  are,  the  president  and  the  cashier, 
occupied  with  the  general  superintendence  of  the  institution,  and  three  as- 
sistant cashiers,  each  with  respective  spheres  of  duty.  The  branches  are 
managed  by  boards  of  directors,  varying  according  to  the  charter,  from  7  to 
13  in  number,  chosen,  annually,  by  the  general  board:  they  appoint  all  the 
officers  of  the  branches  except  the  cashier,  who  is  appointed  by  the  general 
board. 

From  each  of  these  branches  is  received,  weekly,  a  statement  of  all  their 
affairs,  from  which  is  digested  the  weekly  state  of  the  branches,  and  after- 
wards the  monthly  statements. 

The  branches  also  make  a  return,  every  60  days,  of  the  debtors  to  the  bank. 

The  bank  transmits  every  week  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  a  state- 
ment of  its  affairs,  and  every  month,  a  monthly  statement  of  all  the  affairs 
of  the  institution,  which  is  published  by  Congress. 

The  various  documents  will  of  course  be  submitted  to  the  committee. 

The  capital  of  the  bank  consists  of  thirty-five  millions  of  dollars,  of  which 
seven  belongs  to  the  United  States,  and  the  rest  to  individuals  or  corporations. 


316 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


It  was  originally  composed  of  seven  millions  of  coin,  and  twenly-eight  mil- 
lions of  stock  of  the  Government.  This  the  Government  has  redeemed, 
the  last  payment  of  the  seven  millions  of  five  per  cents,  given  for  the  seven- 
ty thousand  shares  subscribed  by  the  Government,  having  been  made  in 
July  last. 

The  capital  is  now  distributed  among  the  branches  as  follows:  To  some  of 
the  branches,  recently  established,  no  definite  capital  has  yet  been  assigned; 
the  board  preferring  to  wait  the  progressive  development  of  their  business 
before  fixing,  finally,  their  capital,  and,  in  the  mean  time,  regulating  the 
amount  of  their  loans  by  particular  instructions.  But  the  general  distribu- 
tion of  capital,  and  the  amount  of  the  investments,  will  be  seen  in  the  fol- 
lowing sketch. 


OFFICES. 

Discounts. 

Domestic  bills. 

Totals. 

—  ■  .'        \-s 

Capitals. 

Portland, 

$189,802  14 

43,943  03 

233,745  17 

Portsmouth,  - 

113,292  97 

98,850  03 

212,143 

300,000 

Boston, 

896,877  34 

1,671,065  47 

2,567,942  81 

1,500,000 

Providence,  - 

637,440  14 

381,218  72 

1.018,658  86 

-  800.000 

Hartford, 

422,794  97 

50,936  54 

473,731  51 

300,000 

New  York,    - 

4,869,189  44 

1.060,744  01 

5,929,933  45 

2,500,000 

Philadelphia, 

6,682,322  10 

2,127,140  93 

8,809,463  03 

16,450,000 

Baltimore, 

1,962,355  83 

340,184  42 

2,303,540  25 

1,500,000 

Washington, 

1,082,124  54 

178,898  13 

1,261,022  67 

500,000 

Richmond,     - 

807,136  29 

780,341  49- 

1,587,477  78 

1,000,000 

Norfolk, 

655,170  91 

254,392  15 

909,563  06 

500,000 

Fayetteville, 

525,076  68 

171,061  82 

606,138  50 

500,000 

Charleston,    - 

2,931,036  40 

963,554  12 

3,894,590  52 

1,500,000 

Savannah, 

767.464  28 

543,502  84 

1,310,967  12 

1,000,000 

Mobile, 

1,400,188  14 

1,098,667  20 

2,498,855  34 

New  Orleans, 

6,763,758  80 

2,975,056  09 

9,738,814  89 

1,000,000 

Natchez, 

1,336,609  50 

1,236,066  07 

2,572,675  57 

St.  Louis,       - 

677,504  80 

77,078  36 

754,583  16 

Nashville,       - 

2,170,240  16 

2,677,902  51 

4,848,142  67 

1,000,000 

Louisville, 

2.567,900  9u 

1,333,430  59 

3,901,331  55 

1,250,000 

Lexington,     - 

1,150,121  03 

636,595  77 

1,786.716  80 

1,000,000 

Cincinnati,     - 

3,320,306  94 

716,454  82 

4,036,761  76 

1,700,000 

Pittssburg-,     - 

1,167.217  68 

598,070  64 

1,765,288  32 

700,000 

Buffalo, 

597,310  98 

351,786  77 

949,097  75 

Utica, 

504,822  18 

184,543  18 

689,865  36 

BiU'ling-ton,    - 

448,539  52 

213 ,364  55 

661,904  07 

$44,646,604  72 

20,754,850  25 

65,411,454  97  1 

35,000,000 

It  will  be  perceived,  from  this  statement,  thaf,  in  the  great  abundance  of 
capital  employed  in  banking  in  the  northern  and  middle  States,  the  funds  of 
the  bank  have  naturally  sought  a  temporary  emplo^mient  in  those  sections" 
of  the  Union  where  there  is  less  banking  capital,  and  where  the  productions 
of  the  great  staples  of  the  country  seem  to  require  most  assistance  in  bring- 
ing them  into  the  com.mercial  market.  This  observation  applies  especially 
to  New  Orleans,  the  centre  and  the  dej)o.sitory  of  all  the  trade  of  the  Mis- 
sissipppi  and  its  tributaries.  The  course  of  the  western  business  is  to  send 
the  produce  to  New  Orleans,  and  to  draw  bills  on  the  proceeds,  which  bills 
are  purchased  at  the  several  branches,  and  remitted  to  the  branch  at  New 
Orleans.  When  the  notes  issued  by  the  several  branches  find  their  way  in 
the  course  of  trade  to  the  Atlantic  branches,  the  western  branches  pay  the 


I  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


317 


Atlantic  branches  by  drafts  on  their  funds  accumulated  at  the  branch  in 
New  Orleans,  which  there  pay  the  Atlantic  branches  by  bills  growing  out  of 
the  purchases  made  in  New  Orleans  on  account  of  the  northern  merchants  or 
manufacturers,  thus  completing  the  circle  of  the  operations.  This  explains 
the  large  amount  of  business  done  at  that  branch. 

The  committee  will  also  perceive  that,  while  the  locai  discounts  of  the 
bank  amount  to  forty-four  millions,  the  domestic  bills  of  exchange  amount 
to  nearly  twenty-one  millions  of  dollars.  This  is  the  most  striking  feature 
in  the  condition  of  the  bank. 

It  has  been  deemed  by  the  bank  that,  next  to  the  preservation  of  the  cur- 
rency, the  most  important  service  it  could  render,  would  be  to  facilitate  the 
internal  exchanges  of  the  produce  and  labor  of  the  citizens  of  every  part  of 
the  Union.  No  merely  physical  improvement  in  the  means  of  communica- 
tion between  them  can  so  effectually  approximate  them;  no  facilities  of  tra- 
velling and  transportation  can  so  completely  abridge  the  wide  spaces  which 
separate  the  parts  of  this  extensive  country,  as  the  removal  of  those  great  bar- 
riers which  the  want  of  easy  commercial  exchanges  interpose  to  their  pros- 
perity. The  great  object,  theiefore,  to  which  the  bank  has,  for  many  years, 
directed  its  anxious  attention,  has  been  to  identify  itself  thoroughly  with  tho 
real  business  of  the  country,  and  more  especially  to  meltdown,  into  one  uni- 
form and  healthy  mass,  all  the  depreciated  currencies  with  which  some  parts 
of  the  country  were  afflicted;  and  having  thus  established  the  exchanges 
throughout  the  whole  on  their  true  basis,  the  interchange  of  equal  values  at 
each  place,  to  bring  down  these  exchanges  to  the  lowest  cost  to  them  all. 
By  such  an  effort,  the  bank  has  thought  that  it  assumed  its  true  and  federal 
character,  as  the  great  channel  of  intercommunication  for  the  business  of  the 
Union;  and  that,  leaving  to  local  institutions  as  much  ar^  they  desired  or  could 
accomplish  of  the  local  business  in  every  section  of  the  Union,  its  more  ap- 
propriate  sphere  was  the  general  communication  between  them  all. 

Of  the  nature  and  extent  of  these  operations,  the  committee  can  form  the 
best  estimate  by  inspecting  the  weekly  reports  from  the  branches  during  the 
last  week,  which  are  now  lying  on  the  table,  and  which  will  exhibit  tho 
commercial  map  of  the  interior  trade  of  the  United  States  at  the  present 
moment.  It  will  be  seen  that,  during  the.  last  week,  there  has  been  pur- 
chased by  the  bank  and  its  branches,  the  amount  of  $1,081,335  SS  of  do- 
mestic bills,  at  the  following  places: 


At  Portland,      - 

S6,076 

63 

At  Mobile, 

102,082   61 

Portsmouth, 

» 

3^637 

6a^ 

22 

New  Orleans, 

. 

145,555  80 

Boston, 

. 

52,221 

Natchez, 

. 

42,183  43 

Providence,  - 

. 

21,539 

22 

St.  Louis,     - 

. 

9,603  63 

Hartford, 

- 

4,G7I 

51 

Nashville,     - 

- 

30,790  33 

New  York,  - 

. 

50,019 

80 

Louisville,    - 

. 

60,152  36 

Baltimore,    - 

. 

27,174 

26 

Lexington,    - 

• 

25,185  25 

Washington, 

. 

21,145 

16 

Cincinnati,    - 

_ 

42,907  71 

Richmond,    - 

. 

28,662 

15 

Pittsburgh,   - 

. 

S5,6S5  69 

Norfolk, 

- 

19,009 

16 

Buffalo, 

. 

32,105  64 

Fayetteville, 

- 

13,911 

30 

Utica, 

. 

18,791   44 

Charleston,   - 

. 

66,401 

36 

Burlington,  - 

_ 

12,550  69 

Savannah,     - 

1.  *  :v: 

66,302 

50 

Bank  United  Sta 

tes, 

102,970   30 

*uu.-ii,.  ■■■:-■;■  r-;::-  :.i,-  - 

Si, 081,335  88 

318 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


It  may  not  be  uninteresting  to  illustrate  this  movement  of  the  interna! 
exchanges,  by  showing  the  points  from  which  this  ^20,776,916  of  bills  come, 
and  where  they  are  tending.  This  will  be  seen  in  the  annexed  table,  mark- 
ed A:  among  the  objects  of  interest  presented  in  it,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
amount  of  bills  from  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  amount  to  $10,212,905, 
and  that  the  amount  payable  within  an  average,  probably,  of  sixty  days,  at 
Kew  York,  is  ^4,096,410;  and  at  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Providence, 
and  Boston,  ^4,387,059,  making  an  aggregate  of  ^8,483,469,  The  extent 
of  these  operations  during  the  last  year,  amounted  to  $48,562,185  32,  as 
will  be  seen  in  the  followins  table. 


Bills  purchased 

At  Bank  U.  States^ 

^5,267,675  48 

At  Savannah,   - 

S  2,128,574  37 

Portland,  - 

167,915  36 

xMobile, 

-  1,777,043  07 

Portsmouth, 

128,871    95 

New  Orleans, 

-  9,470,184  38 

Boston, 

-    3,444,815  88 

Natchez,      - 

*   1,379,698  93 

Providence, 

-    1,218,332  62 

St.  Louis,    - 

-      274,390  04 

Hartford,  - 

111,288  S3 

Nashville,  - 

-  3,022,647   19 

New  York, 

-    4,497,183  80 

Louisville,  - 

-  2,220,824  46 

Baltimore, 

-    1,048,228  07 

Lexington,  - 

-  1,684,563  83 

Washington, 

-       864,532  22 

Cincinnati, 

-  1,291,721  48 

Richmond, 

-    1,939,108  83 

Pittsburg,    - 

.  1,371,686  94 

Norfolk,  - 

845,957  12 

Buffalo, 

-      819,343  29 

Fayetteville, 

801,542   63 

Utica, 

-      279,590  05 

Charleston, 

-    2,210,393  56 

Burlington, 

-      296,071    94 

^48,562,185  32 

Of  the  security  with  which  these  operations,  based  as  they  are  on  the  real 
transactions  of  the  country,  are  conducted,  an  estimate  may  be  formed  by 
this  circumstance,  that,  of  this  amount  of  ^48,562,185  32,  the  whole  sum 
which  as  yet  has  been  under  protest,  has  been  ^43,521  06,  and  the  whole 
amount  of  loss  which  will  probably  be  incurred  on  these  amounts  to 
§17,038. 

For  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  these  bills,  the  bank  gives  its  drafts, 
which  are  given  at  the  lowest  rates.  These  extensive  operations  have  ena- 
bled the  bank  to  reduce  the  rate  of  its  exchanges  so  low  that,  throughout  the 
Union,  they  are  in  many  places  without  any  charge,  in  others  scarcely  form- 
ing a  perceptible  charge  on  the  operations  of  trade,  and  almost  always,  if  not 
quite  without  exception,  within  the  limit  of  the  transportation  of  the  precious 
metals.  We  may  indeed  repeat  with  confidence  what  is  said  by  a  most  com- 
petent judge,  Mr.  Gallatin,  that  **  there  is  not^  it  is  believed,  a'single  coun- 
try where  the  community  is,  in  that  respect,  served  with  less  risk  or  expense.'* 
In  addition  to  the  business  of  domestic  exchange,  the  amount  of  local  loans 
has  increased,  owing  to  the  greater  demand  for  the  use  of  money  during  the 
past  year,  and  the  conversion  into  a  more  active  form  of  business  of  the 
stocks  repaid  by  Government  to  the  bank.  The  first  grew  naturally  out  of 
the  state  of  trade.  For  eighteen  months,  the  want  of  employment  for  capi- 
tal, and  the  derangement  of  industry  arising  from  political  and  other  causes, 
rendered  money  very  abundant  in  France  and  England,  the  two  countries 
whose  situation  so  much  influences  our  own,  and  produced  a  corresponding 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  319 

ease  and  plenty  in  the  United  States,  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  disturbed 
state  of  Europe,  and  the  cholera  which  interposed  new  obstacles  to  the  trade 
with  certain  parts  of  it,  naturally  directed  the  manufactures  of  England  and 
France  to  this  country,  which  is  by  far  the  best  and  safest  market  for  their 
productions.  These  circumstances  occasioned,  during  the  past  twelve  months, 
an  unusuaj  importation  of  foreign  merchandise.     While  the  treatment  of 
this  temporary  commercial  disease  was  in  progress,  the  sufferers  very  na- 
turally looked  for  the  cause  of  it  every  where  except  in  themselves,  and  the 
bank  was  reproached  with  having  contributed  to  occasion  these  importations. 
Without  going  into  detail,  one  single  fact  is  quite  decisive  on  that  subject. 
It  will  be  seen  from  the  following  official  statement  marked  B,  that  the  large 
importations  of  last  year  began  with  the  month  of  April,  and  of  course  they 
must  have  been  founded,  so  far  as  the  bank  was  concerned,  on  the  state  of 
things  in  this  country  a  month  or  two  previous,  say  the  month  of  March  last. 
Now,  it  will  be  seen  from  the  state  of  the  bank  before  the  committee,  that, 
for  nearly  two  years  before  the  month  of  March  last,  (1831)  the  local  dis- 
counts of  the  bank  had  undergone  no  perceptible  increase — those  for  July, 
1829,  being  $34,196; 000,  and  those  for  March,  1831,  being  §34,220,000,  an 
increase  within  that  period  of  only  24,000  dollars.     The  bank,  moreover, 
deems  it  an  especial  duty  to  abstain  from  all  agency  in  regulating  or  influenc- 
ing importations:  the  extent  of  the  encouragement  to  be  given  to  the  intro- 
duction of  foreign  merchandise  is  the  province  of  Congress,  and  it  would  be 
equally  a  violation  of  their  duty,  and  a  most  dangerous  exertion  of  power,  if 
the  directors  of  the  bank,  acting  upon  their  own  views  of  general  policy, 
should  assume  to  judge  when  the  importations  were  sufficient,  at  what  point 
they  should  be  checked,  and  thus  apply  their  power  to  stimulate,  to  discour- 
age, or  to  prevent  them.     In  the  conflict  of  interest  which  has  so  long  agi- 
tated the  country,  it  is  tiie  imperious  duty  of  the  bank   to  remain  perfectly 
passive,  and  not,by  any  misdirection  of  its  means,  to  usurp  the  powers  of  the 
legislature,  leaving  individual  enterprise  lo  seek  its  own  employment.     It  is 
the  duty  of  the  bank  to  take  the  state  of  the  country  as  the  country  has  chosen 
to  make  it;  to  deal  with  the  existing  condition  of  things,  but  not  to  assume 
upon  itself  the  charge  of  regulating  the  domestic  industry,  and  the  foreign 
trade  of  the  Union. 

Without  having  contributed  to  produce  them,  the  bank  found,  about  nine 
months  ago,large  importations,  requiringfor  their  difiusion  through  the  coun- 
try, increased  facilities  connected  with  banking:  having  the  means  of  giving 
them,  being  in  fact  created  for  the  purpose  of  giving  them — it  gave  them — 
it  had  the  means  of  giving,  because,  in  the  early  part  of  the  year,  it  had  been 
strengthened  for  business,  purposely,  by  the  addition  of  two  millions  of  its 
funds  in  Europe  transferred  home,  the  repayment  of  about  ten  millions  of 
the  funded  debt  paid  back  by  the  Government  since  October,  1830,  making 
ah  increase  of  active  means  amounting  to  twelve  millions.  When,  in  the 
progress  of  a  few  months,  the  continuance  of  these  importations,  and  the  re- 
venue which  had  accrued  on  them,  produced  an  effect  on  the  actual  state  of 
^Ihe  market,  the  bank  applied  itself  immediately  to  correct  any  disadvantages 
from  it  to  the  community.  The  actual  position  of  things  was  simply  this: 
There  were  large  importations  requiring  means  of  remittance  to  Europe  to 
pay  for  them;  there  were  large  amounts  of  revenue  to  Government,  amount- 
ing, in  New  York  alone,  from  March,  1831,  to  March,  1832,  to  nearly 
seventeen  millions  of  dollars,  and  requiring  great  forbearance  towards  the 
ebtors.     In  the  mean  time,  the  southern  produce,  which  furnishes  the  great- 


I 


320  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

er  part  of  the  means  (o  pay  for  these  importations,  was,  owing  to  a  great  va- 
riety of  causes,  the  state  of  the  cropS;  and  of  the  weather,  unusually  late  in 
appearing.  This,  therefore,  was  the  condition  of  the  country:  an  unusual 
importation,  an  unusual  amount  of  debts  payable  to  Government,  and  an 
unusual  delay  in  receiving  the  ordinary  means  of  meeting  these  demands. 
Undoubtedly,  if  the  bank  had  chosen  lo  adopt  such  a  course,  it  would  have 
been  easy,  b}^  an  immediate  diminution  of  its  loans,  to  place  itself  out  of  the 
reach  of  all  inconvenience,  but  it  would,  at  the  same  time,  have  inflicted  very 
deep  wounds  on  the  community,  and  seriously  endangered  the  revenue  of 
the  Government.  These  exertions  of  mere  power  have  no  attraction,  and  it 
was  deemed  a  far  wiser  policy  to  deal  with  the  utmost  gentleness  to  the  com- 
mercial community  to  avoid  all  shocks,  to  abstain  from  countenancing  all 
exaggerations  and  alarms,  but  to  stand  quietly  by,  and  assist,  if  necessary, 
the  operations  of  nature,  and  the  laws  of  trade,  which  can  always  correct 
their  own  transient  excesses.  Accordingly,  the  whole  policy  of  the  bank 
for  the  last  six  months  has  been  exclusively  protective  and  conservative, 
calculated  to  mitigate  suffering,  and  yet  avert  danger.  T'he  point  where 
these  importations  occurred,  and  where  the  revenue  was  payable,  vvas  New 
York.  The  whole  force  of  the  institution  was,  therefore,  directed  to 
strengthen  that  place,  and  the  distant  branches  were  directed  to  avoid  in- 
commoding it,  and  the  Atlantic  branches  near  to  it,  by  drafts  upon  them,  but 
to  pay  their  balances  to  them  with  as  little  delay  as  tlie  convenience  of  their 
respective  localities  would  permit.  This  is  the  whole  policy  of  the  bank  for 
the  last  six  months.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that,  without  a  diminution, 
there  is  an  actual  increase  of  business  in  New  York,  and  a  large  increase  of 
the  domestic  bills  of  the  branches;  the  increase  in  New  York  being  for  the 
purpose  of  protecting  the  interests  there,  and  the  increase  of  the  bills  being 
the  remittances  from  the  west  and  south  to  sustain  New  York  and  the  north- 
ern Atlantic  branches.  In  the  mean  time,  the  bank,  out  of  its  own  accumu- 
lations, and  its  own  credits  in  Europe,  supplied,  since  the  1st  of  September 
last,  tlie  means  of  remittances  in  its  own  bills  to  the  amount  of  S5, 295, 746  52, 
and  parted  with  its  surplus  specie  to  the  amount  of  5,000,000,  making  an 
aggregate  contribution  to  the  commerce  of  iFlO,295,746  52. 

This  has  given  time  for  the  operations  of  the  laws  of  trade:  the  country  is 
recovering  from  the  temporary  inconvenience;  the  overstocked  market,  by 
depressing  prices,  has  checked  further  importations;  the  southern  crop,  so 
long  delayed,  is  coming  forward;  the  exportation  of  specie  has  ceased;  the 
importations  of  specie,  postponed  by  the  troubles  of  Mexico,  is  resumed, 
and,  in  a  short  time,  the  whole  operation  will  rectify  itself.  All  this  has 
been  accomplished  with  more  of  anxiety  than  real  distress,  the  dread  of  evil 
being  the  best  preventive  of  it.  There  have  been  very  iew,  if  any,  failures 
among  merchants  of  any  st?anding;  the  revenue  has  been  punctually  paid,  and 
the  incident  will  soon  be  only  remembered  as  one  of  those  vibrations  in  trade 
to  which  all  activi3  commercial  nations  are  liable.  There  can,  however,  be 
no  doubt  that  any  other  course  on  the  part  of  the  bank  would  have  led  to 
very  great  calamity  to  the  country.  In  assuming  this  part,  on  the  present 
occasion,  the  bank  deemed  itself  only  acting,  as  it  was  designed  to  act  by  the 
Congress  which  created  it,  and  placing  itselt  in  its  true  national  attitude  to 
the  Government  and  the  country.  If,  on  the  eve  of  great  danger,  it  had 
yielded  to  ihe  alarms  which  surrounded  it;  if  it  had  given  way  to  the  fears  of 
others;  if  it  had  atall  spared  itself  when  (he  community  might  have  been  re- 
lieved; if  it  had  not  quietly,  but  gently  and  firmly,  put  forth  all  its  strength 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  321 

to  alleviate  and  preserve,  there  might  have  been  much  calamity,  with  which, 
it  is  true,  it  could  not  be  reproached,  but  it  would  have  lost  the  opportunity 
ofaverting  that  calamity  by  a  course  more  befitting  its  character,  which  suc- 
cess has  fully  justified. 

The  circulation  of  the  bank  amounts  to  about  21  millions.  This,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  capital  of  the  bank,  is  a  small  circulation  compared  with  that 
of  other  similar  institutions.  Thus,  the  Bank  of  England,  with  a  capital 
of  14  millions  sterling,  has  an  average  circulation  of  more  than  twenty  mil- 
lions; and  the  J3ank  of  France,  with  a  capital  of  90  millions  of  francs,  has 
a  circulation,  even  during  the  great  depression  of  its  business  in  the  la^t 
year,  of  230  millions  of  francs.  The  diflferencc,  too,  in  the  nature  of  the  cir- 
culation between  these  institutions  and  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  is 
strikingly  in  favor  of  the  latter.  The  notes  of  the  Bank  of  France  and 
England  are  generally  large  in  amount;  they  circulate  within  a  very  narrow 
sphere  round  the  banks  themselves;  they  can  be  collected  with  great  rapidi- 
ty, and  be  made  to  bear  in  masses  directly  on  the  banks,  nhile  the  notes  of 
the  Bankof  tho  United  States  occupy  a  far  more  extensive  field,  circulating 
from  Quebec  to  Vera  Cruz;  they  are  small  in  amount,  and  not  easily  collect- 
ed for  large  demands  on  the  bank.  The  question  which  has  always  been, 
and  still  is  one  of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  administration  of  the  bank, 
is  this  of  its  circulation.  It  was  long  believed,  that,  while  the  bank  is  obliged 
to  receive  every  where,  on  account  of  Government,  all  its  notes  where- 
ever  issued,  it  would  be  impracticable  to  maintain  a  circulation  of  any  con- 
f^iderable  amount,  from  the  necessity  of  providing,  at  so  many  points,  to  re- 
deem its  issues.  It  was  afterwards  considered  worthy  of  trial,  whether  the 
difficulty  might  not  be  surmounted  by  a  large  participation  in  domestic  ex- 
changes; which,  besides  its  other  advantages,  might  enable  the  bank  to  be 
always  provided  with  a  fund,  which,  being  in  fact  created  out  of  these  issues, 
would  accompany  and  sustain  them.  Thus,  for  instance,  when  the  branch 
at  New  Orleans  issues  its  notes,  it  does  it  to  various  persons,  and  for  differ- 
ent objects.  When  they  are  given  to  persons  who  engage  within  a  short 
period  to  return  in  New  Orleans,  either  these  notes  or  their  equivalents,  if 
the  identical  notes  are  returned,  the  operation  ceases;  if  the  equivalents, 
being  either  coin,  or  the  notes  of  State  banks  convertible  into  coin,  these 
furnish  the  means  of  paying  its  own  notes.  If  these  notes,  however,  are  is- 
sued in  payments  for  bills  on  the  north,  these  bills  are  sent  to  the  northern 
branches,  and,  being  there  paid,  await  the  arrival  of  the  period  when  the 
notes,  having  performed  the  functions  of  a  circulating  medium,  are  brought 
in  the  course  of  trade  to  the  Atlantic  offices,  where  they  are  met  by  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  bills  for  which  they  were  given;  or,  finally,  if  these  notes  are 
issued  in  New  Orleans  in  the  purchase  of  exchange,  based  on  the  exporta- 
tion of  produce  to  Europe,  the  bills  of  exchange  drawn  by  the  bank  upon 
the  European  houses  to  which  the  bills  from  New  Orleans  are  remitted, 
provide  the  fund  to  meet  the  notes  of  the  branch  at  New  Orleans,  originally 
issued  in  the  purchase  of  them.  It  is  thus,  and  perhaps  thus  only,  that  any 
l^rge  circulation  can  be  sustained  when  it  is  based  on  commercial  oj)erationj«, 
which  satisfy  ihe  wants  which  they  themselves  create,  and  furnish  the  means 
of  paying  the  notes  issued  in  the  course  of  them.  Thub,  on  the  1st  March, 
1832,  the  actual  circulation  of  the  bank  is  {^21,044,415:  the  amount  of  do- 
mestic bills  running  to  maturity  within  an  average  of  perhaps  sixty  or 
ninety  days,  is  $20,354,748. 

The  receipt  of  these  notes  is  obligatory  on  account  of  the  Government. 
41 


322  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

The  receipt  of  them  from  individuals  is  voluntary,  but  it  is  so  much  the  in- 
terest of  the  bank  to  receive  them  freely,  that  it  is  always  done,  whenever 
it  can  be  done  with  safety.  Thus,  the  total  amount  of  revenue  received 
last  year  in  New  York,  was  ^13,797,500;  while  the  receipt  of  foreign 
branch  paper  was  ^13,219,635.  So  that,  with  the  exception  of  y^577,S65, 
the  whole  revenue  was  paid  in  this  paper. 

During  the  same  period  the  whole  revenue  at  Philadelphia  was  >B'3,359,- 
790  43;  the  whole  receipt  of  branch  paper,  ^5,398,800.  Making  an  ex- 
cess of  ^2,039,009  57,  beyond  the  amount  necessarily  receivable. 

The  sum  of  specie  in  the  bank,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  annual  statement, 
marked  C,  is  much  beyond  the  average  amount  possessed  by  the  bank  at 
this  season  of  the  year,  ever  since  its  establishment,  except  the  two  last 
years  of  surplus  accumulation  of  it.  And  as  the  tide  of  the  exchanges  is 
beginning  to  turn,  and  specie  to  flow  into  the  country,  there  is  no  reason  to 
fear  any  deficiency  of  it.  As,  moreover,  the  demand  for  it  is  chiefly  for  the 
European  trade,  the  credits  of  the  bank  in  Europe  are  equivalent  to  at  least 
two  millions  more.  The  exportation  of  specie  during  the  last  year  was 
more  than  five  millions;  but  none,  or  scarcely  any,  has  gone  to  China,  to 
which  alone,  some  years  ago,  5,  6,  and  even  7  millions  of  dollars  were  ex- 
ported from  the  United  States. 

To  this  change  in  the  character  of  that  trade,  the  bank  has,  perhaps,  mainly 
contributed.  The  demands  for  specie  on  account  of  that  trade  were  often 
inconvenient,  by  requiring  abrupt  movements  on  the  part  of  the  banks  to 
protect  themselves.  It  was  thought  practicable  to  substitute  for  the  ship- 
ments of  coin,  the  bills  of  the  bank  on  London,  which,  being  sent  beyond 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  would  produce  there  the  specie  wanted,  at  a  cheap- 
er rate  than  it  could  be  placed  there  by  a  direct  shipment  from  the  United 
States,  with  all  its  attendant  charges.  The  bank,  accordingly,  furnished  its 
bills,  to  be  paid  for  only  when  used,  and  to  be  returned  if  the  state  of  the 
market  would  not  justify  the  mercantile  operations  for  which  they  were  in- 
tended. This  example  has  since  been  adopted  by  capitalists,  who  furnish 
similar  bills  to  a  considerable  extent,  so  that  the  use  of  specie  in  the  China 
trade  is  almost  superseded.  The  China  trade  is,  at  present,  comparatively 
inactive,  but  the  amount  of  bills  now  abroad  east  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
and  in  various  parts  of  South  America,  amounts  to  about  ^811,000. 

In  reference  to  the  general  operations  of  the  bank  in  foreign  exchanges, 
it  has  been  considered  that  the  connection  of  the  bank  with  the  business  of 
the  country  would  be  incomplete,  if  it  did  not  contribute  its  aid  in  facilitat- 
ing the  foreign  intercourse  of  its  citizens.  When,  in  the  southern  States, 
the  crops  are  shipped  to  the  northern  States,  their  transmission  is  rendered 
easy  on  the  part  of  the  bank,  by  purchasing  the  bills  drawn  on  the  north  to 
accompany  them.  If  the  same  parties,  instead  of  shipping  their  produce 
to  the  north,  ship  it  to  Europe,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  bank  should  not 
afford  them  the  same  facility  by  the  purchase  of  their  bills  on  Europe. 
While  in  the  south,  the  presence  of  a  large  and  constant  purchaser  thus 
gives  greater  steadiness  and  uniformity  to  the  demand  for  bills,  on  which 
the  profit  of  the  southern  merchant  and  planter  depends,  the  appearance 
in  the  north  of  the  same  purchaser,  as  a  large  seller,  gives  equal  advantage 
to  those  who  have  remittances  to  make  to  Europe. 

There  is,  however,  a  strong  reason  of  general  policy  why  the  bank  should 
engage  largely  in  the  foreign  exchanges.  The  state  of  the  currency  of  this 
country  depends  mainly  on  its  relations  with  Europe;  and  whenever  com- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  323 

mercial  or  other  circumstances  create  an  adverse  exchange,  such  are  the 
great  facilities  of  intercourse  with  France  and  England,  that  an  immediate 
shipment  of  coin  takes  place,  which  necessarily  occasions  abrupt  transitions 
in  the  business  of  the  banks,  and  which,  in  turn,  affect  the  community.  It 
seems,  therefore,  to  belong  essentially  to  the  conservative  power  of  the  bank 
over  the  currency,  to  have  the  ability  of  interposing  on  these  occasions^  of 
breaking  the  shock  of  any  sudden  demand,  and  of  giving  time  to  the  State 
institutions  to  adopt  protective  measures  for  their  own  security.  This  power 
is  to  be  acquired  only  by  a  large  participation  in  the  foreign  exchanges,  so 
as  to  enable  it,  on  any  emergency,  out  of  its  own  accumulations  in  Europe, 
or  out  of  its  established  credits  there,  to  supply  the  most  urgent  wants  of 
commerce.  This  it  has  often  done  to  great  advantage,  and  eminently  on 
the  late  occasion,  when  these  demands  might  have  pressed  with  injurious,  if 
not  fatal  consequences  on  the  community.  The  total  amount  of  foreign 
exchanges  drawn  by  the  bank  from  the  first  of  January,  1831,  to  the  first  of 
March,  1832,  amounted  to  §11,166,743  10.  Of  these,  the  amount  paid  for 
the  Mediterranean  squadron,  and  for  diplomatic  expenses  on  account  of  Go- 
vernment, was  iS  583,082,42. 

The  amount  and  situation  of  the  real  estate,  as  well  the  banking  houses, 
as  that  received  for  debt,  will  be  seen  in  the  statements  prepared  for  the  com- 
mittee. The  latter  is  estimated  at  ^1,916,449  51,  having  cost  (^2,000, 909 
45. 

The  importance  of  this  interest,  held  chiefly  in  Cincinnati,  will  justify  a 
short  explanation  of  the  history  and  management  of  it. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1823,  the  bank  found  itself  with  a  large 
mass  of  debt  at  Cincinnati,  amounting  to  ^2,528,350  39,  on  which  the  loss 
estimated  by  the  cashier  of  the  bank,  who  visited  Cincinnati  for  the  pur- 
pose of  examining  the  condition  of  its  affairs,  was  ^851,000. 

An  effort  was  then  made  to  reach  a  final  settlement  of  these  debts,  and  a  sys- 
tem was  adopted  for  that  purpose,  the  details  of  which  will  appear  from  the 
letters  to  the  agents,  copies  and  extracts  of  which  are  annexed.  The  gen- 
eral plan  of  it  was,  that  when  a  debt  was  well  secured  by  mortgage,  and 
the  interest  paid  regularly,  the  debtor  should  not  be  disturbed:  That  when 
the  mortgage  was  insufficient  to  secure  the  debt,  it  should  be  foreclosed: 
That  where  there  were  judgments,  and  the  interest  was  not  paid  regularly, 
the  property  should  be  sold;  and,  finally,  where  the  debt  still  remained  on 
personal  security,  and  the  debtor  would  not  voluntarily  confess  judgment, 
suit  should  be  brought.  But,  in  regard  to  the  receipt  of  real  estate  in  pay- 
ment of  debts,  the  plan  was  generally  discouraged,  from  an  extreme  unwil- 
lingness to  acquire  that  species  of  property.  Thus,  in  the  letter  to  the 
agent,  on  the  3d  of  May,  1823,  he  was  informed  that  "the  board  do  not 
wish  to  announce,  nor  do  they  intend  to  adopt,  any  general  determination  to 
accept  real  estate  in  payment.''  So,  in  the  letter  to  the  cashier,  dated  August 
8,  1823,  ^^  you  art  aware  that  the  general  plan  of  administering  tha 
affairs  of  that  agency y  is  to  accept  real  estate  only  when  nothing  else,  or 
nothing  better  can  be  obtained  from  desperate  debtors,^' 

Whatever  was  thus  acquired  reluctantly,  was  always  for  sale,  and  al- 
ways sold,  whenever  it  could  be  done  without  too  great  a  sacrifice.  Thus, 
in  the  instructions  to  Messrs.  Cadwalader  &  Cope,  under  date  of  the  23d  of 
September,  1825,  it  is  said:  "  For  obvious  reasons,  the  board  are  desirous  of 
disposing  of  this  property,  and  converting  the  funds  into  a  more  productive 
shape;  whenever  this  can  be  done  without  sacrifice." 


321  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

And,  again,  in  liie  letter  to  Herman  Cope,  esq.,  the  new  agent,  dated  Feb,- 
ruary  4,  1829,  he  is  informed  that  'Hhe  bank,  you  are  aware,  is  willing  to 
pell  whenever  it  can  do  so  without  sacrifice;"  and  lie  is  directed  *'to  give 
special  attention  to  the  inquiry,  whether  the  lime  has  arrived  when  we  can 
advantageously  dispose  of  the  real  estate  more  rapidly  than  we  are  now  doing; 
and  if  so,  what  would  be  the  best  mode  of  accomplishing  it.''  The  general 
theory  of  the  hank,  then,  has  been,  never  to  take  real  estate  when  it  could 
be  avoided,  and  never  to  keep  it  when  it  could  be  sold  without  sacrifice. 

In  doingthis,  however,  the  bank  had  to  consider,  not  merely  its  own  in- 
terest by  not  forcing  the  sales,  but  also  the  benefit  of  the  city  of  Cincinnati, 
which  might  be  oppressed  and  permanently  injured  if  the  bank  were  to 
throw  into  the  market  large  masses  of  real  estate.  In  order  to  understand 
perfectly  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  bank  in  regard  to  its  real  estate,  the 
board  consulted  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Binney,  whose  opinions,  vvilh  tho 
proceedings  of  the  board  founded  on  them,  will  be  seen  in  the  annexed  pa- 
pers. 

In  consequence  of  these  opinions,  theboard  haveslncedeemed  themselves  as 
standing  precisely  on  the  same  footing  as  any  individual  proprietor,  and  have 
accordingly  directed  their  exertions  to  improve  their  properly  for  the  purpose 
of  selling  it.  Believing  ihe  possession  of  real  estate  to  be  entirely  contrary  to 
the  interests  of  the  institution,  and  anxious  to  dispose  of  it  as  rapidly  as  possi- 
ble, all  tlie  improvements  of  opening  streets  and  alleys,  or  contributing  to  the 
making  of  roads,  have  had  but  one  object — to  prepare  their  j)roperty  for  salc- 
When  some  of  the  debtors  have  had  no  means  of  paying,  except  in  labor  and 
materials,  these  were  accepted  and  employed  in  the  repairs  or  erection  of  build- 
ings. When  the  canal  came  into  the  ground  owned  by  the  bank,  a  basin  was 
excavated,  and  six  warehouses  built  with  a  view  to  attract  purchasers  for  the 
adjoining pioperty,  as  wellcs  the  warehouses.  A  number  of  stores  were  in 
like  manner  erected  in  other  parts  of  the  town,  as  auxiliary  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  adjacent  ground,  'i'he  extent  of  these  operations  will  be  seen 
in  the  annexed  statement  marked  A.  But  no  original  building,  no  building 
in  itself,  and  for  itself,  an  objectof  income,  has,  I  believe,  ever  been  erected. 
The  board  was  much  urged,  as  well  by  the  agent  himself,  as  by  many  citi- 
zens of  Cincinnati,  to  erect  a  hotel,  a  building  greatly  needed,  it  was  said, 
for  the  public  accommodation,  and  promising  to  be  very  profitable.  But 
\hey  found  a  distinction  between  this  case  and  the  other  buildings  of  which 
they  had  permitted  the  erection;  they  refused  to  authorize  such  a  building, 
but  offered  the  ground  on  which  it  was  desired  to  erect  it,  at  an  abatement 
of  twenty  per  cent,  on  the  price,  in  case  the  applicant  would  build  the  hotel 
himself. 

The  result  of  this  system  has  thus  far  been  beneficial  alike  to  the  bank 
and  to  the  community.  To  the  bank,  because  it  has  been  enabled  to  dispose, 
gradually,  of  its  property,  so  as  probably  to  escapeany  ultimate  loss;  and  to  the 
community,  because  the  sales  and  imjjrovements  of  the  bank  have  kept  pace 
with  those   of  individual   citizens,  so  as  not  to  injure  them  by  competition* 

In  further  illustration  of  the  unwillingness  of  the  bank  to  increase  the 
amount  of  its  real  estate,  or  to  acquire  any  whenever  there  could  be  the  least 
doubt  of  its  propriety,  tv/o  cases  may  be  cited. 

1st.  The  bank  had  received  from  one  of  its  debtors,  a  house  in  Pittsburg, 
which  the  board  of  that  branch  requested  might  be  converted  into  a  banking 
house;  but,  in  order  to  adapt  it  for  such  a  purpose,  it  was  necessary  to  pur- 
chase a  piece  of  ground  in  the  rear  of  the  building,  about  33  feet  front  by  18 
feet  deep. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  325 

The  bank,  however,  refused  to  make  thi.«»  purchase,  hut  preferred  going 
to  the  expense  of  purchasing  a  new  lot,  and  selling  the  house  lo  a  disadvan- 
laj2;e.  The  extracts  from  the  correspondence  and  the  minutes  of  1826  and 
1827,  hereto  annexed,  will  explaiii  this. 

2d.  The  sec^ond  case  occurred  in  Oliio,  in  1S32,  within  a  few  days  past. 
The  agent  at  Chillicothe  in  the  sale  of  vsome  property,  engaged  lo  take  some 
real  estate  in  part  payment.  The  board  refused  to  receive  it.  The  extracts 
from  the  minutes,  hereto  annexed,  will  explain  this. 

The  hanking  houses,  of  which  a  list  is  prepared  for  the 

committee,  cost  .  -  -  -  iSl,  170,739  25 

The  sum  already  applied  to  the  extinguishment  of  this  ex- 
pense,  is  -  -  -  -  -  551,292  05 

Leaving  their  actual  cost  at  $619,447  20 

Which    will  be  gra;iually  covered  by  the  annual  appropriation  for  that  pur- 
pose, out  of  the  profits  of  the  bank  of  Sl20,000. 

The  suspend(Ki  debts  of  the  bank,  and  the  provisions  to  repair  the  losses 
which  may  grow  out  of  them,  are  as  follows: 
The  total  amount  of  debts  suspended  of  over-drafts,  and 

deliciencies  of  every  description  since  the  foundation  of 

the  bank,  is         -         -         - ^7,999,931   30 

Of  these,  the  amount  considered  desperate,  and,  therefore, 

totally  lost,  is 3,499,6 IG  01 

Leaving  a  balance  of  §4, 500,315  29 

Of  this  balance,  after  repeated  examinations,  it  is  estimated 

that  the  actual  loss  will  be 1,801,516  42 

The  bank,  by  suspending  its  dividends  for  a  considerable 
time,  and  by  the  reservation  of  various  resources,  has  ac- 
cumulated a  contingent  fund  to  meet  the  losses,  which 
now  amounts  to  --.-»--      .'5,611,746  57 

So  that  the  actual  losses  are  already  extinguished,  and  the  fund,  to  meet 
the  estimated  loss,  is  S3 10, 6 14  14  beyond  a  rigorous  estimate  of  those  losses. 
Having  thus  presented  to  the  committee,  a  general  outline  of  the  struc- 
ture and  situation  of  the  bank;  I  have  only  to  conclude,  as  I  began,  with 
the  assurance  that  the  board  will  cheerfully  give  every  facility  in  their 
power  to  the  proposed  examination  of  its  aflairs. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.   BIDDLE,  President. 


326 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


B. 

STATEMENT  of  the  value  of  imports  from  the  \st  July,  1S30,  to 
30th  September,  1831;  also  the  amount  of  bonds  payable  Jor  the  same 
period,  or  to  the  29th  February,  1832,  in  New  York. 

Value  of  imports  for  3d  quarter  of  1830,  -  -  $12,490,705 

4         «'       *«     "  -  -  10,877,792 

1  "       <'   1831  -  .  12,000,962 

2  *«       "     <«  -  -  15,437,614 

3  «       "     "  -  -  18,558,499 

Total  import  value,     S6 9, 365, 572 


ionds  paid  in  July, 

1830, 

August, 

(< 

September, 

a 

October, 

a 

November, 

i( 

December, 

ii 

January, 

1831, 

February, 

<< 

March, 

it 

April, 

IC 

May, 

u 

June, 

(C 

July, 

n 

August, 

(( 

September, 

a 

October, 

ii 

November, 

it 

December, 

i( 

January,     \ 

1832, 

February, 

a 

t     818,265  72 

1,011,703  06 

888,092   18 

840,890  48 

842,282  54 

911,534  52 

854,251   37 

899,814  9^ 

1,079,336  08 

1,231,331  46 

1,498,577  79 

1,028,571  49 

1,379,249  43 

1,230,042  06 

1,555,608   10 

1,484,028  25 

1,269,006  29 

1,883,593  33 

1,172,196  75 

1,808,410  62 

^23,686,786  48 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


327 


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328 


[  Eep.  No.  4G0.  J 
D. 


B  lis  (lifvcouii'ed 

Dauk  st'jck. 

Fundcil  ilebt. 

Total. 

o;i  pcisona!  se- 

curity. 

1839. 

.T^nnrirr     • 

29,85-t,668  36 

1,375,601  38 

293,061  23 

31.528,333  97 

Fcbnjary  - 

30,247,401  86 

1,285,735  03 

105,315  7% 

31,633,452  62 

Marcli    '    - 

31,277,820  16 

1   182,073 

38,555  7?^ 

32,'l9>'.,44a  89 

Aprl 

31,982,997  34 

1,175,912 

160,430  7:> 

33. 3 i6, 340  07 

Mny 

32,097,706  76 

1,213,437  13 

3l5.9iJ9  97 

33,627,133  86 

June 

3 1, 3 80, t)05  38 

1  333,297  46 

Tk\7  ,S7^  49 

33,621,481  3.) 

July 

51,793,746  9U 

1,359,720  66 

1,046,300 

34,196,767  56 

Au[r.,3t        - 

31,094,082  81 

1,336,111  Q>^ 

e4,216  09 

32,515,410  55 

SciAembcr 

31,079,205  39 

1,261,812  15 

74.8:9  97 

32.415,847  51 

October     - 

31,032,233  06 

1,280,253  63 

59,936  79 

32,432,453  48 

Novcmbrr 

31.240,464  92 

1,165,780  72 

134,878  02 

3 2, 5 i 1,1 23  66 

December 

31,126,407  30 

1,120,964  90 

251,128  88 

33,498,501  08 

1830. 

.lamnry     - 

30, 654, .508  31 

1,002,294  51 

315,839  17 

31,972,641  99 

l'\-b:u«ry  • 

30,971,805  51 

1,017,577  63 

42,212  51 

32,031,595  70 

M*!-Ctl 

30,K95,922  12 

1,004,061  93 

144,291  83 

32,044,275  88 

April 

30,925,129  11 

993,084  58 

2 JO, 05 7  20 

3  2,138.170  89 

May 

30,896,965  68 

994,951  28 

626,405  ^y^ 

32,518,322  8.) 

Jiinr; 

30,829,391  OS 

1,005,819  02 

1,069,028  20 

32,904,238  30 

July 

31,304,553  41 

i 18, 508  99 

653,968  ^5 

32,877,030  75 

Aujfust 

31,806,840  40 

879,639  7^ 

84,342  51 

32,770,822  67 

S«-pt«mbcr 

31,761,077  20 

881,455  85 

83,893  51 

32,726,428  56 

O^iobfr     - 

31,800,743  25 

839,113  5'i 

121,067  51 

32,810.924  31 

Novembei- 

52,665,034  61 

719,195  12 

67,641  (SZ 

3],  45 1,871  36 

Dtrcember 

32,614,894  25 

717,^27 

67,541  63 

33,400,262  88 

1831. 

Januiry     • 

32,827,121  72 

m:!i.m^  6i 

83  .276 

33,575,403  44 

February  • 

32,942,581  91 

624,561  95 

17,400 

33.584,543  86 

March 

33,502,614  39 

711,034  01 

6,800 

34,220,448  40 

Anril 

35,185,756  89 

774,220  37 

7,800 

36,067,777  26 

M'y 

37,473,279  54 

701,731  37 

42,315 

38,217,325  91 

June 

38.927,311  88 

793,951  75 

21  990 

39,743,253  6^ 

July 

40,559.944  96 

866,083  86 

22.390 

41,448,423  76 

August 

41,585,298  70 

779,458  07 

19,700 

42,384,456  77 

September 

43,252,404  64 

786,295  84 

14,300 

44,053,000  43 

Ooiiiber     - 

45,370,135  77 

709,946  99 

19,300 

46,099,382  76 

November 

46,942.682  06 

679,631  99 

96,118  01 

47,718,482  06 

December 

47,484,548  26 

669,423  99 

18,950 

48,172,922  25 

1832. 

January     - 

48,852,570  34 

731,157  53 

18,850 

49,602,577  87 

February  - 

48,205,417  06 

788,312  92 

5,000 

48,998,759  99 

MarcU 

45,850,357  27 

620,766  14 

2,145,895  20 

48,617,028  61 

April 

Miiy 

44,874.893  91 

5:}>Q,^j7  20 

1,969,527  09 

47,375.078  20 

L  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

D— Continued. 


329 


1829. 

January- 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 


1830. 

January 

February 

March 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August 

September 

October 

November 

DecemTjer 


1831. 

January 

February 

March 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August 

September 

October 

November 

December 


1832. 

January 
February 
March 
April 

May     • 


Domestic  bills 


7,689,268 
8,967,853 
9,268,137 
9^561,152 
9,267,454 
9,088,626 
8,821,365 
8,342,147 
7,486.305 
7,327,599 
7,476,321 
7,718,029 


8,691,163 

10,000,898 

10,306,895 

10,506,882 

10,688,371 

10,611,091 

10,361,137 

9,257,937 

8,232,469 

7,716,599 

7,954,289 

9,002,041 


10,456,653 
12,284,708 
12,943,953 
14,725,923 
15,364,741 
15,400,485 
15,113,621 
14,409,479 
13,796,719 
14,001,991 
13,775,978 
14,853,530 


Total  of  dis- 
counts and 
bills. 


39,217,602 
40.606,305 
41,766,586 
42,887,492 
42,894,587 
42,710,107 


Funded  debt. 


16  16,099 
76115,727 
06  15,224 
9015,157 


90 
34 

3443,018,132  90 
16 
82 
80 
93 

03  40,216,530  11 


40,856,558 
39,902,152 
39,760,052 
40,017,444 


40,663,805 
42,032,494 
42,351,170 
42,645,153 
43,206,694 
43,515,329 
43,238,168. 
42,028.760 
40,958,897 
40,527,523 
41,406,160 
42,402,304 


16,691,129  34 
18,971,647  78 
20,354,748  79 


44,032 
45,869 
47,164 
50,793 
53,582 
55,143 
56,562 
56,793 
57,849 
60,101 
61,494 
63,026 


,057  23 
,252  10 
,101  49 
,700  56 
,067  7S 
,739  42 
,044  95 
,936  49 
,720  31 
,373  88 
.460  71 
,452  93 


Real  estate. 


Bank'g  houses 

and  permanent. 

expenses. 


15,007 
14,970 
14,932 
12,676 
12,249 
11,710 
11,717 
11,635 


11,610 
11  385 
11,182 
11,122 
10,892 
10,892 
10,674 
10,674 
10,674 
10,674 
8,674 
8,674 


,099  18 
,251  94 
J7^  01 
,924  72 
,472  13 
,7^7  13 
,639  88 
,133  18 
,287  27 
,710  79 
,070  90 
,290  90 


,290  90 
,790  90 
,120  90 
,530  90 
,530  90 
,530  90 
,724  05 
,724  05 
,724  05 
,724  05 
,681  06 
,681  06 


66,293,707  21 
67,970,407  76 
68,971,777  40 


23,052,973  52  70,428,070  72 



8,674,681  06 
7,674,681  06 
7,674,681  06 
7,674,681  06 
5,674,681  06 
5,674,681  06 
3,674,681  (/6 
3,497,681  06 
3,497,681  06 
3,497,681  06 

2,200- 

2,200 


2,200 
2.200 


2,345,539  30 
2,347,805  03 
2,345,035  02 
2,348,134  09 
2,238,887  33 
2,350,077  88 
2,606,495  54 
2,587,092  21 
2,553,051  11 
2,563,833  56 
2,584,014  06 
2.727,046  18 


1,557,356  59 
1,498,291  45 
1,498,837  93 
1,498,998  35 
1,499,247  35 
1,485,618  71 
1,502,024  22 
1,442,402  15 
1 ,443 ,420  90 
1,443,833  81 
1,444,110  41 
1,444.401  89 


2,886,397 
2,874,367 
2,842,631 
2,981,890 
2,842,287 
2,829,848 
2,802,004 
2,804,974 
2,833,013 
2,805,947 
2,766,796 
2,768,940 


2,629,125  21 
2,623,690  77 
2,616,313  10 
2,604,865  51 
2,557,293  39 
2,531,400  25 
2,493,455  69 
2,491,892  99 
2,492,987  78 
2,415,598  77 
2,224,796  91 
2,217,581  36 


2,136,525  S^ 
2,221,975  7\ 
2,131,359  54 

1,759,752  62 


1,444 
1,385 
1,386 
1,391 
1,378 
1,381 
1 ,384 
1,328 
1,332 

1    yOOS 

1,337 
1 ,337 


,801  66 
,094  19 
.588  77 
,507  09 
,502  69 
,877  83 
,171  17 
,832  48 
,727  34 
,174  03 
,838  31 
,950  68 


1,344,761  02 
1,281,332  71 
1,283,384  71 
1,283,590  42 
1,294,902  09 
1,295;978  11 
1,298,098  04 
1,160,455  54 
1,161,455  54 
1,147,895  76. 
1,148,849  89 
l.iD4,103  31 


1,159,637  22 
1,071,964  76 
1,163,691  92 

1,169,115  12 


42 


330 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

D — Continued 


Barings,  Hope 

Specie. 

Total  of  invest- 

Bilances with 

Public  depo- 

&  Co.  and 

ments. 

Slate  banks. 

sites. 

foreign  bills. 

1829. 

. 

January 

482,420  58 

6,098,138  19 

65,800,156 

c  1,723,297  89 

10,696,966  84 

Fel.ruary     - 

695,463  31 

6,027,840  75 

66,902,958  23 

d    492,559  68 

8,655,102  34 

March 

932,713  76 

5,687,550  79 

67,455,496  57 

275,313  16 

7,531.939  76 

April 

1,078,182  12 

5,786,985  51 

68,757,717  69 

c       60,932  70 

8,629,733  37 

May 

1,076,953  38 

5,631,118  54 

68,448,266  63 

480,890  43 

9,194,826  51 

June 

669.316  43 

5,817,901  85 

68,003,789  34 

1,765,723  76 

10,876  815  22 

July 

1,447,196  76 

6,641,968  68 

70.148,447  98 

1,960,398  27 

11,6.57.419  23 

August 

1,658,468  36 

6,753,975  82 

65,974,629  88 

.257,121  05 

4,999,276  67 

Septenrjber  - 

1,558,528  27 

6,653.665  28 

61,360.10^  65 

664,935  57 

5,585,271  57 

October 

1,406,462  26 

7,417,799  22 

64,302  690  44 

917,986  .37 

6,327,619  08 

November    - 

1,161,000  53 

7,175,273  9i; 

64,098,914  73 

843,551  26 

6,547,493  45 

December    - 

1,227,436  87 

7,251,782  78 

64,502,488  73 

970,365  44 

7,313,343  05 

1830. 
Jantiary 

1,530,553  24 

7,608  076  90 

65.743,925  36 

1,199.458  65 

6,795,405  95 

F  bruiiry 

1,792,045  53 

7,315,280  32 

66,785,073  25 

d    305,175  18 

7,619,774  96 

Mirch    '       - 

2,688,127  43 

8,038,240  40 

68.488,885  77 

80,875  21 

8,580,292  43 

April 

2,789,498  ^4 

9,043,748  97 

69,884.329  6H 

60,331  2i 

8,905,501   87 

May 

2,880,953  68 

9,187.908  79 

70,388,877  71 

c     450,333 

9,486,084  91 

June 

3,477.413  80 

9,746,884  56 

71,842  885  33 

1,014,085  87 

10,351,331   17 

July 

3.756,813  61 

10.252,325  63 

72.118,206  84 

1,335,058  23 

10,437,070  69 

August  ■ 

3,664,474  96 

11,280,096  42 

71,781,862  4^ 

ri2.585,534  41 

6,024,883  62 

September  - 

3,583,373  83 

11,040,477  54 

70,423,214  66 

1,734,548  08 

5,651,228  08 

October 

3,394,265  71 

11,386.163  4U 

-0,126,818  31 

c  1,159.342  36 

9,452,258  .57 

N<  V  mber    - 

2,778,653  13 

11,436,175  50 

68,400,305  91 

2,003,655  %, 

5.741,409  02 

December    - 

2,260,456  65 

11,089,080  89 

68,534,312  63 

400,942  67 

5,813,610  30 

1831. 
January 

3,387,331  19 

10.808,047  07 

69,876,002  78 

d    734,900  51 

9,131,964  13 

Febniary      - 

1 ,657,343  88 

11,169,428  24 

70,275,728  96 

863,569  69 

7,238,270  83 

M.rch 

1,161,076  75 

12,012,232  73 

71,911,789  84 

1,270,390  79 

8,958,983  11 

April 

180,339  86 

12,485,609  61 

75,022,787  02 

316,092  80 

9,001,169  55 

M.y 

174,841  91 

I2,5:.9,38l  13 

75,816,167  33 

274,001   17 

7,531,532  35 

June 

206,407  29 

12.070,253  97 

76,922,460  10 

40,975  74 

7,833,637  55 

July 

144,439  72 

12,175,476  85 

76.348,196  31 

c       60,538  04 

7,655,803  97 

August 

121,214  60 

11  545,116  51 

75,610,347  19 

d    131,746  51 

7,252,249  43 

September  - 

83.974  07 

10,893,216  89 

75,978  035  65 

c     35%,2\5  24 

8,415,792  14 

Ogtobnr 

135,583  93 

9,323,fel8  86 

76,621,951  49 

rf  1,105, 528  62 

9,513',434  99 

KovAmber    • 

82,974  07 

8,137,596  95 

73,090,878  53 

956,179  97 

6,843,356  33 

December   - 

82,974  07 

7,502,250  84 

73,985,562  51 

1,003,311  16 

8,85f;70Q  20 

1832. 
January 

91,668  23 

7,038,823  12 

76,722,561  34 

1,993,744  55 

12,589,363  62 

February 

114,315  07 

6,884,825  88 

78,265,688  58 

174,032  65 

8,947,204  or 

III 

91,238  83 

6,799,453  63 

79,157,821  42 

1,152,552  23 

9,097,724 

83,988  25 

7,890,347  59 

81,331,274  32 

.    - 

10,785,886  41 

Due  from  State  bank  1st  May,  ^726,196  41. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

D — Continued. 


331 


1829. 

January 

Fehniary 

MHt-r.ll 

April 

MiV 

June 

July 

AM'^MlSt 

September 
October 
Novcnuber 
December 


1830. 

Janunry 
>Vbr  :ary 

April 

May 

June 

July 

Au);iist 

September 

O  tuber 

November 

December 


1831. 

Janti-ry 

Ft't^fU-iry 
Murcli 
Ap-.l 
May 

July 

AutCMSt 

Sep'ember 
Oclober  . 
Nov<'mber 
Dv^^cember 


1832. 

January 
P  biuary 
Marcb 
April 

May 


Private 
depcsites. 


U 


6  364,952 
7,266,794 
7,483,862 
7,341,783 
7,493,198 
6,981,598 
7,122,188 
7.475,098 
7,00a,803 
6,771.115 
6,487,668 
6.260.618 


6,591,005 
7,361,417 
7,696,849 
7,704,2V6 
7,586.687 
8,140,279 
7,928,550 
8,227,333 
7,857,056 
7,694,485 
7,57:>,502 
7,898,911 


7,165,437 
8,767,751 
8,475,346 
9,313,238 
9,488,368 
9,057,161 
9,103,864 
9.115,936 
8,652,789 
8,349,380 
8.071,2-7 
8.145,098 


Circulation. 


8,107,155  65 
8,974,178  47 
8,816,759  81 

9,005,096  57 


13,391,110 
13.510,962 
14,257,717 
15,164,857 
15,032,107 
15,517,782 
15,813,543 
16,394,471 
15,057  781 
i 5. 202, 797 
15,844,983 
14,948,124 


364,135 
179,229 
804,69  5 
083,894 
093,866 
771 ,146 
996,431 
223 ,574 
610,656 
62,976 
004,679 
649.226 


Nett  circula- 
tion.  . 


90 


18.527,886 
18,799,755 
■8.501,460 
20,619,335 
22,192,532 
22,015,590 
23.565,305 
22.399,447 
21,464,295 
22,977,445 
23,616  380 
22,994,355 


24,630,747  60 
24,869  920 
23,717,440 

22,016,498 


11 ,901,656 
12,323,942 
12,920,853 
14,067,998 
13  ,630,543 
13,780,M47 
13,691,783 
13,894.277 
168,557 
12,514.943 
12, 85;),  082 
12,742,722 


12.924,145 
13,470  .599 
14,065.234 
14,176.927 
14,514,627 
15,079.986 
15,346,407 
15,599,086 
15,269,352 
15,343,657 
15,7o6,247 
15,846,902 


90  16 
90  16 
9(n6 
18 


.251,167 
,513,412 
,933,122 
.238.492 
,600,917 
,951,232 
,195,817 
,377,910 
.827,610 
.708,-J85 
,724,8.20 
,914,740 


21,250,545 
21,081,675 
21.044,415 


B:trirg3,  &c. 


710,039  61 

168,378  72 
1.54,948  46 

1,085,171  05 
603,402  5! 

1,195,942  06 


1,447,748  68 
2,245,888  79 
1,876,802  39 

1,878.122  29 


30,453 
29,432 
29,273 
31,1.^6 
31,720 
3.3 ,376 
34,593 
28,878 
27,643 
28  301 
28,880 
28,522 


,029  24 
,859  06 
,520  29 
,374  75 
J33  40 
,196  28 
,141  75 
.846  80 
,856  78 
,532  8S 
,145  57 
,586  64 


28,550,546  79 
30,160,422  25 
32,081 ,835  93 
32,693,053  19 
33,166,6.>8  or 
35,242,756  46 
36,362,053  43 
32,475.791  61 
31,096,941  24 
34,^89,7:0  75 
31,319  591  24 
31,361,748  54 


34,825,288  16 
34,8.15.777  92 
35,936.790  04 
38,93  3,743  23 
39,212,433  71 
39.617,429  04 
40,324,972  03 
38.925,908  15 
38,687.825  21 
41,925.441  50 
39  134.375  95 
41,193,095  33 


46,775.015  55 
45,037,191  33 
43,558,726  20 

43,685,603  2T 


332 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


E. 
Weekky  Statement  of  the  Branch  at  New  York. 


1831. 

August  3, 

10, 
17, 
24, 
30, 

September  7, 
14, 
20, 
27, 
4, 
12, 
19, 

November    2, 


October 


December 


January- 


February 


March 


April 


May 


16, 
23, 
30, 

7, 
14, 
21, 
28, 

4, 
11, 
18, 

8, 
15, 
22, 
29, 

7, 
14, 
21, 
28, 

4, 

11, 

18, 

25, 

2, 


Active  debt. 


3,482,089  84 
3,622,123  15 
3,695,757  03 

3.937.504  51 
4,020,691  78 
4,103,134  87 
4,440,728  39 
4,656,801  58 
4,606,183  08 
4,717,215  05 

4.651.328  88 
4,518,287  76 
4,558,684  80 
4,530,885  17 
4,556,105  21 
4,533,349  57 
4,403,366  32 
4,429,660  78 
4,438,345  16 
4,523,697  78 
4,552,525  16 
4,632,676  74 
4,733,860  79 
4,748,804  94 

4.785.531  22 
4,777,695  35 
4,847,227  31 
4,759,597  28 
4,730,200  12 
4,757,377  96 
4,881,464  65 
4,872,665  86 
4,869,189  44 
4,834,917  15 
4,808,733  45 
4,781,679  60 

4.682.532  13 

4.689.329  65 
4,700,198  67 

4.690.505  56 


Domestic  bills 
exchanged. 


1,194,302  76 
1,239,380  55 
1,283,243  66 
1,359,205  83 
1,401,650  05 
1,430,133  72 
1,462,531  60 
1,528,022  72 
1,532,056  02 
1,557,497  30 
1,531,669  11 
1,527,048  36 
1,502,504  09 
1,509,829  82 
1,474,124  02 
1,444,382  76 
1,384,253  02 
1,347,287  00 
1,349,626  60 
1,352,707  18 
1,361,883  80 
1,353,045  08 
1,331,709  82 
1,316,565  70 
1,312,234  74 
1,258,761  73 
1,224,386  52 
1,201,730  22 
1,133,601  01 
1,088,145  86 
1,069,434  07 
1,075,758  30 
1,060,744  01 
1,041,293  72 
997,531  73 
987,624  70 
953,830  44 
948,989  50 
913,967  49 
891,179  92 


[  Eep.  No.  46a.  ]  333 


Questions  <*  on  the  influence  of  the  Bank  of  the  Uniled  States  upon 
trade,''  put  by  Mr,  Cambreleng  to  the  President. 

1.  Since  1S16,  have  we  not  experienced  reactions  in  1818-19,  1825-26, 
1829-30;  and  has  not  the  demand  for  money  been  increasing  since  October 
last? 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  precisely  what  is  meant  by  reactions.  In  the 
active  commercial  business  of  this  country,  there  are  constant  vibrations, 
but  the  only  real  danger  which  I  have  ever  seen  since  1819,  was  in  the  fall 
of  1825.  The  troubles  of  1818-19,  had  little  connexion  with  trade.  They 
grew  out  of  the  transition  from  a  depreciated  to  a  sound  currency,  which 
necessarily  occasioned  a  great  reduction  of  .the  circulating  medium.  The 
estimate  of  Mr.  Crawford  was,  that  the  bank  notes  in  1813  amounted  to  62 
millions;  in  1815,  during  the  suspension  of  speeie  payments,  to  110  mil- 
lions; Mr.  Gallatin  estimates  their  amount  in  1816  at  70  millions,  and  in 
1820  at  45  millions.  These  fluctuations  were,  in  themselves,  sufficient 
causes  of  the  embarrassments  of  1819.  The  demand  for  money  in  October 
last,  has  not  been  increasing  to  this  time,  (April,  .1832,)  but  is  nearly  past. 

2.  Are  not  such  reactions  in  trade  usually  attended  with  stagnation  of  in- 
dustry, bankruptcies  among  traders  and  manufacturers,  and  distress  among 
laborers  thrown  out  of  employ? 

3.  In  every  such  reaction,  does  not  a  large  amount  of  property  pass  from 
the  active  and  enterprising  to  the  wealthier  classes? 

This  again  depends  on  what  is  meant  by  reaction'.  I  have  never  seen 
any  such  disasters  arising  out  of  the  temporary  vibrations  of  the  active  busi- 
ness of  this  country. 

4.  Are  not  countries  where  a  large  paper  circulation  is  substituted  for  a 
metallic  currency,  most  liable  to  these  distressing  fluctuations? 

5.  Does  not  this  arise,  in  a  great  degree,  from  the  tendency  of  prices 
where  such  a  currency  exists,  to  rise  higher  and  fall  lower,  than  in  coun- 
tries where  the  price  of  labor,  and  the  value  of  property,  are  more  uniform 
through  an  unchanging  and  sound  currency? 

This  is  generally  true,  but  by  no  means  universally.  A  metallic  curren- 
cy may  be  exposed  to  as  violent  fluctuations  as  a  paper  currency,  the  expan- 
sive power  of  credit  often  supplying  the  diminution  of  coin.  Moreover, 
the  paper  currency  of  Scotland  is  perhaps  less  fluctuating  than  the  metallic 
currency  of  France. 

6.  Independent  of  the  various  incidental  causes  which,  may  agitate  trade 
at  any  time,  and  in  all  countries,  are  not  some  of  the  fluctuations  in  value 
of  property  of  all  kinds,  exclusively  attributable  to  changes  in  the  revenue 
laws;  and  do  not  the  most  violent  arise  from  sudden  alterations  in  the  cur- 
rency, or  from  too  abrupt  an  expansion  or  contraction  of  bank  loans  and  cir- 
culation? 

I  should  think  that  changes  in  the  revenue  laws,  sudden  alterations  of  the 
currency,  and  *'too  abrupt  an  expansion  or  contraction  of  bank  loans  and 
circulation,"  would  occasion  fluctuations  in  the  value  of  property. 

7.  If  a  bank  or  a  Government  adds  ten  millions  suddenly  to  an  existing 
paper  currency,  and  as  suddenly  loans  it  to  trade,  will  it  not  injuriously  af- 
fect both  your  trade  and  your  currency? 


334 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


Not  necessarily  nor  naturally.  It  depends  wholly  on  the  existing  slate 
of  the  trade  and  the  currency. 

8.  Is  there  any  substantial  difference  between  issuing  ten  millions  of  a 
new  paper  currency,'  not  representing  capital,  and  arbitrarily  adding  that 
amount  to  the  value  of  your  metallic  currency,  by  increasing  its  value  by 
law,  except  in  degree,  as  to  the  suffering  of  the  community? 

A  very  substantial  difference.  To  depreciate  the  coin  is  a  fraud  on  the 
pnrtof  the  Government:  an  increase  of  paper,  convertible  into  coin,  may 
be  very  advantageous,  if  the  trade  and  business  of  the  country  require  it,  and,  if 
they  do  not  require  it,  the  evil  will  soon  correct  itself,  because  it  will  be 
converted  into  coin. 

9.  Was  not  the  distress  of  1818-19  caused,  or  its  severity  much  increas- 
ed, by  the  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  between  January,. 
1S17,  and  October,  ISIS,  in  too  rapidly  loaning  more  than  forty  millions  of 
dollars,  and  increasing  our  general  circulation  upwards  of  ten  millions  m 
bank  notes? 

I  do  not  think  the  distress  was  either  caused  or  increased  by  the  loans  and 
circulation  of  the  bank.  When  a  bank,  with  a'capital  of  thirty-five  millions, 
established  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  a  circulation,  has  issued  at  the  end 
of  twenty-one  months,  only*  §8,713,951,  not  ten  millions,  as  the  question 
suggests,  the  surprise  is  not  that  it  was  so  great,  but  that  it  was  so  small. 

10.  Was  not  the  distress  much  increased  by  a  sudden  contraction  of  its 
loans  b  etween  July,  181S,  and  May,  1819? 

The  contraction  was  not  sudden  but  gradual:  the  whole  reduction  between 
the  two  periods,  a  space  of  ten  months,  in  the  whole  establishment,  was  only 
^8,954,794. 

11.  Was  not  the  distress  of  1825-26,  much  increased  by  the  change  in 
Qur  revenue  laws  in  1824,  by  the  increased  loans  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
Slates,  by  an  addition  to  its  circulation,  .between  1st  January,  1824,  and  the 
1st  of  July,  1825,  of  five  millions  of  dollars,  and  by  too  rapidly  increasing 
its  investments  in  funded  debt,  from  June,  1824,  to  June,  1825,  from  ten 
to  twenty  millions  of  dollars? 

It  is  doubtless  very  difficult  to  connect  events  with  their  remote  causes. 
But  it  is  not,  extremely  easy  to  ascribe  the  existence  of  the  greatest  com- 
mercial and  financial  calamity  both  in  England  and  the  United  Stales,  to  the 
circumstance  of  the  bank's  having  increased  its  business  eighteen  months 
before  that  period.  There  is  the  less  reason  to  ascribe  these  great  events  to 
this  cau>e,  inasmuch  as  the  loans  of  the  bank  for  nineteen  months  previous 
to  that  pressure,  so  far  from  being  increased,  were  actually  diminished,  -as 
will  appear  from  the 'following  statement: 


Bills  of  Exchange. 


Totals. 


1st  January,  1824,     - 
Slst  July,  1825,   -     - 


31,108,253  96 
29,489,174  34 


2,323,830  19 
3,622,882   69 


8  1,619,079   62     ^1,299,052  50    $     320,027   12 


33,432,084   15 
33,112,057  03 


Here  is  an  actual  diminution  of  loans  in  the  Atlantic  cities  of  1,619,079  62, 
and  an  actual  increase  in  the  remittances  of  bills  from  the  south  and  west  to 
sustain  them,  of  1,300, 000 j  and,  finally,  an  aggregate  reduction  of  the  loans 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  335 

of  the  whole  establishment  of  $  3,000,000.  As  all  this  reduction  took  place 
three  montlis  before  tlie  pressure,  it  seems  scarcely  reasonable  to  ascribe  the 
pressure  to  an  alleged  increase. 

12.  Suppose  the  speculations  and  reactions  of  1825-26,  to  have  originat- 
ed in  England,  should  we  not  have  been  less  affected  by  it,  had  not  the  cir- 
culation and  funded  debt  of  the  bank  both  been  suddenly  doubled? 

It  is  difficult  to  discover  the  least  connexion  between  the  two  events. 
This  reaction,  as  it  is  called,  took  place  here  In  October,  1825.  In  May, 
1824,  eighteen  months  before,  the  bank  took  the  five  million  loan,  and,  in 
January  and  March,  1S25,  another  loan  of  five  millions;  but  its  general  bu- 
siness was  actually  diminished,  and  its  circulation,  so  far  Irom  being  sudden- 
ly doubled,  underwent  the  most  gradual  and  gentle  increase  imaginable. 
The  whole  increase  of  the  circulation  of  the  bank  from  the  1st  of  July, 
1824,  to  the  1st  of  July,  1825,  was  only  3,277,885  50. 

13.  Was  not  the  distress  among  our  manufacturers  in  1828-29,  partly  at- 
tributable to  our  tariff  of  1828,  and  to  the  bank's  increasing  its  circulation 
four  millions,  and  its  total  investments  five  millions  from  June,  1828,  to 
June,  1830? 

I  do  not  know  what  might  have  been  the  effect  of  the  tariff,  but  certainly 
no  part  of  the  distress  can  be  ascribed  to  the  bank,  for  its  total  investments, 
that  is,  its  total  loans,  were  actually  reduced. 

They  stood  in  June,  1828,  at  -  -  .     g 55,866,872  01 

And  in  June,  1830,  at  -  -  -  -         54,407,800  66 


A  reduction  of           ^             .             -             .             .  g  1,459^071  25 
The  only  increase  of  investment  was  in  the  specie.. 

The  bank  had  in  June,  1828,               -             -             -  ^g  6,577,681  74 

And  in  June,  1830,    -----  9,746,884  56 


Increase,         -  -^  -  -  .  -       g 3, 169,202  82 

So  that  this  increase  of  investments,  which  misled,  to  their  ruin,  the  ma- 
nufacturers, was,  in  fact,  an  increase  of  i§  3,169,202,  82  in  the  specie,  and  a 
diminution  of  its  loans  to  the  amo-ant  of  ^1,459,071   35. 

14.  To  what  other  cause  than  the  operations  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  can  you  attribute  the  demand  for  money  which  began  in  October  last, 
and  has  continued  to  the  present  time? 

15.  Was  it  not  the  natural  consequence  of  the  bank's  rapidly  increasing 
its  bank  note  circulation  from  January  1st,  1829,  to  January  1st,  1831,  ten 
millions,  and  its  total  discounts,  in  thirteen  months,  to  1st  January  last,  from 
forty-one  to  sixty-six  millions  of  dollars? 

I  see  no  connexion  whatever  between  the  operations  of  the  bank  and  the 
demand  for  money,  except  that  the  bank  has  supplied  the  demand.  The 
state  of  things  in  Europe  sufficiently  accounts  for  an  increased  importation 
of  merchandise,  and  a  demand  for  money  to  circulate  them;  and  the  sim- 
ple fact  that  the  increase  of  the  business  of  the  bank  has  arisen  sin»:e  the  im- 
portation, seems  decisive  as  to  the  fact  that  the  increase  has  not  occasioned 
them,  but  has  averted  any  mischief  from  them.  Then,  too,  this  is  much 
exaggerated.  Thus,  it  is  here  stated  that  the  increase  of  circulation  from 
January,  1829,  to  January,  1831,  was  ten  millions:  Now,  the  fact  is,  that 
the  actual  increase  was  only  S3, 98 1,286. 

Then,  again,  the  increase  of  loans  for  thirteen  months,  to  1st  January  last, 
is  stated  at  twenty-five  millions. 


336  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Now,  the  fact  is  that  the  Government  stock  of  the 

bank  was  reduced  from  January  1st,  1829,  to 

January  1st,  1832,       -  .  -  _  .  $16,096,899 

That  the  bank  which,in  May,  1830,had  in  Europe,  [^3, 700,000  ) 
Drew  for  that,  and  overran  its  balances  there,  2,245^000$     ^j^'^^j^^^ 


So  that  it  had  an  actual  increase  of  means  of     -  -  822,041,899 

Yet  with  these  additional  means,  its  loans  (exclusive  of  bills  of  exchange) 

were  increased  from  December,  1829  -  -      ^^32,498,501  08 

January,  1832,  -  -        49,602,577  86 

^17,104,076  78 
The  domestic  bills  purchased  during  the  same  time  being  mainly  the  trans- 
fers of  funds  to  sustain  the  Atlantic  cities,  and  to  carry  the  southern  crop  to 
market. 

Now,  if  there  was  a  demand  for  money,  and  the  bank  had  the  means  of 
supplying  it,  why  should  it  not?  The  object  of  its  creation  was  precisely 
that;  and  as  no  inconvenience  has  happened,  or  will  probably  happen  in  con- 
sequence of  it,  and  as  great  distress  would  have  been  occasioned  if  it  had  not 
taken  place,  it  seems  a  singular  objection  to  a  bank,  that,  finding  a  demand 
for  money,  and  having  the  means  of  supplying  it,  it  did  supply  it. 

16.  Was  it  not  probable  that  an  increase  of  loans  and  bank  notes  corres- 
ponding with  that  made  in  1817-18,  might,  in  1832,  be  followed  by  conse- 
quences similar  to  those  realized  in  1819? 

There  is  no  analogy  between  the  two  cases,  and  no  resemblance  in  the 
situation  either  of  the  bank  or  of  the  counry,  at  these  respective  periods. 
The  bank",  in  1817,*was  urged  by  the  Government  into  immediate  operation, 
and  its  loans  and  circulation,  whatever  their  amount,  had  less  reference  to 
the  wants  of  business  than  the  wants  of  the  Government.  The  increase 
of  1831,  was  an  increase  grov/ing  out  of  the  actual  business  of  the  country, 
which  will  necessarily  subside  when  the  business  is  done. 

17.  Was  not  a  rapid  addition  of  twenty-five  millions  to  the  discounts  of 
the  bank,  and  a  sudden  transfer  of  loans  from  Government  to  trade,  calcu- 
lated inevitably  to  produce  overtrading? 

As  there  was  no  such  rapid  addition,  and  no  such  sudden  transfer,  they 
could  not  have  produced  overtrading. 

18.  Did  not  the  sudden  addition  often  millions  to  our  bank  note  circula- 
tion, affect  our  circulation  unfavorably,  and  force  our  specie  abroad? 

There  has  been  no  such  increase  of  ten  millions.  The  whole  increase  of 
1831,  was  not  near  five  millions. 

19.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  the  United  Slates  lose,  between  the  first  of  July 
and  first  of  January  last,  five  millions  of  its  f»pecie? 

The  amount  of  specie  was  reduced  about  that  amount  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  its  business. 

20.  Had  the  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  became  alarmed 
as  in  July,  1818,  and  resolved  to  curtail  their  loaps  extensively;  or  had  any 
political  or  commercial  event  occurred  to  produce  a  sudden  contraction  of 
the  expanded  circulation  and  loans  of  the  bank,  should  we  not  have  seen 
the  same  demand  for  specie,  and  the  same  commercial  distress,  which  the  bank 
brought  upon  itself  and  the  country  in  1819? 

As  the  directors  did  not  become  alarmed,  what  would  have  happened  in 
case  they  had  become  alarmed,  must  be  entirely  conjectural;  but  the  cir- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  331^ 

cumstances-  of  the  bank  and  of  the  country,  were  so  entirely  different  at 
these  respective  periods,  that  there  appears  to  be  no  analogy  between  them. 

21.  Did  not  the  president  and  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
on  the  7th  of  October  last,  direct  a  circular  to  the  cashiers  of  all  the  offices, 
instructing  them  to  curtail  their  business,  and  to  favor  the  offices  in  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  as  much  as  possible,  and  will  you  insert  a  copy  of 
that  circular  in  your  answer? 

The  circular  was  as  follows: 

{Circular.) 
Bank  United  States,  October  7,  1831. 

Sir:  The  unusually  heavy  reimbursement  of  six  millions  of  funded  debt, 
which  was,  on  the  1st  instant,  advertised  by  Government  to  take  place  on  the 
1st  and  2d  days  of  January  next,  but  which,  according  to  a  subsequent  notice 
from  the  Treasury  Department,  under  yesterday's'date,  may,  it  appears,  be 
demanded  of  the  baak  by  the  public  creditors  at  any  period  of  the  present 
quarter,  is  calculated  to  press  very  inconveniently  upon  the  parent  bank, 
and  upon  the  office  at  New  York;  the  more  so,  from  our  uncertainty  as  to 
the  time  when  the  necessary  provision  must  be  made,  from  the  prevailing 
active  demand  for  money.  Be  pleased,  therefore,  so  to  shape  your  business 
immediately,  as  that,  without  denying  reasonable  accommodation  to  your 
own  customers,  or  Sacrificing  the  interest  of  your  office,  you  may  throw,  as 
early  as  possible,  a  large  amount  of  available  means  into  our  hands,  in  Phila- 
delphia and  New  York;  and,  at  the  same  time,  abstain,  as  far  as  practicable, 
from  drawing  upon  either  of  these  points^  Checks  and  short  drafts  on  the 
local  banks,  and  on  individuals,  will  prove  particularly  acceptable  for  several 
months  to  come,  and  whenever  direct  claims  of  that  kind,  on  either  of  those 
two  places,  are  not  to  be  procured,  you  might  materially  aid  us  by  taking 
drafts  upon  large  cities  nearest  to  them. 

WM.  M'lLVAINE,  Cashier. 

22.  Were  not  similar  instructions  given  in  October,  November,  Decem* 
ber,  January,  and  February,  and  did  not  the  demand  for  money,  which  the  cir" 
cular  states  to  have  been  "active"  on  the  7th  of  October  last,  continue  to 
increase? 

T\?e  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  the  1st  of  October,  1S31,  announced 
that,  on  the  1st  of  January,  about  six  millions  of  the  public  debt  was  to  be 
reimbursed.  On  the  5th  of  October,  1831,  the  Secretary  gave  notice  that 
all  these  six  millions  should  be  immediately  reimbursed  on  demand.  This 
was  done  when  the  Government  had  not  three  millions  and  a  half  in  the 
bank  to  pay  these  stocks.  For  instance,  it  directed  that  three  millions 
fchould  be  paid  in  Philadelphia,  when  the  Government  had  only  ^33,000  in 
the  Bank  at  Philadelphia.  Such  a  measure  required  great  caution  on  the 
part  of  the  bank,  and,  accordingly,  the  branches  were  instructed  to  avoid  as  . 
much  as  possible,  pressing  on  New  York  and  Philadelphia  with  their  drafts, 
but  to  pay  a  portion  of  their  debts  to  the  northern  Atlantic  offices,  where  these 
reimbursements  on  account  of  the  Government  were  to  be  made. 

The  demand  for  money,  which  was  *'  active"  in  October,  has  very  much 
subsided,  mainly  in  consequence  of  the  measures  then  adopted. 

23.  Was  not  the  pressure  on  Louisville  and  Cincinnati  so  severe,  that, 
on  the  3d  of  March,  orders  were  given  not  to  insist  on  the  proposed  redue 

43 


338  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

tion,  but  to  proceed  to  accomplish  the  objec<  they  had  in  view  in  as  gentle 
a  manner  as  possible,  under  circumstances  so  distressing? 

The  pressure  on  Louisville  and  Cincinnati,  was  owing  not  to  any  reduc- 
tions of  loans,  for  none  had  taken  place  at  Cincinnati,  and  but  a  trifling 
amount  at  Louisville,  but  wholly  to  the  rise  of  the  river  Ohio,  over  which 
the  bank  has  no  control.  In  answer  to  the  instructions  to  these  branches  to 
pay  moderately  and  gently  a  portion  of  their  debts,  the  cashier  of  the  branch 
at  Cincinnati,  wrote:  <•  We  could  have  accomplished,  I  think,  all  that  was 
expected,  but  our  city  is  thrown  into  a  state  of  unparalleled  distress  by  this 
awful  visitation.  Nothing  like  it  has  ever  been  experienced  here  in  the 
memory  of  man.  About  two  thousand  houses  were  inundated  in  that  space, 
and  in  the  centre  of  the  town;  the  warehouses  of  a  large  number  of 'our 
heavy  customers  were  of  the  number.  The  private  distress,  and  the  shock 
to  the  business  of  the  place,  cannot  be  described." 

And  the  cashier  at  Louisville,  wrote: 

'<  AM  the  lower  part  of  our  city  is  inundated,  and  every  approach,  except 
by  water,  impeded.  The  river  is  now  higher  than  ever  known,  and  still 
rising  rapidly,  and  it  is  fearful  to  contemplate  the  disastrous  consequences  to 
the  whole  country  binding  on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi:  business  here  is 
prostrated  For  a  time,"  &c.  &c. 

These  were  the  <*  distressing  circumstances"  imder  which  they  were  di- 
rected to  give  every  relief  in  their  power. 

24.  Did  not  the  president  of  the  bank  (Mr.  Cheves)  inform  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  in  Ajjril,  1819,  that  the  bank  could  not  pay  the  Louisiana 
debt  of  three  millions,  without  negotiating  a  loan  in  Europe?  Was  not  two 
millions  actually  borrowed  in  Europe,  and  did  not  the  president  ask  other 
indulgencies? 

The  bank  negotiated  such  a  loan,  under  the  impression  communicated  to 
the  Secretary,  that  it  was  necessary,  but  Mr*.  Cheves,  I  believe,  asked  no  in-, 
dulgence  of  any  kind.  He  stated  certain  things  which  he  deemed  rights 
that  the  bank  could  fairly  claim;  but  even  these  the  Treasury  could  not,  or 
did  not,  grant;  so  that  the  bank  was  left  to  its  own  resources,  which  effectual- 
ly relieved  it  from  its  temporary  embarrassment. 

25.  Has  not  the  bank  asked  Government  to  postpone  the  redemption  of 
the  three  per  eents.  from  July  to  October,  and  has  it  not  assumed  the  pay- 
ment of  one  quarter's  interest,  being  substantially  equivalent  to  a  loan  of  six 
or  seven  millions,  for  three  months,  made  by  Governn;ientto  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States? 

The  bank  has  not  asked  the  Government  to  postpone  the  paymentsof  the 
three  per  cents.  On  the  contrary,  when  the  bank  was  asked  by  the  Govern- 
ment whether  it  saw  any  objectioi)  to  the  payment  in  July,  it  answered,  im- 
mediately, that  it  saw  none  as  far  as  it  concerned  the  hank — but  the  Govern- 
ment, on  account  of  its  own  interests  exclusively,  wished  to  make  the  post- 
ponement, and  the  bank  removed  the  only  difficulty  to  the  measure  at  its 
own  expense. 

26.  Had  your  lowest  circulation  been  gradually  increased — had  not  nearly 
twenty  millions  been  added  to  your  bank  note  circulation  since  1S24 — and  ^ 
had  not  your  facilities  to  trade  been  extended  in  four  years  preceding  the 
first  of  January  last,  from  33  to  66  millions  of  dollars — do  you  think  the 
bank  would  have  found  any  difficulty  in  transporting  sufficient  funds  abroad 
to  redeem  that  portion  of  the  three  per  cents,  which  is  held  in  Europe,  and 
which  might  not  have  been  reinvested  here? 

These  questions  contain  a  series  of  errors: 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  339 

1st.  The  circulation  has  increased  since  1824,  not  twenty  millions,  but  only 
$14,182,151 — an  increase  which  has  been' gradual,  notwilhstandins;  th© 
addition  during  that  period  of  nine  branches  where  that  additional  circu- 
lation had  take'n  place. 

2d.  The  loans  of  the  bank,  exclusive  of  bills  of  exchange  for  transfers,  have 
increased,  not  33  millions,  but  19  millions;  and 

3d.  The  bank  would  have  found  not  the  least  difficulty  in  making  the 
transfers  alluded  to;  and  never  supposed  it  would  have  any. 

27.  When  an  institution  with  investments  amounting  to  seventy-five  mil- 
lions, commanding  the  foreign  and  domestic  exchanges  of  the  country,  and 
ftionopolizing  the  government  deposites,  cannot,  at  the  moment  we  are  ex- 
porting our  annual  crop  of  cotton  amounting  to  twenty  millions,  transfer  a 
few  millions  of  its  funds  abroad  without  embarrassing  its  operations,  and  seri- 
ovisly  distressing  traders;  is  there  not  reason  to  believe  that  its  business  has 
been  too  much  and  too  rapidly  extended? 

If,  as  I  presume^  this  is  intended  to  apply  to  the  bank,  it  is  without  foun- 
dation. 

The  bank  can  readily  transport  any  portion  of  its  funds  abroad,  and  has 
actually,  during  the  last  seven  months,  made  such  transfers  to  th*fe  amount  of 
5,008,154  dollars. 

28.  Can  any  bank,  confining  itself  to  the  legitimate  business  of  a  bariker, 
which  never  forces  its  loans  upon  trade,  or  its  notes  into  circulation  by  ex- 
traordinary means,  ever  be  compelled  to  curtail  its  loans,  or  to  ask  indul- 
gence from  its  creditors?  I 

Every  bank,  whatever  be  the  amount  of  its  circulation  and  loans,  must 
often  have  occasion  to  diminish  its  business,  because  a  prudent  banker  may^ 
tinder  certain  circumstances  of  trade,  make  loans,  and  issue  notes,  which, 
when  these  circumstances  change,  he  should  reduce. 

.29.  Do  you  not  consider  the  resolutions  of  the  board  of  directors,  in  1830 
and  31,  to  make  long  loans  at  reduced  rates  of  interest,  on  pledges  of  stock, 
as  a  species  of  forced  loan;  and  the  expedient  of  issuing  branch  drafts  from 
the  branches  as  an  experiment  to  force  the  circulation  of  your  bank  notes? 

I  cannot  perceive  the  least  analogy  between  a  forced  loan  and  a  voluntary 
Joan.  In  1830  and  31,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  paid  off  cer- 
tain stocks  owned  by  the  bank.  A  portion  of  these  were  reinvested  in  loans 
secured  by  stocks  issued  by  the  Government  of  Pennsylvania.  The  one 
was  not  more  forced  than  the  other. 

The  expedient  of  Issuing  branch  notes  was  intended  merely  to  supply  the 
physical  impossibility  of  signing  other  notes.  It  did  not  necessarily  increase 
the  amount  of  issues  beyond  what  they  would  have  been  if  the  notes,  in- 
stead of  being  signed  at  the  branches,  had  been  signed  by  other  officers  at 
the  parent  bank. 

30.  Did  not  the  bank,  by  adding  to  our  paper  circulation  near  fourteen  mil- 
lions from  the  1st  of  January,  1828,  to  the  1st  of  January,  1832,  adopt  the  most 
effectual  measure  to  raise  our  foreign  exchange,  depreciate  our  currency, 
enlarge  importations,  force  the  exportation  of  our  specie,  and'  diminish  its 
ability  to  meet  its  engagements  both  at  home  and  abroad? 

The  actual  increase  of  circulation  was  not  *^'  nearly  fourteen"  millions, 
but  only  J^  11,394,868. 

It  is  a  little  remarkable  that,  if  any  period  in  the  whole  history  of  this  coun- 
try were  selected,  during  which  the  slate  of  tilings  was  directly  the  reverse 
of  that  described  in  this  question,  it  would  be  precisely  the  four  years  here 
mentioned.     For, 


340  r  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

1st.  The  foreign  exchanges  have  been  uniform,  and  sometimes  favorable 
to  this  country.  Within  twelve  months  past,  the  exchanges  between  this 
country  and  England  were  actually  in  favor  of  this  country. 

2d.  Our  currency  was  never  less  depreciated;  there  never  having  been  a 
moment  in  which  the  silver  currency  of  the  United  States  was  the  slightest 
fraction  of  a  per  centage  above  the  paper  currency. 

3d.  The  importations  have  been  adapted  to  the  fair  demands  of  the  coun- 
try: if  a  heavy  fall  importation  occurred,  it  was  balanced  by  a  lighter  spring 
importation.  Thus,  during  the  winter  of  1831-2,  the  importations  were 
very  great:  the  importations  of  1832-3  will  be  proportionally  small. 

4th.  The  exportations  of  specie  during  that  period  have  not  been  equal  to 
the  importations;  and 

5th.  The  bank,  so  far  from  wanting  ability  to  meet  its  engagements 
abroad,  has  never  had  so  large  an  amount  of  funds  in  Europe.  In  the  year 
1831,  it  had  $3,700,000  in  the  hands  of  its  correspondents  in  Europe. 


Questions  submitted  to  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
by  Mr.  Cambreleng^  with  his  answers  thereto. 

1.  What,  in  your  opinion,  were  the  causes  which  enabled  the  banks  to 
resyme  specie  payments  in  Feburary,  1817? 

On  the  whole  subject  of  specie  payments  in  the  United  States,  my 
opinions  are  these:  I  believe  that  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  was 
occasioned  mainly  by  the  circumstance,  that  the  Government  of  ^he  United 
States  renounced,  for  a  time,  its  constitutional  power  over  the  currency,  in* 
permitting  the  dissolution  of  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States.  I  believe 
that  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  was  occasioned  exclusively  by  the 
establishment  of  the  present  Bank  of  the  United  States;  and  I  believe  that 
the  suspension  of  specie  payments  will  again  inevitably,  and  shortly,  fol- 
low, whenever  the  Government  shall  cease  to  exercise  that  control  through 
an  establishment  like  that  of  the  present  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

In  regard  to  the  first  opinion,  I  have  not  time  to  state  the  details;  but, 
on  such  a  subject,  I  know  of  no  higher  authority  than  the  late  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Gallatin,  who,  for  twelve  years,  superintended 
the  finances  of  t,he  country.  That  gentleman,  in  his  work  on  the  "  Cur- 
rency and  Banking  System  of  the  United  States,"  page  4G,  gives  it  as/*  his 
deliberate  opinion,  that  the  suspension  might  have  been  prevented  at  the 
time  when  it  took  place,  had  the  former  Bank  of  the  United  States  been 
still  in  existence.'' 

In  regard  to  the  second  opinion,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  cite  the  testimony 
of  the  best  witness,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Dallas,  who  declares 
that  he  had  tried  in  vain  all  other  modes  of  accomplishing  the  resumption 
of  specie  payments,  and  that  the  establishment  of  the  bank  was  at  length 
his  only  resource. 

In  his  report  to  Congress  in  December,  1815,  nearly  a  year  after  the 
peace,  he  says:  "It  is  a  fact,  however,  incontestibly  proved,  that  these  in-, 
stitutions  cannot,  at  this  time,  be  successfully  employed  to  furnish  an  uni-^ 
form  national  currency.  The  failure  of  one  attempt  to  associate  them  with 
that  view,  has  already  been  stated.  Another  attempt  by  their  agency,  in 
circulating  Treasury  notes  to  overcome  the  irregularities  of  exchange,  has 
only  b^en  partially  successful,  and  a  plan  recently  proposed,  with  the  design 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  341 

to  contract  the  issue  of  bank  notes,  to  fix  the  public  confidence  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  afi*airs  of  the  banks,  and  to  give  each  bank  a  legitimate 
share  in  the  circulation,  is  not  likely  to  receive  the  sanction  of  the  banks. 
The  truth  is,  that  the  charter  restrictions  of  some  of  the  banks,  the  mutual 
relation  and  dependence  of  the  banks  of  the  same  Slate,  and  of  the  banks 
of  different  States,  and  the  duties  which  the  directors  of  each  bank  con- 
ceive they  owe  to  their  immediate  constituents  upon  points  of  security  or 
emolument,  interpose  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  any  voluntary  arrange- 
ment, upon  national  considerations  alone,  for  the  establishment  of  a  national 
medium  through  the  agency  of  the  State  banks.'' 

"  The  establishment  of  a  national  bank  is  regarded  as  the  best,  and  per- 
haps the  only  adequate  resource  to  relieve  the  country  and  the  Government 
from  the  present  embarrassment." 

Accordingly,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  established.  One  of  its 
first  measures  was,  to  call  a  convention  of  delegates  from  the  State  banks  of 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Virginia,  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
certing measures  for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments. 

The  bank  then  proposed  to  the  convention,  that  if  the  banks  represented 
in  it  would  resume  specie  payments,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  would 
give  them  every  indulgence;  would  at  once  assume  their  debts  to  the  Go- 
vernment, and  give  them  time  to  pay  the  amount  to  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States;  would  discount  to  a  considerable  extent  to  relieve  them;  and  if 
any  embarrassment  happened  to  any  of  them  in  consequence  of  the  re- 
sumption, would  come  immediately  to  its  assistance. 

The  following  articles  from  the  arrangement  of  February  1,  1817,  show 
the  extent  to  which  this  assistance  was  to  be  given: 

*«That  the  incoprorated  banks  of  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore, 
and  Richmond,  engage  on  the  20th  instant  to  commence,  and  thenceforth  to 
continue  specie  payments  for  all  demands  upon  them." 

"That the  whole  of  the  public  balances  in  the  receiving  banks  of  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Virginia,  be  transferred  to  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  on  the  20th  of  this  month,  and  retained  by  the  said  bank 
until  the  first  day  of  July  next,  when  the  same  shall  be  paid  ofi*,  together 
vyrith  the  interest  thereon." 

<*  That  the  payment  of  the  balances  which  may  accumulate  against  the 
aforesaid  banks,  subsequently  to  the  transfer  of  the  balance  first  mentioned, 
shall  not  be  demanded  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  until  the  said 
bank  audits  branches  shall  have  discounted  for  individuals,  (other  than  those 
having  duties  to  pay,)  subsequently  to  the  19th  instant,  the  following  sums, 
viz. 

**For  those  in  New  York,  two  millions. 

"  From  those  in  Philadelphia,  two  millions. 

<*For  those  in  Baltimore,  one  million  and  a  half. 

'<  For  those  in  Virginia,  five  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

*«  That  the  Bank  of  the  United  States^  and  the  other  incorporated  banks 
of  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Virginia,  will  interchange 
pledges  of  good  faith  and  friendly  offices,  and,  upon  any  emergency  which 
may  menace  the  credit  of  any  of  the  aforesaid  banks,  or  the  branches  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  will  cheerfully  contribute  their  resources  to 
any  reasonable  extent,  in  support  thereof.  The  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
confiding  in  the  justice  and  discretion  of  the  State  banks  respectively,  to 
circumscribe  their  afiairs  within  the  just  limits  indicated  by  their  respective 
as  soon  as  the  interest  and  convenience  of  the  community  will  admit " 


342  [  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

In  referring  to  this  arrangement,  Mr.  Gallatin,  in  the  work  just  cited, 
page  48,  says:  *' To  that  compact,  which  was  carried  into  complete  effect, 
and  to  the  importation  of  more  than  seven  millions  of  dollars  in  specie  from 
abroad  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  community  is  indebted  for 
the  universal  restoration  of  specie  payments,  and  for  their  having  been  sus- 
tained during  the  period  of  great  difficulty,  and  of  unexampled  exportations 
of  specie  to  China,  which  immediately  ensued."     And,  again,  page  8^ — 

As  respects  the  past,  <<  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  specie  payments  were 
restored,  and  have  been  maintained,  through  the  instrumentality  of  that 
institution. " 

In  respect  to  the  third  opinion,  I  have  no  clearer  conviction  than  this, 
that  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  will  recur  whenever  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  shall  cease  to  maintain  some  institution  like  that 
of  the  present  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

2.  Are  not  specie  payments,  and  a  specie  currency,  naturally  restored  in 
every  country  upon  the  return  of  peace  and  confidence,  after  trade  has  re- 
covered from  the  shock  of  the  first  reaction,  where  gold  and  siver  are  the 
Only  tender,  and  where  banks  are  required  to  redeem  in  specie.'* 

By  no  means.  When  peace  comes  to  a  country,  exhausted  of  foreign 
goods,  it  brings  very  large  importations,  which  rather  prevent  than  occasion 
specie  payments;  and  the  circumstance  '*  that  gold  and  silver  are  the  only 
lawful  tender;,  and  that  the  banks  are  required  to  redeem  in  specie,"  is  not 
at  all  conclusive.  Gold  and  silver  were  the  only  lawful  tender,  and  banks 
were  required  to  redeem  in  specie,  during  the  whole  suspension  ot  specie 
payments,  just  as  much  as  they  are  now.  There  had  been  peace  for  more 
than  two  years,  and  abundant  confidence  in  1817,  yet  specie  payments  were 
not  naturally  restored.  The  means,  on  the  contrary,  were  vvholl^^  artificial. 
On  these  occasions,  the  suspension,  whether  justifiable  or  not,  is,  in  fact,  a 
triumph  over  the  laws. 

3.  Suppose  that  specie  was,  in  January,  1815,  fifteen  per  cent,  higher 
than  New  York  bark  notes,  anr\  that  it  fell  when  we  received  the  intelli- 
gence of  peace  to  two  per  cent,  premium;  what,  in  your  opinion,  produced 
the  fall  in  the  price  of  specie? 

4.  Supposing  specie  to  have  risen  in  October,  1815,  to  16  per  cent.,  and 
in  January,  1816,  to  twenty  per  cent,  in  New  York;  to  what  cause  would 
you  attribute  that  rise? 

The  cause  is  very  obvious.  The  news  of  peace  occasioned  the  expecta- 
tion of  an  immediate  resumption  of  specie  j)ayments  by  the  banks,  and,  of 
course,  their  paper  rose  in  value.  Before  the  year  expired,  that  expectation 
was  disappointed,  and  the  paper  relapsed,  of  course,  into  its  former  dis- 
credit.    Mr.  Gallatin  so  states  it  expressly.  ' 

<*  VVe  will  quote,"  says  he,  page  27,  *<only  one  other  instance  of  a 
similar  nature.  The  notes  of  the  Baltimore  banks  were  at  twenty  per  cent, 
discount  in  January,  1815.  The  treaty  of  peace  was  ratified  and  published 
in  the  month  of  February,  and  as  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  had 
not  lasted  six  months,  and  was  caused  by  the  war,  a  general  expectation 
immediately  prevailed  that  those  payments  would  be  forthwith  resumed; 
accordingly,  bank  notes  rose  ever}'^  where  in  value,  and  in  March  the  dis- 
count on  those  of  Baltimore  was  only  five  per  cent.  As  that  expectation 
was  disappointed,  the  notes  again  sunk  in  value;  and,  in  July,  those  of  Bal- 
timore were  again  at  a  discount  of  20  per  cent." 

5.  Would  not  the  heavy  importations  necessarily  flowing  into  the  coua 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  343 

try,  to  supply  a  market  exhausted  by  a  three  years'  war,  have  a  tendency 
to  raise  the  price  of  specie? 

I  should  think  so. 

6  Suppose  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  directed  the  revenues 
of  the  country  to  be  received  in  Treasury  notes,  or  in  the  notes  of  such 
banks  as  would  exchano;e  their  paper  for  Treasury  notes;  what  effect,  in 
your  opinion,  would  it  have  upon  the  currency? 

7.  Supposing  the  notes  of  the  Baltimore  banks  to  be  20  per  cent,  below 
the  value  of  the  specie-paying  banks  of  Boston,  would  not  such  a  Treasury 
order  substitute  the  depreciated  paper  of  Baltimore  for  a  sound  currency, 
and  necessarily  raise  the  premium  on  specio,  and  was  not  that  order  the 
principal  cause  of  the  rise  of  specie  in  1815  and  1816? 

8.  Suppose  that  the  Government  negotiated  a  loan  after  the  war,  receiv- 
able in  Baltimore  bank  notes,  was  not  this  another  cause  which  produced 
the  rise  in  specie,  and  would  not  such  a  negotiation  also  affect  the  currency 
unfavorably? 

The  loan  itself  was  so  small,  that  neither  it  nor  the  Treasury  order  could 
have  much  influence  on  the  price  of  specie,  which  was  determined  by  causes 
far  more  general  and  important.  * 

9.  What  was  there  to  prevent  the  State  banks  from  resuming  specie  pay- 
menls.in  November,  1816,  when  specie  in  New  York  was  at  1|  per  cent 
premium,  being  one  per  cent,  lower  than  it  was  in  February,  1817,  when 
specie  payments  were  actually  resumed? 

10.  Had  they  disposed  of  their  Government  stocks,  could  not  the  banks 
have  resumed  specie  payments  at  any  time  after  November,  1816,  and  witb 
facility?  SJ  ^ 

If  it  was  so  easy,  and  nothing  prevented  them,  why  did  they  not  do  it? 
If  th§y  could  have  done  it,  yet  did  not,  it  must  have  been  because  they 
would  not.  The  bank  was  established  for  the  very  purpose  of  making  them 
do  it,  and  helping  them  to  do  it,  and  it  did  both. 

JNIr.  Gallatin's  view  of  it,  is  this: — 

''The  banks  did  not  respond  to  that  appeal  made  by  public  opinion;  7ior 
is  there  any  evidence  of  any  preparations^  or  any  disposition  on  their 
part^  to  pay  their  notes  in  specie  until  after  the  act  to  incorporate  the 
new  Bank  of  the  United  States  had  passed."' 

11.  Did  not.Congrcss  adopt  a  resolution  on  the  30th  of  April,  1816,  re- 
quiring specie  payments  for  Government  dues,  and  was  not  the  bank  the 
agent  of  the  Treasury  in  executing  it? 

13.  Was  not  that  resolution  (enforced  by  a  Government  with  a  revenue 
at  that  time  amounting  to  thirty  or  forty  millions,)  the  immediate  cause  of 
an  earlier  resumption  of  specie  payments? 

The  bank  was  not  the  agent  of  the  Treasury  in  executing  it,  nor  was  it 
the  immediate  cause  of  an  earlier  resumption  of  specie  payments.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  wholly  ineffectual  in  the  hands  of  the  Treasury  until  the 
bank  voluntarily  enabled  the  Treasury  to  carry  it  into  execution. 

The  resolution  in. question,  passed,  on  the  30th  of  April,  1816,  did  not 
require  "specie  payments  for  Government  dues;"  it  only  directed  that  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ''^ should  adopt  such  means  as  he  may  deem 
necessary^  to  cause,  as  soon  as  may  be,^  the  revenue  to  be  collected  and 
paid  in  the  legal  currency,  or  Treasury  notes,  or  notes  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  notes  of  banks  which  are  payable  and  paid  on  demahd 
jin  the  said  legal  currency;  and  that,  after  the  20 ih  of  February,  1817,  no 


344  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

revenue  "  ought  to  be  collected  or  received,  otherwise  than  in  the  legal 
currency  of  the  United  States,  or  Treasury  notes,  or  notes  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  or  in  notes  of  banks  which  are  payable  and  paid  on  de- 
mand in  the  said  legal  currency  of  the  United  States/' 

This  resolution  merely  repeats  what  was  the  law  before  it  passed,  that  is, 
that  the  only  legal  tender  was  coin,  or  the  notes  of  banks  paying  coin,  and  it 
only  declares  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  shall  endeavor  to  enforce  it. 

It  was,  in  itself,  an  excellent  resolution,  and  was  no  doubt  useful  as  indi- 
cating the  concurrence  of  the  Government  with  the  bank  in  the  effort  to 
restore  specie  payments,  but  it  would  have  been  wholly  inefficient  without 
the  aid  of  the  bank.  My  reason  for  saying  so,  is  the  acknowledgment  of 
the  two  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury  to  whom  the  execution  of  it  was  in  suc- 
cession committed,  neither  of  whom  could  make  it  available,  and  both  of 
whom  relied  upon  the  bank  to  enforce  it.  The  evidence  of  this  is  as  easy 
as  it  is  perfect. 

What  Mr.  Dallas  thought  of  it,  and  did  with  it,  may  be  seen  in  his  Trea- 
sury report,  on  the  3d  of  December,  1816: 

**  There  was  no  magic  in  a  mere  Treasury  instruction  to  the  collectors  of 
the  revenue,  which  could,  by  its  own  virtue,  charm  gold  and  silver  again  into 
circulation.  The  people,  individually,  did  not  possess  a  metallic  medium, 
and  could  not  be  expected  to  procure  it  throughout  the  country,  as  well  as 
in  the  cities,  by  any  exertions  unaided  by  the  banks,  and  the  banks,  too 
timid,  or  too  interested,  declined  every  overture  to  a  co-operation  for  rein- 
stating the  lawful  currency.  In  this  state  of  things,  the  Treasury,  nay,  the 
Legislature  remained  passive.  The  power  of  coercing  the  banks  was  limit- 
ed to  the  rejection  of  their  notes  in  payment  of  duties  and  taxes,  and  to  the 
exclusion  of  their  agency  in  the  custody  and  distribution  of  the  revenue; 
but  the  exercise  of  that  power  would  not  generate  a  coin  currency,  al- 
though it  would  certainly  act  oppressively  upon  the  people,  and  put  at 
hazard  every  sum  of  money  which  was  due  the  Government.  Until,  there- 
fore, a  substitute  was  provided  for  the  paper  of  the  banks,  it  would  have 
been  a  measure  of  useless  and  impolitic  severity  towards  the  community, 
to  insist  that  all  contributions  to  the  expenses  of  the  Government,  should 
be  paid  in  a  medium,  which,  it  is  repeated,  the  community  did  not  possess, 
and  could  not  procure." 

'^  The  establishment  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  will  open  the  sources 
of  an  uniform  currency,  independent  of  the  State  banks;  and,  as  the  peo- 
ple will  then  be  supplied  with  a  medium  which  can  be  used  for  every 
public  and  private  purpose,  the  peremptory  requisition  of  the  resolution  of 
Congress  for  the  collection  of  the  revenue  in  the  lawful  money  of  the 
United  States,  after  the  20th  of  February,  1817,  becomes,  at  once,  just,  poli- 
tic, and  practical." 

Mr.  Crawford  was  equally  desponding,  as  the  following  course  of  his  cor- 
respondence with  the  bank  will  show.  On  the  29th  of  November,  1816, 
he  writes  thus: 

^^As  the  principal  banks  in  the  middle  States,  in  the  month  of  August 
last,  explicitly  stated  to  this  department  their  determination  not  to  resume 
specie  payments  before  the  first  of  July,  1817,  there  is  no  reason  to  ex- 
pect their  co-operation  before  that  period,  unless  a  change  has,  in  the  mean- 
time, been  effected  in  their  situation,  or  unless  inducements  more  powerful 
than  those  presented  in  the  Treasury  proposition  of  the  twenty-second 
July  last,  can  now  be  presented  to  them.^^ 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  345 

"The  determination,  therefore,  which  they  liave  formed  not  to  resume 
specie  payments  hefore  the  first  day  of  July,  1817,  is  an  explicit  declaration 
that  they  not  only  will  not  hear  any  part  of  the  sacrifice  requlm.i  to  r«- 
store  the  disordered  state  of  the  currency,  but  that  they  will  not  forego 
any  of  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  that  event.     If  the  view  here 
presented  be  substantially  correct,  although  changes  in  the  situations  of  the 
banks  may  have  taken  place,  favorable  to  the  early  resumption  of  specie 
payments,  yet  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  well-founded  reason  to  ex- 
pect any  change  in  the  determination  which  they  have  formed  on  that 
subject.    When  the  friendly  character  of  the  proposition  made  by  the  Trea- 
sury to  the  banks,  on  the  twenty-second  July  last,  and  the  extraordinary 
manner  in  which  it  was  received  is  well  considered^  it  does  not  appear 
probable  that  any  inducement  can  be  offered  by  the  Government  sufficiently 
strong  to  divert  them  from  the  policy  of  making  the  highest  possible  ;>rofit 
upon  the  public  debt  which  tliey  hold.     In  directly  addressing  their  love  of 
acquisition,  we  can  offer  them  nothing  equivalent  to  the  gain  which  they 
expect  from  an  adherence  to  their  previous  determination.     To  appeal  to 
their  fears  by  refusing  to  receive  their  bills  in  payments  to  the  Govern' 
ment,  if  that  appeal  should  be  ineffectual^  would   be  to  visit  the  sins  of 
the  banks  «pon  the  great  mass  of  unoffending  citizens,  unless  the  Govern- 
ment was  prepared  to  furnish   a  suffii^ient  legal  currency  to  meet  the  indis- 
pensable demands  of  the  community.   It  is  important,  therefore,  at  this  time, 
to  ascertain  the  extent  to  which  Ihe  operations  of  the  bank  will  be  aole  to 
supply  a  national  currency  by  the  twentieth  February  nexty  unaided  by 
the  State  banks.'' 

On  the  17th  December,  1816,  he  again  writes: 

<'  I  shall  have  the  honor  to  communicate,  in  a  few  days,  a  proposition 
which  is  intended  to  be  submitted  to  the  State  banks  by  the  Treasury,  as  a 
last  effort  to  engage  them  to  resume  specie  payments  on  the  twentieth  of 
February  next.'* 

Then  followed  the  circular  to  the  State  banks,  of  the  twentieth  of  De- 
cember, urging  them  to  resume  specie  payments  on  the  twentieth  of 
February. 

These  exhortations  proved  wholly  ineffectual. 

In  his  letter  to  the  president  of  the  bank,  dated  January  6,  1817,  he 
speaks  of  the  *^  extreme  hesitation  of  the  banks  in  answering  the  Treasury 
proposition  of  thetwentieth  ult."  He  says  that,  ^^  should  a  majority  of  the 
State  banks  refuse  to  conform  to  the  Treasury  proposition^  the  money 
remaining  in  their  vaults  to  the  credit  of  the  United  States,  will  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  to  its  branches,  in  the  manner 
already  communicated  to  you."  He  adds,  "whilst  the  public  money  was 
received  by,  and  deposited  with,  the  State  banks,  its  own  interest  might 
stimulate  it  to  make  exertion,  not  only  to  sustain  its  credit,  but  to  accommo- 
date the  Government  in  its  fiscal  operations.  Stript  of  that  inducement, 
it  is  difficult  to  foresee  the  course  which  those  institutions  will  adopt, 
especially  if  the  Treasury  proposition  is  rejected  by  them.''  And,  again: 
<*  If  however ^  the  State  banks  reject  the  Treasury  proposition,  I  think 
there  will  be  7nuch  reason  to  doubt  their  intention  to  resume  specie  pay- 
ments on  the  first  of  July^  or  on  any  other  day.  Of  the  correctness  of 
this  opinion,  the  board  of  directors  are  more  competent  to  determine  than 
I  am,  and  will  of  course  adopt  such  precautionary  measures  m  Ihe  proba- 
bility of  such  an  event  may  require.'^ 
44 


346  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

On  the  16th  of  January,  he  writes:  **It  is  proper  to  state  that  the  city 
Bank  and  the  Mechanics'  Bank  of  New  York,  have  resolved  to  resume 
specie  payments  on  the  20th  day  of  February  next.  If  the  other  banks 
qf  that  place  refuse  to  come  into  the  measure,  it  may  be  doubtful  whether 
those  two  banks  may  not  be  induced  to  rescind  their  resolution,  and  enter 
into  measures  with  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  under  the  authority  given 
to  the  directors  in  this  letter." 

On  the  24th  of  January,  1817,  he  says:  "Yet,  it  is  manifest,  that  without 
the  State  banks  can  be  brought  into  an  arrangement  by  which  their  paper 
can  be  received  in  payment  of  taxes,  that  there  will  be  no  medium,  upon 
the  20th  of  February  next,  in  which  those  dues  can  be  paid.^' 

These  declarations  of  the  Secretary  prove  that  he  had  been  wholly  unable 
to  induce  the  State  banks  to  resume  specie  payments  on  the  20th  of  Febru- 
ary, and  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
alone,  by  calling  a  convention  of  the  State  banks,  and  proposing  terms  of 
indulgence  and  of  support,  was  enabled  to  accomplish  that  object  in  the 
manner  already  described  in  the  answer  to  question  1st.  But  the  resolution, 
a  proper  resolution  in  itself,  was  so  ineffectual,  that,  from  April  30,  1816,  to 
January  24,  1817,  the  two  Secretaries  had  made  no  progress  whatever 
towards  executing  it. 

Finally,  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Congress  to  investigate  the  affairs 
of  the  Bank  in  January,  1819,  expressly  declares: 

<'The  officers  then  (on  the  7th  January,  1817,)  at  the  head  of  the  Trea- 
sury, had  repeatedly  urged  the  commencement  of  operations,  with  the 
laudable  view,  as  it  appears,  of  hastening  the  resumption,  by  the  State  banks, 
of  their  notes  in  specie.  Efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Treasury  to  induce 
the  local  banks  to  that  measure  appear  to  have  been  abortive,  until  the 
Bank  of  the  United  Stales  made  certain  propositions,  which  induced 
regulations  between  it  and  the  State  institutions,  which  finally  resulted 
in  a  compact.^^  And  Mr.  Lowndes,  in  his  speech  upon  that  report,  in 
February,  1819,  states:  <'That  the  State  banks  had  refused  every  proposal 
for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments.  He  would  not  say  they  were  un- 
willing, but  they  were  afraid  to  adopt  them.  The  remonstrances  and  en- 
couragement of  the  Governinent  were  unavailing.  It  was  then  that  the 
National  Barik,  certainly  not  in  the  spirit  of  narrow  jealousy,  entered 
into  that  compact  with  the  State  banks,  ^c.  Sf-c.  '^ 

13.  Suppose  that  the  experience  of  England  corresponded  with  our  own 
after  the  war,  and  that  the  price  of  gold  sunk  below  the  mint  price  four  and 
a  half  pence  per  ounce;  to  what  cause  would  you  attribute  that  fall.'' 

14.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  England  notes,  which  had  been,  in  1814,  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  below  the  value  of  gold,  rise  in  1815  to  within  two  and  a  half 
per  cent,  of  their  par  value? 

15.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  England  give  notice,  on  the  first  of  January, 
1817,  that  it  would  pay  off  a  million  sterling,  and  did  it  not  actually  com- 
mence paying  in  specie? 

16.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  England,  in  October,  1817,  give  a  further  notice 
that  it  would  pay  in  specie  all  its  notes  dated  prior  to  1S17? 

17.  Did  it  not  continue  to  pay  in  specie,  although  the  restriction  act  had 
been  continued  by  Parliament  till  the  fifth  of  January,  1819;  and  did  not  . 
the  bank  pay,  from  the  first  of  January,  1817,  to  the  first  of  January,  1819, 
^6,756.000  sterling  in  specie? 

18.  Was  not  this  second  attempt  of  the  Bank  of  England  to  resume 
specie  payments,  defeated  by  Parliament  in  prohibiting  them  froca  j)aying 
their  notes  in  specie? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  347 

19.  In  resuming  specie  payments  the  third  time,  did  not  the  bank  com- 
mence one  year  before  the  period  required  by  Mr.  PeePs  bill? 

The  experience  of  England,  so  far  from  corresponding  with  our  own, 
was  directly  the  reverse  of  our  own.  Its  situation  bore  no  analogy  what- 
ever to  ours.  From  the  rupture  of  the  treaty  of  Amiens  till  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  England  had  for  eleven  years  kept  large  armies  on  the  continent, 
and  subsidized  the  great  powers  of  the  continent.  She  was  the  universal 
paymaster,  and  had  to  pay  mainly  in  specie.  The  peace  stopped  that  de- 
mand for  specie,  while  it  revived  its  commerce  with  Europe  and  the  United 
States,  making  all  the  world  its  debtors,  and  pouring  bullion  into  her  ports 
from  Europe  and  America.  That  the  price  of  bullion  should,  under  these 
circumstances,  fall,  was  natural,  and  the  fall  was  rendered  inevitable  by  a 
great  reduction  in  the  issues  of  the  Bank  of  England  itself.  These  things 
are  perfectly  understood.  ^' The 'tendency,"  says  Tooke,  in  his  work  on 
High  and  Low  Prices,  <Uhe  tendency  to  an  improvement  of  the  exchanges, 
and  to  a  decline  in  the  price  of  gold,  was  looked  upon  to  follow,  as  a  mat- 
ter pf  course,  the  cessation  of  government  expenditure  abroad,  and  the 
great  preponderance  of  our  commercial  exports,  now  that  the  ports  of  the 
continent  were  opened  to  us.^^ — page  94.  And,  again — Sir  Henry  Parnell 
on  Paper  Money,  page  113;— <*In  the  years  preceding  1816,  the  directors, 
in  expectation  that  cash  payments  would  be  restored  in  1817,  according  to 
the  provision  of  the  existing  law,  had  reduced  the  amount  of  their  notes  in 
circulation  from  ^28,039,690  as  it  stood  in  April,  1815,  to  £24,441,430,  on 
the  6th  of  January,  1816.  In  consequence  of  this  great  reduction  of  paper 
having  raised  the  foreign  exchanges,  and  brought  the  price  of  bullion  down 
nearly  to  the  mint  price,  a  more  favorable  state  of  things  could  not  exist 
for  accomplishing  the  restoration  of  cash  payments,"  &c.  &c.  But  the  same 
peace  which  made  England  a  universal  creditor,  made  the  United  States  a 
still  greater  debtor  to  England;  and,  although  at  the  first  moment  of  peace, 
the  belief  of  the  early  resumption  of  specie  payments  in  this  country  de- 
pressed the  price  of  specie  in  exchange  for  notes,  yet,  in  a  few  months, 
when  that  hope  was  disappointed,  the  paper  fell  back  into  its  former  depre- 
ciation. The  condition  of  England  was,  therefore,  the  very  reverse  of  our 
own;  and  the  ability  or  the  anxiety  of  the  Bank  of  England  to  resume 
specie  payments  furnished  no  precedent  for  a  similar  course  for  our  own 
State  banks,  until  they  were  encouraged  or  compelled  to  it  by  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States.  So  much  as  to  the  general  aspect  of  the  question.  As 
to  the  details  stated  in  these  inquiries,  as  far  as  I  have  had  time  to  examine 
them,  I  believe  they  are  inaccurate.  Thus  the  price  of  gold  did  not  fall 
four  and  a  half  pence  below  the  mint  price  after  the  war.  It  did  not  fall  to 
that  price  until  July,  1822 — a  period  of  seven  years  after  the  war,  and  even 
then,  owing  to  a  circumstance  purely  accidental,  which  was  this:  The  bank, 
in  1822,  had  so  much  bullion  at  the  mint  that  other  holders  of  bullion  could 
not  get  it  coined  for  so  long  a  period,  that  the  loss  of  time  while  it  would 
remain  at  the  mint,  induced  them  to  sell  it  for  cash  at  four  and  a  half  pence 
below  the  ^^int  price,  being  not  quite  half  per  cent,  discount.  This  may 
all  be  seen  in  Mushet  on  the  Currency,  page  139,  and  the  tables  annexed 
to  it. 

Then,  too,  it  would  be  supposed,  from  the  strain  of  the  inquiries,  that  the 
bank  had  made  a  general  resumption  of  specie  payments.  But  this  is  not 
the  fact;  the  resumption  was  only  partial,  of  a  particular  kind  of  notes.  But 
^;the  general  resumption  did  not  take  place,  I  believe,  till  1823 — six  or  seven 


348  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

years  after  the  peace,  whereas  that  of  the  United  States  was  on  the  20th  of 
February,  1817,  two  years  after  the  news  of  peace  had  arrived  here.  The 
fact  is,  that  much  of  the  early  embarrassments  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  arose  from  its  being  urged  by  the  Government  to  resume  specie  pay- 
ments before  the  country  was  fully  prepared  for  them.  In  England,  with 
all  tlieir  advantages,  the  resumption  was  partial  and  gradual;  in  the  United 
States  it  was  complete  and  sudden.  But  the  effort  was  made  in  obedience 
to  the  wishes  of  the  Government,  and  all  its  consequences  fell  on  the  bank 
alone. 

20.  What,  in  your  opinion.,  caused  the  rise  in  Treasury  notes,  which,  in 
December,  1814,  sold  in  Boston  at  twenty-five  to  twenty-seven  per  cent, 
discount,  and,  on  the  10th  of  Septertiber,  1816,  at  two  percent.,  and  in  Go* 
vernment  stocks  from  fifty-five  to  one  hundred  dollars? 

The  reason  was,  that,  in  December,  1814,  the  Boston  banks  paid  specie, 
and  the  Treasury  notes  were  not  payable  in  specie,  and,  of  course,  were  not 
better  than  the  notes  of  banks  which  did  not  pay  specie.  They  were  not 
near  so  good,  for  such  was  the  discredit  into  which  the  Government  had 
fallen,  that  even  in  the  middle  States,  the  notes  of  the  Government  were  at  a 

freat  discount,  even  in  exchange  for  the  notes  of  banks  not  paying  specie* 
n  September,  1816,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  going  into  opera- 
tion, and  the  expectation  was,  generally,  that  it  would  soon  do  what  it  actually 
soon  did — occasion  a  general  resumption  of  specie  payments.  So  with 
regard  to  Government  stocks.  In  December,  1814,  the  financial  situation 
i>f  the  Government  was  considered  entirely  desperate;  so  much  so,  that,  in 
the  middle  States,  the  Government  six  per  cents,  were  much  below  twenty 
per  cent,  discount,  even  for  the  notes  of  banks  not  paying  specie.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1816,  on  the  contrary,  peace  had  restored  confidence  in  the  stability 
of  the  Government,  and  there  was  a  general  belief  of  the  early  resumption 
of  specie  payments. 

21.  It  is  said  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  the  cause  of  the  re- 
sumption of  specie  payments,  and  that  the  State  banks  could  not  have  re- 
sumed them  without  the  aid  of  that  institution:  are  these  your  opinions? 

Decidedly. 

22  Were  not  the  Treasury  balances  transferred  from  the  State  banks  iOf 
the  United  States'  Bank  in  February,  1817;  and  did  not  the  banks  in  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  reduce  their  balances  by  July,  1817, 
about  five  millions  of  dollars? 

23.  Would  you  consider  the  transfer  of  these  balances  calculated  to  aid 
the  State  banks,  and  that  they  were  better  able  to  resume  and  to  sustain  spe- 
cie payments  after  than  before  the  public  deposites  were  transferred  to  the 
United  States'  Bank  and  its  branches? 

Undoubtedly  it  would  aid  them  to  resume  specie  payments,  and  for  thif 
obvious  reason:  They  were  indebted  to  the  United  States,  and  if  they  had 
resumed  specie  payments,  would  have  been  liable  to  a  demand  in  specie  from 
th.e  Treasury,  which  they  could  not  have  met.  By  the  transfer,  the  bank 
aH9umed  their  debts  to  the  Government,  and. gave  them  time  to  pay  the  bank^ 
aud  promised  to  assist  them  if  they  became  embarrassed  in  consequence  of 
resuming  specie  payments.  It  was  on  these  very  conditions,  and  these  on- 
1^  that  they  commenced  specie  payments. 

24.  At  what  lime  was  the  branch  bank  established  in  New  York? 
On  the  22d  of  January,  1817. 

105.  Did  not  the  branch  bank  owe  balances  to  the  city  banks  in  New  York, 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ]  349 

and  pay  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  dollars  for  interest  on  these  loans  from 
May  to  December,  1817? 

The  interest  was  paid  from  the  29th  of  April  to  the  1st  of  October.  It  is 
difficult,  at  this  distant  day,  to  understand  precisely  the  circumstances  by 
which  the  balances  of  the  banks  of  any  one  city  happened  to  turn  for  a  few 
months  against  the  bank,  but,  in  the  efforts  to  restore  specie  payments,  such 
a  casualty  was  not  unnatural.  If  the  Government  funds  were  transferred 
from  the  State  banks  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  which  gave  time  to 
the  State  banks,  and  if  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  then  paid  out  on  ac^- 
count  of  the  Government  its  own  notes  for  the  Treasury  deposites  of  State 
bank  paper,  not  really,  though  nominally  convertible  into  specie,  the  proba- 
bility is,  that  the  city  banks  of  New  York  relieved  from  their  old  debt  to  the 
Government,  would,  by  the  large  issues  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
become  its  creditor.  In  addition  to  this,  it  appears  from  a  letter  of  the  pre- 
sident of  the  bank,  published  by  Congress  in  1819,  that  this  balance  must 
have  arisen  mainly  from  the  collections  made  by  the  branch  at  New  York 
for  the  city  banks,  of  notes  on  distant  places;  that  is,  that  the  branch  trans- 
mitted to  the  south  and  west  bills  of  exchange  owned  by  the  city  banks, 
issuing  for  them  its  own  paper,  while  it  received  for  them  only  the  paper 
of  distant  State  banks  of  doubtful  solidity;  and  the  president  of  the  bank, 
after  stating  that  $  300,000  in  specie  were  ready  to  be  sent  to  New  York  to 
pay  these  balances,  adds:  '<  The  State  banks  ought  not  to  forget,  however, 
that  this  balance  did  not  originate  in  their  claims  upon  the  Bank  of  the  Unit- 
1^  States." 

26.  Will  you  explain  how  a  borrowing  bank  can  aid  a  lending  bank  in 
justaining  specie  payments? 

The  case  is  very  simple.  Owing  to  indulgences  given  by  the  branch  bank 
In  New  York  to  the  city  banks  near  them,  it  fell  into  debt  for  a  few  months. 
But  up  to  the  period  when  this  balance  accrued,  the  banks  of  New  York 
were  in  debt  to  the  branch  at  New  York;  immediately  after  the  balances 
were  liquidated,  they  resumed  their  position  as  debtors,  and  I  believe  ever 
since  that,  with  very  few,  if  any  occasional  exceptions,  they  have  continu- 
ed so  to  the  present  day.  Even  at  the  moment  when  these  accidental  and 
temporary  balances  were  due,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  a  creditor 
of  the  State  banks  in  the  aggregate  of  many  millions  of  dollars,  and  so  far 
from  being  a  borrowing  bank,  was,  in  fact,  the  creditor  and  supporter  of  the 
State  banks. 

27.  Was  not  the  capital  of  the  branch  at  New  York,  on  the  29th  of  May, 
1819,  ^245,287  91? 

No.     At  that  time  no  specific  capital  was  assigned  to  the  offices,  and  the 

capital  on  which  it  was  doing  business,  consisted,  mainly,  of  its  debt  to  the 

bank  and  other  offices. 

On  the  26th  of  May,  1829,  the  nearest  weekly  statement  to  the  28th  of 

May,  its  means  were  as  follows: 

Its  debt  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  which  was,  in  fact, 

its  capital,        -  .  ^  -  -  .  -^1,135,000 

Specie  on  hand,  ----.-  209,000 
Debts  froni  State  banks,  and  notes  of  State  banks  on  hand,  -  363,000 
Its  circulation  was,  -  -  -  -  .      1,096,000 

Public  and  private  deposites,  .  .  .  .      1,148,000 

It«diiica«nt«,S  1,614,192  9a 


3,951,000 


350  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

28.  Could  a  bank  with  such  limited  means,  aid  the  banks  of  New  York^ 
possessing  some  fifteen  millions  of  capital,  in  sustaining  specie  payments  at 
a  crisis  like  that  of  1819,  when  the  parent  bank  was  in  a  perilous  condition? 

The  capital  of  the  banks  in  New  York  was  only  $  11,150,000,  and  not 
15,000,000.  The  answer  to  the  preceding  question  will  show  its  means  of 
sustaining  itself  and  sustaining  others,  and  also  prove  that  the  State  banks  in 
New  York  were  actually  in  debt  to  the  branch. 

29.  Did  not  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  on  the  28th  of  November^ 
1816,  resolve  to  remit  to  the  holders  of  United  States'  Bank  stock  residing 
in  Europe,  their  dividends  free  of  expense,  and  was  that  arrangement  calcu- 
lated to  aid  the  United  States'  Bank,  or  the  other  banks,  in  resuming  or  sus- 
taining specie  payments? 

1  should  think  it  was.  The  dividends  of  foreign  stockholders  must  be 
remitted  to  them  in  some  way.  If  the  bank  did  it,  this  could  nol  add  to 
the  amount  to  be  remitted^  or  increase  its  pressure  on  the  country.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  measure  created  a  demand  in  Europe  for  the  stock,  the 
purchase  of  it  on  foreign  account  was  equivalent  to  a  remittance  in  specie, 
and  so  far  operated  to  relieve  the  bank  from  a  demand  for  specie  to  remit. 

30.  Did  not  the  United  States'  Bank  commence  operations  by  discount- 
ing the  notes  of  its  stockholders  on  pledged  stock,  which  soon  amounted  to 
eleven  millions,  by  receiving  three-fourths  of  its  second  instalment  in  the 
same  manner;  by  increasing  its  discounts  in  the  first  fifteen  months  to  an 
amount  exceeding  forty  millions  of  dollars;  and  by  throwing  into  circula- 
tion, in  about  the  same  time,  some  ten  millions  of  paper  money? 

As  far  as  I  have  had  time  to  examine  these  details,  I  think  they  are  erro* 
neous. 

1st.  The  bank  did  not  commence  operations  by  discounting  the  notes  of 
its  stockholders.  The  first  instalment  was  payable  on  the  first  of  July, 
1816.  From  the  statements  contained  in  the  report  of  the  committee  of 
Congress,  ^t  appeared  that  it  was  paid  in  coin,        -  •  $  1,428,694  55 

stock,      •  -      6,971,305  45 


8,400,000  00 


The  second  instalment,  January  1,  1817,  subscription  by 
United  States,        ------      7,000,000  OQ 


Cash,  ....----      3,534,557  99 

Coin  or  notes  of  specie,  paying  bank  stocky       -  -      6,263,522  33 


^9,798,080  32 

Now,  the  whole  amount  of  bills  discounted,  except 
500,000  loaned  to  Government  on  the  24th  February,  1817, 
amounted  to  -----  -      2,930,067  33 

And  of  that  amount,  the  whole  amount  discounted  on 
bank  stock  up  to  30th  of  January,  1817,  was         -  -  182,642  40 

An  amount  which,  so  far  from  increasing,  was  actually  di- 
minished; for,  on  the  30th  of  April,  they  were     -  -  129,000  00 

The  whole,  therefore,  of  the  9,797,080  32,  which  could 
have  been  paid  by  discounts  on  stock,  was  -  -  182,642  40 

Not  certainly  three-fourths,  but  rather  less  than  two  per  cent. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  351 

Nor,  2d,  did  the  bank,  within  fifteen  months  from  its  establishment,  in- 
crease its  loan  to  more  than  40  millions  of  dollars,  and  issue  "  ten  million* 
<?f  paper  money." 

On  the  1st  of  March,  1818,  its  issues  were  only  8,339,448  20,  not  ten 
millions.  Its  investments,  on  the  1st  of  March,  1818,  amounted  to 
41,181,750  80.  But  then,  of  these  investments,  1^11,244,514  19  werft  the 
loa(ns  on  stock,  being  the  mere  conversion  into  that  form,  of  the  10,944,033  41 
of  Government  stock,  which  the  Government  redeemed;  making  an  increase 
of  only  300,480  78,  in  the  exchange  from  stock  to  stock  loans. 

In  regard  to  the  opinion  that  the  bank  too  early  expanded  its  loans  and 
issues,  there  is  one  decisive  answer,  that  the  bank,  from  the  first  hour  of  its 
creation,  was  urged  and  goaded  by  the  Government  into  an  enlargement  of 
its  business,  in  a  manner  which,  however  it  may  be  regretted  or  reproached, 
it  was  certainly  difficult  to  resist;  and  the  fault,  if  fault  there  were,  belonged 
rather  to  the  Government  than  the  bank.  There  can  be  no  testimony  on 
that  subject  more  conclusive  than  the  speech  of  Mr.  Lowndes,  one  of  the 
committee  of  investigation,  delivered  in  February,  1819. 

"Even  after  the  20th  February,  1817,  the  bank  might  have  pursued  the  cau- 
tious policy  of  withholding  its  accommodations  from  the  Government  and 
the  people,  until  the  reduction  of  other  paper  had  made  its  issues  necessary 
and  safe.  It  might  have  preferred  its  interest  to  its  duty.  The  State  banks, 
unable  to  comply  with  the  requisitions  of  Congress,  which  demanded  from 
them  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  must  have  lost  their  credit  with  the 
community.  The  Government,  indeed,  might  have  been  embarrassed,  the 
public  debtors  distressed,  and  the  State  institutions  have  been  brought  \'  to 
the  alternative  of  avowed  bankruptcy;"  butthase  competitors  for  public  favor 
and  employment,  would  have  been  removed,  and  the  National  Bank  would 
have  entered  into  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  monopoly,  which  the  ruin  of  every 
other  institution  would  have  prepared.  This  might  have  been  its  interest. 
But  there  were  other  interests  to  be  consulted — those  of  the  Governitient 
end  the  people.  The  bank  had  not  been  established  for  the  purpose  of  giv- 
to  its  stockholders  the  harvest  which  such  a  policy  might  provide.  It  was 
the  instrument  by  whose  use  we  hoped  to  secure  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments,  constructed  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  ours.  The  act  of 
the  legislature,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  Treasury  Department,  would 
show  hDw  incompatible  with  the  objects  of  the  institution  would  have  been 
that  postponement  of  its  operations,  or  that  gradual  commencement  of  them, 
which  was  recommended  now  when  the  difficulties  of  the  time  were  for- 
gotten. The  fourteenth  Congress  was  aware  that  a  narrow  view  of  its  ex- 
clusive interests,  might  induce  the  National  Bank  to  adopt  the  policy  which 
the  committee  had  described.  The  acts  which  they  passed  provided  that, 
as  soon  as  the  amount  of  the  first  subscription  (88,400,000)  should  be  re* 
ceived,  the  bank  should  thenceforth  commence  and  continue  its  operations. 
The  twenty-second  section  reserved  tq  Qongress  the  power,  if  it  should  not 
go  into  operation  before  the  first  Monday  in  April,  (at  which  time  its  third 
instalment  was  not  due)  to  declare  its  charter  void.  This  was  the  measure 
of  the  legislature  to  secure  the  early  operations  of  the  bank.  Those  of  the 
Treasury  Department  were  in  entire  consonanee  with  its  principles.'^ 

<^  The  first  object  which  the  Government  expected  to  be  attained  by  the 
National  Bank,  was  that  of  throwing  into  general  circulation,  by  the  20th  of 
February,  an  amount  of  notes  sufficient  to  enable  the  public  debtors  to 
comply  with  their  engagements,  '* 


352  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

*'  It  was  impossible  to  do  justice  to  the  conduct  of  the  National  Bank,  at 
least  for  the  first  year  of  its  operations,  without  attending  to  the  new  obli- 
gations in  which  this  compact  involved  them.  Proposed  by  the  Executive 
Government,  and  sanctioned  by  it — required  by  the  interests  of  the  people, 
and  necessary  to  the  credit  of  the  local  institutions — there  could  be  no  other 
objection  to  the  act,  than  that  it  accorded  better  with  the  public  interest  than 
with  that  of  the  stockholders.  Under  this  compact,  the  bank  became  bound 
to  discount  six  millions  (exclusive  of  revenue  bonds)  before  the  20th  of 
April,  and  to  sustain,  with  its  unbroken  credit,  and  its  whole  capital,  every 
bank  which  joined  in  the  arrangement.  The  eflfect  of  this  arrangement  was 
not  only  to  force  the  bank  into  earlier  operation  than  a  selfish  policy  might 
have  recommended,  but  to  oblige  it  to  renounce  the  resource  which  the 
State  banks  might  have  afforded  for  the  supply  of  specie.  South  of  New 
England,  there  was  no  specie  in  circulation." 

31.  Was  not  such  an  administration  of  the  bank  calculated  to  produce 
agitation  and  disorder  in  the  currency,  to  disturb  the  business  of  other 
banks,  and  to  convulse  trade? 

32,  If  you  think  an  institution  thus  administered  was  an  efficient  agent 
in  restoring  or  sustaining  specie  payments,  will  you  explain  in  what  man- 
ner it  contributed  its  aid? 

I  have  already  expressed  my  opinion  that  the  bank  not  only  contributed 
to  restore  specie  payments,  but  actually  caused  the  restoration. 

Of  the  first  administration  of  the  bank,  I  had  n&  personal  knowledge,  and 
have  little  information  beyond  whnt  has  long  been  published.  But  as  they 
who  administered  the  affairs  of  the  bank  have  passed  away,  and  are  no  lon- 
ger in  a  situation  to  vindicate  themselves,  it  is  the  more  fit  that  historical 
justice  should  be  done  to  them.  The  situation  of  the  first  administration  of 
the  bank  was  extremely  difiicult  and  delicate.  They  had  to  achieve  the  most 
critical  of  all  financial  operations — the  passage  from  a  vitiated  to  a  sound 
currency.  Mistakes  they  may  have  committed;  but  I  think  their  misfor- 
tunes proceeded  mainly  from  two  circumstances:  first,  the  impatience  of  the 
Government  and  the  country,  which  urged  the  bank  to  so  early  an  increase  of 
its  business;  and,  secondly,  the  rapid  payments  of  the  public  debt.  This 
last  is,  of  itself,  a  great  misfortune.  No  country  has  ever  yet  been  fortu- 
nate enough  to  pay  its  debts,  and  none,  therefore,  has  felt  the  great  inconve- 
nience of  suddenly  throwing  back  on  the  community  the  accumulation  of 
capital  composing  a  national  debt.  Thus,  on  the  29th  of  July,  1817,  the 
Government  had  in  the  bank  of  deposites  24,746,641  26,  consisting,  in  a 
great  degree,  of  the  notes  of  distant  banks  professing  to  pay  specie,  the 
whole  of  which  was  assumed  by  the  bank.  With  this  fund,  the  Govern- 
ment paid  the  bank  itself  13  millions  of  the  stock  belonging  to  its  capital, 
and  paid  out  the  remainder  so  as  to  reduce  the  deposite  to  1,478,526  74. 
Such  an  operation  was  in  itself  calculated  to  disturb  all  the  relations  of  trade; 
and  the  mere  vibrations  of  the  Government  deposites  received,  as  much  of  it 
was  in  distant  and  unavailable  paper,  and  paid  as  they  were  in  the  notes  of 
the  bank,  could  not  fail  seriously  to  derange  its  operations. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  its  embarrassments,  or  even  its  errors,  it  can- 
not, I  think,  be  denied  that  it  substantially  accomplished  all  the  great  pur- 
poses of  its  creation. 

33.  Did  not  the  bank  import,  between  the  30th  July,  1817,  and  the  5th 
November,  1818,  ^7,311,750  53,  in  specie? 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  ]  353 

The  bank  did  import  that  amount  of  specie,  the  first  arrival  being  on  ther 
^Oth  of  July,  1817,  the  last  on  the  5th  of  December,  not  November,  1818. 

34.  Had  not  the  banks  resumed  specie  payments  near  six  months  befor<> 
the  arrival  of  any  of  these  importations? 

The  banks  agreed  to  resume  specie  paymentson  the 20th  February,  1817. 
They  did  this  in  consequence  of  the  aid  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
which  in  order  to  sustain  them  as  well  as  itself,  ordered  this  importation, 
which  it  was  known  would  arrive,  as  it  actually  did  arrive,  in  time  for  that 
purpose.  For  all  the  objects  of  sustaining  specie  payments,  it  was  as  ef- 
fectual as  if  it  had  been  actually  in  the  vaults  of  the  bank  in  February,  1817. 

35.  Did  not  the  difficulties  of  the  bank  commence  in  July,  1818,  ami 
were  they  not  at  their  crisis  in  March  and  April,  1819,  four  months  after 
the  bank  had  completed  its  specie  importations? 

I  do  not  know  what  its  difficulties  were  in  July,  1818,  nor  what  is  to  b© 
considered  the  crisis  of  them. 

36.  What  is  your  opinion  of  the  policy  of  using  extraordinary  means  to 
Import  seven  millions  of  specie,  while  effectual  measures  are,  at  the  same 
time,  taken  to  drive  it  out  of  the  country  faster,  by  increasing  the  loans  of 
the  bank,  and  its  notes  in  circulation,  upwards  ©f  fifty  millions  of  dollars? 

My  opinion  is,  that  to  force  in  specie,  and  at  the  same  time  to  force  it  out, 
would  be  extremely  bad  policy.  But  if  it  be  intended  to  convey  the  im- 
pression that  the  bank  followed  such  a  policy,  nothing  can  be  more  er- 
roneous. It  is  here  said  that  the  bank,  al  the  same  time  it  was  importing 
«pecie,  mcreased  its  loans  and  its  notes  in  circulation  upwards  of  fifty  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  Now,  the  fact  is,  that  the  highest  amount  of  loans,  public 
4ebt,  and  circulation,  on  the  6th  of  July,  1818,  amounted  to     ^59,935,127 

On  the  30th  of  July,  1817,  the  same  objects  were  50,936,322 

The  'largest  increase,  therefore,  from  30th  July,  1817,  to 

6th  July,  1818,  was  8,998,805 

If  the  first  and  last  periods  of  importation  are  com- 
pared, it  would  stand  thus: 
5th  December,  1818,  loans,  public  funds,  and  circulation,  54,488,984 
On  the  30th  July,  1817,  they  were  50,936,322 

Actual  increase  of  loans  on  5th  December,  1818,  $  3,552,662 

But,  on  the  31st  July,  1817,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  held  claims  on 

tundry  banks  to  the  amount  of         -  -  -  -     g  12, 953,436 

And,  on  the  1st  December,  these  objects  were      -  -        3,782,603 

In  this  time,  the  State  banks  had  paid        -  .  -         9,170,835 

This  increase  of  means  by  the  conversion  of  claims  on  the  State  bankji 
fnto  active  funds,  are  nearly  three  times  the  amount  of  the  actual  increase 
of  loans  and  circulation  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

37.'  Had  not  the  parent  bank  less  specie  in  its  vaults  after  it  had  finished 
Its  importations  than  before  it  commetrted  importing  specie? 

No — not  merely  the  parent  bank,  but  the  whole  institution  had  more  spe- 
cie after  than  before  the  importation. 

38.  Did  not  the  bank,  at  the  commencement  of  its  difficulties  in  July,  1818, 
and  again  on  the  9th  of  April,  1819,  adopt  resolutions  to  collect  the  balances 
due  from  the  local  banks,  and  did  these  measures  aid  the  State  banks  in  sus- 
taining specie  payments? 
45 


SWte  [  Eep.  No.  460.  ] 

Supposing  this  to  have  been  the  case,  I  should  think  it  would.  If  specie 
payments  were  to  be  sustained  by  limiting  the  issues  of  all  the  banks,  and 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  diminishing  its  own  business,  the  only 
effectual  way  of  inducing  the  States  banks  to  follow  its  example,  would  be 
by  calling  for  what  was  due  from  them,  instead  of  suffering  them  to  dis- 
count on  the  balances  due  to  it. 

39.  Was  not  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  compelled  to  curtail  its  loan* 
ten  millions,  its  circulation  five  millions,  to  incur  a  foreign  debt  of  a  million 
and  a  half,  besides  a  loan  of  two  millions  at  three  years'  credit,  to  apply  to 
Government  for  relief  in  various  forms,  and  to  acknowledge  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  its  utter  inability  to  pay  the  Louisiana  debt  of  three  mil- 
lions, without  a  loan  in  Europe? 

No  time  is  mentioned,  but  if  this  question  refers  to  tnat  stated  in  the  pre- 
ceding interrogatory,  the  answer  is  best  given  by  reference  to  the  actual 
state  of  the  bank  in  July,  181S,  and  April,  1819. 

The  6th  of  July,  1G18,  the  loans  of  the  bank  amounted  to       41,458,984 
On  the  1st  April,  1819,  they  were  -  -  -     34,080,035 

The  6th  July,  1818,  the  circulation  was      -  -  -       9,045,216 

The  1st  April,  1819, 6,045,428 

The  2d  July,  1818,  the  bank  owed  in  England        -  -       1,884,513 

The  8th  April,  1819,  it  only  owed  -  -  -  992,865 

From  this  it  appears  that  its  loans  were  curtailed  only  7,378,959,  and  not 
10  millions;  its  circulation  2,999,788,  and  not  5  millions;  and  its  debt  in 
Europe  was  reduced  992,865  29.  At  a  subsequent  period,  the  bank  did  ne» 
gotiate  a  loan  in  England  for  2,040»000,  to  pay  inEurope,  in  October,  1819, 
that  part  of  the  Louisiana  debt  reimbursable  there;  but  the  only  real  relief 
it  asked  was  what  it  claimed  as  a  right — the  payment  of  its  own  notes  only 
where  they  were  payable.  Even  this  was  denied,  and  the  bank  then  re* 
lieved  itself  out  of  its  own  resources. 

40.  Was  not  the  bank  indebted  to  Stephen  Girard  Si 30, 000,  which  it 
could  not  pay;  and  did  it  not  owe,  on  the  12th  of  April,  1819,  to  the  Phila- 
delphia banks,  ;gl96,418  66,  with  but  $71,522  47  in  its  vaults? 

The  bank  was  perfectly  able  to  pay  its  debt  to  Mr.  Girard.  Mr.  Oheve» 
writing  on  the  20th  of  M^rch,  says — '«  Mr.  Girard  alone  has  a  balance  of 
near  &130,000,  the  others  also  about  ^46,000,"  but  be  does  not  say  a  word 
about  not  being  able  to  pay  it.  On  the  contrary,  upon  the  very  day  when 
this  sum  of  $176,000  was  due,  if  all  these  banks  had  come  for  payment,  the 
bank  was  able  to  pay  them  all,  for,  on  that  very  day,  it  had, 

In  the  vaults,        -  -  -     $187,764  89 

At  the  mint,         -  -  -       215,768  48 


-403,533  37 


Then,  on  the  12th  of  April,  it  owed,  -       196,418  66 

It  had  in  the  vaults,  ^71,522  47 

At  the  mint,  267,978  09 

Within  a  few  miles,  which  ar- 
rived the  next  day,  g50,000  00 


589,500  56 
State  bank  notes,  93,675  68 


$683,176  24 


A  sumof  v^683,176  24  to  pay  vl5196,418  66,  if  all  the  banks  had  chosen 
to  do,  what  all  the  banks  never  did  do,  call  at  the  same  moment  for  all  their 
fNilances. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  355 

Three  days  afterwards,  the  debt  to -the  city  banks  was  ^169,104  51 

And  there  was  in  the  vaults,  $301,549  70 

At  the  mint,  285,187  18 

malting     586,736  88 

41.  Has  not  the  president  of  the  bank,  in  his  expositions  in  1822,  stated 
that  the  bank  was  saved  by  the  fortunate  arrival  of  ^50,000  in  specie  from 
Ohio  and  Kentucky? 

He  does  not  state  this,  nor  any  thing  resembling  it.  He  states  only  that 
this  |>250,000  '-'arrived  seasonably  on  the  next  day,  or  a  day  or  two  after. '^ 
It  arrived  "seasonably,"  but  it  was  expected,  for  it  had  been  ordered  some^ 
time  before;  but  not  a  word  it  said  about  saving  the  bank  by  it.- 

42.  Is  it  your  opinion  that  a,  bank  thus  managed  from  January,  1817,  to- 
April,  1819,  could  have  essentially  contributed  to  aid  the  State  banks  in  re- 
suming and  sustaining  specie  payments? 

I  have  already  give  my  opinion  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  not 
only  contributed  to  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  but  caused  it. 


Questions  on  the  subject  of  Branch  Bank  notes  and  drafts. 

1.  Since  you  began  to  issue  branch  drafts,  it  appears  that  your  cfrcu- 
lation  has  increased  many  millions:  do  you  think  it  would  have  increased 
60  rapidly  if  you  had  continued  to  issue  none  but  notes  signed  by  the  presi- 
dent of  the  bank? 

If  branch  drafts  had  not  been  'issued,  no  notes  at  all  could  have  been 
issued,  from  the  mere  physical  impossibility  of  preparing  them.  But 
branch  drafts  do  not  increase- the  circulation  more  than  branch  notes  would. 

2.  Does  not  issuing  branch  drafts  and  notes,  redeemable  at  your  interior 
offices,  enable  you  to  sustain  in  circulation  a  larger  amount  than  could  be 
sustained  if  your  notes  were  issued  and  redeemable  principally  at  the  offices 
on  the  Atlantic? 

The  circumstance  that  both  are  payable  where  they  are  issued,  and  not 
merely  at  the  Atlantic  branches,  by  giving  them  more  value,  increases  the 
demand  for  them.  They  are  now  used  both  for  local  currency,  and  for  re- 
mittance. If  they  were  stript  of  their  character  of  currency  by  not  being 
redeemable  where  they  were  issued,  they  would  lose  part  of  their  value; 
but  then  the  western  and  southern  States  would  be  deprived  of  the  great 
advantage  of  having  them  for  circulation. 

3.  What  was  the  amount  of  notes  issued  from  the  offices  at  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  which  were  in  circulation  on  the  1st 
of  January  last,  and  what  the  amount  for  all  the  other  offices? 

For  the  offices  mentioned,  -  -  -      4,600,559 

The  other  offices,  -  .  .  -  -     16,647,931 


Totals,     -  -  $21,248,490 

4.  When  over-trading  occurs,  from  whatever  cause,  does  it  not  draw 

into  the  large  revenue  ports  on  the  Atlantic,  a  large  amount  of  these  interior 

bank  notes  and  drafts,  which  press  severely  upon  the  offices  at  Baltimore, 

Philadelphia;  New  York,  and  Boston? 

No.     It  may  produce  the  directly  contrary  effi}ct.     If  the  over-trading 

Consists  in  large  purchases  of  western  and  southern  produce,  the  Atlantic 


356  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

notes  would  be  carried  to  the  south  and  west.     I  am  not  aware  that  any 
great  inconvenience  has  been  suffered  from  this  cause. 

5.  You  have  stated  to  the  committee  that  the  parent  bank  redeemed 
^5,398,800,  and  that  the  branch  bank  at  New  York  redeemed  $13,219,635 
of  branch  notes  and  drafts  during  the  last  year, — is  it  your  opinion  thai 
the  branch  at  New  York  would  have  been  able  to  redeem  thirteen  million^ 
of  the  notes  of  other  branches,  in  one  year,  if  any  circumstance  had  oc^ 
curred  to  excite  alarm? 

This  is  a  question  diflicult  to  answer.  The  redemption  took  place  in  thd 
ordinary  course,  without  any  inconvenience,  as  it  has  taken  place  often  be- 
fore. But  it  is  quite  impossible  to  say  what  would  have  been  the  effect  of 
any  "circumstance  to  excite  alarm."  If  it  be  meant  alarm  on  the  part  of 
the  bank,  all  that  can  be  said  is,  that  that  may  be  done  safely  if  it  be  done 
coolly,  which  cannot  be  done  at  all  if  the  agent  is  alarmed.  If  by  alarno 
be  meant  the  alarm  of  the  community,  alarm  is  often  the  best  security 
against  danger. 

6.  If  the  offices  at  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  pay  their  notes  in  specie,  and  receive  these  branch  notes  for  revenue 
in  1819,  when  the  whole  circulation  of  the  bank  was  about  six  millions^ 
would  it  not  have  been,  under  similar  alarm,  more  difficult  in  January  last, 
with  a  circulation  amounting  to  near  twenty-five  millions? 

It  would  not  have  been  more  difficult  but  more  easy,  because  the  re- 
sources of  the  bank  were  much  greater  in  proportion  than  the  increase  of 
the  circulation.  The  circulation,  moreover,  was  not  twenty-five,  buC 
twenty-one  millions. 

7.  When  too  large  an  amount  of  these  branch  notes  press  upon  the  office? 
here  and  in  New  York,  is  not  the  bank  compelled  to  curtail  its  facilities 
to  southern  and  western  traders? 

The  question  still  remains,  what  is  "  too  large  an  amount?"  A  large 
amount,  a  very  large  amount,  does  not  compel  curtailments  to  western  and 
southern  traders,  for  this  obvious  reason;  These  branch  notes  are  brought 
or  sent  to  these  very  western  and  southern  traders  either  to  buy  goods,  of 
to  pay  for  goods  previously  bought,  so  that  these  branch  notes  themselves 
are  better  than  discounts  to  western  and  southern  traders,  and  supersede 
the  necessity  for  them.  The  arrival  of  the  branch  notes  is  the  signal  of  re- 
lief to  the  western  and  southern  traders. 

8.  So  long  as  the  bank  continues  to  enlarge  its  circulation  through  its  in» 
terior  offices,  and  the  branch  at  New  York  is  bound  to  receive  the  whole  of 
these  branch  notes  if  presented  in  payment  of  revenue  bonds,  must  there  not 
be  periodically  a  pressure  on  that  branch  which  must  react  on  all  the  offices- 
Ui  towns  or  cities  trading  with  New  York? 

Not  necessarily  nor  naturally.  Every  branch  is  bound  to  redeem  its  own 
paper,  and  the  branches  whose  notes  are  received  at  New  York  remit  bills 
of  exchange  to  cover  them:  for  instance,  the  branch  at  New  York  has  r©^ 
ceived,  during  the  year  1831,  gl 3,219,635  of  branch  notes  and  drafts,  yet 
the  branch  of  New  York  was,  at  the  close  of  the  operation,  in  debt  ^1,622,- 
819  05  to  those  branches,  because  they  had  provided,  by  remittances^  to  meet 
their  notes.  ^ 

In  point  of  fact,  I  do  not  think  that  there  has  existed  any  such  periodical 
pressure. 

9.  Does  not  such  a  plan  of  general  circulation  inevitably  tend  to  disturb 
the  regular  course  of  trade,  by  occasionally  obliging  the  bank  and  its  branched 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  357 

to  curtail  Us  discounts  at  some  points  and  enlarge  them  at  others;  and  by- 
transferring  funds  between  branches,  not  according  to  the  wants  of  trade, 
fcut  the  necessities  of  the  bank  and  its  branches? 

On  the  contrary,  this  plan  of  circulation  is  governed  entirely  by  the  course 
of  trade,  a^d  regulates  itself.  A  single  example  will  make  it  intelligible. 
The  crop  of  Tennessee  is  purchased  by  merchants  who  ship  it  to  New  Or- 
leans, giving  their  bills  founded  on  it  to  the  branch  at  Nashville,  which  fur- 
nishes them  with  notes.  These  notes  are  in  time  brought  to  New  York  for 
purchasing  supplies  for  Tennessee.  They  are  paid  in  New  York,  and  the 
Nashville  bank  becomes  the  debtor  of  the  branch  at  New  York.  The  Nash- 
ville branch  repays  them  by  drafts  given  to  the  branch  at  New  York  on  the 
branch  at  New  Orleans,  where  its  bills  have  been  sent,  and  the  branch  in 
New  York  brings  home  the  amount  by  selling  its  drafts  on  the  branch  at 
New  Orleans;  or  the  New  Orleans  branch  remits.  Such  an  operation,  so  far 
(from  *^  disturbing  the  regular  course  of  trade,"  is  its  best  auxiliary. 

This  very  plan  of  circulation,  moreover,  is  the  basis  of  the  whole  interior 
trade  of  the  United  States.  I  can  refer  the  committee  to  no  better  authority 
than  one  of  their  number,  who,  at  the  request  of  the  bank,  visited  the  inte- 
rior of  New  York  in  order  to  examine  the  relative  advantages  of  particular 
situations  for  a  branch  of  this  bank.  His  report  is  before  the  committee, 
and  they  will  perceive  that  the  comparison  between  these  places  turns  main- 
ly on  their  respective  facilities  to  issue  notes  which,  when  they  reached  the 
city  of  New  York,  could  be  provided  for  by  bills  of  exchange  drawn  on  the 
transportation  of  produce  from  the  interior  of  New  York,  that  plan  of  circu- 
ktion  being  universal  in  the  western  part  of  the  State.  Thus,  of  Utica,  he 
«ays: 

<«The  banks  in  the  west,  generally,  circulate  more  than  their  capital.  The 
Bank  of  Utica,  and  all  the  banks  in  the  west,  do  a  large  and  profitable  busi- 
ness by  discounting  drafts  on  New  York  at  sixty  days,  and  longer  terms,  at 
the  rate  of  seven  per  cent,  per  annum,  for  the  use  of  those  who  purchase  pro- 
duce for  the  New  York  market,  or  wheat  and  other  materials  for  manufac- 
turing for  the  same  market.  The  cashier  of  the  Bank  of  Utica  told  me  that 
he  remitted  from  100  to  ^150,000  of  these  drafts  monthly  to  the  Mechanics* 
Bank  in  New  York,  and  that  a  balance  was  generally  due  them  from  that 
bank  except  in  mid-winter.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Bank  of  Utica  supplies 
her  merchants  and  others  with  drafts  on  New  York,  at  a  premium  varying 
ij'om  a  half  to  one  per  cent.  Their  notes  are  also  remitted  to  New  York, 
where  they  are  now  at  a  discount  of  one  per  cent,  (the  present  rate  of  the 
Rochester,  and  of  aU  the  good  banks  in  the  west.)  They  are  occasionally 
^'eturned  to  Utica,  and  are  redeemed  in  specie,  or  by  checks  on  New  York. '^ 

Then,  of  Rochester: 

*<The  most  profitable  business  of  the  Bank  of  Rochester  is  said  to  be  dis* 
counting  drafts  on  New  York  for  millers  and  others,  as  mentioned  in  tha 
ease  of  the  Bank  of  Utica,  and  drawing  on  New  York  for  their  dry  good 
merchants  at  3-4  to  1  per  cent,  premium,  generally  the  latter.  Of  these 
drafts  of  the  millers,  &c.  they  remit  about  100,000  monthly  to  New  York. 
Their  own  drafts  on  New  York  amount  to  about  600  or  700,000  dolhirs  an- 
nually. The  agent  of  the  New  York  and  Albany  bmks  presents  the  notes 
of  the  Rochester  Bank  for  redemption,  aboutoncea  fortnight,  and  sometimes 
has  a  balance  against  the  bank  of  IQ,  20,  or  30,000  dollars,  which  is  occa- 
tionally  paid  in  part  with  specie,  but  generally  by  drafts  on  New  York  or 
Albany.'^ 

And,  finftUy,  of  Buffalo: 


358  [  Rep.  No.  460.  "| 

<<But  Utica  and  Rochester  have  been  aided  by  other  causes  which  mus 
have  given  a  powerful  impulse  to  their  industry  and  population.  In  addi 
tion  to  the  usual  discounts  of  a  bank,  and  their  influence  upon  trade,  we  have 
seen  the  Banks  of  Utics^and  Rochester  each  remitting  $100,000  monthly,  in 
drafts  on  New  York,  and  supplying  their  millers,  manufacturers,  and  traders, 
with  a  corresponding' amount  monthly  for  the  purchase  of  produce  and  raw 
materials,  the  produce  or  manufactures  being  afterwards  transmitted  to  re- 
imburse the  commission  merchant  in  New  York. 

<«  Rochester  has  hitherto  monopolized  the  flour  trade;  but  if  a  bank  were 
established  at  Bufialo,  it  would  soon  do  a  large  and  safe  business  with  the 
millers  of  its  neighborhood.  As  these  drafts  are  generally  drawn  on  the 
most  substantial  commission  houses  of  New  York,  they  form  the  best  clas^ 
of  paper  discounted  by  our  western  banks. 

"  Bufialo  is  certainly  superior  to  Utica  for  the  purpose  of  circulation.  Its 
merchants  must  become  the  purchasers  of  the  produce  of  the  west  for  the 
New  York  market,  its  manufacturers  must  have  the  wheat,  &c.  Means  for 
these  purposes  would  be  aff'orded  by  a  bank,  and  its  notes  would  be  put  in 
circulation  throughout  the  whole  of  the  western  country  and  Canada.  Be- 
sides, there  are  thousands  of  travellers  and  emigrants  annually  at  Bufialo, 
who  would  circulate  the  notes  of  a  bank  very  extensively,  particularly  if  it 
was  a  national  institution.  A  bank  at  Buffalo  would  always  receive  much 
specie  from  Canada,  and  might  dispose  of  a  large  amount  annually  in  drafts 
on  New  York,  at  a  premium,  as  remittances  for  supplies,  tolls,"  &c. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  more  accurately  the  plan  of  circulation  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  of  which  this  branch  at  Buffalo  was  to  form  a  part. 

10.  Will  you  explain  what  substantial  difference  there  is  between  the  pre- 
sent plan  of  circulation  and  redemption  of  the  branch  bank  notes,  and  an  ob- 
ligation on  the  part  of  a  bank  in  Philadelphia  to  redeem  the  notes  of  all  the 
country  banks  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania? 

11.  What  would  be  the  condition  of  such  a  bank  in  Philadelphia,  should 
the  country  banks  issue  an  extraordinary  amount  of  bank  notes.'* 

The  substantial  difference  is  the  same  as  there  is  between  a  man's  paying 
his  own  debts^  and  paying  the  debts  of  every  body  else.  The  Philadelphia 
bank  would  assume  to  redeem  the  issues  of  country  banks  over  whose  issues 
it  has  no  control.  The  Bank  of  the  United  States  redeems  the  issues  of  its 
own  branches,  which  it  regulates  and  constantly  superintends. 

12.  Was  not  the  branch  bank  at  New  York  coijipelled  to  receive  about 
seven  millions  of  the  notes  of  the  other  branches  in  the  last  five  months  of 
the  last  year;  and  was  not  its  specie,  in  the  samemonths,  reduced  from  $2,226,- 
429  81  to  S664,6S6  64? 

It  did  receive  them.  The  principal  reduction  of  its  specie  was  not  com- 
pulsory but  voluntary,  being  by  the  sale  of  bullion. 

13.  What  is  your  opinion  of  the  expediency  of  making  all  the  notes  issued 
by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  payable  at  one  place? 

I  should  think  it  an  injudicious  measure. 

14.  Would  it  not  tend  to  diminish  the  aggregate  circulation  of  the  bank, 
^nd  prevent  any  extraordinary  or  sudden  increase  of  circulatio^n,  and  would 

not  the  bank  have  greater  power  in  regulating  the  amount  of  its  general  cir- 
culation? 

In  all  places,  except  the  place  of  payment,  it  would  take  from  these  notes 
a  great  part  of  their  value.  Now  they  possess  the  double  character  of  local 
currency  and  of  bills  of  exchange:  the  change  would  tend  to  make  them 
mere  bills  of  exchange.     By  reducing  their  value,  their  amount  might  be 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  359 

diminished;  but  the  proposed  alteration  would  give  to  the  bank  no  control 
over  them  which  it  has  not  now. 


Questions  on  investments  in  public  debt  in  1824  and  1825,  and  the  ability: 
of  the  bank  to  make  loans  to  Government. 

1.  I  perceive  that,  between  June,  1824,  and  June,  1825,  the  bank  increas* 
ed  its  investments  in  funded  debt  from  about  ten  millions  to  twenty  millions; 
do  you  think  that  the  bank  can  aid  Government  with  long  and  largie  loans 
with  safety? 

With  perfect  safety. 

2.  If  the  bank  had  not  employed  its  funds  in  Government  loans  (without 
the  power  to  sell  the  stocks)  would  it  not  have  been  better  prepared  to  meet 
the  crisis  you  have  referred  to,  growing  out  of  the  speculations  of  1825? 

The  bank  has  never  employed  its  funds  in  Government  loans  which  it  had 
not  the  power  to  sell,  and,  so  far  from  being  better  prepared  for  the  crisis 
without  the  loan,  it  was  the  loan  which  assisted  the  bank  to  overcome  the 
crisis  more  readily. 

3.  Would  the  bank  have  been  compelled  to  resort  to  the  expedient,  a» 
you  have  stated,  of  procuring  a  temporary  loan  from  a  private  source,  in 
1825? 

I  am  not  aware  of  having  stated  that  the  bank  was  compelled  to  resort  to 
a  temporary  loan  in  1825.  The  circumstance  mentioned,  is  not,  I  think,  ot 
that  description. 

4  Had  the  same  investments  been  made  during  the  war,  would  not  the 
bank  have  been  compelled  either  to  sell  its  stock,  or  suspend  specie  pay- 
ments? 

I  cannot  perceive  why.  A  war  would  not  have  occasioned  as  much  diffi- 
culty as  the  state  of  trade  growing  out  of  peace;  and  if  the  alternative  of 
selling  stocks,  or  suspending  specie  payments,  were  presented,  the  stocks 
would,  of  course,  be  sold. 

5.  Is  there  not  a  material  difference  between  originally  investing  the 
capital  of  a  bank  in  funded  debt,  and  subsequently  attempting  to  make  loans 
to  Government? 

I  am  not  struck  by  any  material  difference. 

6.  After  a  bank  is  in  operation,  its  capital  invested,  audits  notes  in  circula- 
tion, how  can  it  make  loans  to  Government  without  curtailing  its  discounts, 
increasing  its  capital  by  new  subscription,  or  by  augmenting  its  paper 
money? 

Very  readily.  Though  its  capital  may  be  invested,  the  investment  can 
be  changed  from  other  stocks  to  Government  stocks.  Though  it  may  have 
notes  in  circulation,  it  may  safely  have  more  in  circulation.  The  bank,  in 
1824  took  loans  from  the  Government  to  the  amount  of  ten  millions.  Yet 
it  did  not,  therefore,  either  curtail  its  discounts,  or  increase  its  capital;  and 
the  whole  augmentation  of  its  issues,  growing  out  of  the  loans,  was  little 
more  than  three  millions.     Thus: 

Discounts.  Circulation.  Funded  debt. 

June  3,   1824,      ^33,010,305  47  ^6,185,162  ^10,873,407  78 

June  2,   1825,        32,729,834  09  9,472,519  20,858,600  00 


$280,471  38  i^3,287,357  ^9,985,192  22 


360  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

7.  How  can  a  bank  continue  to  hold  such  loans,  and  make  dividends, 
without  increasing  its  paper,  depreciating  the  currency,  forcing  specie 
abroad,  and  suspending  its  payments  in  gold  and  silver? 

Easily.  It  may  make  dividends  out  of  the  interest  on  its  loans,  as  well 
as  on  its  discounts;  and,  as  the  bank  did  actually  hold  the  loans,  did  make 
dividends,  did  not  increase  its  paper  more  than  three  millions,  and  neither 
depreciated  the  currency,  nor  forced  its  specie  abroad,  nor  suspended  pay- 
ments in  gold  and  silver,  the  existence  of  the  fact  itself  is  some  evidence  of 
its  possibility. 

S.  When  a  bank  takes  a  loan  from  Government  for  the  purpose  of 
selling  it  to  fund  holders,  is  it  any  better  than  a  mere  speculator  on  Go- 
vernment? 

Names  in  such  matters  are  of  no  consequence.  If  the  Government  wants 
money,  and  a  bank  lends  it  at  a  rate  mutually  acceptable,  the  Government 
may  as  properly  be  called  the  speculator  on  the  bank,  as  the  bank  on  the 
Government. 

9.  So  long  as  Government  holds  an  interest  in  the  bank,  does  it  not  effec- 
tually secure  a  monopoly  of  every  Government  loan  which  Congress  autho- 
rizes it  to  contract  for? 

1  do  not  perceive  this.  If  the  Government  can  make  more  advantageous 
terms  with  the  bank  than  with  individuals,  why  should  it  not? 

10.  Would  not  competition  among  banks  and  fund-holders  secure  loans  to 
Government  at  the  lovyest  rate  of  interest? 

Competition  is  doubtless  useful,  but  1  am  not  aware  that  there  is  any  thing 
to  exclude  it  in  loans  to  the  Government. 

11.  In  case  of  war,  will  you  explain  how  the  Bank  of  the  United  State* 
can  efficiently  aid  Government  with  loans,  without  inevitably  suspending 
specie  payments,  and  substituting  a  paper  for  a  metallic  currency? 

It  can  be  explained  easily  and  simply.  When  a  war  takes  place,  and  mo- 
ney is  wanted  to  prosecute  it,  before  individual  capital  is  disengaged  from 
the  pursuits  of  peace,  and  before  the  war  system  of  taxation  becomes  pro- 
ductive, as  the  war  itself  diminishes  the  active  demand  for  discounts,  the 
bank  has  disposable  means  with  which  it  at  once  supplies  the  Government 
This,  when  the  war  begins.  As  individual  capital  is  withdrawn  from  peace- 
ful occupations,  it  seeks  investment  in  the  funds,  and  the  bank  then  sells  the 
Government  loan  to  the  citizens,  thus  replacing  its  active  capital,  and 
preparing  for  the  next  loan.  Or,  if  the  citizens  themselves  wish  to  take 
the  next  loan,  the  bank  may  make  advances  to  them  on  the  several  in- 
stalments of  the  loan,  so  as  to  enable  them  to  take  the  whole  loan,  and  thus 
in  succession  during  the  war,  or  until  the  taxes  defray  its  expenses.  The 
benefit  to  the  Government,  then,  is  that  the  bank  has  an  accumulated  capital, 
which  it  places  at  the  disposal  of  the  Government  for  its  immediate  wants, 
and  is  the  channel  by  which  the  loans  are  diffused  over  the  country.  Now,  as 
almost  all  banks  that  ever  existed  have  made  loans  to  Government,  the 
operation  does  not  appear  in  itself  a  very  difficult  or  ruinous  one.  The 
whole  matter  is  explained  by  Mr.  Gallatin  very  clearly: 

<'We  have  not  adverted  (says  he)  to  the  aid  which  maybe  expected  from 
that  institution  in  time  of  war,  and  which  should,  we  think,  be  confined  to 
two  objects.    . 

*' First.  The  experience  of  the  last  war  has  sufficiently  proved,  that  an 
efficient  revenue  must  be  provided  before,  or  immediately  after  that  event 
takes  place.     Resort  must  be  had,  for  that  purpose,  to  a  system  of  internal 


L  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  3ei 

taxation,  not  engrafted  on  taxes  previously  existing,  but  which  must  be  at 
once  created.  The  utmost  diligence  and  skill  cannot  render  such  new  taxes 
productive  before  twelve  or  eighteen  months.  The  estimated  amount  must 
be  anticipated;  and  advances  to  that  extent,  including  at  least  the  estimated 
proceeds  of  one  year  of  all  the  additional  taxes  laid  during  the  war,  may 
justly  be  expected  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

**  Secondly.  It  will  also  be  expected,  that  it  will  powerfully  assist  in  rais- 
ing the  necessary  loans,  not  by  taking  up,  on  its  own  account,  any  sum  be- 
yond what  may  be  entirely  convenient  and  consistent  with  the  safety  and 
primary  object  of  the  institution,  but  by  affording  facilities  to  the  money 
lenders.  Those  who,  in  the  first  instance,  subscribe  to  a  public  loan,  do 
not  intend  to  keep  the  whole,  but  expect  to  distribute  it  gradually  with  a 
reasonable  profit.  The  greatest  inducement,  in  order  to  obtain  loans  on 
moderate  terms,  consists  in  the  probability  that,  if  that  distribution  proceeds 
slower  than  had  been  anticipated,  the  subscribers  will  not  be  compelled,  in 
order  to  pay  their  instalments,  to  sell  the  stock,  and,  by  glutting  the  market, 
to  sell  it  at  a  loss:  and  the  assistance  expected  from  the  bank  is  to  advance, 
on  a  deposite  of  the  scrip,  after  the  two  first  instalments  have  been  paid, 
such  portions  of  each  succeeding  payment  as  may  enable  the  subscribers  to 
hold  stock  a  reasonable  length  of  time.  As  this  operation  may  be  renewed 
annually,  on  each  successive  loan,  whilst  the  war  continues,  the  aid  afforded 
in  that  manner  is  far  more  useful  than  large^direct  advances  to  Government, 
which  always  cripple  the  resources,  and  may  endanger  the  safety  of  a  bank." 


Examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on  the 
increase  of  the  paper  circulation  of  the  Bank,  its  agency  in  diminish- 
ing  or  enlarging  the  circulation  of  local  banks,  and  the  means  of  per- 
manently regulating  our  general  circulation,  so  as  to  jirevent  its  in- 
jurious effects  upon  the  trade  and  currency  of  the  country. 

1.  I  notice  that,  from  1823,  to  the  first  of  January,  1832,  the  bank  had 
increased  its  bank  note  circulation  from  about  four  and  a  half  to  twenty-four 
and  a  half  millions  of  dollars;  that  thirteen  or  fourteen  millions  of  this  increase, 
occurred  between  the  1st  of  January,  1828,  and  the  Ist  of  January,  1832, 
and  that  you  have  V'>e  right,  by  your  charter,  to  extend  your  circulation  to 
thirty-five  millions — is  it  not  your  opinion  that  while  such  a  circulation 
continues,  and  the  State  banks  exercise  a  similar  power,  our  paper  currency 
must  fluctuate  in  value,  that  sudden  demands  must  be  occasionally  made  on 
our  banks  for  specie;  and  that  our  traders  must  become  speculators  and 
bankrupts,  by  abrupt  changes  in  the  value  of  proprety? 

1st.  As  to  the  facts — ^The  increase  of  twenty  millions  of  notes.  . 

The  circulation  of  the  bank  on  the  1st  of  January,  1823,  was     4,361,058 

On  the  1st  of  January,  1832,  -  -  .-  -  21,250,546 

An  increase  in  nine  years  of    -  -  -  -  ^16,889,488 

and  not  twenty  millions. 
2d.   The  increase  from  January  1st,  1828,  to  January  1st,  1832,  is  stated 
at  13  or  14  millions.     The  fact  is,  that  this  increase  was  only  11,394,848, 
and  not  13  or  14  millions.     Our  paper  currency  has  not,  that  I  am  aware, 
fluctuated  in  value. 
46 


362  .        i  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

3ti.  That  occasional  demands  should  be  made  for  specie  is  incident  to  all 
banks  and  all  trade,  but  as  the  demands  have  been  always  paid,  there  does 
not  seem  to  be  any  special  cause  of  complaint. 

Finally,  until  the  nature  of  man  is  changed,  men  will  become  speculators 
and  bankrupts — under  any  system — and  1  do  not  perceive  that  our  own  is 
specially  calculated  to  create  them. 

2.  Does  not  an  increase  of  gold  and  silver  throughout  the  world,  tend  in 
some  measure  to  augment  prices  in  every  country? 

Yes;  but  in  a  very  slow,  and  very  gradual,  and  almost  imperceptible  man- 
ner. 

3.  Docs  not  an  increase  of  bank  note  circulation,  or  of  any  other  paper 
substitute,  for  a  metallic  currency,  tend  to  raise  prices  in  the  country  where 
it  is  issued,  above  the  level  of  the  prices  of  the  world? 

Sometimes,  but  not  necessarily,  and  perhaps  not  generally.  Its  natural 
tendency  to  do  so,  is  often  counteracted  by  this  circumstance,  that  the  facili- 
ties of  bank  credits  enable  men  to  have  quicker  returns,  to  enlarge  their 
operations,  and  therefore  to  work  cheaper.  Moreover,  there  is  an  es- 
sential difference  between  paper  which  is  a  substitute  for  a  metallic  curren- 
cy, and  paper  which  is  the  companion  of  it,  and  convertible  into  it. 

4.  Suppose  the  entire  wealth  of  this  country  to  be  three  thousand  mil- 
lions, and  that,  by  increasing  our  paper  currency,  we  should  nominally  aug- 
ment the  value  of  property  ten  per  cent,  or  three  hundred  millions  ot  dol- 
lars, would  not  the  speculations  resulting  from  such  a  change,  inevitably, 
and  very  considerably  increase  commercial  operations,  notes  of  hand,  bills 
of  exchange,  and  bank  notes  and  checks  of  every  kind  and  description? 

Probably. 

5.  When  we  increase  our  general  circulation  by  an  increased  issue  of  United 
States'  Bank  notes,,  are  not  our  local  circulations  simultaneously  augmented? 

No.  The  circulation  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  supersedes,  in  many 
cases  the  local  circulation,  as  it  was  designed  to  do,  and  no  inference  can 
be  drawn  from  the  increase  of  the  former  to  the  increase  of  the  latter. 

6.  If  they  are  not  thus  increased,  and  if,  as  some  suppose,  our  general  cir- 
culation diminishes  the  aggregate  amount  of  our  local  circulation,  how  do 
you  account  for  the  following  facts,  which  appear  from  the  returns  made  to 
the  State  Governments,  viz.— That  the  banks  of  Massachusetts,  between 
1823  and  1S31,  had  increased  their  capital  from  11,650,000  to  21,439,800, 
and  their  circulation  from  3,145,010  to  7,739,317: — That  the  capital  of  the 
State  banks  in  New  York,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Pennsylvania, 
has  increased  since  1817  more  than  thirty  millions  of  dollars: — That  the  in- 
crease of  the  circulation  of  the  banks  m  these  States,  not  including  the  Phila- 
delphia banks,  was,  in  the  last  year,  about  eight  millions:— That  the  country 
banks  in  the  State  of  New  York,  had,  between  the  1st  January,  1830,  and 
the  1st  January,  1832,  increased  their  circulation  from  3,974,345,  to  8,622,- 
S77? 

I  have  not  time  to  look  into  these  details,  and,  supposing  them  accurate, 
my  inference  would  this,  that  the  control  exercised  by  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  over  the  State  banks,  while  it  is  sufficient  to  keep  them  within  a 
strict  responsibility  for  their  issues,  does  not  encroach  on  their  freedom  of 
action,  or  interefere  with  their  profits. 

7.  If,  as  is  supposed,  the  tendency  of  the  United  States'  Bank  is  to  dimin- 
ish State  bank  paper,  how  does  it,happen  that,  in  almost  all  the  States,  the 
local  circulations  have  been  doubled,  and,  in  some,  tripled  in  amount  since 
the  bank  Was  charter-ed? 


[  Rep.  No.  460*  ]  363 

I  have  not  had  time  to  examine  the  statement,  but  should  think  it  very 
erroneous.  With  regard  to  several  of  the  States,  it  certainly  is  not  true. 
It  is  not  true  in  regard  to  Kentucky — it  is  not  true  with  regard  to  Tennessee 
— it  is  not  true  in  regard  to  Missouri — nor  to  North  Carolina — nor  to 
Virginia.  It  is  not  true,  either,  of  the  aggregate  circulation.  The  State 
bank  circulation  on  the  1st  jof  January,  1816,  was  sixty-eight  millions. 
That  of  the  1st  of  January,  1830,  forty-eight  millions.  Wherever  it  is 
true,  it  may  be  ascribed  to  local  causes,  and  to  the  addition,  since  the  period 
of  the  charter,  of  four  millions  to  the  population  of  the  United  States.  The 
general  inference  would  be,  how  little  the  bank  tends  to  encroach  on 
the  legitimate  business  of  the  State  banks,  being  the  enemy  of  none,  but 
the  common  friend  of  all  of  them. 

8.  If  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  with  its  capital  of  thirty-five  millions, 
and  its  general  circulation  of  twenty -two  millions,  gives  an  impulse  to  a  na- 
tional capital  of  three  thousand  millions,  does  it  not  inevitably  give  an  im- 
pulse to  banking,  as  well  as  all  other  operations,  and  must  not  these  capitals 
and  circulations  increase  with  all  others? 

It  is  not  easy  to  perceive  how  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  increases  the 
capitals  of  other  banks. 

9.  When  a  national  bank,  like  that  of  the  United  Slates,  expands  its  loans, 
circulation,  and  investments  throughout  the  Union,  and  a  spirit  of  specula- 
tion is  excited  every  where,  are  not  sales  and  purchases  so  multiplied,  that 
one  capital  is  frequently  represented  by  ten  notes  of  hand  at  the  same  time, 
and  does  not  this  speculative  increase  of  credits  produce  an  increase  of  banks? 

'  There  is  no  doubt  that  speculation  tends  to  increase  sales  and  purchases, 
and  of  course  to  multiply  the  evidences  of  such  transactions. 

10.  Does  not  a  national  bank,  with  a  general  circulation,  excite  overtrad- 
ing among  local  banks  as  well  as  among  merchants? 

Not  necessarily.  It  depends  altogether  on  the  operations  of  the  bank-^ 
its  natural  tendency  would  be  to  control  them,  and  thus  far  prevent,  rather 
than  excite  excessive  issues. 

11.  In  what  manner  can  a  national  bank  diminish  the  circulation  of  coun- 
try banks  with  which  they  have  no  transacktions,  except  by  reducing  its  own 
circulation? 

Very  easily  and  ver}?-  naturally.  The  very  increase  of  the  circulation  of 
a  national  bank,  may  be  the  most  efficient  cause  of  the  reduction  of  a  Stato 
bank,  and,  in  this  way,  a  branch  bank  is  near  a  local  bank — the  branch  notes 
are  moi'e  valuable  than  the  local  notes — the  local  notes  are  exchanged  for 
branch  notes  at  the  branch  bank,  which  thus  becomes  the  creditor  of  the 
local  bank,  and  makes  it  pay  its  debts,  and  thus  reduce  its  circulation.  Now, 
almost  all  State  banks  stand  in  this  relation  to  the  bank  and  its  branches. 

12.  Are  not  bank  checks,  notes  of  hand,  and  bills  of  exchange,  capable  of 
being  multiplied  to  an  indefinite  extent,  and  are  they  not  of  themselves  a 
substitute  for  specie  and  bank  note  circulation? 

I  should  not  think  that  checks  or  notes  of  hand  and  bills  of  exchange,  are 
capable,  more  than  any  thing  else,  of  indefinite  multiplication,  and  are  not 
well  suited  to  become  substitutes  of  coin  and  bank  notes,  because  they 
would  represent  only  individual  responsibilities,  not  those  recognized  cor- 
porations established  by  law,  or  of  the  coinage  fixed  and  certified  by  the 
Government. 

13.  If  no  banks  were  authorized  by  the  General  or  the  State  Governments, 
would  not  trade  soon  confine  itself  to  such  a  regulation,  by  multiplied  ex- 


364  L  ^^V'  No.  460.  ] 

pedients  to  dispense  with  the  use  of  them,  as  in  some  of  the  most  commer- 
cial countries  of  Europe,  where  bankruptcies  are  rare? 

If  the  Government  should  suppress  banks,  undoubtly  the  people  must 
do  without  them.  In  regard  to  **  some  of  the  most  commercial  countries  of 
Europe,"  where  certain  expedients  are  said  to  dispense  with  the  use  of 
banks — I  do  not  know  any  one  commercial  country  of  Europe  where  banks 
have  not  existed. 

14.  If  banks  were  restricted  to  dealing  in,  and  lending  capital  only,  or 
the  representative  of  an  existing  capital,  and  were  not  permitted  to  manu- 
facture and  lend  the  representative  of  nothing  but  legislative  power,  how 
could  banks  ever  injure  the  trade  or  currency? 

I  fear  I  do  not  comprehend  all  this.  Our  banks  have,  or  think  they  have, 
a  substantial  capital,  and  I  doubt  whether  it  is  true  that  they  are  merely  en- 
gaged in  <^  manufacturing  the  representative  of  nothing  but  legislative 
power." 

15.  If  banks  were  restricted  to  their  legitimate  and  primary  object  of  bor- 
rowing and  lending  the  capitals  actually  existing  in  the  community,  might 
they  not  go  on  annually  regulating  their  facilities  and  their  profits  in  a  rate 
corresponding  with  the  annual  savings  of  labor  and  accumulations  of  capital, 
and  without  detriment  to  trade  or  currency? 

I  should  think  that  the  legitimate  and  primary  object  of  banks  is  to  lend, 
not  to  borrow. 

16.  If  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  its  branches  were  compelled  to 
allow  an  interest  on  all  deposites,  public  and  private,  would  it  not  draw  into 
actual  use  millions  of  capital  now  dormant,  and  compel  every  State  bank  in 
the  Union  to  adopt  the  same  plan  of  banking? 

I  think  it  would  do  neither. 

17.  Would  not  such  a  measure  effectually  check  any  over-issues,  by  com- 
pelling the  banks  to  loan  the  large  amount  of  capital  upon  which  they  were 
obliged  to  pay  interest,  before  they  could  be  tempted  to  manufacture  a  bank 
note  capital  for  the  uses  of  trade? 

The  question  seems  to  answer  itself,  for,  so  far  from  checking  overissues, 
it  would  be  the  best  contrivance  to  render  them  almost  inevitable.  The 
case  stands  thus — At  present  it  is  feared  that  banks  lend  too  much  on  what 
is  here  termed  bank  note  capital — so,  to  remedy  that,  the  plan  is  to  force 
the  banks  to  allow  interest  on  the  deposites,  because  then  they  will  be 
*'  compelled  to  loan  the  large  amount  of  capital  upon  which  they  were  oblig- 
ed to  pay  interest^  be/ore  they  would  be  tempted  to  manufacture  a  bank  note 
capital."  That  is  to  say,  before  they  come  to  the  profitable  part  of  their 
business,  they  must  lend  a  large  amount,  in  order  to  cover  the  interest 
they  have  to  pay.  Such  a  plan  I  should  think  a  constant  stimulus  to  lend 
too  much;  when  a  bank  pays  no  interest  on  deposites,  the  temptation  to  ex- 
cessive issues  can  scarcely  be  as  strong  as  when  it  is  goaded  into  lending, 
in  order  not  to  lose  by  the  interest  it  must  pay  on  deposites. 

18.  Would  it  be  practicable  for  banks  to  sustain  any  extraordinary  amount 
in  circulation  when  their  notes  would  return  upon  them  as  fast  as  they  were 
issued,  because  the  holders  would  lose  their  interest  upon  them  while  they 
retained  them? 

It  would  depend  entirely  on  the  circumstance  whether  the  holder  of  the 
notes  could  make  more  by  the  use  of  them,  than  by  returning  them. 

19.  Is  that  not  a  fallacious  plan  of  banking,  the  object  of  which  seems  to 
be  to  save  interest  by  substituting  baok  notes  for  a  metallic  currency,  while 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  365 

a  portion  of  the  community  annually  lose  the  interest  on  five  times  that 
amount,  composed  of  bank  deposites  and  dormant  capitals? 

20.  If  we  were  to  change  our  banking  system,  and  call  into  active  use 
all  the  savings  of  labor,  the  profits  of  trade,  and  the  annual  accumulations  of 
income,  by  compelling  all  our  banks  to  allow  an  interest  of  four  per  cent, 
on  all  deposites,  is  it  not  probable  that  a  capital  would  be  drawn  from  these 
sources  for  the  uses  of  trade  five  times  greater  than  any  amount  of  paper 
money  which  all  the  banks  in  the  Union  could  possibly  sustain  in  circula- 
tion? 

I  see  no  fallacy  in  the  present  plan,  and  no  advantage  in  the  proposed 
change  of  it.  Undoubtedly  the  substitution  of  paper  for  coin  saves  interest 
on  the  coin  which  it  replaces,  quite  equal,  I  should  think,  to  the  capital 
which  would  be  rendered  active  by  the  suppression  of  the  paper.  In  addi- 
tion to  their  present  circulation,  the  banks  might  ^'  possibly  sustain"  an 
amount  which  would  make  the  whole  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  Five 
times  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  make  seven  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions: and  it  is  said  that  the  offer  of  four  per  cent,  interest,  would  rouse  into 
commercial  activity  these  seven  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  I  somewhat 
doubt  this.  Interest  in  the  United  Stales  varies  from  five  to  six,  seven  and 
eight,  and  even  ten  per*  cent.  If  this  dormant  capital  has  resisted  these 
rates,  1  fear  it  would  not  be  awakened  by  four  per  cent.  I  doubt  the  more, 
because,  in  many  cities  of  the  United  States,  there  already  exist  banks  or 
saving  funds,  or  some  institution  of  charity  or  trade  which  have,  for  years, 
pursued  this  very  plan  of  giving  interest  on  deposites — and  yet  the  750  mil- 
lions have  not  shown  themselves. 

But  there  is  an  objection  to  the  change  of  system  which  seems  to  me 
final  and  fattal.  At  present,  a  bank  discounts  on  its  own  capital;  if  deposites 
are  added  they  are  welcome;  but  they  are  not  paid  for;  and  the  bank  does 
business  in  proportion  to  its  capital,  which,  being  unchanged,  the  business 
partakes  of  this  uniformity.  But  if,  as  is  now  proposed,  the  bank  should 
have  no  capital  of  its  own,  but  do  business  on  capital  which  it  has  borrow- 
ed from  others,  and  on  which  it  pays  interest,  two  things  seem  inevitable — 
first,  that  the  bank  must  do  a  much  greater  amount  of  business  in  order  to 
make  an  equal  profit,  and  that  it  will  be  perpetually  goaded  into  excessive 
business  in  order  to  pay  for  the  use  of  its  borrowed  capital.  And,  secondly, 
that  the  business  of  such  a  bank  must  be  in  a  far  greater  State  of  uncertainly 
and  fluctuation  than  that  of  other  banks;  because,  whenever  there  is  a  demand 
for  money,  whenever  a  greater  interest  can  be  made  out  of  doors  than  by 
leaving  the  money  in  the  bank,  these  deposites  will  of  course  be  withdrawn, 
and  the  bank,  just  at  the  moment  when  it  might  be  useful  in  sustaining 
trade,  would  find  its  whole  borrowed  capital  melting  away  from  under  it. 

21.  Were  we  to  adopt  that  system,  would  not  trade  safely  regulate  itself, 
and  keep  peace  with  the  annual  accumulations  of  capital;  and  would  not  ca- 
pital increase  more  rapidly  than  it  now  does  under  a  banking  system,  which 
substitutes  a  paper  representative  of  power,  and  excludes,  from  the  active 
uses  of  trade,  a  much  larger  amount  of  the  real  wealth  of  the  country? 

Trade  contrives  now  to  regulate  itself  well  without  the  proposed  improve- 
ment, which  I  should  not  think  calculated  to  hasten  the  increase  of  capital. 

22.  Were  all  the  banks  of  the  Union  compelled  at  once  to  become  bor- 
rowers of,  and  to  cease  manufacturing  capital,  could  not  the  change  be  ef- 
fected without  any  derangement  of  trade  or  currency? 

Mr*  Gallatin  estimated  that,  in  January,  1830,  there  were  three  hundred 


S6G  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

and  thirty  banks,  having  a  capital  of  145,192,268  dollars.  If  these  banks 
were  **atonce,^'  instead  of  lenders,  to  become  borrowers,  such  a  transition 
would  be  a  highly  interesting  movement,  but  I  incline  to  think  that  *'  trade 
and  currency''  would  be  a  little  deranged  before  the  process  subsided. 

23.  W  len  bankers  lend  their  own  money,  or  the  money  of  others,  upon 
which  thty  pay  interest,  have  you  ever  notice;!  that  extraordinary,  but  ima- 
ginary, deficiency  of  capital,  which  we  hear  of  periodically  in  every  coun- 
try where  banks  are  permitted  to  lend  without  restriction,  or  any  self-regu- 
lating principle,  a  currency  manufactured  by  themselves? 

I  have  never  noticed  any  periodical  deficiency  of  capital  which  was  at 
once  <^  extraordinary  but  imaginary,'^  and,  as  far  as  I  am  acquainted  with 
the  banks  of  this  country,  they  are  not  permitted  to  lend  without  restriction 
or  any  self-regulating  principle.  What  I  have  noticed  is  this — that  the 
bankers  of  England  *Mend  their  own  money,  or  the  money  of  others,  on 
which  they  pay  interest,''  and  that,  for  ten  years  past,  the  failures  among 
tliese  English  bankers  have  been  more  numerous  in  the  proportion  of  six  or 
seven,  and  probably  ten  to  one,  than  the  failures  of  American  banks. 

24.  May  not  a  bank  note  currency  be  safely  tolerated,  where  the  mass  of 
your  capital  for  the  active  uses  of  trade  is  drawn  from  other  and  legitimate 
sources,  and  wl^ere  your  paper  circulations  must  necessarily  bear  but  a  small 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  your  deposites,  as  in  Scotland? 

25.  In  Scotland,  the  bank  deposites,  in  1S2G,  amounted  to  about  twenty- 
four  millions  sterling;  say,  in  our  money,  one  hundred  and  thirty  mil- 
lions of  dollars;  more  than  half  of  which  amount  was  composed  of  de- 
posites in  sum.s  under  one  thousand  dollars;  and  drawn  from  the  laboring 
classes;  its  circulation,  which  had  been  gradually  enlarging  for  more  than 
one  hundred  and  thirty  years,  was  about  three  and  one-third  millions  ster- 
ling; equidj  in  our  money,  to  about  sixteen  millions  of  dollars.  Suppose 
the  bank  deposites  of  Scotland  now  to  be  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  and 
its  circulation  eighteen  millions;  can  the  trade  of  Scotland  ever  suffer  from 
re-actions  while  it  is  sustained  by  so  large  an  aggregate  of  real  and  active 
banking  capital,  or  its  currency  ever  be  agitated  while  the  amount  of  notes 
in  circulation  scarcely  exceeds  one-tenth  of  tha  amount  of  bank  deposites? 

26.  If  ihe  trade  of  Scotland  depended,  as  ours  does,  not  upon  the  accumu- 
lations of  a  capital  which  never  diminishes,  but  on  a  capital  manufactured 
by  five  hundred  banks,  and  which  diminishes  with  every  re- action,  and  may 
almost  vanish  with  a  panic,  would  not  Scotland  suffer  as  we  do,  and  as  they 
have  frequently  done  in  England,  from  every  convulsion  in  the  money 
market? 

27.  Suppose  our  trade  was  sustained  by  deposites  equal  (in  a  ratio  to  those 
of  Scotland)  to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  and  facilitated  by  a  pro- 
per currency  of  ninety  millions;  is  it  your  opinion  that  our  country  could 
ever  suffer,  in  peace  or  in  w-ar,  from  a  scarcity  of  money  or  a  want  of  con- 
fidence? 

28.  If  we  were  to  oblige  our  banks  to  pay  an  interest  of  four  per  cent, 
on  all  daposites,  would  not  our  laborers,  mechanics,  traders,  farmers;  nay, 
all  our  productive  classes,  become  lenders  of  capital  to  give  activity  to  trade, 
and  enlarge  the  employment  of  labor,  and  Vv'ould  not  the  ability  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  to  facilitate  trade,  be  tripled  in  a  very  few  years? 

29.  Is  not  the  Scotch  plan  of  banking  more  profitable  to  the  banks  and 
the  community,  than  any  adopted  in  any  other  country? 

SO.  If  this  plan  should  not  be  adopted  by  Congress  and  our  State  Legis- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  3  67 

latures,  would  not  redundant  circulations  be  effectually  checked  by  limiting 
dividends  to  six  per  cent,  and  compelling  the  banks  to  divide  their  profits? 

The  inquiries,  from  twenty-four  to  thirty  inclusive,  relate  to  Scotch  bank- 
ing. Scotch  banking  is  doubtless  an  excellent  system  for  Scotch  people, 
but  these  peculiarities  are  difiicult  to  transplant  among  a  people  of  totally 
different  manners,  habits,  and  modes  of  existence;  and  as  their  English, 
Irish,  French,  and  Dutch  neighbors,  who  are  the  more  immediate  witnesses 
of  its  merits,  have  never  adopted  the  system,  I  should  hesitate  to  recom- 
mend it  for  this  country.  It  suits  Scotland,  because  it  has  grown  up  with 
the  trade  of  Scotland.  For  the  same  reason  our  system  does  probably  bet- 
ter for  us  tban  any  scheme  which  could  be  imported.  Our  whole  trade  and 
business  has  been  connected  v^'ith  the  system,  and  thj  general  prosperity 
which  has  accompanied  it,  proves  that  if  it  has  not  caused,  it  has  not  marred, 
the  advances  of  the  country.  I  doubt  whether  it  would  be  judicious,  as  is 
here  suggested,  to  destroy  all  banks,  or  to  take  away  their  capitals,  or  to 
make  them  pay  interest  on  their  deposites,  or,  in  short,  to  do  any  thing  with 
them.  The  whole  machinery  works  well.  It  moves  harmoniously  with 
all  our  systems  of  government.  The  Governments  of  the  States,  with  the 
addition  of  the  National  Government,  form  our  political  system.  The  State 
banks,  with  the  addition  of  the  National  Bank,  is  the  analagous  arrangement 
of  the  banking  system. 

The  idea  at  the  present  day  of  doing  the  business  of  this  country  without 
banks,  would  be  equal  to  the  project  of  renouncing  canals,  and  railroads, 
and  steamboats,  and  all  the  other  improvements  belonging  to  trade. 

That  banks  do  occasional  mischief  there  can  be  no  doubt;  but  until  some 
valuable  improvement  is  found  which  supplies  unmixed  good,  this  is  no  ob- 
jection to  them.  And  constituted  as  they  now  are,  the  banks  of  the  United 
States  may  be  considered  safe  instruments  of  commerce. 

During  the  last  ten  years,  for  every  American  bank  which  has  failed, 
there  have  probably  been  at  least  six  or  eight  English  banks  which  failed. 
In  1825-6,  no  less  than  seventy-six  to  one  hundred  English  banks  failed  at 
once. 

On  the  whole,  it  seems  wiser  to  retain  the  established  institutions  of  the 
country,  instead  of  resorting  to  doubtful  and  hazardous  experiments.  What 
is  wanted,  1  think,  in  our  banking  system,  is  this:  First,  to  widen  the  basis 
of  the  metallic  circulation,  by  abolishing  the  use  of  small  notes,  so  as  to  al- 
low coin  to  take  the  place  of  them,  as  it  inevitably  would.  And,  second,  to 
annex  to  the  non-payment  of  specie  by  the  banks,  so  heavy  a  penalty,  say 
an  interest  of  tw^elveper  cent,  as  in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  or  twen- 
ty-four per  cent,  as  in  some  of  the  New  England  banks,  or  a  forfeiture  of 
the  charter  as  in  some  of  the  Jersey  banks,  as  would  deprive  the  banks  of  all 
temptation  to  incur  the  risk  of  insolvency. 

These  simple  measures  would,  in  my  judgment,  be  far  preferable  to  any 
other  plans  suggested  in  these  inquiries — better  than  the  plan  of  destroying 
all  the  banks  in  the  country — better  than  the  plan  of  making  them  pay 
four  per  cent,  interest — better  than  the  plan  of  limiting  the  dividends 
to  six  per  cent,  and  better  than  the  plan  of  compelling  them  to  divide  their 
profits,  instead  of  husbanding  some  portion  of  them  to  provide  against  con- 
tingencies. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  369 


BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


May  14,  1832. 

♦ 

REPORT  OF  MR.  ADAMS. 

Mr.  Adams,  of  the  Committee  appointed  on  the  ISlh  of  March,  IS32,  to 
examine  and  report  on  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  Uni- 
ted Slates,  submitted  the  following 

REPORT: 

The  subscriber,  one  of  the  members  of  the  Committee  appointed  on  the  1 5th 
of  March  last  to  proceed  to  Philadelphia  to  inspect  the  books,  and  to  examine 
the  proceedings  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  Bank  of  tlie  United 
States,  and  report  thereon,  and  particularly  to  report  whether  the  charter  of 
the  bank  has  been  violated  or  not,  dissenting  from  the  report  agreed  upon  by 
the  majorit}^  of  the  committee,  deems  it  his  duty  to  submit  to  the  House  the 
considerations  upon  which  his  own  conduct  in  the  proceedings  of  the  com- 
mittee has  been  governed,  and  the  conclusions  to  which  they  have  brought  his 
mind  in  relation  to  this  subject 

It  will  be  recollected  by  the  House  that  the  appointment  of  the  committee 
was  made  upon  a  resolution  offered  by  the  subscriber,  as  an  amendment  to  a 
resolution  previously  offered  by  the  chairman  of  the  committee.  The 
amended  resolution  adopted  by  the  House  was  predicated  on  the  principle, 
.ivowcd  by  the  proposer  of  the  amendment,  that  the  original  resolution  pre- 
sented objects  of  inquiry  not  authorized  by  the  charter  of  the  bank,  nor 
within  the  legitimate  powers  of  the  House;  particularly  that  it  looked  to  in- 
vestigations which  must  necessarily  implicate  not  only  the  president  and 
directors  of  the  bank  and  their  proceedings,  but  the  rights,  the  interests, 
the  fortunes,  and  the  reputation  of  individuals  not  responsible  for 
those  proceedings,  and  whom  neither  the  committee  nor  the  House  had  tlie 
power  to  try,  or  even  to  accuse  before  any  other  tribunal.  In  the  examina- 
tion of  the  books  and  proceectlngs  of  the  bank,  the  pecuniary  transactions  of 
multitudes  of  individuals  with  it  must  necessarily  be  disclosed  to  the  com- 
mittee, and  the  proceedings  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  in  re- 
lation thereto,  formed  just  and  proper  subjects  of  inquiry;  not,  however,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  subscriber,  to  any  exient  which  would  authorize  them 
to  criminate  any  individual  other  than  the  president,  directors,  and  officer* 
of  the  bank  or  its  branches,  nor  them,  otherwise  than  as  forming  part  of  their 
official  proceedings.  The  subscriber  believed  that  the  authority  of  the  com- 
mittee, and  of  the  House  itself,  did  not  extend,  under  color  of  examining  in- 
to the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  bank,  to  scrutinize,  for  animadversion 
47 


370  f  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

or  censure,  the  religious  or  political  opinions  even  of  the  president  and  di- 
rectors of  the  bank — nor  their  domestic  or  family  concerns — nor  their  pri- 
vate lives  or  characters — nor  their  moral,  or  political,  or  pecuniary  standing 
in  society:  still  less  could  he  believe  the  committee  invested  with  a  power 
to  embrace  in  their  sphere  of  investigation,  researches  so  invidious  and  in- 
quisitorial over  multitudes  of  individuals  having  no  connection  with  the 
bank  other  than  that  of  dealing  with  them  in  their  appropriate  business  of 
discounts,  deposites,  and  exchange. 

In  these  views  he  felt  himself  the  more  confirmed,  because  he  perceived 
no  other  course  of  inquiry  that  could  be  pursued,  without  invading  the 
sanctuary  of  private  life,  and  committing  outrage  upon  the  most  precious  of 
social  rights.  The  transactions  of  the  bank  with  their  customers,  are,  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  their  business,  highly  confidential;  an  examination  into 
them  by  strangers,  so  far  as  it  implicates  the  individuals  with  whom  the  bank 
has  dealings,  bears  all  the  exceptionable  and  odious  properties  of  general 
warrants  and  domiciliary  visits.  The  principle  of  this  protection  to  indi- 
vidual rights,  is  recognized  in  the  charter  of  the  bank  itself,  and  in  its  by- 
laws. By  the  fifteenth  fundamental  article  of  the  charter,  a  limited  powder 
is  given  to  the  officer  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department  to  inspect 
the  general  accounts  and  books  of  the  bank,  with  an  express  exception  of  the 
account  of  any  individual,  and  in  the  by-laws  of  the  bank,  there  is  a  provi- 
sion that  no  stockholder  shall  be  permitted  to  inspect  any  account  of  any 
person  with  the  bank  other  than  his  own.  The  same  restriction  is  not,  in- 
deed, applied  to  the  authority  given  in  the  23d  section  of  the  charter  to  the 
committees  of  either  House  of  Congress,  appointed  to  inspect  the  books, 
and  examine  the  proceedings  of  the  corporation;  but  that  section  neither 
gave,  nor  could  give  powers  of  judicial  authority  to  be  exercised  over  any 
individual  for  purposes  of  crimination  or  of  trial.  The  committee  are  to  in- 
spect the  books  and  examine  the  proceedings  of  the  corporation,  and  to 
report  thereon.  But  they  are  not  authorized  to  examine  or  report  upon  the 
accounts  or  proceedings  of  individuals.  The  examinations  by  committees 
authorized  by  the  charter,  are,  from  the  context  of  the  sections,  evidently 
given  as  preliminary  means,  for  bringing  the  corporation,  in  the  event  d(f 
malpractice,  on  their  part,  real  or  suspected,  before  a  judicial  tribunal  for 
trial.  Whenever  a  committee  so  appointed  reports  that  the  charter  has  been 
violated,  the  final  action  of  Congress  in  the  case  is  limited  to  the  discretion- 
ary power  of  directing  that  a  scire  facias  should  be  sued  out  from  the  Cir- 
cuit Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  district  of  Pennsylvania,  requiring 
the  corporation  to  show  cause  why  their  charter  should  not  be  declared  for- 
feited. But  so  justly,  and  so  wisely  tender,  was  the  Congress  which  consti- 
tuted the  corporation,  to  reserve  to  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank 
the  enjoyment  of  their  civil  rights,  that  the  same  section  which  gives  to  Con- 
gress this  control  over  them,  expressly  provides  that,  for  the  trial  of  the  facts 
at  issue  between  them  and  the  United  States,  upon  the  return  of  the  scire 
facias,  they  shall  be  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  a  jury.  The  corporation  there- 
fore cannot  ultimately  suffer  by  deprivation  of  their  rights  upon  the  unfa- 
vorable report  of  any  committee  of  Congress,  nor  even  by  the  order  of  Con- 
gress itself,  that  a  scire  facias  should  be  sued  out.  The  protective  shield 
of  the  constitution,  trial  by  jury ^  is  extended  over  them;  the  sacred  trust 
of  their  franchises  is  expressly  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  that  power 
conservative  of  all  individual  rights — the  verdict  of  their  peers. 

In  the  present  case,  the  resolution  originally  offered  by  the  chairman  of 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  1  371 

this  committee,  was  avowedly  presented  for  another  purpose — not  with  a 
view  that  the  final  action  of  the  House  upon  the  result  of  the  examination 
should  be  the  direction  that  a  scire  facias  should  be  sued  out  to  give  the  cor- 
poration the  benefit  provided  for  them  by  the  law  itself,  of  a  fair  trial  by 
jur}' ;  but  that,  by  ransacking  all  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  corporation 
from  its  first  organization  to  the  present  day,  some  latent  fraud,  looseness, 
or  irregularity,  might  be  detected  in  the  proceedings  of  the  president  and 
directors,  present  or  past,  of  the  company,  which  might  be  elaborated  and 
wrought  up  into  an  argument  against  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  insti- 
tution. This  was  the  avowed  purpose  of  a  member  claiming  the  right  of 
being  considered  as  a  perfectly  fair,  cool,  and  impartialinvestigator  of  those 
proceedings,  and,  at  the  same  time,  that,  if  the  result  of  them  should  be  ia 
exonerate  from  all  blame  the  responsible  officers  of  the  company,  the  inqui- 
sitor should  still  he  at  liberty  to  vote  and  speak  against  the  renewal  of  the 
charter  upon  the  ground  of  constitutional  scruples.  ^ 

It  was  only  by  virtue  of  the  23d  section  of  the  act  of  incorporation  of 
the  bank,  that  the  House  possessed  the  power  of  appointing  a  committee, 
with  authority  to  examine  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  corporation; 
and  that  section  distinctly  indicated  the  purposes  for  vyhich  this  power  was 
reserved:  it  was  to  furnish  the  means  in  the  event  of  the  commission  of 
gross  abuses  on  the  part  of  the  president  and  directors,  to  put  them  upon 
trial.  The  right  of  trying  them  is  not  reserved  to  the  House  itself,  nor 
can  it,  by  the  House,  be  conferred  upon  any  committee.  It  belongs  exclu- 
sively to  the  judicial  courts.  It  is  a  familiar  argument  to  many  expounders 
of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  that  no  power  granted  to  Congress 
can  be  exercised  for  any  other  purpose  than  that  for  which  it  was  granted. 
The  importance  of  this  principle  may  be  seen  in  the  consideration  that  it  is 
the  only  foundation  of  the  argument  against  the  constitutionality  of  a  pro- 
tective tariff.  It  is  contended  that  a  grant  of  power  to  levy  taxes,  duties, 
and  imposts,  to  pay  the  debts,  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and 
general  welfare,  cannot  justly  be  construed  into  a  power  to  levy  the  same 
duties,  taxes,  imposts,  and  excises,  for  the  protection  of  manufactures.  If 
there  be  any  soundness  in  this  principle,  apply  it  to  this  reservation  of  pow- 
er in  either  House  of  Congress  to  appoint  investigating  and  examining  com- 
mittees on  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  bank.  The  power  is  reserved 
for  the  purpose  of  enabling  either  House  of  Congress  to  put  the  president 
and  directors  upon  their  trial  for  delinquency — upon  trial  by  the  judges  of 
the  land — upon  trial  by  a  jury  of  the  vicinage.  It  is  not  reserved  for  ttie 
purpose  of  enabling  a  committee  of  the  House  to  ruin  the  president  and  di- 
rectors in  fortune  or  reputation,  by  a  partial,  prejudiced,  electioneering  re- 
port; condemning  them,  as  victims  of  political  rancour,  without  law  or  just- 
ice, without  judge  or  jury;  nor  is  it  reserved  even  to  enable  the  House  to 
determine  the  expediency  of  renewing  the  charter  of  the  bank.  The  pow- 
er is  not  reserved  for  that  purpose;  nor,  if  there  be  any  soundness  in  the 
argument  against  the  constitutionality  of  the  protective  tariff,  can  it  be  ex- 
ercised for  that  purpose.  In  this  view  of  the  subject,  the  House  would  not 
even  have  possessed  the  lawful  power  of  appointing  the  committee.  The 
committee  was  appointed,  not  for  the  purpose  of  putting  the  president  and 
directors  of  the  bank  upon  trial;  nor  was  it  intended  by  the  mover  of  the 
resolution  that  they  should  have  the  benefit  of  a  trial  by  jury. 

It  is  not  the  intention  of  the  subscriber  to  press  this  course  of  reasoning, 
to  which,  in  its  application  to  the  tariff,  he  does  not  yield  his  assent.    To 


372  [  Rep.  No.  4 CO.  1 

those  who  hold  the  doctrine  that  the  purpose  for  which  a  power  is  granted, 
forms  an  indispensable  condition  for  the  lawfulness  of  its  exercise,  he  leaves 
the  argument  to  bear  with  its  proper  weight.  But  if,  under  a  power  to  ap- 
point investigating  committees  to  ascertain  by  the  verdict  of  a  jury  wlie- 
ther  the  charter  has  been  violated  or  not,  a  constructive  power  is  given  to 
sport  with  the  feelings,  and  fortunes,  and  reputation  of  honest  and  honorable 
men,  because  they  happen  to  hold  the  offices  of  prc^jidcnt  and  directors  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States;  there  is  surely  no  autiiority  given  in  the 
bank  charter  to  pry  into  the  accounts  and  pecuniary  transactions,  and  to 
scrutinize  the  fortunes  and  characters  of  thousands  of  individual  citizens  of 
tl>e  Union,  merely  because  they  have  an  account  in  i)ank,  which,  in  the  ex- 
amination of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  corporation,  must  incidentally 
be  disclosed.  The  subscriber  is  under  a  deep  and  indelible  impression  that 
no  such  power  is  given  to  Congress  by  the  charter  of  the  bank,  nor  does  he 
believe  that  such  a  power  can  be  exercised  without  a  flagrant  violation  of 
the  princij}les  upon  which  the  freedom  of  this  people  has  been  founded. 

It  was  under  this  impression  that  he  moved  the  amendment,  which  receiv- 
ed the  sanction  of  the  House,  to  the  resolution  originally  offered  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  an  investigating  committee.  That  amendment  was  carried  by 
a  considerable  majority  of  votes  in  the  House.  The  course  of  investigation 
pursued  by  the  majority  of  the  committee  has,  however,  been  not  confor- 
mable to  the  principles  of  the  resolution  adopted  by  the  House,  but  to  those 
of  the  original  resolution,  which  the  House  did  not  accept;  a  consequence 
which  was  naturally  to  be  expected,  from  the  circumstance  that  a  inajorlty 
of  the  committee  was  appointed  from  the  minority  of  the  House;  that  is, 
from  those  who  voted  against  the  ajnendment  c/^«/?/ed/  by  the  House. 

The  question  of  the  principles  upon  which  the  examination  was  to  be  con- 
ducted, occurred  immediately  after  the  arrival  of  the  committee  at  Philadel- 
phia, and  it  was  determined,  conformably  to  the  views  of  a  majority  of  the 
committee,  representing,  so  far  as  the  views  of  the  House  had  been  mani- 
fested, a  minority  of  the  House. 

There  was  accordingly  no  restriction  to  the  latitude  of  investigation  as  it 
had  been  proposed  in  the  original  motion  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee. 
No  objection  was  made  on  the  part  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank, 
excepting  that  the  president  did  remind  the  committee  of  the  confidential 
nature  of  the  transactions  between  the  bank  and  its  customers,  with  the  as- 
surance of  his  reliance  that  it  would  be  considered  and  respeeted.  All  their 
books,  and  all  the  accounts  of  individuals  with  the  bank,  called  for  by  any 
member  of  the  committee,  were  exhibited  to  them.  Had  there  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  committee  thirsting  for  the  ruin  of  a  personal  enemy,  or  a  politi- 
cal adversary,  and  who,  by  this  inquisition  into  the  accounts  of  all  who  had 
dealt  with  tlie  bank,  could  have  been  put  in  possession  of  facts,  the  disclo- 
sure of  which  might  have  destroyed  his  peace,  his  fortune,  or  his  fame,  the 
opportunity  afforded  him  by  this  course  of  proceedin;;  would  have  been  too 
inviting  to  have  been  resisted.  Tiiat  there  was  such  a  member  upon  the 
committee,  the  subscriber  dees  not  aflirm.  The  eagerness  with  which  pri- 
vate accounts  were  sought  for;  and,  m  an  especial  manner,  those  of  editors  of 
newspapers,  members  of  Congress,  officers  of  Government,  and  all  indeed 
possessing  political  influence  themselves,  or  likely  to  suffer  in  public  estima- 
tion by  expo«ure  of  their  private  and  pecuniary  concerns,  flowed,  it  is  to  be 
presumed,  altogether  from  patriotic  principles,  and  a  stern  abhorrence  of  cor- 
ruption.    The  natural  and  irresistible  tendency  of  all  investigations  conduct- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  c'373 

ed  on  siKih  principles,  must  be  to  substitute  passion  in  the  place  of  justice, 
and  political  rancor  in  the  place  of  impartiality.  In  all  times  of  party  ex- 
citement, the  members  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  are  placed  in  attitudes 
of  keen  and  ardent  opposition  to  each  other.  VVe  have  constant  exj)erience 
of  the  personal  animosities  into  which  all  debates  on  questions  of  deep  pub- 
lic interest  are  continually  running.  An  individual  member  of  this  House, 
who  presents  himself  in  the  attitude  of  an  accuser,  not  only  calls  for  the  in- 
vestment in  himself  of  ii'.i  extrjordinary  power;  but,  if  he  prosecute  himself, 
the  accusation  claims  the  exercise  of  powers  which,  in  no  general  system  for 
the  administration  of  equal  justice,  can  ever  be  united.  The  spirit  of  the 
prosecutor  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  judge.'  Whoever  voluntarily  assumes  th©^ 
former  capacity,  disqualifies  himself  for  the  unimpeachable  performance  of 
the  latter. 

Duritig  the  present  session  of  Congress,  two  instances  h^ve  occurred  of 
inquiries   instituted   into  the  conduct  of  Executive  officers  of  this  Govern- 
ment— one  bearing  upon  the  Second  Auditor  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  other 
upon  the  Com.missioner  of  the  General  Land  OfTice.     In  each  of  those  cases, 
the  member  instituting  the   inquiry  moved  its  reference  to  a  committee  of 
which  he  was  not  himself  a  member.     There  was  no  law,  nor  even  any  rule 
of  the  House,  which  imper.^tively  required   this;  but  the  members  them- 
selves felt  the  delicacy  of  their  situations,  and,  of  their  own  accord,  divested 
thcjnselves  of  that  invidious  combination  of  character  which  unites  the  pro- 
secutor and  the  judge.     The  prosecution^of  the  bank  has  been  the  only  ex- 
ception to  this  course  of  proceeding.     The  chairman  of  the  committee  com- 
menced his  career  as  a  prosecutor,  by  exhibiting  an  indictment,  so  called  by  . 
himself,  of  twenty-two  charges  against  !he  bank.     The  bank  is  a  corpora- 
tion consisting  of  a  president,  directors,  and  company  of  stockholders.   The 
bill  of  indictment,  therefore,  being  ostensibly  against  the  hanky  seemed  to 
be  divested  of  personal  animosity,  and  this,  perhaps,  may  have  induced  the 
chairman  to  lose  the  consciousness  of  incongruity  in  the  exercise  at  once  of 
prosecuting,  and  of  judicial  powers.     These  observations  are  deeirfed  indis- 
pensably necessary  to  elucidate  the  spirit  in  which  the  examination  was  con- 
ducted— partaking  throughout  of  this  unusual  union  of  the  prosecuting,  and 
of  the  judicial  character.     Among  the  charges  exhibited  by  the  indictment, 
not  ostensibly  against  any  individual,  but  ti^d\nsi  the  bank,  was  one  of  sub- 
sidizing  Ike  press  by  special  f:^vors  and  accommodations  to  editors  of  news- 
papers; another  for  special  favors  and  accommodations  to  members  of  Con- 
gress.    In  all  this  the  chairman  of  the  committee  appears  to  have  enter- 
tained the  opinion  that,  because  the  charges  were  in  form  against  the  bank, 
they  were  not  at  all  to  be  considered  as  affecting  the  integrity  o{ \\\q pei^sons 
upon  whom  they  might  chance  to  fall.     He  frequently  disclaimed  all  inten- 
tion of  putting  upon  trial  the  character  of  the  president  of  the  bank,  and  he 
appears  to  have  been  quite  unaware  upon  whom  his  denunciations  niight 
eventually  be  found  to  descend.     The  subscriber  believed  that  there  was  a 
great  want  of  precision  in  the  definitions  by  the  chairman  of  the  committee 
in  his  original  motion  of  the  crimes  which  he  denounced.     Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  charge  oi  subsidizing  the  press.     If  a  violation  of  law  be  an  es- 
sential ingredient  in  the  composition  of  crime,  there  was  no  law  vyhich  pro- 
hibited the  bank  from  subsidizing  the  press;  nor  was  there  any  law  which 
prohibited  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  from  affording  facilities 
and  accommodations  to  editors  of  newspapers.     On  the  other  hand,  there  is, 
perhaps,  no  class  of  citizens  in  the  community  who,   by  the  nature  of  their 


374  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

profession,  may  more  frequently  need  the  aid  of  bank  facilities,  or  to  whom 
they  may  be  more  signally  useful,  and,  in  proportion  to  the  extensiveness  ol 
a  printing  establishment,  will,  of  course,  be  the  amount  of  the  accommoda- 
tions which  they  may  require.  Why  then  should  Ihe  bank  be  laid  under  an 
interdict  for  subsidizing  the  press?  Why  should  the  president  and  directors 
of  the  bank  be  chargeable  with  gross  and  palpable  corruption,  because  large 
.iccommodations  and  facilities,  in  the  regular  course  of  banking  operations, 
have  been  aflforded  to  editors  of  newspapers?  There  aopears  to  the  subscriber 
to  be  included  in  the  principle  of  this  charge  a  very  dangerous  assault  upon 
the  freedom  of  the  press — a  principle  proscriptive  in  .its  nature,  and  the 
application  of  which,  if  once  assumed  by  the  authority  of  the  Legislature, 
could  be  successful  only  in  reducing  the  press  to  servile  subserviency  to 
whatever  party  might  command  a  momentary  majority  in  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress.  The  editors  of  newspapers  are  not  responsible  to  Congress 
for  the  political  principles  which  they  may  advocate  or  oppose.  Nor  can 
the  Legi«»lature  take  cognizance  either  of  their  consistency  or  of  their  political 
purity.  They  are  responsible  for  their  opinions  to  their  subscribers,  and  to 
the  public  opinion  of  their  country.  To  hold  them  to  this  responsibility, 
their  rivals,  and  competitors,  and  political  adversaries,  are  suificently  watch- 
ful and  sufficiently  armed.  The  opinions  and  interests  of  majorities  in  Con- 
gress will  never  lack  for  presses  to  sustain  themselves.  But  if,  in  addition 
to  that  common  interest  of  the  majority,  and  of  their  favorite  presses  in  the 
competition  for  public  favor,  they  are  to  assume  a  censorial  power  to  punish 
or  to  stigmatize  the  editors  who  sujbport  the  opinions  or  interests  of  the  mi- 
nority, in  what  does  this  diflfer  from  an  imprimatur  in  the  hands  of  the 
governing  power? — an  engine  for  the  suppression  of  all  freedom  of  the  press, 
as  vVviU  as  for  the  oppression  of  every  editor  whom  it  may  suit  the  purposes 
of  the  predominant  party  to  discredit  or  destroy. 

Entertaining  these  opinions,  and  believing  that  the  principle  on  which 
Ihey  were  founded  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  House  itself  in  the  resolution, 
as  adoptcy:!,  for  the  appointment  of  the  committee,  the  subscriber  did  ear- 
nestly, though  inefifectually,  resist  and  oppose  the  call  by  the  committee  for 
the  accounts  with  the  bank  of  editors  of  neiuspapers.  To  all  persons  of 
that  highly  respectable  and  important  profession,  their  accounts  in  bank 
were,  as  well  as  to  other  members  of  the  community,  their  private  and  do- 
mestic concerns,  which  no  power  to  examine  the  books  and  proceedings  of 
the  bank  could  authorize  a  committee  of  this  House  to  expose  to  public  gaze. 
To  single  out  the  editors  of  newspapers  for  this  invidious  exposure  was,  in 
the  opinion  oClhe  subscriber,  to  disfranchize  them  of  their  rights  as  citizens 
and  as  men,  and  was  to  assail  them  in  their  reputation,  their  interest,  and 
their  credit — not  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  them,  to  trial  by  jury,  where 
they  might  defend  themselves,  their  fortunes,  and  their  characters,  in  pre- 
sence of  their  peers,  but  to  hold  them  up  as  accomplices  in  corruption  with 
ihe  hank; — to  accomplish  two  objects  by  one  operation — to  defame  the 
bank  by  colorable  charges  of  corruption,  which  it  would  never  have  an  op- 
portunity to  repel  by  a  fair  trial,  according  to  the  laws  of  the  land;  and  to 
defame  any  editor  of  a  newspaper  having  an  account  in  bank,  whose  politics 
might  he  obnoxious  to  a  majority  of  the  committee,  instigated  by  the  rival- 
ry and  hatred  of  antagonist  editors  of  other  newspapers  in  the  same  city  or 
neighborhood. 

The  majority  of  the  committee  did,  the  subscriber  doubts  not,  with  pure 
intentions,   otherwise  decide,  and  the  accounts  of  editors  of  newspapers 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  •  375 

with  the  bank  were  called  for.  In  reviewing  this  decision,  and  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  committee  subsequent  upon  it,  he  deems  it  his  duty  to  de- 
clare that  none  of  his  objections  to  it  have,  in  his  judgment.,  been  removed. 
He  views  it  as  a  precedent  of  portentous  evil;  as  an  unjustifiable  encroach- 
ment of  arbitrary  authority  upon  the  freedom  of  the  press;  as  an  odious  per- 
secution of  individual  citizenj<  to  prostrate  the  influence  of  personal  or  poli- 
tical adversaries  by  the  hand  of  power. 

Of  this  class  of  accounts  thus  produced,  those  of  one  newspaper  establish- 
ment only  underwent  the  investigation  of  the  committee: — those  of  James 
Watson  Webb  and  Mordecai  M.  Noah,  editors  of  the  New  York  Courier 
and  Enquirer,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  and  extensively  circulated 
journals  of  the  Union.  Mr.  Webb  was  examined  upon  oath  by  the  com- 
mittee at  his  own  request.  Mr.  Noah  ^transmitted  to  the  committee  his 
own  affidavit,  made  before  a  magistrate  of  the  city  of  New  York.  Mr.  Silas 
E,  Burrows,  a  private  citizen,  not  an  editor  of  a  newspaper,  but  connected 
with  the  responsibilities  of  Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah  in  the  bank,  was  sub- 
poenaed to  appear  before  the  committee,  but,  as  the  subscriber  believes,  with 
a  just  estimate  of  his  own  rights,  did  not  give  his  attendance.  No  proposal 
was  made  in  the  committee  to  issue  a  compulsory  process  against  him.  As 
editors  of  a  public  journal,  and,  in  that  character,  as  guardians  and  protectors 
of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  the  subscriber  is  of  opinion  that  neither  Mr. 
Webb  nor  Mr.  Noah  ought  so  have  appeared  in  person  or  by  affidavit  before 
the  committee.  If,  in  their  transactions  with  the  bank,  they  had  committed 
any  violation  of  law,  they  could  not  be  examined  as  witnesses  to  criminate 
themselves:  if  they  had  committed  no  violation  of  law,  the  inquistorial 
powers  of  the  committee  did  not  extend  to  them.  Their  transactions  with 
the  bank,  unforbidden  by  the  law  of  the  land,  were  no  more  within  the 
lawful  scrutiny  of  the  committee,  than  the  dwelling-house,  the  fireside,  or 
the  bed  chamber  of  any  one  of  them.  These,  even  in  the  darkness  of  heathen 
antiquity,  were  the  altars  of  the  household  gods.  To  touch  them  with  the 
hand  of  power  is  profanation.  As5ailed,  however,  in  repulation,  as  they 
already  were,  and  had  been,  on  account  of  these  transactions,  by  their  })oli- 
tical  enemies  and  the  enemies  of  the  bank,  from  false  and  exaggerated  ru- 
mors concerning  them  which  had  crept  into  public  notice,  it  was  certainly 
not  unnatural,  and  perhaps  not  improper  in  them,  to  state,  in  full  c<»ndor  and 
sincerity,  what  their  transactions  with  the  bank  had  been. 

From  these  it  appeared  that,  in  August,  1831,  James  Watson  Webb  ob- 
tained at  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  a  loan  of  twenty  thousand  dollars 
upon  his  own  note,  endorsed  by  Mordecai  M.  Noah.  The  application  for 
this  loan,  made  in  person  by  Mr.  Webb,  was  sustained  by  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Noah,  and  sundry  statements  relating  to  the  pecuniary  condition  and  credit 
of  the  New  York  Courier  and  p]lnquirer.  The  letter  from  Mr.  Noah  was 
enclosed  to  the  president  of  the  bank  by  Walter  Bowne,  mayor  of  the  city 
of  New  York,  who  had  been  one  of  the  earliest  directors  of  the  bank,  with 
a  recommendation  of  the  application  itself  to  be  considered  as  a  ^?m/?e^.y 
transaction.  It  was  so  considered  by  the  board  of  directors  who  acceded 
to  the  loan  desired.  But  the  editors  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  had  long 
been,  as  they  still  are,  ardent  and  active  political  partisans,  and  their  news- 
paper has  been,  and  continues  deeply  immersed  in  that  portion  of  political 
affairs  immediately  connected  with  elections.  The  peculiar  character  sus- 
taincd  by  the  paper  and  its  editors,  at  the  time  when  this  application  for  a 
loan  was  made,  was  that  of  devoted  friends  to  the  present  administration, 


376  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

and  particular]}'  to  the  eminent  citizen  at  its  heiul.  Tiiis  clKiractcr  Ihey  and 
their  paper  still  retain.  They  have,  of  course,  numerous  adversaries  of  the 
opposing  party,  and  numerous  rivals  in»iheir  own.  Some  time  heforc  this 
application  for  a  loan  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  there  had  heen  he- 
tween  them  and  ?ome  of  their  competitors  for  party  and  public  favor,  a 
newspaper  war  with  regard  to  the  conduct  of  their  journal,  and  the  opin- 
ions of  its  editors  with  reference  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  In  all 
this,  the  interests  of  rival  printing  offices,  and  rival  banks,  may,  witliout 
broach  of  charity,  be  presumed  to  have  been  ver}-  willing  auxiliaries  to  edi- 
torial virtue  and  the  unsullied  purity  of  the  public  press.  The  politics  of 
tlie  paper  had  been,  or  were  thought  to  have  l)een,  successively  hostile  and 
friendly  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  In  this  state  of  things,  it.is  stated 
by  Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah  that  two  or  three  of  the  banks  in  the  city  of 
New  York  denied  them  the  acco.iimodation  of  loans  which  they  had  previ- 
ously yielded,  and  refused  to  discount  for  them  paper  of  unquestionable  cre- 
dit. TheyalTirm  that  these  city  banks,  in  punishment  of  their  friendliness 
for  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  withdrew  from  them  facilities  previously 
extended  to  them,  and  required  the  repayment  of  a  large  accommodation 
loan  for  which  they  were  indebted.  To  discredit  these  impulations,  re- 
aflirmed  by  Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah  in  their  testimony  upon  oath  before 
the  committee,  a  majority  of  the  committee  deemed  themselves  authorized 
to  send  a  commission,  and  request  the  presidents  of  two  of  the  city  banks  in 
New  York  to  make  affidavits  before  a  magistrate,  giving  notice  thereof  to 
Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah,  and  to  transmit  those  aflidavils  to  the  chairman  of 
the  committee  at  Washington.  The  depositions  of  Isaac  Wright,  president 
of  the  City  Bank,  and  of  Albert  Gallatin,  president  of  the  National  Bank, 
at  New  York,  were  accordingly  taken  and  transmitted  to  the  chairman  of 
the  committee.  They  did  not,  in  the  slightest  degree,  impair  the  testimo- 
ny of  either  Mr.  VVel3b  or  Mr.  Noah.  On  the  contrary,  they  confirmed, 
so  far  as  they  could  confirm,  that  part  of  their  evidence  which  it  had  been 
the  purpose,  in  requiring  the  aflidavits  from  the  two  New  York  banks,  to 
invalidate.  They  proved  that,  at  both  of  those  banks,' in  July,  1831,  notes 
offered  for  discount  by  James  Watson  Webb,  with  an  endorser  of  unques- 
tionable credit,  were  rejected.  The  rcrt,9on5  of  those  rejections,  both  the 
presidents  of  the  banks,  with  great  propriety,  declined  to  give.  They  state 
thatat  one  of  the  banks  no  note  is  discounted,  if  objected  to  by  any  one  mem- 
ber of  the  board  of  directors.  At  the  other  bank,  any  note  is  rejected  to 
which  two  of  the  directors  concur  in  objecting,  and  that  no  director  is  re- 
quired to  assign  any  reason  for  his  objection  to  any  discount.  In  these  an- 
swers of  the  two  presidents,  the  subscriber  cannot  forbear  to  remark  a  de- 
monstration of  the  impropriety  of  the  call  by  the  committee  upon  those  gen- 
tlemen for  their  testimony  in  this  case.  The  object  of  the  call  was  to  im- 
peach the  truth  of  testimony  given  by  the  two  witnesses,  Webb  and  Noah, 
upon  oath  before  the  committee — witnesses  whose  veracity  stood  as  fair  be- 
fore the  committee  as  that  of  any  other  citizen  of  the  community,  and  who, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  subscriber,  could  consider  the  call  itself  on  the  presi- 
dents of  the  New  York  banks  to  contradict  them,  in  no  other  light  than  that 
of  a  gratuitous  and  wanton  insult  upon  themselves.  Oi^  the  fuel  that  notes 
offered  by  Webb  had  been  rejected  at  the  New  York  banks,  no  doubt  was 
,  or  could  be  entertained.  The  reasons  of  the  rejection  were  avowedly  in- 
ferences of  Mr.  Webb  and  Mr.  Noah,  which  might  even  have  been  incor- 
rectly drawn  by  them  without  impeachment  of  their  veracity.     The  com- 


[  Rep,  No.  460.  ]  377 

mittee  could  not,  in  the  opinion  of  the  subscriber,  possess  the  right  of  call- 
ing upon  the  presidents  of  the  New  York  banks  for  the  reasons  of  their  re- 
fusing discounts  to  James  Watson  Webb,  or  to  any  other  man.  The  call 
itself  was  a  violation  of  individual  right,  and  the  refusal  to  answer  it,  though 
m  terms  entirely  respectful  and  dispassionate,  carries  with  itself  a  censure 
upon  usurped  authority,  not  undeserved. 

To  this  call  upon  the  presidents  of  the  New  York  banks,  the  subscriber 
had  another  objection.  The  chairman  of  the  committee  had,  by  an  act  of 
Congress,  authority  to  administer  oaths  to  witnesses,  and  the  committee  had 
received  from  the  House  authority  to  send  for  persons  and  papers.  But  the 
subscriber  did  not  consider  the  committee  as  possessing  the  power  of  dele* 
gating  to  other  men  authority  to  take  depositions  from  persons  whom  the 
committee  were  authorized  to  call  before  themselves,  and  to  hear  in  person. 
No  member  even  of  the  committee,  other  than  the  chairman,  was  authoriz- 
ed to  administer  an  oath.  To  administer  oaths  to  witnesses  was  in  the  com- 
petency of  the  chairman  specially  authorized  by  statute.  To  send  for 
persons  and  papers  existing,  was  in  the  competency  of  the  committee,  au- 
thorized by  the  House.  But  to  direct  to  be  taken,  and  to  receive  as  testi- 
mony, depositions  of  persons  whom  the  committee  might  have  summoned  to 
appear  and  testify  before  themselves,  was,  as  the  subscriber  believed,  to 
transcend  their  lawful  authority,  and  to  set  a  precedent  which  would  lead  to 
most  pernicious  abuses.  This  encroachment  of  power  could  not  be  justi- 
fied by  the  request  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  to  the  deponents,  that 
James  Watson  Webb  and  Mordecai  M.  Noah,  the  persons  whose  testimony 
it  was  supposed  these  depositions  would  discredit,  should  have  notice  of  the 
time  and  place  when  and  where  they  should  be  taken.  To  give  notice  of  a 
deposition  to  be  taken  to  impeach  the  testimony  of  another,  is  the  duty  of 
a  party  to  a  cause,  and  not  of  the  deponent  himself.  The  witness  whose 
testimony  is  to  be  discredited  cannot  be  bound  to  receive  a  notification  from 
the  witness  called  to  discredit  him.  The  volunteering  of  a  committee  to 
send  forth  mandates  in  search  of  contradictory  evidence,  to  fasten  imputa- 
tioiiis  of  perjury  upon  witnesses  of  veracity,  before  themunimpeached,  has, 
in  the  view  of  the  subscriber,  an  aspect  too  unjust  and  odious  in  itself  to 
be  legitimated  by  any  notice  given  to  the  witnesses  thus  outraged  in  their 
feelings  and  their  rights.  The  whole  procedure  was,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
subscriber,  unlawful  and  unjust.  He  recorded  against  it  his  vote  upon  the 
journal  of  the  committee;  and  he  deems  it  his  duty  to  repeat  his  protesta- 
tion against  it  in  this  report. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  true  state  of  the  relations  between 
Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah,  and  the  local  banks  of  New  York,  it  was  with 
these  statements  and  allegations  that  Mr.  Webb,  in  August,  1831,  applied  io 
the  president  and  board  of  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  for 
an  accommodation  loan  of  twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  president  and  di- 
rectors considered  it,  as  it  had  been  viewed  in  the  recommendation  of  the 
mayor  of  New  York,  as  sl  business  transaction.  Yet,  it  did  not  escape 
their  attention,  that  a  political  coloring  might,  and  probably  would,  be  given 
to  it  by  the  inveterate  enemies  of  the  bank.  They  were  aware  that,  if  the 
loan  was  granted,  it  would  be  liable  to  the  charge  of  a  favor  dispensed  to 
purchase  the  aid  and  support  of  the  newspaper  in  behalf  of  the  bank;  and, 
if  it  should  be  denied,  it  would  be  charged  as  proof  of  hostility  to  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  General  Government  and  its  chief.  Sure  that  they  could 
in  no  event  escape  the  een^ire  of  enemies  predisposed  to  blamr;.,  i^,e'v  gfant- 
'i8 


SIS  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

ed  the  loan,  to  which,  afterwards,  in  December,  an  addition  of  fifteen  thou- 
sand dollars  was  made.  Notes  of  Mr.  Webb,  endorsed  by  Mr.  Noah,  and 
payable  to  Silas  E.  Burrows,  had  been  previously  discounted  for  Mr.  Bur- 
rows, but  without  the  knowledge  of  Webb  or  Noah,  as  they  testify,  to  the 
amount  of  seventeen  thousand  dollars.  Of  these  sums,  so  much  has  been 
paid,  that  there  now  remains  due  from  Messrs.  Webb  and  Noah  to  the  bank, 
a  sum  of  about  eighteen  thousand  dollars,  payable  in  semi-annual  instalments, 
and,  from  the  statements  laid  before  the  committee,  believed  by  the  subscri- 
ber to  be  as  safe  as  any  other  debt  upon  the  books  of  the  bank. 

The  transactions  of  James  Watson  Webb  and  of  Mordecai  M.  Noah  with 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  formed,  in  the  opinion  of  the  subscriber,  no 
proper  subject  of  examination  by  the  committee,  or  of  investigation  to  the 
House,  further  than  to  ascertain,  whether,  in  those  transactions,  there  had 
been  any  violation  of  the  law  of  the  land.  Within  the  pale  of  the  law,  if 
this  be  a  Government  of  laws,  and  not  of  men,  Webb  and  Noah  were  not 
amenable  for  their  conduct  or  their  opinions  to  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives of  the  United  States,  or  to  any  committee  by  them  appointed. 

In  behalf  of  the  United  States,  as  large  stockholders  in  the  bank,  a  general 
superintendence  over  the  proceedings  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the 
bank,  is,  no  doubt,  vested  in  the  Congress.  But  the  subscriber  does  not 
believe  that  the  president,  or  any  director  of  the  bank,  is,  or  can  be  ac- 
countable, to  a  committee  of  either  House  of  Congress,  or  to  the  House  it- 
self, for  the  motives  or  reasons  upon  which  he  acceded  or  objected  to  any 
one  discount.  The  practice  of  all  well-regulated  banks  is,  and  must  be, 
that  declared  by  the  testimony  of  the  presidents  of  the  two  banks  in  New 
York  to  be  theirs.  The  recfso?is  or  motives  for  accepting  or  rejecting  a 
note  offered  for  discount  are  not  subjects  ^of  inquiry  at  the  board  itself. 
The  reasons  of  each  director  are  in  his  own  breast.  His  own  colleagues  at 
the  board  have  no  right  to  inquire  into  them.  They  are  in  his  own  dis- 
cretion. 

It  is  indeed  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  this  discretion  should 
be  abused  to  the  injury  and  damage  of  the  stockholders.  But,  in  the  trans- 
actions of  the  bank  with  Webb  and  Noahj  no  loss  or  damage  has  occurred 
to  the  stockholders,  nor  is  any  to  be  apprehended.  In  the  original  charges 
presented  to  the  House  by  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  tliere  was  one 
of  subsidizing  the  press)  and  these  accommodations  to  Messrs.  Webb 
and  Noah  were  understood  to  be  among  the  most  prominent  exemplifi- 
cations of  that  nameless  crime  which  an  investigation  of  the  afiairs  of 
the  bank  would  disclose  to  the  world.  It  would  happily  be  a  fruitless 
search  to  find  in  the  criminal  code  of  this  Union,  or  of  any  of  its  con- 
stituent States,  such  a  crime  as  subsidizing  the  press.  When  the 
charge  was  first  brought  forward  by  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  in 
the  House,  it  was  impossible  to  ascertain  of  what  overt  or  covert  acts  this 
offence,  thus  novel  and  undefined,  consisted;  nor,  except  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  majority  of  the  committee,  can  the  subscriber  yet  compre- 
hend what  are  the  elements  of  this  new  and  stiil  undefined  ofience.  The 
majority  of  the  committee,  immediately  after  entering  upon  the  discharge 
of  their  duties  at  Philadelphia,  commenced  a  search  into  all  the  accounts 
with  the  bank  of  editors  of  newspapers.  In  the  returns  to  this  demand, 
it  was  found  that  Webb  and  Noah,  far  from  b^ing  solitary  culprits  in  this 
unheard  of  transgression,    were  in  the  very  respectable  company  of  the 


[  Rep.  No,  460.  J  379 

editors  of  the  National  Intelligencer,  of  the  National  Gazette,  of  the  United 
States'  Telegraph,  of  the  Globe,  and  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer.     This  in- 
formation was  scarcely  in  the  possession  of  the  committee,  before  it  found  its 
way  into  the  public  journals,  and  thus  all  the  editors  of  those  well  known 
prints  stand,  by  an  exhibition  of  their  private  accounts,  charged  before  the 
public  as  conductors  of  presses  subsidized  by  the  bank.     The  committee 
did,  in  no  other  instance  than  that  of  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
go  into  an  investigation  of  the  reasons  or  motives  for  which  the  discounts 
or  the  loans  had  been  granted.     Political  motives  were  unequivocally  and 
explicitly  disclaimed  by  the   president  and  directors,   who  assented  to  the 
loans;  and,  while  in  this,  as  in  all  other  banks,  the  practice  is  uniform,  of 
never  assigning  the  reasons  either  for  discounts  or  rejection,  they  are  not^ 
and  cannot  be  made  subjects  of  testimony.     Every  member  of  the  board 
has  his  own  reasons,  which  may  not  be  known  to  any  other  member.     One 
member,  therefore,  is  not  responsible  for  the  reasons  of  any  other  member, 
nor   is  the  board  responsible  for  the  reasons  of  any  one  of  its  members. 
Motives  can  then  be  made  a  subject  of  scrutiny  only  upon  smspicions po- 
litical suspicions — sharpened  by  the  collisions  of  personal  aad  pecuniary  in- 
terests. 

The  subscriber  believes  all  inquiry  into  the  motives  of  bank  facilities  or 
accommodations  to  be  not  only  pregnant  with  injustice  to  individuals,  but 
utterly  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  Legislature.  Their  rights  of  inquiry 
are  commensurate  with  the  law.     For  actions  within  the  bounds  of  law,  to 

scrutinize  motives,  is  tantamount  to  an  inquisition  of  religious  opinions 

a  species  of  moral  and  intellectual  torture,  fitted  more  to  the  age  of  Tiberius 
Caevsar  at  Rome,  than  to  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  present  time.  The  discount 
of  notes  at  a  bank,  whether  to  a  large  or  small  amount,  can  in  no  case  be 
considered  as  donations  or  gratuities.  They  are  contracts  of  mutual  equiva- 
lents for  the  benefit  of  both  parties,  in  which  the  bank  is  no  more  the  bene- 
factor of  the  customer  than  the  customer  of  the  bank. 

As  the  period  of  time  is  approximating  at  which  the  present  charter  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  is  to  expire,  the  question,  with  regard  to  the 
renewal  of  its  charter,  has  become  an  object  of  great  and  increasing  public 
interest     The  duties  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank,  to  protect 
and  promote  the  interests  of  the  stockholders,  naturally  make  it  an  object 
of  intense  and  earnest  desire  to  them.     Independent  of  all  personal  and  in- 
dividual interests  of  their  own,  these  obligations  to  the  company  require  of 
them  to  use  all  fair  and   lawful  means  to   obtain  a  renewal  of  the  charter. 
Were  it  even  true  that,  under  these  circumstances,  they  should   indulge 
a  disposition  to  the  utmost  bounds  of  liberality,  consistent  with  justice  and 
discretion,  to  one  or  more  eminent  editors  of  public  journals,  but  extending 
only  to  discounts  of  their  paper  at  the  regular  remunerating  interest  at  the 
rate  of  six  per  cent,  interest  by  the  year,  is  this  to  be  construed  into  cor- 
ruption, or  converted  into  a  bribe?     In  every  State  in  the  Union  there  is  a 
large  capital  of  its  citizens  invested  in  stocks  of  multiplied  State  banks. 
Most  of  these  are  rivals  in  business  with  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
and  they  have  all  boards  of  directors,  and  most  of  them  are  colleagued  with 
newspapers,  all  eager  for  the  destruction  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States — 
an  institution  doubly    obnoxious  to  the  system  of  safety-fund  banks  in  the 
State  of  New  York;  inasmuch  as  their  discounts,  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent, 
a  year,  curtail  one  per  cent,  of  the  dividends  which  otherwise,  by  the  laws 
of  New  York,  they  would  be  enabled  to  levy  upon  the  community.     It  is, 
th^refore^  0^  sqrprii^ing,  ^hat  in  tbr©  city,  an4  even  Id  tJw  ^tocrf  New 


380  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

York,  that  animosity  against  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  of  almost  all  the 
local  banks,  should  have  been  so  great  as  even  to  spread  its  influence  into 
the  Legislature  of  the  State.  The  same  operation  is  active  under  feebler  ex- 
citements  in  many  other  States,  These  are  not  bribes.  But  the  concert  of 
opposition  from  State  banks  in  almost  every  quarter  of  the  Union,  organized 
with  harmonious  energy,  in  concert  with  public  journals  perhaps  as  nu- 
merous, and  constantly  operating  upon  the  public  mind  unfavorably  by 
means  of  the  press,  made  it  indispensably  necessary  for  those  to  whom  the 
welfare  of  the  corporation  was  intrusted  to  defend  themselves  occasionally, 
and  from  time  to  time,  in  the  same  manner. 

If,  while  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  conductors  of  State  banks,  im- 
pelled by  private  and  personal  interests,  are  filling  the  popular  public  jour- 
nals under  Y^eeV  influence  by  means  of  discounts  and  facilities  granted  or 
withdrawn,  with  every  charge  that  suspicion  can  conceive,  or  imagination 
can  invent,  to  invoke  popular  resentment  and  indignation  against  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  to  prevent  the  renewal  of  their  charter,  the  president 
and  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  are  forbidden  all  use  of  the 
public  press  for  the  defence  and  vindication  of  their  own  institution,  they 
stand,  indeed,  in  fearful  inequality  of  condition  with  their  adversaries  before 
the  tribunal  ot  public  opinion.  The  local  banks  of  New  York,  for  example, 
grant,  with  lavish  hand,  bank  accommodations  and  facilities  to  the  editor  of 
a  daily  newspaper  who  fills  his  columns  with  all  the  common-places  of  vi- 
tuperation against  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  They  deny  all  facility 
and  accommodation  to  another  editor  who  admits  into  his  papers  essays  or 
communications  favorable  to  that  bank.  Does  the  editorial  votary  of  State 
banks,  and  seven  per  cent,  interest,  slacken  in  his  fervor?  his  discounts  at 
the  State  banks  are  curtailed.  Does  he  faulter  in  his  zeal?  a  pressure  for 
money  comes  upon  the  State  banks,  and  his  notes  are  called  in.  Does  he 
dare  to  admit  into  his  paper  a  communication  favorable  to  the  mammoth 
bank?  he  loses  all  credit  with  his  old  bankers.  Does  he  presume  to  hint, 
in  an  editorial  article,  that,  after  all,  a  bank  bound  to  discount  at  the  rate 
of  six  per  cent,  interest  may  be  of  some  advantage  to  borrowers  in  a  com- 
munity where  the  established  legal  rate  of  interest  is  seven?  he  becomes  at 
once,  in  the  estimation  of  the  local  bank  directors,  insolvent  and  blasted  in 
credit;  and,  if  he  ofiers  for  discount  a  note  of  a  hundred  dollars^  with  the 
best  endorser  in  the  city,  it  is  rejected  by  the  silent  vote  of  one  or  two  di- 
rectors, because  the  editor's  newspaper  did  formerly  oppose,  and  now  ceases 
to  oppose,  the  re-chartering  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  And  then, 
if  the  editor,  cramped  and  crippled  in  his  business,  by  the  screw  thus  put 
upon  his  press,  to  save  himself  and  his  establishment  from  ruin,  applies  to 
the  president  and  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  for  an  accom- 
modation loan?  No — they  too,  must  regard  him  as  insolvent,  and  blasted  in 
credit;  they  too,  must  withhold  all  banking  accommodation  and  facility 
from  him,  though  recommended  by  the  chief  mgistrate  of  the  city  of  New 
York  himself,  or  they  v/.ll  be  guilty  of  the  atrocious  ofience  of  subsidizing' 
the  press. 

This  statement  of  facts  is  here  hypothetically  put.  It  is  not  intended  to 
charge  the  presidents  and  directors  of  the  New  York  city  banks  with  any 
such  motives  for  granting  or  withholding  their  discounts.  The  subscriber 
not  only  approves,  but  was  gratified,  at  their  refusal  to  assign  their  reasons 
for  declining  to  discount  the  notes  offered  by  Mr.  Webb.  Had  the  ques- 
tioa  bn^a>^Xe4.them,tz?%  they  vla<2?  discounted  the  liote^  .of  the  same  per- 
^n  bejbyte,  ilieir  an^r  miiBt  ha\iB  be^  the  ^me.     The  abfeeptawre  of  an 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  381 

'offered  note  is  by  unanimous  and  tacit  assent,  without  assignment  of  reasons, 
and  for  which  the  reasons  of  one  director  are  not  necessarily  the  reasons  of 
another.  They  are  not  proper  subjects  of  inquiry,  so  long  as  the  discount 
is  in  violation  of  no  law.  And  this  principle  is  equally  applicable  to  the 
president  and  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  They  are  ame- 
nable to  authority  only  for  conformity  to  the  law.  To  the  stockholders 
they  are  further  accountable  for  the  prudent  and  discreet  employment  of 
their  funds.  But,  while  the  result  of  that  management  has  been,  for  a  series 
of  years,  to  yield  to  the  stockholders  half-yearly  dividends  of  three  and  a 
half  per  cent,  upon  their  investments  while  the  stock  of  the  bank  is  at 
twenty-five  per  cent,  advance  upon  its  original  cost  in  the  market,  and 
whilst  the  heaviest  of  all  the  complaints  against  the  bank  is  the  extensive- 
ness  and  universality  of  its  credit,  the  subscriber  believes  that  the  stock- 
holders, and  the  most  vigilant  guardians  of  their  interest,  may  wait  until 
an  actual  loss  shall  have  happened  upon  any  one  loan  or  discount,  before 
they  shall  be  justified  in  imputing  either  thriftless  improvidence  or  sordid 
corruption  to  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  for  having  granted  it. 
The  constitution  of  the  United  States  denies  to  Congress  itself  the  power 
of  passing  any  bill  of  attainder,  ex  post  facto  law,  or  law  abridging  the  free- 
dom of  the  press.  But  here  is  a  new-fangled  ofience  created  ex  post  facto, 
under  the  denomination  of  subsidizing  the  press,  and  to  operate  as  a  bill  of 
attainder  upon  the  bank,  and  as  a  disfranchisement  to  every  editor  of  a  pub- 
lic journal  who  may  happen  to  be  obnoxious  to  a  political  party  in  power. 
The  fact  constituting  this  most  extraordinary  crime,  is  the  mere  existence 
of  a  loan  or  discount  of  the  proscribed  editor  at  the  bank;  a  transaction 
entirely  warranted  by  law,  but  in  the  consummation  of  which  a  committee 
of  one  branch  of  the  legislature  first  assumes  the  right  of  scrutinizing,  and 
then  of  passing  sentence  of  condemnation  upon  the  motives  of  both  parties 
to  the  contract.  As  there  is  no  law  constituting  the  offence,  the  degree 
of  its  malignity  has  no  rule  of  proi>ortion  but  that  of  the  temper  by  which 
it  is  prosecuted;  it  will  be  aggravated  by  every  stimulant  of  private  pique, 
of  clashing  interest,  of  political  prejudice,  or  of  morbid  suspicion,  which 
can  be  enlisted  in  the  prosecution.  A  committee  man,  being  a  large  stock- 
holder in  a  State  bank,  to  be  deeply  benefitted  by  the  extinguishment  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States;  another,  linked  in  connection  with  a  newspaper 
establishment,  in  competition  with  the  editor  to  be  attainted;  a  profound 
political  economist,  wedded  to  a  system  of  coin,  currency,  and  credit,  pro- 
pitious to  one  banking  interest,  and  unfavorable  to  another;  a  mere  pariizaii 
hanging  upon  the  skirts  of  a  political  candidate,  and  following  the  camp  ty 
share  in  the  spoils  of  the  victory;  might  all  club  their  inventive  faculties  to 
flwell  this  imaginary  trespass  into  a  felony;  and  seldom  would  there  lack, 
as  an  ingredient  in  the  composition,  the  corrosive  sublimate  of  a  malicious 
temper,  with  instinctive  hatred  of  all  honor  and  integrity,  prone  always  to 
infer  actual  fraud  and  villany  from  the  mere  possibility  of  its  existence, 
and  even  to  insinuate  corruption,  without  daring  openly  to  afiirra  it.  These 
are  consequences  which  must  and  would  follow  from  the  sanction  by  Con- 
gress, or  either  of  its  Houses,  of  the  principle  that  the  accounts  of  editors  of 
newspapers,  as  a  separate  class  of  men,  with  the  bank,  are  to  be  scrutinized 
by  a  committee  of  Congress  as  tests  of  the  political  opinions  or  doctrines  of 
their  editorial  columns — or  indications  of  the  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
to  whose  banners  they  adhere — or  to  defeat  the  rechartering  of  the  bank, 
by  dieduting  fixHh  the  Sunse  naked  fact  of  existing  loans,  krge  or  tmail>  the 


082  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

dishonorable  conclusion,  that  the  motives  ef  the  president  and  directors  of 
the  bank,  for  granting  these  loans,  were  to  purchase  the  support  of  the  bor- 
rowers by  bribery  and  corruption. 

But  let  it,  for  argument's  sake,  be  admitted,  that  the  accommodation  of  a 
loan  to  the  editor  of  a  public  newspaper,  by  the  president  and  directors  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  is,  on  their  part,  an  act  of  corruption  of 
which  the  Congress  of  the  United  Si;ates,  without  doing  injustice,  and  with- 
out derogation  from  the  dignity  of  their  duties,  can  take  cognizance;  the 
subscriber  believes  that  it  cannot  justly  have  any  bearing  whatever  upon  the 
question  whether  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  shall  or  shall  not  be  re- 
chartered. 

Admit  that,  in  a  country  where  the  freedom  of  the  prejss  is  among  the 
first  elements  of  the  liberty  of  the  people,  a  committee  of  one  House  of 
Congress  has  a  right  to  constitute,  ex  post  facto,  a  crime  under  the  name  of 
subsidizing  the  press,  of  that,  which,  in  the  eye  of  the  law  of  the  land,  is, 
and  always  has  been,  innocent — admit  that  they  have  power  to  search  into 
the  hearts  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  for  dishonest  motives 
to  lawful  actions — admit  that  they  have  a  right  to  interrogate  them  for  rea- 
sons which  no  director  of  any  bank  is  ever  bound  to  give — admit,  that  af- 
ter the  president  and  directors  have  submitted  to  these  insulting  interroga- 
tories, and  assigned  the  reasons  by  which  they  were  actuated,  the  committee 
should  still  feel  themselves  justified  in  groping  day  after  day  for  circum- 
stantial evidence  to  falsify  the  frank  and  explicit  declarations  of  men  without 
a  slur  upon  their  fame — that  piles  of  folio  volumes,  of  bank  accounts,  should 
be  rummaged  over,  nights  and  da3''S,  for  a  variety  in  the  color  of  ink,  in 
entries  made  by  different  clerks,  with  different  ink-stands,  for  errors  in  the 
spelling  of  a  name,  for  interlineations  and  erasures  in  a  waste-book  or  a 
tickler,  and  all  to  substitute  trifles  light  as  air  of  suspicion  in  the  place  of 
fiact,  and  to  impute  fraud,  forgery,  and  perjury,  where  they  cannot  be  pro- 
ved— admit  that  the  unsullied  characters  of  men,  long  known  among  their 
fellow-citizens,  for  lives  vi'ithout  fear  and  without  reproach,  may  thus  be 
breathed  and  whispered  into  disgrace — what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  shall  receive  a  new  charter  or 
not?  If  the  president,  and  any  number  of  the  directors,  have  been  guilty 
of  malversation  in  their  offices,  the  remedy  for  their  offence  is  removal 
from  office.  They  may  be  further  responsible  to  the  stockholders  in  their 
persons  and  property.  The  directors,  appointed  by  the  President  and  Se- 
nate are,  at  all  times,  removable  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  alone. 
The  president  of  the  bank  is  every  year  liable  to  removal,  both  as  president 
and  as  director,  by  failure  of  re-election  as  a  director  by  the  stockholders, 
or  as  president  by  the  directors.  No  other  director  can  be  re-elected  more 
than  three  successive  years  in  four.  If  the  board  of  directors  have  been 
guilty  of  neglect  or  violation  of  their  duties,  the  punishment  of  their  de- 
linquency is  to  appoint  another  set  of  directors  in  their  place;  not  to  punish 
the  innocent  and  injured  stockholders  by  refusal  to  renew  the  charter.  By 
the  rotation  prescribed  in  the  charter  itself,  not  one  of  the  present  board  of 
directors  can  remain  in  office  at  the  time  of  the  expiration  of  the  charter, 
nor  can  the  present  president  of  the  board  ever  be  president  of  the  bank 
under  the  renewed  charter,  but  by  the  suffrages  of  the  stockholders,  accord- 
ing to  their  respective  privileges  of  voting.  If,  therefore,  any  misconduct 
bad  been  discoverable  in  the  official  conduct  of  the  president  of  the  bank, 
tJ5e'{9:'ot)or  punishoretit  for  it  wcxiIU  have  been  his  removal  from  offioej  aad 


r  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  383 

the  same  may  be  said  of  any  other  of  the  directors.  But  for  their  faults, 
to  punish  the  stockholders  who  had  no  communion  or  privity  with  them — 
for  their  errors,  to  deprive  the  great  miss  of  the  community  of  the  henefits 
and  advantages  secured  to  them,  and  enjoyed  by  them  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  this  great  institution  over  this  whole  Union,  would  proceed 
from  a  theory  of  crimes  and  punishments  unrivalled  by  the  political  inqui- 
Bition  of  Venice,  or  the  religious  inquisition  of  Spain.  A  theory  by  wnich 
the  crime  would  be  committed  by  one  set  of  persons,  and  the  punishment 
inflicted  upon  another — a  theory  by  which  the  stockholders  would  be 
mulcted  in  their  property,  because  the  directors  had  been  faithless  to  their 
trust,  and  the  people  bereft  of  public  blessings,  because  their  confidence  in 
the  integrity  of  their  agents  had  been  betrayed. 

At  the  close  of  the  long  commentary  of  the  majority  report  upon  the 
transactions  between  the  editors  of  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  it 
is  observed,  that,  among  the  documents  exhibited  to  the  committee,  and 
reported  to  the  House,  are  four  other  cases  of  loans  at  long  credit  made  by 
the  bank.  The  report  neither  mentions  the  names  of  the  individuals 
parties  to  these  contracts,  nor  the  correspondence  and  testimony  relating 
to  them,  which  were  laid  before  the  committee.  The  subscriber,  approving 
the  discretion  of  the  majority  in  this  particular,  will  not  deviate  from  the 
example  set  in  the  report.  He  will  barely  take  occasion  from  it  to  remark, 
that  the  names  of  those  individuals,  and  of  their  accc^unts  and  transactions  with 
the  bank,  cannot  be  brought  before  the  public  by  the  committee,  without  gross 
injustice.  Those  transactions,  he  is  bound  to  believe,  were  perfectly  justifia- 
ble in  all  the  parties  to  the  contract,  but  he  was  under  a  full  conviction  that  nei- 
ther he»  nor  the  committee,  had  the  right  to  inquire  into  them,  whether  for 
justification  or  for  censure.  The  objection  of  the  subscriber  is  to  all  inquisition 
into  motives,  for  actions  unforbidden  by  law.  But  in  each  of  these  four 
cases — in  those  of  the  accounts  of  every  editor  of  a  newspaper,  of  iivery 
member  of  Congress,  and  of  every  person  connected  with  the  Executive. 
Government — if  the  fact  of  the  individual  account  is  exhibited  to  the  pub- 
lic, it  is,  upon  the  plainest  principle  of  justice,  the  right  of  the  individual  to 
have  alike  exhibited  to  the  public  all  the  circumstances  connected  with  the 
transactions  which  he  may  deem  essential  to  his  justification.  But  what  Is 
that  justification?  Is  it  justification  limited  by  the  boundaries  of  the  law? 
No:  that  is  not  sufficient.  The  account  in  hank  must  be  coupled  with  the. 
conduct  and  opinions  of  the  individual,  to  point  the  finger  at  him  and  at  the 
bank  as  for  dishonorable  conduct  and  corrupt  purposes.  So  it  was  in  the 
case  of  James  Watson  Webb  and  Mordecai  M.  Noah.  Why  was  it  not  so 
i-n  other  cases?  Why  are  the  names  of  other  printers,  and  the  amount  and 
the  aspect  of  their  debts  to  the  bank,  as  principals  or  as  endorsers,  with- 
held? Why  are  other  editors,  having  large  accommodations  in  the  bank, 
the  names  of  their  endorsers,  the  character  of  their  settlements,  the  present 
state  of  their  engagements,  and  a  contemporaneous  exposition  of  their  edi- 
torial friendship  or  hostility  to  the  bank,  not  set  forth  in  all  the  developo- 
ments  of  the  bank  debts  and  editorial  speculations  of  James  Watson  Webb 
and  Mordecai  M.  Noah?  Why  are  not  the  day  of  an  editorial  discount  and 
the  day  of  an  editorial  puff  of  panegyric,  or  blast  of  abuse  upon  the  bank, 
brought  in  juxta-position  to  each  other,  so  that  suspicion  may  yoke  them 
together  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  in  any  other  case  than  their?? 
The  subscriber  believed  that  there  were  other  accounts  of  editors  and  prin- 
ters with  the^  bank  exhibited  to  the  committee,  which,  cfompared  with  edi- 


H84  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

torial  lucubrations  in  tlie  newspapers  of  the  same  editors  at  the  same  times 
with  the  discounts,  or  at  the  present  day,  would  suggest  reflections  quite  as 
edifying  to  the  spirit  of  reform  as  the  debts  and  dissertations  of  James 
Watson  Webb  and  Mordecai  M.  Noah.  The  majority  report  has  buried 
them  in  oblivion.  There  let  them  remain.  The  subscriber  will  not  disturb 
their  repose.  But  he  asks  of  the  candor  of  the  community,  and  of  the  self- 
respect  of  the  House,  representing  the  feelings  of  the  people,  that  no  more 
legislative  investigation?  may  be  instituted  at  the  expense  of  the  nation, 
under  color  of  an  examination  into  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  into  the  political  purity  and  undeviating  consistency 
of  the  conductors  of  the  pnblic  press. 

It  is  with  great  satisfaction,  that  the  subscriber  declares  his  entire  and 
undoubting  conviction,  as  the  result  of  all  the  examination  which,  under  the 
resolution  of  the  House,  and  the  unbounded  range  of  inquiry  sanctioned  by 
tJie  majority  of  the  committee,  he  was  able  to  give  the  books  and  proceed- 
ings of  the  bank,  that  no  misconduct  whatever  is  imputable  to  the  president, 
or  to  any  of  the  present  directors  of  the  bank.  That,  in  the  management  of 
the  affairs  of  this  immense  institution,  now  for  a  series  of  nearly  ten  years, 
occasional  errors  of  judgment,  and,  possibly,  of  inadvertence,  have  been  corn- 
mitted,  is  doubtless  true — in  the  vast  multitude  of  relations  of  the  bank  with 
the  property  of  the  whole  community,  the  board  of  directors  of  the  parent 
bank,  or  of  some  of  its  branches,  have  sometimes  mistaken  the  law,  and 
sometimes  have  suffered  by  misplaced  confidence.  A  spirit  of  predetermined 
hostility,  uncontrolled  by  a  liberal  sense  of  justice,  prying  for  flaws,  and 
hunting  for  exceptions,  may  gratify  itself,  and  swell  with  exultation  at  its 
own  sagacity,  in  discovering  an  error,  or  arguing  a  misconstruction  of  pow- 
ers. In  the  conduct  of  the  present  president  and  directors  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  no  intentional  wrong,  and  no  important  or  voluntary  er- 
ror has  been  committed.  He  deems  this  declaration  due  from  him  to  those 
worthy  and  respectable  citizens,  in  the  face  of  this  House  and  of  this  nation, 
willirgas  he  is  to  abide  upon  it  the  deliberate  judgment  of  after  times.  He 
deems  it  the  more  imperiously  required  of  him  as  a  signal  vindication  of  the 
honor  and  integrity  of  injured  and  persecuted  men.  It  has  been  impossible 
for  him  to  observe,  without  deep  concern,  the  spirit  and  temper  with 
which  this  investigation  has  been  prosecuted,  particularly  with  regard  to  the 
president  of  the  bank.  As  one  example  of  which,  he  will  call  the  attention 
of  the  House  to  the  testimony  of  Reuben  M.  Whitney  to  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  produced,  and  to  the  catastrophe  in  which  it  terminated. 

On  the  2d  of  Aprilj  the  chairman  of  the  committee  asked  of  them 
authority  to  issue  a  subpoena  to  summon  the  attendance  before  them  of  Tho- 
mas Wilson,  heretofore,  in  the  year  1824,  a  cashier  of  the  bank,  to  testify  as 
a  witness.  The  subscriber  inquired  what  it  was  expected  Mr.  Wilson 
would  prove,  which  question  the  chairman  declined  to  answer.  The  sub- 
scriber objected,  therefore,  to  the  iisuing  of  the  subpoena,  and  the  motion  for 
it  was  for  that  day  withdrawn. 

The  next  day  it  was  renewed^  with  a  statement,  in  writing,  by  the  chair^ 
man  of  several  allegations,  as  the  subscriber  conceived,  amounting  to  charges 
against  the  president  of  the  bank,  of  embezzlement  of  the  moneys  of  the 
institution.  The  subscriber  inquired  from  whom  these  charges  had  been 
received,  which  the  chairman  declined  to  state.  The  subscriber  moved  that 
a  copy  of  the  charges  should  be  furnished  to  the  president  of  the  bank. 
But  the  paper  was  withdrav/n  by  the  chairman,  and  a  resolutidn  was  subisti- 


t 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  385 

tuted  in  its  place,  which  was  entered  upon  the  journal  of  the  committee. 
The  objection  of  the  subscriber  to  this  course  of  proceeding  was,  at  his  re- 
quest>  entered  upon  the  journal,  and,  at  the  request  of  the  chairman,  an  entry- 
was  also  made  of  the  sjrounds  upon  which  he  deemed  his  own  course  in  this 
respect  justifiable.  The  objection  of  the  subscriber  was,  not  that  the  chair- 
man had  thought  proper  to  listen  privately  to  secret  informers,  but  that  he 
required  the  action  of  the  committee  for  a  call  of  testimony  deeply  affecting 
the  moral  character  of  the  president  of  the  bank,  and  yet  withheld  from  the 
committee  the  name  of  his  informant.  The  subpoena  to  Mr.  Thomas  Wil- 
son was  nevertheless  issued.  The  charges  against  the  president  of  the  bank 
were,  that  Thomas  Biddle,  a  distant  relative  of  his,  and  one  of  the  most 
eminent  brokers  of  Philadelphia,  had  been  in  the  habit,  by  permission  of 
the  president,  of  taking  money  out  of  the  first  teller's  drawer,  leaving  in 
its  place  certificates  of  stock;  of  keeping  the  money  an  indefinite  number 
of  days,  and  then  replacing  the  money,  and  taking  back  his  certificate  of 
stock,  ivithout  payment  of  intet'est  upon  the  moneys  of  which  he  had  had 
the  use.  The  quintessence  of  the  charge  was,  the  use  by  Mr.  Thomas  Biddle 
of  the  mone5^s  of  the  bank  without  interest.  And  there  was  another  charge, 
that  the  President  had  also  been  in  the  habit  of  making  large  discounts  upon 
notes  of  Thomas  Biddle  without  consulting  the  directors,  between  the  dis- 
count days,  and  that  the  notes  were  entered  as  of  the  previous  discount  day. 

Mr.  Wilson's  testimony  completely  disproved,  so  far  as  his  knowledge 
went,  both  these  charges.  He  had  never  known  a  single  instance  in  which 
Mr.  Thomas  Biddle,  or  any  other  person,  had  ever  been  permitted  by  the 
president  of  the  bank  to  use  the  moneys  of  the  bank  without  payment  of 
interest.  He  had  never  known  a  discount  of  a  note  of  Thomas  Biddle  by 
order  of  the  president  of  the  bank,  witiiout  consulting  the  board  of  directors 
or  the  committee  duly  authorized  to  discount.  Mr.  Wilson  had  been  re- 
moved in  a  manner  as  inoffensive  to  his  feelings  as  possible,  from  his  office 
of  cashier  of  the  parent  bank  in  1824,  by  being  first  transferred  to  the  branch 
at  New  Orleans,  from  which  he  was  also  afterwards  removed.  Previous  to 
his  removal  from  the  bank  at  Philadelphia,  the  personal  intercourse  between 
the  president  of  the  bank  and  him  had  not  been  altogether  harmonious.  He 
had  hinted  to  Mr.  Reuben  M.  Whitney,  a  director  then  secretly  unfriendly 
to  the  President,  and  to  Mr.  Paul  Beck,  a  director  particularly  friendly  to 
himself,  that  he  thought  the  president  had  too  much  influence  over  the  board 
of  directors,  and  had  spoken  with  disapprobation  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Thomas 
Biddle  had  occasionally  received  discounts  upon  transferred  stocks,  with 
checks,  which,  at  the  end  of  an  indefinite  number  of  days,  were  taken  up 
and  the  cash  returned,  with  regular  payment  of  interest,  as  upon  discounted 
notes.  The  checks  being  entered  in  the  books  under  the  head  of  bills  re- 
ceivable. Several  cases  of  this  kind  had  occurred  in  the  months  of  May 
and  June,  1824.  Mr.  Wilson's  testimony  was  very  clear  and  explicit  to  the 
integrity  of  the  president  of  the  bank,  and  it  was  totally  contradictory  to 
the  statements  which  the  chairman  had  framed  into  charges  from  the  private 
information  which  he  had  received,  and  the  name  of  the  informer  of  which 
he  had  declined  giving  to  the  committee.  But  Mr.  Wilson  had  named  Mr. 
Paul  Beck  and  Mr.  Reuben  M.  Whitney,  two  of  the  directors  of  the  bank  in 
1824,  and  to  whom  he  had  incidentally  communicated  his  slight  discoatents 
at  the  period  immediately  before  his  removal. 

Mr.  Beck  and  Mr.    Whitney   were  summoned  to  appear   and   testify 
The  character  and  respectability  of  Mr.  Beck  are  so  universally  known  al 
49 


S86  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Philadelphia,  that  all  remark  upon  them  would  be  superfluous.  He  had  been 
a  director  of  the  bank  in  1824,  '25,  and  '26,  and  again  in  the  years  1828, 
^20,  and  ^30,  and  of  course  not  only  at  the  time  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Wilson, 
but  for  five  of  the  years  which  have  elapsed  since  then,  and  till  within  less 
than  two  years  past.  Mr.  Beck  remembered  the  communications  made  to 
him  by  Mr.  Wilson  shortly  before  his  removal,  and  had  thought  them  t* 
proceed  from  irritation. 

He  hnd  seen  no  cause  to  doubt  the  correctness  of  the  official  conduct  of 
the  president,  and  has  retained  his  perfect  confidence  in  it  unimpaired  to 
the  present  day. 

The  testimony  of  Mr.  Whitney  was  of  a  different  character.  This  per- 
son had  been  a  director  of  the  bank  in  the  years  1822-23  and  '24,  and  a 
very  active  member  of  the  board.  He  was  a  native  American,  but  from  the 
year  180S  to  1S16,  had  been  a  resident  in  Montreal,  in  Canada — during  the 
war,  by  permission  of  the  British  Government,  on  his  taking  an  oath  to 
obey  the  laws  of  the  country,  which  he  did  not  consider  as  an  oath  of  alle- 
giance— but  he  had  not  asked  or  received  the  permission  to  remain  in  Can- 
ada from  his  own  Oovernment.  About  a  year  after  the  expiration  of  his 
service  as  a  director  of  the  bank,  he  failed  in  business.  Of  his  present  stand- 
ing in  the  communit}',  no  evidence  was  taken  by  the  committee. 

The  story  that  Mr.  Whitney  told  on  his  first  examination  was,  that  some- 
time in  1824,  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Andrews,  then  cashiers  of  the  bank,  had 
mentioned  to  him  certain  transactions  in  the  bank  in  which  T.  and  J.  G. 
Biddle  were  concerned,  which  they  were  not  willing  should  exist  without 
some  member  of  the  board  being  informed  of  them.  Upon  his  inquiring 
what  they  were,  they  replied  that  T.  &  J.  G.  Biddle  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  coming  to  the  bank  and  getting  money,  and  leaving  certificates  of  stock, 
which  represented  it  in  the  first  teller's  drawer,  without  paying  interest, 
and  without  being  entered  on  the  books.  That  they  had  also  stated  th^tthe 
Messrs.  Biddies  had  had  notes  discounted  for  them  by  the  president  which 
were  entered  on  the  books  of  the  preceding  discount  day:  that,  upon  Mr. 
Whitney's  askiqg  them  what  sums  there  were  of  the  kind  in  existence  at 
that  time,  they  went  with  him  to  the  first  teller's  drawer,  and  found  one 
sum  of  45,000  dollars,  dated  25th  May,  and  one  for  24,000,  dated  26th 
May;  that  they  then  went  to  the  discount  clerk's  desk,  and  found  one  note 
at  15  days,  dated  13th  May,  for  20,000  dollars,  of  T.  Biddle's,  and  one 
note  of  Charles  Biddle's,  dated  21st  May,  at  sixteen  days,  for  %  38,319:  that 
the  two  former  sums  represented  cash,  and  the  two  latter  were  notes  which 
the  two  cashiers  stated,  to  him  had  been  discounted  by  order  of  the  pre. 
sident.  Of  alhthis,  Mr.  Whitney  declared,  a  memorandum,  atthe time,  had 
been  taken  by  him.  Such  a  memorandum  he  produced,  and  left  with  the 
committee  on  a  small  slip  of  paper  worn  out  and  torn,  and  it  is  among  the 
papers  reported  b}^  the  committee;  and  as  it  formed  the  main  stay  of  Mr. 
W^hitney's  first  testimony,  a  copy  of  the  whole  of  it  is  here  subjoined: 
'*May  2S,  45,000. 
2Q,  24,000. 
May        13,   15  days  S20,000  collateral. 

21,  C.  Biddle,  38,319,  16  days  5— 8  June." 

Of  tlie  two  first  ;iotes,  Mr.  Whitney  declared,  in  answer  to  a  leading 
question  from  the  chairman,  that  no  entry  had  been  made  upon  the  books: 
that  he  took  his  note  of  them  from  a  memorandum  in  the  lellcr's  drawer, 
and  that,  on  making  the  discovery,  he  directed  the  officers  of  the  bank,  one 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  887 

or  both  the  cashiers,  to  enter  this  money  upon  the  books;  that  it  was  done — 
that  he  did  not  see  it  done,  but  subsequently  saw  on  the  books,  the  entry  of 
**  bills  receivable,"  which  he  knew   was  the  entry  made  by  his  order. 

He  further  stated  that,  immediately  after  making  this  discovery,  and  giving 
this  order,  he  had  gone  into  the  president's  room,  where  he  found  him 
alone;  that  he  told  him  what  he  had  discovered  and  done,  and  requested  that 
no  such  transaction  should  be  repeated  while  he  was  a  director  of  the  in- 
stitution. That  the  president  did  not  deny  the  facts  as  he  had  stated  them; 
that  he  colored  up  very  much,  and  promised  that  no  such  thing  sliould  hap- 
pen again. 

This  testimony  appeared  to  be,  in  all  respects,  so  extraordinary,  and  so 
deeply  to  affect  the  moral  character  of  the  president  of  the  bank,  in  which 
the  subscriber  had  been  long  accustomed  to  repose  the  most  unbounded  con- 
fidence, that  he  deemed  it  proper  to  trace  its  introduction,  as  far  as  possible, 
to  its  origin.  As  the  question  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  which  drew 
forth  this  testimony  indicated  that  he  had  previously  been  made  acquainted 
with  it  in  detail,  and  as  he  had,  on  first  stating  his  expectation  to  prove  these 
charges,  declined  naming  the  witness  by  whom  he  expected  to  prove  them, 
the  subscriber  resorted,  by  interrogation  of  the  witness,  to  ascertain  that 
which  the  chairman  had  declined  communicating  to  the  committee.  He 
inquired  of  Mr.  Whitney  whether  he  had  had  previous  communication  on 
the  subject  with  any  member  of  the  committee?  What  had  been  his  mo- 
tive for  giving  the  testimony.'*  .Whether  it  had  been  voluntary  or  solicited? 
To  these  questions  he  answered  that  he  had  made  previous  communications 
to  the  chairman  at  his  apartment  in  presence  of  another  member  of  the  com- 
mittee; that  he  had  no  particular,  but  general  motives  forgiving  the  testimo- 
ny; that  he  did  not  recollect  whether  it  had  been  voluntary  or  asked  of  him; 
but,  upon  being  pressed  by  a  further  question,  he  answeredjthat  Judge  Clay- 
ton had  been  recommended  to  him  by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Benton.  This  dis- 
closure was  then  confirmed  by  the  chairman. 

The  subscriber  requested  that  his  objections  to  the  admission  of  this  evi- 
dence, while  anonymous,  should  be  entered  on  the  journals  of  the  commit- 
tee, and  an  explanatory  entry  was  also  made  at  the  request  of  the  chairman. 

Mr.  Whitney  appealed  with  great  confidence  to  his  memorandum,  and  to 
the  books  of  the  bank  corresponding  with  it,  to  confirm  his  story;  but  there 
was  nothing  in  the  memorandum  to  show  that  it  had  not  been  taken  from 
the  books  of  the  bank.  There  was  internal  evidence  in  the  memorandum 
that  it  could  not  have  been  taken  before  the  26th  of  May;  and  there  was  evi- 
dence on  the  books  of  the  bank  that  it  was  probably  taken  from  them  on  the 
27th  of  May;  that  was  the  only  day  on  which  one  of  the  books  of  the  bank 
corresponded  with  the  memorandum  of  Mr.  Whitney. 

But  Mr.  Whitney  testified  that  no  entries  had  been  made  of  the  certifi- 
cates of  stock  In  the  teller's  drawer,  of  the  two  sums  of  45,000  and  24,000 
dollars  minuted  on  his  memorandum,  on  the  books,  until  after  he  had  or- 
dered the  entries  to  be  ma[de;  while  the  books  of  the  bank  proved  that  en- 
tries of  both  those  sums  had  been  regularly  made  on  those  respective  days, 
the  25th  and  26th  of  May;  Mr.  Whitney's  own  testimony  showed  that  he 
had  seen  the  books  after  the  entries  were  made,  and  there  was  nothing,  ex- 
cept his  own  declaration,  to  show  that  he  had  not  taken  his  memorandum 
from  them. 

Mr.  Andrews  and  Mr.  Wilson,  the  two  cashiers  from  whom  Mr.  Whit- 

fy  alleged  that  he  had  received  the  first  information  of  ^is  embezzlement 


388  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

of  the  moneys  of  the  bank,  denied,  in  the  most  explicit  and  unqualified 
terms,  that  any  such  transaction  had  ever  taken  place;  denied  not  only  that 
they  had  ever  given  to  Mr.  Whitney  such  information  as  he  had  affirmed  to 
have  received  from  them,  but  the  existence,  at  any  time,  of  any  facts  which 
would  have  justified  them  in  giving  such  information. 

Mr.  Patterson,  the  first  teller,  and  Mr.  Burtis,  the  discount  clerk,  at 
whose  drawers  Mr.  Whitney's  narrative  repreiented  him  as  having  made 
his  discoveries,  and  given  his  orders  for  making  the  entries,  with  equally 
earnest  asseveration,  denied  that  any  such  transaction  had  ever  taken  place^ 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned. 

The  president  of  the  bank,  confronted  with  Whitney,  declared,  upon 
oath,  that  there  was  not  one  word  of  truth  in  his  statement  of  his  interview 
with  him.  And  Mr.  Whitney  was  left  with  his  ragged  memorandum,  and 
his  oath,  falsified  by  the  concurring  oaths  of  the  five  individuals  who  with 
certainty  of  knowledge  could  contradict  him. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Mr.  Whitney's  statement  was  confined,  by  the  pur- 
port of  his  memorandum,  and  the  context  of  the  books  of  the  bank,  to  a 
date  of  time  of  no  wider  range  than  the  26th  or  27th  of  May,  1S24.  The 
president  of  the  bank,  on  a  subsequent  day,  proved,  by  the  correspondence  of 
the  bank,  that,  from  the  22d  to  the  last  day  of  that  month,  he  was  not  at 
Philadelphia,  but  on  a  visit  to  the  city  of  Washington,  on  the  business  of 
the  bank.  For  these  discrepancies  from  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Whitney,  as 
upon  his  examination  he  termed  them,  he  did  not  attempt  to  account.  He 
withdrew,  however,  the  statement  that  he  had  ordered  the  entries  of  the 
two  sums  of  45,000  and  24,000  dollars  to  be  made  upon  the  books,  and 
placed  the  affirmance  in  an  alternative  position,  to  meet  the  evidence  as  it 
appeared  in  fact  upon  the  books.  He  now  said  he  had  ordered  the  entries 
to  be  made,  or  had  found  them  already  made,  and  confirmed  them,  i^ut 
he  never  attempted  to  show  to  the  committee  whence  or  how  he,  as  a  sin- 
gle director,  had  derived  the  authority  of  ordering  the  keepers  of  the  re- 
spective books  to  make  any  entry  upon  the  books  whatever;  an  authority 
which  all  the  keepers  of  the  books  denied  to  belong  to  a  director. 

The  question  was  put  to  Mr.  Whitney,  whether,  upoil  his  making  his 
discoveries,  he  had  considered  himself  as  having  fully  discharged  his  own 
duty  as  a  director,  by  a  mere  private  expostulation  with  the  president,  with- 
out making  known  the  transaction  to  the  board  of  directors  at  all?  to 
which  he  answered  that  he  had  not  considered  the  subject  in  that  point  of 
view. 

Mr.  Whitney,  to  sustain  his  character,  produced  evidence  that  ho  had 
been  very  extensively  engaged  in  business;  had  paid  large  sums  for  duties 
on  imported  articles  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States;  that,  while  a 
director  of  the  bank,  he  had  been  a  very  active  and  industrious  member  of 
the  board,  and  that  he  had  been  employed  by  the  board  in  confidential 
trusts,  which  he  had  faithfully  executed.  As  a  last  resort  to  sustain  hi» 
charge  of  embezzlement  against  the  president  of  the  bank,  although  he  ad- 
mitted he  had  never  mentioned  it  to  the  board  of  directors,  he  insisted  that 
he  had,  soon  after  it  happened,  spoken  freely  of  it  to  others,  and  parti- 
cularly to  Mr.  Wilson  Hunt,  who,  he  requested,  might  be  called,  and  who 
accordingly  was  called  as  a  witness  before  the  committee. 

Had  there  i*femained  a  fragment  of  a  doubt  upon  the  mind  of  the  subscri- 
ber with  regard  to  the  character  of  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Whitney,  before  ; 
the  examination  of  Mr.  Hunt,  it  would  have  vanished  upon  bearing  what  • 


[  Rep.  No.  4G0.  J  8S9 

h€  testified.  It  was,  that  Mr.  Whitney,  some  years  since,  at  the  time  when 
he  was  a  director  of  the  bank,  had  confidentially  shown  him  a  memorandum 
of  some  loans  on  stocks,  which  he  said  had  been  made  to  Mr.  Thomas  Bid- 
die,  by  the  president,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  directors.  Mr.  Hunt 
thought  that  Mr.  Whitney  had  further  averred  that  these  loans  had  not  been 
entered  on  the  books  of  the  bank,  but  he  did  not  recollect  that  he  had  told 
him  that  he  had  ordered  them  to  be  entered  on  the  books,  and  he  was  very 
sure  he  never  had  told  him  that  the  loans  were  without  payment  of  interest. 
Mr.  Hunt  had  been  impressed  with  the  idea,  derived  from  Mr.  Whitney^s 
communications  to  him,  that  he  was  not  friendly  to  the  president  of  the  bank; 
and  he  said  he  had  thought  them  serious  enough.  But  Mr.  Hunt  mani- 
fested astonishment  at  the  very  question,  whether  Whitney  had  told  him 
that  the  loans  were  made  without  payment  of  interest.  He  not  only  de- 
nied that  fact,  but,  with  a  very  natural  asseveration,  that,  if  it  had  been  so 
stated  to  him,  it  was  impossible  he  should  have  forgotten  it. 

The  subscriber,  in  charity  to  the  infirmities  of  human  nature,  would  wil- 
lingly believe  that  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Whitney,  upon  his  first  examina- 
tion, was  the  result  of  self-delusions,  produced  by  long  cherished  and  pam- 
pered suspicions  of  trivial  error,  till  imagination,  supplyingthe  place  of  me- 
mory, had  svvoln  them  into  imputations  of  embezzlement  and  fraud.  Mr. 
Whitney  had  been  stimulated  to  bear  testimony  against  the  bank  from 
abroad.  The  more  aggravated  the  charges  which  he  could  bring  to  bear  on 
public  opinion  against  the  president  of  the  bank,  the  fairer  would  be  the 
prospect  of  success  in  defeating  the  renewal  of  the  charter,  and  the  more 
acceptable  to  the  spirit  of  party  would  be  the  service  he  might  render  by 
the  testimony  he  should  give.  The  defaced  and  tattered  memorandum,  taken 
in  years  long  past  from  the  books,  would  give  a  sort  of  mysterious  pre-emp- 
tion right  of  credibility  to  any  colorable  detail  of  circumstantial  narrative  to 
be  connected  with  it.  The  instinct  of  calumny  is  inventive  of  details,  pre- 
cisely because  details  make  their  way  more  easily  to  the  credit  of  the  hearer, 
and  it  has  long  been  remarked,  by  keen  observers  of  human  action,  that  he 
who  accustoms  himself  to  make  a  truant  of  his  memory  is  oftentimes  the 
first  to  credit  his  own  lie.  Whether  it  was  so  with  Mr.  Whitney,  the  sub- 
scriber cannot  undertake  to  say  with  certainty;  but  certain  it  is  that  an 
affirmation  most  material,  and  most  confidently  made,  in  the  first  examin- 
ation of  Mr.  Whitney,  that  the  notes  which  he  had  discovered  in  the  Tel- 
ler's drawer  had  not  been  entered  on  the  books  when  he  discovered  them, 
and  that  they  were  so  entered  by  his  direction,  was,  retracted  by  himself 
after  it  had  been  blasted  by  the  production  of  the  entries  upon  the  face  of  the 
books  themselves.  Yet  the  retractation  itself  was  not  frank  and  candid.  It  was 
by  assuming  an  alternative,  which,  while  it  abandoned  all  pretence  of  sustain- 
ing the  fact,  was  yet  unwilling  to  abandon  the  offensive  imputation.  When 
the  impossibility  of  his  pretended  interview  with  the  president,  of  rebuke 
on  the  part  of  Whitney,  and  of  tacit  confession  and  blushing  promise  of  fu- 
ture amendment  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Biddle,  was  demonstrated  by  the  ]f)resi- 
dent's  absence  from  Philadelphia  at  the  time,  Mr.  Whitney  was  not  prepared 
with  any  substituted  invention  of  details  to  supply  its  place.  He  admitted 
that  there  was  a  discrepancy  between  this  demonstration  and  his  previous 
asseverance,  but  he  neither  attempted  to  reconcile  them,  nor  to  fortify  his 
own  statement  by  explanation  or  commutation  of  its  terms.  His  dishonored 
memorandum  found  no  endorsement  for  the  honor  of  the  drawer. 
Other  charges  of  partiality  by  the  president  of  the  bank,  in  behalf  of  his 


390  [  Rep.  No.  4G0.  J 

distant  relatives,  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  had  also  been  scattered  abroad  upon 
no  better  foundation  than  the  fact  that  Thomas  Biddle  &  Go.  are,  and  have 
for  years,  been  among  the  brokers  of  the  first  eminence,  and  most  extensive 
business  at  Philadelphia,  or  in  the  Union.  That  their  transactions  of  busi- 
ness have  been,  and  are  every  year  to  the  amount  of  many  millions.  That 
their  deposites  in  bank  have  been  to  similar  amount,  and  that  ihey  have  oc- 
casionally been  responsible  to  the  bank  for  more  than  a  million  of  dollars  at 
once.  Brokers  of  this  description  are,  to  all  essential  purposes,  bankers 
themselves,  as  a  bank,  in  the  plentitude  of  its  power  and  operations,  is  but  a 
broker  upon  a  large  scale.  Among  the  transactions  of  Messrs.  Thomas 
Biddle  &  Co.  with  the  bank,  there  was  a  deposite  made  by  them  to  a  con- 
siderable amount,  upon  which,  by  agreement,  an  allowance  was  once  for  a 
short  time  made  to  them  for  interest.  It  appeared,  upon  explanation,  that 
the  money  thus  deposited  was  in  the  possession  of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  as 
agents  for  a  certain  foreign  government,  and  that  the  pressure  on  the  money 
market  was  very  great.  That  the  use  of  the  money,  for  the  time  during 
which  the  interest  was  allowed,  would  have  been  of  more  value  to  them  than 
that  interest,  and  the  bank,  having  urgent  occasion  for  the  use  of  the  money, 
the  interest  upon  it  for  a  few  weeks  was  allowed  as  a  consideration  for  its 
being  left  in  the  bank  for  employment  there,  instead  of  being  withdrawn  for 
the  use  of  the  depositors.  It  was  substantially  a  loan  for  a  time,  the  prin- 
cipal profit  of  which  was  on  the  side  of  the  bank,  and  in  which  the  allow- 
ance of  interest  was  not  equivalent  to  the  profit  which  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co. 
would  have  realized  from  the  same  money  by  withdrawing  it.  As  in  the 
cases  of  moneys  paid  out  to  them  from  the  teller's  drawer,  upon  equivalent 
deposites  of  stocks  transferred,  it  was  done  for  transactions  in  which  the 
Biddies  were  purchasing  bills  for  the  bank,  acting,  not  for  themselves,  but 
as  agents  for  the  bank.  In  such  cases,  the  cash  was  wanted  to  pay  for  the 
bills  purchased.  The  brokers  not  having  the  cash  on  hand,  received  it  from 
the  bank  itself,  leaving  United  States'  stocks  of  equal  value  in  its  place,  for 
a  few  days,  until  the  brokers,  agents  for  the  bank,  restored  the  cash,  took 
back  their  certificates  of  stock,  and  paid  interest  for  the  cash  they  had  re- 
ceived for  every  day  during  which  it  had  been  withdrawn. 

The  complicated  character  of  the  pecuniary  operations  between  the  house 
of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  as  brokers,  and  the  bank,  must  also  be  remembered 
in  considering  the  very  large  amount  of  their  notes  discounted  at  the  bank. 
They  might  appear  on  the  books  of  the  bank  indebted  to  it  for  the  amount 
of  a  million,  when  their  real  debt  might  not  amount  to  a  thousand  dollars; 
tlie  money  for  which  they  appeared  indebted  being  only  the  sums  requisite 
to  pay  for  the  bills  purchased  for  the  bank  itself. 

In  reviewing  the  whole  investigation,  by  the  committee,  of  the  transactions 
between  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the  brokers,  there  is  one  con- 
sideration which  most  forcibly  struck  the  mind  of  the  subscriber,  and  which 
he  thinks  pre-eminently  worthy  of  the  consideration  of  Congress,  and  of  the 
nation.  The  charge  of  favoritism  to  certain  brokers,  of  connivance  with 
theni  to  speculate  and  prey  upon  the  public  interests  for  purposes  of  usury 
and  extortion,  formed  a  very  prominent  item  in  the  original  resolutions  of 
the  chairman  of  the  committee  upon  which  this  investigation  was  instituted. 
It  was  one  of  those  charges  which,  in  its  essential  nature,  imported,  not 
simple  inadvertence,  indiscretion,  error  of  judgment,  or  mismanagement  in 
the  president  and  directors  of  the  ^bank,  but  the  sordid  peculations  of  a 
swindler.  It  was  impossible  that  those  charges  should  be  true,  if  the  pre- 
sident of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  a  man  of  common  honesty. 


[  Rep.  No.  460L  ]  391 

There  \vqs  no  sparing  of  commentary  upon  the  scanty  colncIdencG  of  facts 
which  the  proposer  of  the  resolution  was  willing  to  consider  as  giving  suffi- 
cient color  to  the  charge  to  entitle  it  to  the  honor  of  an  inquiry.  That 
there  had  hcen,  and  still  were,  large  dealings  between  the  brokers  and  the 
bank  was  sufficiently  notorious.  That  the  bank  and  the  brokers  had  coni- 
])etitors,  rivals,  and  enemies,  whose  rancor  was  sharpened  by  all  the  stimu- 
lants of  avarice  and  ambition,  was  not  less  apparent-  These  passions  never 
fail  to  have  watchful  observers  in  their  train.  Whispers,  it  now  appears,^ 
had  been  in  circulation  even  from  the  year  1824,  ripening  for  a  term  of  seven 
years  into  rumors  of  combined  and  concerted  frauds,  and  embezzlement  of 
the  funds  of  the  bank  to  the  private  purposes  of  the  president  of  the  bank, 
and  the  principal  brokers  of  Philadelphia.  What  was  their  foundation? 
Extensive  dealings  between  the  bank  and  the  brokers — of  course  very  large 
discounts  to  the  brokers.  Interest  to  the  amount  of  a  few  hundred  dollars 
once  or  twice  allowed  for  the  use  of  money  by  the  bank  to  the  brokers. 
Cash  taken  out  of  the  bank  by  the  brokers  for  a  few  days,  upon  deposite  of 
stock  left  in  its  place.  Enormous  loans  to  the  brokers,  sometimes  even  at 
a  rate  of  interest  less  than  six  per  cent,  a  year.  Superadded  to  all  which 
the  name  of  the  president  of  the  bank  was  Biddlc.  The  name  of  the  sup- 
posed accomplice  broker  was  Biddlc,  and  they  were  descended  from  One 
great  grandfather.  To  the  suspicions  of  awakened  jealousy  here  were  abun- 
dant elements  for  the  most  nauseous  compound  of  fraud  and  corruption.  Se- 
cret communications  are  accordingly  made  to  the  proposer  of  the  resolulion 
lor  inquiry,  and,  with  a  predisposition  of  hostility  to  the  bank,  a  plausible 
denunciation  of  guilt  and  dishonor  on  the  part  of  the  president  of  the  bank, 
assumes  the  formidable  aspect  of  a  public  accusation,  and  invokes  the  sanc- 
tion of  a  legislative  investigation.  Had  the  reflection  once  occurred,  that,  to 
all  these  great  operations  between  the  brokers  and  the  bank,  the  Govern- 
ment itself  was  a  part}^,  though  unseen,  the  mystery  would  have  been  ex- 
plained, without  needing  a  resort  to  the  injurious  suspicion  that  a  man 
honored  annually  by  a  series  of  re-elections  to  a  station  of  high  trust  and 
confidence,  was  reducing  himself  to  the  level  of  a  common  counterfeiter  of 
coins.  The  subscriber  believes  that  suspicion,  though  a  necessary  auxiliary 
to  the  faithful  discharge  of  a  public  trust,  should  itself  be  trusted  with  great 
reserve.  A  man,  conscious  himself  of  integrity  of  purpose,  should  not 
readily  admit  into  his  mind  the  belief  that  others  are  reckless  and  unprin- 
cipled. Above  all,  does  he  believe  that  a  man  of  honest  and  candid  mind, 
who  has  been  induced  by  false  representations  to  admit  and  to  countenance 
imputations  upon  the  honor  of  another,  owes  him,  when  disabused  by  the 
evidence  of  unquestionable  testimony,  the  signal  reparation  of  a  candid  ac- 
knowledgment of  error.  He  never  for  a  single  instant  believed  that  those 
dishonorable  imputations  upon  the  president  of  the  bank  were  founded  in 
truth;  but,  when  he  found  them  embodied  in  the  positive  declarations  of  a 
witness  upon  oath,  and  fortified  by  a  bold  exhibition  of  a  contemporaneous 
memorandum,  and  a  confident  appeal  to  the  books  of  the  bank,  he  scarcel}' 
dared  to  indulge  the  expectation  tliatthis  desperate  lunge  against  a  citizen  of 
unsullied  honor  could  have  met  so  immediate  and  so  total  a  discomfiture. 

The  exploration  of  the  accounts  of  members  of  Congress  and  officers  of 
the  Government  with  the  bank,  came,  in  the  opinion  of  the  subscriber, 
under  the  same  category  as  those  of  editors  of  newspapers.  The  resolutions 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  authorized  the  examination,  by  the  com- 
mittee, of  the  books  only  as  evidences  of  the  proceedings  of  the  corporation. 


392  [  Rep.  No.  4G0.  1 

The  questions  for  the  committee  were:  Had  they  violated  the  charter? 
Had  they  violated  any  law  of  the  land?  To  these  inquiries  they  were  limit- 
ed, and  upon  these  alone  could  they  with  propriety  report 

As  an  exemplification  of  the  odious  nature  of  further  inquisitions,  the  sub- 
scriber will  only  mention  the  case  of  the  members  of  Congress,  who, 
during  the  present  session,  have  received  the  compensation  for  their  public 
service  from  the  branch  bank  at  Washington  in  advance  of  the  passage  of 
the  general  appropriation  act.  This  is  one  of  the  favors  to  members  of 
Congress,  equivalent  to  a  loan  without  interest  to  each  member,  of  the 
amount  of  money  which  he  thus  receives  from  the  time  of  his  receiving  it 
until  the  appropriation  act  shall  have  become  a  law.  Its  aggregate  amount 
from  the  commencement  of  the  session  to  this  day,  in  payments  to  members 
of  Congress,  and  the  executive  officers,  falls  little  short  of  four  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  The  amount  of  interest  that  would  have  accrued  to  the 
bank,  had  interest  been  paid  by  each  individual  member,  would  have  ex- 
ceeded ^3,000.  The  subscriber  himself  is  not  without  doubts  of  the  pro- 
priety of  this  indulgence,  and  confidently  avers  that  nothing  which  the  in- 
vestigation of  the  committee  has  discovered  in  the  proceedings  of  the  pre- 
sident and  directors  of  the  bank  is  of  a  more  questionable  character.  The 
member  who  receives  his  pay  in  advance  of  the  appropriation,  does  not 
indeed  receive  it  in  advance  of  the  service  which  entitles  him  to  it.  But 
where  is  the  law  authorizing  the  bank  to  make  the  payment?  The  mem- 
ber who  receives  the  money  is  only  accessary  to  the  payment  by  the 
bank,  and  there  is  many  a  member  of  this  House,  who,  in  voting  for 
this  investigation,  little  imagined  that  his  own  name  would  be  returned 
among  the  members  of  Congress,  receivers  of  special  favors  from  the  bank. 
Many  a  member,  who,  perhaps,  has  received  the  favor  without  knowing  it, 
3'et  is  obnoxious  in  principle  to  the  charge  in  the  original  resolution  offered 
by  the  chairman  of  the  committee;  quite  as  obnoxious  to  the  imputation  of 
iiripure  motives  in  the  bank,  as  the  bank  can  be  made  by  all  their  transac- 
tions with  editors  of  newspapers  or  printers,  James  Watson  Webb  and 
Mordecai  M.  Noah,  included. 

One  great  and  insurmountable  objection  to  the  right  and  justice  of  enter- 
ing into  a  scrutiny  of  tnotives  for  proceedings  not  forbidden  by  any  law, 
was  that  the  committee  could  exercise  no  censorial  power  of  that  nature 
over  the  president,  directors,  and  officers  of  the  bank,  or,  at  all  events, 
over  individuals  having  dealings  with  that  institution,  which  those  indi- 
viduals had  not  an  equal  right  to  exercise  over  the  committee,  and  every 
one  of  its  members  in  return.  What  motive,  for  example,  could  impel  a 
member  of  the  committee  to  call  in  exercise  all  the  power  of  Congress  to 
suppress  the  publication  of  essays  or  speculations  favorable  to  the  bank  in 
newspapers?  Would  not  the  editor  of  a  newspaper  thus  inculpated  have 
the  same  right  to  inquire  into  the  motives  of  the  committee-man?  If,  per- 
advcnture,  he  should  have  been  in  the  habit  of  making  free  use  of  the  press 
to  assail  and  discredit  the  bank,  would  not  this  struggle  to  deprive  the 
bank  of  self-defence  through  the  medium  of  the  press,  be  attributed  to 
the  desire  of  having  the  monopoly  of  that  powerful  engine  to  himself? 
Would  it  not  argue  a  consciousness  of  weakness  in  the  appeals  to  public 
opinion  against  the  bank,  if,  to  sustain  the  charges  against  it,  there  should 
be  an  attempt  to  suppress  all  the  means  of  self-defence?  The  freedom  of 
the  press,  in  the  language  of  party  spirit,  means  the  unlicensed  use  of  that 
instrumont  for  itself  to  assail,  and  a  total  interdiction  of  its  use  to  the  ad- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  39B 

versary  for  defence.  And  singular,  indeed,  would  be  the  section  of  a 
charter  to  a  bank  which  would  leave  it  open  to  every  shaft  of  slander,  and 
deprive  it  of  all  possible  means  of  repelling  the  assault. 

Among  the  useless,  and  worse  than  useless  inquisitions  into. which  the 
majority  of  the  committee  thought  themselves  justified  in  descending,  w^re 
imputations  of  political  misconduct  in  certain  officers  of  Uie  branch  hank 
at  Norfolk,  in  Virginia.  Articles  of  complaint,  as  grievous  and  perhaps  as 
numerous  as  those  of  the  chairman  of  this  committee  against  the  President 
and  directors  at  Philadelphia,  had  been  laid  before  that  board  against  the 
president  and  cashier  at  Norfolk  by  a  person  who  had  been  one  of  the  di- 
rectors of  that  brinch.  A  long  and  patient  investigation  of  those  charges 
had  been  made  by  the  board  at  Philadelphia,  and  one  of  their  cashiers  had 
been  sent  to  make  a  thorough  examination  of  all  the  facts  of  the  case  upoa 
the  spot  itself.  The  charges  had  been  found  totally  destitute  of  foundation, 
and  there  was  among  the  archives  of  the  bank  a  voluminous  correspondence, 
which  was  all  submitted  to  the  examination  of  the  committee.  To  give  the 
House  a  faint  idea  of  the  extent  of  this  inquiry,  it  may  be  sufficient  to 
say  that  the  whole  controversy  respecting  th«  accounts  of  a  late  Navy 
Agent  at  Norfolk,  and  the  pamphleteering  and  newspaper  war  betweeft 
that  officer  and  one  of  the  Auditors  of  the  Treasury,  were  among  the  sim- 
plest of  its  elements.  After  plunging  for  a  series  of  days  into  these  mys- 
teries, almost  deep  enough  for  every  member  of  the  committee  to  take  his 
side  upon  two  or  three  by-gone  contested  elections  at  Norfolk;  after  plod- 
ding over  manuscript  volumes  of  acrimonious  bitterness  froni  the  most  per- 
tinacious of  complainants;  after  examining  the  long  protracted  corres- 
pondence both  of  that  complainant  and  of  the  inculpated  officers  of  the 
Norfolk  branch  with  the  board  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  cashier  who  had 
made  the  investigation  at  Norfolk;  after  giving  the  complainant  himself  the 
trouble  of  repairing  to  Philadelphia  to  sustain  his  charges,  and  try  ovep 
again  criminations  and  recriminations,  which  a  judicial  tribunal,  after  sum- 
moning half  the  inhabitants  of  the  borough  of  Norfolk,  and  subjecting 
them  to  an  endless  list  of  interrogatories,  and  cross  examinations,  would 
Scarcely  have  been  competent  to  solve;  after  the  consumption  of  several 
days  in  these  inquiries,,  the  last  result  of  which,  must,  under  any  possible 
termination  of  their  investigation,  have  left  them  precisely  where  they  began, 
the  majority  of  the  committee  concluded  to  desist  from  what  the  subscriber 
believed  the  committee  ought  never  to  have  undertaken,  and  what  the  chair- 
man reports  "  they  have  been  compelled  to  abandon  for  want  of  time." 

The  complaints  made  against  the  president  of  the  bank  at  Portsmouth, 
New  Hampshire,  in  the  summer  of  1829,  and  the  correspondence  between 
the  board  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  late  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury  and  of 
War,  form  a  portion  of  the  documents  relating  to  the  books  and  proceed- 
ings of  the  bank,  called  for  by  the  committee,  and  communicated  to  them. 
They  are  not  noticed  in  the  report  of  the  chairman,  but,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  subscriber,  are  more  deserving  of  the  attention  of  Congress,  and  of  the 
nation,  than  any  other  part  of  the  j)apers  commented  upon  in  the  report.  Aa 
effort,  very  thinly  veiled,  on  the  part  of  two  ofthe  executive  departments  of  the 
General  Govarnment  to  exercise  a  control,  political  and  pecuniary,  over  the 
proceedings  of  the  bank  and  its  branches — a  control  highly  exceptionable  in 
principle,  and  even  contrary  to  law,  appears  to  him  to  be  fully  disclosed  in 
those  papers.  He  will  not  permit  himself  to  inquire  into  the  motives  of  the 
agents  in  those  transactions.*  It  is  sufficient  for  the  protection  of  the  public 
50 


394  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

interest  that  the  projected  encroachments  of  power  were  disconcerted  and 
laid  aside. 

Among;  the  objects  of  investigation  authorized  by  the  majority  of  the 
committee,  transcending,  in  the  opinion  of  the  subscriber,  the  powers  dele- 
gated to  them  by  the  resolution  of  the  House,  and  therefore  unwarranted 
and  improper,  were  six  sets  of  interrogatories,  amounting  in  all  to  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-one  questions,  addressed  by  one  member  of  the  committee 
to  the  president  of  the  bank,  never  submitted  to  the  committee  for  their  con- 
sideration, but  drawn  up,  a  large  portion  of  ihem,  after  the  committee  had 
closed  their  examinations  at  Philadelphia,  and  after  the  subscriber  had  re- 
turned to  Washington,  and  resumed  his  seat  in  the  House.     They  remind- 
ed him  of  certain  popular  works  of  instruction  for  children,  in  which  uni- 
versal or  particular  histories,  or  abstruse  and   profound  sciences,  are  taught 
by  question  and  answer.     The  subscriber  has  found  many  of  them,  upon  pe« 
rusal,  passing  his  powers  of  comprehension,  but  they  appear  to  comprise  a 
compendium  of  political  economy,  and  the  skeleton  of  a  profound  disserta- 
tion upon  coins,   currency,  paper  credit,  circulation,  and  banking.       The 
subscriber  cannot  withhold   his  admiration  from  the  comprehensive  views 
and  profound  knowledge  of  the  subject  discovered  in  those  inquiries,  and 
believes  that  satisfactory  answers  to  them  might  form  a  very  useful  second, 
though  somewhat  larger  volume,  to  the  legislative  and  documentary  history 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  compiled  by  the  indefatigable  research 
and  industry  of  the  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  his  associ- 
ate.    But  a  large  portion  of  the  questions  might,  with  more  propriety,  be 
addressed  in  a  circular  to  the  presidents  of  all  the  banks  in  the  four  quarters 
of  the  globe,  than  to  the  president  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.     And 
it  may  be  doubted  whether,  of  many  of  the  inquiries,  a  convention  of  all  the 
bankers  in  the  world  would  not  be  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  leaving  them 
OS  they  found  them — to  be  solved  only  by  the  ingenuity  or  sagacity  of  their 
author.     The  subscriber  objected  to  them  as  they  were  presented  in  clus- 
ters; not  but  that  some  of  the  questions  might  be  within  the  compass  of  the 
powers  and  duties  of  the  committee,  but  that  they  were  buried  in  such  a 
mass  of  heterogeneous  matter,  that  it  would  have  occupied  the  committee  to 
the  last  moment  of  their  happily  limited  time  to  extract  the  pertinent  matter 
from  its  incasement.     The  subscriber  believed  it  quite  unjustifiable,  under 
the  authority  of  the  committee,  to  make  of  this  inquiry  a  general  disputa- 
tion upon  banking. 

Upon  the  mass  of  documents  and.  tabular  statements  collected  by  the 
committee,  and  reported  to  the  House,  the  subscriber  has  so  imperiect  a 
knowledge  that  he  can  form  no  distinctive  opinion.  He  has  never  had  ac- 
cess to  the  greater  part  of  them.  They  were  called  for  by  resolutions  sub- 
mitted by  the  chairman  and  one  or  two  other  members  of  the  committee, 
without  disclosing  the  objects  which  it  was  expected  they  would  elucidate. 
Most  of  the  time,  while  the  committee  were  at  Philadelphia,  was  consumed 
in  the  compilation  of  them  by  the  ofKicers  of  the  bank.  "When  collected, 
they  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  to  enable 
him  to  prepare  his  report,  and  the  subscriber  has  not  even  seen  a  considera- 
ble portion  of  them.  He  will  confine  himself,  therefore,  to  those  which 
have  been  noticed  in  the  report  of  the  chairman  and  majority  of  the  com- 
mittee. 

1.  The  charge  of  usury,  as  having  been  taken  some  ten  years  since  by 
the  branch  bank  at  Lexington,  as  set  forth  in  the  case  of  the  Corporation 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  395 

against  Owens,  and  others,  reported  in  the  second  volume  of  Peters'  Re- 
ports and  cases  argued  and  adjudged  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  was  one  of  those  upon  which  the  chairman  of  the  committee  had 
largely  expatiated  in  his  speeches  at  the  time  when  he  brought  forward  his 
resolution  of  investigation.  No  information  varying  the  state  of  the  facts 
as  they  were  then  explained,  was  obtained  by  the  committee.  It  was  then 
sufficiently  shown,  that,  in  all  the  transactions  of  this  case,  there  had  been 
neither  usury,  nor  any  thing  resembling  usury,  on  the  part  of  the  bank. 
That  it  was  a  case  in  which  the  bank  had  not  done,  but  had  suffered,  griev- 
ous wrong.  A  transaction  in  which  the  subscriber  has  no  hesitation  in  say- 
ing that,  if  the  parties  had  been  on  both  sides  individuals,  the  plea  upon 
which  the  defendants  extricated  themselves  from  the  engagements  which 
they  had  contracted,  would  have  been  in  no  wise  creditable  to  them. 

The  bank  had  discounted  a  promissory  note  of  Owens  for  five  thousand 
dollars,  npon  which  the  other  defendants  were  joint  signers  with  him. 

For  this  note,  Owens  received  the  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars  in  notes  of 
the  Bank  of  Kentucky ,  promising  to  pay  the  same  sum  in  specie  in  three 
years  from  the  date  of  the  not«.  At  that  time,  the  notes  -of  the  Bank  of 
Kentucky  were  depreciated,  and  purchasable  in  market  at  a  discount  of  54 
per  ceiit.  Owens  received  them  at  their  nominal  value,  and  promised  pay- 
ment for  them  in  specie  three  years  after  date.  The  notes  had  been  re- 
ceived by  the  Lexington  branch  at  their  nominal  value,  and  partly  for  Gov- 
ernment deposites.  To  them,  they  were  equivalent  to  specie.  Within 
six  months  after  the  transaction,  they  recovered  their  nominal  value.  Had 
the  Lexington  branch  retained  Ihem,  they  would  have  been  repaid  at  their 
full  value,  with  lawful  interest,  till  the  time  of  payment.  They  never  re- 
ceived one  dollar  of  usurious  interest  upon  them — never  one  dollar  more 
than  was  actually  paid  to  the  holderof  them  by  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  from 
which  they  had  issued.  The  money  was  equivalent  to  specie  to  Owens 
himself  at  the  time  when  he  received  it,  and  he  paid  with  it  debts  of  his 
own  at  their  nominal  value 

But  the  branch  at  Lexington,  in  the  case  before  the  court,  was,  as  many  a 
suitor  besides  has  been,  made  the  victim  of  a  special  plea  and  demurrer. 
The  plea  set  up  by  the  defendants  to  escape  the  payment  of  an  honest  debt, 
set  forth,  not  that  the  notes  of  the  Kentucky  Bank  were  of  less  value  than 
specie  to  the  branch  at  Lexington,  the  loaner;  not  that  they  were  of  less 
value  than  specie  to  Owens,  the  borrower  and  receiver;  not  that,  at  the  time 
when  the  note  was  made  payable,  they  were  of  less  value  than  specie  even 
in  the  open  market,  but  that,  at  the  time  ichen  the  note  of  Owens  was 
discounted,  the  notes  of  the  Kentucky  Bank  were  generally  depreci- 
ated— so  that  one  hundred  dollars  thereof  nominally,  were  of  the  current 
VALUE  of  only  fifty-four  dollars.  To  this  plea  oi general  depreciation  and  cur- 
rent value,  there  was,  perhaps  incautiously,  what  the  lawyers  call  a  demur' 
rer  on  the  part  of  the  bank;  which  demurrer,  according  to  the  practice  of 
judicial  courts,  precludes  the  party  from  the  benefit  of  any  other  facts  than 
those  specially  set  forth  in  the  plea.  Special  pleading  has  long  been  known 
among  the  practitioners  of  the  law,  as  the  science  of  spreading  snares  for  the 
unwary;  and  fio  odious  has  it  become,  from  the  frequency  with  which  it  is 
thereby  made  to  operate  injustice,  that,  in  many  States  of  this  Union,  legis- 
lative acts  have  abolished  it  altogether,  by  providing  that,  in  all  cases,  what- 
ever, a  defendant  shall  be  at  liberty  to  take  the  general  issue,  and  give  all 
special  matter  in  evidence  under  it.     In  this  case,  however,  the  general  iss»e 


396  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

did  not  suit  the  purposes  of  tlie  defendants.     They  could  not  aver  that  they 
had  not  made  the  promise  to  pay  the  money  for  whicli  they  were  sued  by 
the  bank.     They  could  not  deny  that  the  Kentucky  Rank  notes  had  been  to 
the  borrower  and  to  the  lenders  equivalent  to  so  much  K«»ilver.     They  could 
not  deny  that,  long;  before  the  note  became  payable,  the  Kentucky  Bank  notes 
had  recovered  their  full  value.      Owens,  himself,  had  not  the  face  to  join  in 
the  plea,   but  the  joint  signers  of  his  note,  finding  it  more  convenient  to 
charge  the  bank  with  usury  than  to  fulfil  their  engagements,  screened  them- 
selves from  performance  by  this  plea  of  general  depreciation  and  current 
talue,  and  by  averring,  in  their  special  plea,  contrary  to  the  faci,  that  there 
had  been  a  corrujyt  and  unlawful  agreement  between  the  bank  and  them- 
selves, that  the  bank  should  receive  more  than  lawful  interest  upon  the  loan 
to  Owens.     It  was  no  such  thing.     There  had  been  no  SHch  corrupt  agree- 
ment; but  the  bank,  by  demurring  to  the  plea,  deprived  itself  of  the  means 
of  disproving  that  allegation,  and,  upon  that  state  of  things,  the  decision  of 
the  case,  by  a  bare  and  doubting  majority  of  tke  judges  of  the  supreme 
court,  was  against  the  bank.     With  the  utmost  deference  for  the  opinions 
of  that  court,  the  subscriber  believes  they  never  gave  a  judgment  of  less  au- 
thority than  in  this  identical  case.     The  judges  of  the  circuit  court  for  the 
district  of  Kentucky,  had  differed  in  opinion  upon  the  case.     The  judgment 
of  the  Supreme  Court  was  delivered  by  Judge  Johnson,  who  declared  himself 
to  have  entertained  very  serious  doubts  of  the  sufficiency  of  the  averments 
in  the  plea.     After  stating  those  doubts,  he  adds,  '^  [am  content,  however^ 
to  unite  ivilh  the  three  of  iny  brethren,  loho  make  up  the  majouity  on 
this  point,  in  holding  the  averments  to  be  sufficient,  because,  in  a  con- 
siderable dearth  of  authorities  on  this  subject^  I  find,  it  decided  iji  the 
case  of  Bolton  vs.  Durfiam,  in  Croke'^s  Reports^  Cro.  Eli.  642,  that  the 

CONFESSION  OF  THE  QUO  AMMO  IMPLIED  IN  A  DEMURRER  wHl  ajfect  a  CaSB 

with  usury,  when  a  very  similar  case  in  the  same  hook,  in  which  the 
plaintiff  had  traversed  the  plea, was  left  to  the  jury  with  a  favorable 
charge.  Benningfeld  vs.  Jishley,Cro,Eliz.  741."  Here,  then,  Judge 
Johnson  declares  that,  after  very  serious  doubts,  he  was  content  to  unite 
with  his  three  brothers  to  make  up  a  majority  against  the  bank,  because  he 
found  in  an  old  reporter  of  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  that  the  confes- 
sion of  the  quo  animo,  (that  is,  of  the  alleged  but  fictitious  corrupt  agree- 
ment) implied  in  a  demurrer,  made  that  usury,  which,  by  the  authority  of 
the  very  same  book,  would  not  have  been  usury,  if  the  plaintifi'  had  tra- 
versed the  plea,  that  is,  had  denied  and  tendered  in  issue  the  pretended  cor- 
rupt agreement.  If,  then,  the  branch  at  Lexington,  instead  of  demurring, 
had  traversed  the  plea  of  the  defendants,  that  is,  if  they  had  denied  the  ex- 
istence of  the  corrupt  agreement  averred  by  the  defendant,  but  which  had 
never  existed,  the  Supreme  Court  would  have  decided  that  there  was  no 
usury  in  the  case,  and  the  defendants  would  have  been  corjipelled  to  perform 
their  lawful  engagement,  instead  of  evading  it  by  stigmatizing  themselves 
with  corruption. 

The  subscriber  will  pursue  no  further  this  analysis  of  the  decision  of  a 
majority  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  In 
cases  where  that  venerable  tribunal  is  at  liberty  to  harmonize  in  judgment 
with  the  award  of  moral  sensibility,  there  is  no|^e  to  whose  discernment  and 
discrimination  he  would  bow  with  more  respectful  deference.  But  in  the 
review  of  judicial  decisions  upon  contracts  avoided  by  pleas  of  usury  or  sta- 
tutes of  limitation,  there  would  be  always  found   "a  considerable  deartii  of 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  397 

authorities"  in  the  English  reporters,  traced  back  even  to  the  age  of  Eliza- 
beth, in  which  the  riatof  the  law  has  been  in  unison  with  the  dictate  of  jus- 
tice. 

In  one  of  the  precedents  cited  by  Judge  Johnson ,  the  court  is  said  to  have 
observed  '^  there  is  notking  immoralin  this  transaction,  but  it  is  as^ainst 
a  prohibitory  statuteJ^  This  remark  was  not  whoUy  aj)plicable  to  the 
case  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  against  Owens  and  others.  Of  that 
transaction  it  could  not  be  said  there  was  nothing  in  it  immoral.  There  was 
something  in  it  profoundly  immoral,  though  not  on  the  part  of  the  bank. 
Even  the  violation  of  the  prohibitory  statute  was  an  inference  against  the 
fact,  from  the  confession  implied  in  a  demurrer.  The  bank  vyas  first  de- 
barred'from  the  recovery  of  a  just  debt,  and  then  branded  with  usury  upon 
the  plea  of  general  depreciation  and  current  value  of  the  notes  of  the 
Bank  of  Kentucky,  when,  in  fact,  there  was  not  a  cent  of  usury  taken  or 
even  reserved. 

The  subscriber,  however,  cannot  suppress  his  surprise  that  this  case  should 
have  been  selected,  and  should  now  be  persisted  in,  as  the  head  and  front  of 
the  offences  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  Not  alone,  because,  upon  a 
thorough  examination  of  the  facts,  as  they  appear  upon  the  face  of  the  re- 
port, it  is  the  settled  conviction  of  his  mind  that,  throughout  the  whole  of 
this  transaction,  the  bank  was  the  innoceut  and  deeply  injured  party — not 
alone  because  he  deems  it  would  be  the  summit  of  injustice  to  hold  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  responsible  in  its  charter  for  an  unlucky  demur- 
rer plea  led  seven  years  ago  in  a  suit  brought  by  the  branch  at  Lexington, 
against  delinquent  debtors;  but  because,  setting  aside  all  those  considera- 
tions, and  supposing  even  the  president  and  directors  of  the  parent  bank 
culpable  of  all  the  mistakes  in  pleading  of  the  branch  at  Lexington,  this 
transaction  is  of  ten  years  standing.  If  usury  there  were,  it  was  the  usury 
not  of  Nicholas  Bicldle  and  the  directors  of  iS32,  but  of  Langdon  Cheves 
and  the  directors  of  1822.  The  contract  was  made  in  May  of  that  year. 
From  the  endorsement  upon  the  note  then  made  by  an  illustrious  citizen  of 
Kentucky,  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  lawyers  of  the  Union,  (Mr. 
Clay,)  it  is  clear  that  there  was  nothing,  in  his  opinion,  in  the  transaction 
which  could  expose  it  to  the  charge  of  usury.  The  subscriber  sees  nothing 
in  it  of  that  nature  now.  It  was  undoubtedly  considered  in  the  same  light 
by  the  then  president  of  the  bank,  Mr.  Cheves,  to  whose  opinions  upon 
other  points  regarding  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  bank,  so  much 
deference  is  shewn  in  the  report  of  the  majority  of  the  committee,  that  the 
subscriber  thinks  he  might  well  have  been  spared  this  imputation  of  being 
accessary  to  an  usurious  contract  of  the  branch  at  Lexington,  and  of  hav- 
ing permitted  it  to  be  consummated  without  censure  or  animadversion.     . 

The  next  charge  upon  which  the  majority  of  the  committee  have  deemed 
it  within  their  competency  to  report,  is  that  relating  to  the  issuing  of  the 
branch  drafts  or  notes.  Upon  tiiis  subject,  there  was  noihing  of  any  mo- 
ment for  the  investigation  of  the  committee  to  discover.  Their  existence, 
the  causes  in  which  they  originated,  and  the  purposes  which  they  were  in- 
tended to  answer,  had  all  been  disclosed  upon  returns  already  made  by  the 
president  of  the  banit  to  inquiries  instituted  by  this  afid  the  other  House  of 
Congress.  They  had  been  issued,  not  hastily,  but  after  deliberate  advise- 
ment with  regard  lo  their  legality,  sanctioned  by  the  written  opinions  of 
three  of  the  most  eminent  counsel,  learned  in  the'law,  in  tiie  United  States. 
Ail  tiie  facts  leading,  to  a  just  estimate  of  their  expediency  were  well  known. 


398  [  Rep.  No.  160.  ] 

They  were  substituted  for  small  notes,  signed  by  the  president  and  cashier 
of  the  parent  bank,  of  which  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  supply  sufficient 
numbers  for  the  necessary  circulation  of  the  country.     The  report  of  the 
majority  of  the  committee  states,  much  in  detail,  the  repeated  and  earnest 
applications  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  to  Congress  for  an 
additional  authority  to  the  president  and  cashiers  of  the  several  branches  to 
sign  the  notes  issued  by  those  branches.     It  does  not  appear  that  this  re- 
quest was  ever  denied  by  Congress,  after  deliberation.      In  one  instance,  at 
least,  there  was  a  report  of  a  select  committee  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  favor  of  the  appointment  of  signers  to  the  notes  of  the  bank;  but 
the  spirit  which,  in  the  halls  of  legislative  power,  so  often  defeats  by  pro- 
crastination that  which  it  cannot  reasonably  reject,  had  always  succeeded  in 
arresting  the  action  of  Congress  upon  this  proposal.     But  the  power  which 
was  adequate  to  withhold  the  means  of  furnishing  in  this  form,  an  uniform  cur- 
rency for  circulation,  could  neither  supply  its  place,  nor  suppress  the  con- 
stantly recurring  want  of  it  in  the  intercourse  of  business  between  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  country.     The  solicited  power  was  never  denied,  but  it 
was  never  granted;  and  the  omission  to  grant  it  had  the  effect  of  denial. 
The  want  of  circulating  currency,  equivalent  to  specie,  continued  with  in- 
creasing pressure  upon  the  people,   and  especially  at  the  locations  of  the 
southern  and  western  branches  of  the  bank.     An  expedient  was  at  last  re- 
sorted to,  which,  without  transcending  the  limits  of  the  charter,  effected  the 
same  purposes  which  would  have  been  accomplished  by  notes  payable  at  the 
branches  under  the  signature  of  their  presidents   and  cashiers.     It  was,  that 
they  should  be  authorized  by  the  directors  of  the  parent  bank  to  draw  notes 
or  drafts  upon  the  bank,  payable  only  there.     That  this  expedient  was  ivar- 
ranted  by  law,  has  been  settled  by  solemn  decision  in  the  circuit  court  of 
the  United  States.     It  had  previously  received  the  sanction  of  the  Secreta- 
ry of  the  Treasury.     An  obvious  remark  upon  it  is,  that  its  success  depend- 
ed upon  the  extensiveness  and  universality  of  the  credit  of  the  bank.     The 
drafts,  though  payable  only  at  the  bank  in  Philadelphia,  circulated  as  specie 
in  every  part  of  the  country.     But  for  that  credit,  they  could  not  have  cir- 
culated at  all,  or  only  as  depreciated  currency.     They  have  answered  an 
exceedingly  useful  purpose,  and  proved  a  great  public  convenience  in  the 
transaction  of  business,  and   the  circulation  of  exchanges  throughout  the 
Union.     Under  management  always  prudent  and  cautious,  no  serious  incon- 
venience would  be  anticipated  from  them.     But  it  is  not  to  be   disguised, 
that  they  offer  facilities  and  temptations  for  improvident  and  excessive  issues. 
The  bill  reported  by  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  for  rechartering 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  proposes  to  prohibit  the  issuing  of  these 
hranch  drafts,  but  to  authorize  the  presidents  and  cashiers  of  the  branches  to 
sign  bills  payable  at  their  respective  offices  only.     The  want  of  a  circulating 
currency  will  not  be  so  effectually  supplied    by  this  process  as  by  that  now 
in  use;  but  it  will  be  more  invariably  safe  to  the  bank  itself.     It  is  under- 
stood to  be  more  acceptable  to  the  president  and  directors,  and  the  subscriber 
is  willing  that  it  should  be  substituted  for  the  practice  now  established,  from 
which,  however,  he  perceives  not  that  any  serious  public  injury  has  yet  re- 
sulted.    That  it  is  justifiable  under  the  charter,  he  has  no  doubt. 

The  next  charge  adopted  by  the  majority  of  the  committee,  from  the  bill 
of  indictment  ol  the  chairman,  is,  that  the  president  and  directors  of  the 
bank  have  been  guilty  of  the  crime  of  receiving  and  paying  Spanish  dollars, 
and  even  otw  own  gold  coins  at  their  intrinsic  value,  which  is  higher  than 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  398 

(hat  conferred  upon  Ihem  by  statute.  The  objection  is,  that  these  are  not 
technically  called  bullion;  and  there  seems  to  be  an  argument  in  the  report, 
that  to  give  or  receive  more  for  foreign  coin,  or  for  domestic  coined  gold, 
than  their  value,  as  established  by  law,  is  unlawful.  This  argument,  the 
subscriber  believes,  has  the  merit  of  novelty — to  him,  at  least,  it  is  new. 
So  long  as  the  proportional  value  in  the  market  of  gold  to  silver,  whether 
bullion  or  coin,  shall  be  seven  or  eight  per  cent,  higher  than  the  relative- 
value  assigned  to  them  by  statute,  while  both  shall  be  legal  tenders — so 
long  as  Spanish  or  Mexican  dollars  shall  contain  more  pure  silver  than  the 
coinage  of  our  own  mint,  so  long  will  the  coin  of  highest  intrinsic  value  be 
bought  and  sold  as  commodities  in  spite  of  all  human  legislation.  Nothing 
is  more  clearly  established  by  the  universal  experience  of  mankind,  than 
the  impotence  of  despotism  itself  to  control  the  value  of  the  precious 
metals.  Every  attempt  to  exercise  such  authority  bears  upon  its  face  the 
stamp  of  injustice.  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  once  transmitted  a  message  to 
the  senate  of  the  kingdom  that  he  would  send  to  govern  them  one  of  his 
boots.  The  same  monarch  successively  issued  eight  or  ten  copper  counters, 
each  of  about  the  weight  of  half  a  cent,  and  decreed  that  they  should  pass 
for  Swedish  silver  dollars.  His  own  creditors  were  compelled  to  receive 
them,  but  to  pass  them  off  upon  others  at  the  same  rate  was  beyond  his 
power.  With  two  metallic  legal  tenders  of  different  intrinsic  value,  the 
bank,  like  every  other  corporation  or  individual,  has  the  option,  and  always 
will  make  the  option,  io  pay  in  the  tender  of  lowest  value.  Their  debtors 
having  the  same  option  will,  as  universally,  pay  the  corporation  in  the  same 
tender  of  lowest  value.  To  forbid  the  bank  from  receiving  foreign  silver 
or  domestic  gold  coins  at  an  advance,  would  be  to  expel  them,  unless  as  spe- 
cial deposites,  forever  from  their  vaults.  To  forbid  the  bank  from  paying 
them  at  an  advance  would  be  prohibition  ever  to  issue  them  at  all.  They 
are  commodities  in  the  market,  which  will  be  bought  and  sold  by  all  the 
brokers  and  State  hanks  in  the  Union,  whether  bought  and  sold  by  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  or  not.  The  participation  of  that  bank  in  the  traffic, 
far  from  tending  to  disturb  the  legal  value  of  the  coin,  and  render  that  por- 
tion of  the  metallic  currency  uncertain  and  fluctuating,  has  a  tendency  di- 
rectly the  reverse.  To  prohibit  the  bank  from  making  an  allowance  of  ad- 
vance ui)on  Spanish  dollars,  would  be  a  prohibition  to  import  specie,  con- 
sisting of  that  coin,  at  all.  Then,  either  it  would  be  imported  to  the  same 
extent  by  other  institutions  and  individual  traders,  or  there  would  be  a  de- 
ficiency in  the  supply  of  specie.  In  the  former  case  the  fluctuation  in  the 
value  of  that  kind  of  specie  would  be  neither  moie  nor  less  than  it  is,  and 
in  the  latter,  it  would  be  much  greater. 

The  fourth  charge  reported  by  the  majority  of  the  committee,  is  that  of 
selling  "stock  obtained  horn  Government  under  special  acts  of  Congress.'^ 

In  this,  as  in  many  other  parts  of  the  report,  the  subscriber  has  had  oc-. 
easion  to  regret  the  want  of  precision  in  the  statement  of  the  charge.  Here 
almost  every  word  in  which  the  charge  is  conveyed,  is  remarkable  for  its 
looseness  and  indefiniteness  of  meaning.  Who,  for  example,  under  the  de- 
nomination of  '*  stock  obtained  from  Government^*'  would  naturally  under- 
stand the  evidences  of  a  loan  made  to  the  Government  by  the  bank  itself? 
In  the  ©ontract  of  loan  there  must  be  a  debtor  and  creditor,  neither  of  whom  can 
with  propriety  be  said  to  obtain  any  thing  from  the  other.  In  the  use  of  ambigu- 
ous language,  there  is  always  danger  of  ambiguity  of  conception.  In  this  case, 
if  tbe  bank  obtained  stock  from  the-  Govornmenty  it  was  because  the  Go* 


400  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

vernment  obtained  money  from  the  bank.  The  loans  could  not  have  been 
made  without  special  authority  by  act  of  Congress,  and  that  authority  was 
expressly  given.  The  bank  is  prohibited  from  purchasing  any  public  debt 
whatsoever,  but  it  is  not  prohibited  from  selling  any  certificate  of  public 
debt  which  it  may  lawfully  possess.  With  regard  to  the  loans  to  which 
the  report  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  refers,  the  stock  which  repre- 
sented tiie  moneys  borrowed,  was  made  transferrable  by  the  very  acts  of  Con- 
gress which  authorized  the  loans.  The  bank  received  the  certificates  trans- 
ferrable uppn  their  face,  and  neither  that  act,  nor  the  charter  of  the  bank, 
nor  any  other  law  of  the  land,  prohibited  the  bank  from  selling  them.  If 
the  object  of  the  argument  of  the  majority  report  upon  this  charge  be,  to 
urge  that,  in  the  new  charter  which  may  be  granted  to  the  bank,  a  clause 
should  be  introduced  to  prohibit  the  bank  from  selling  the  certificates  of  the 
stock  of  authorized  loans  by  the  bank  to  the  Government,  it  is  obvious  that 
such  a  clause  would  be  precisely  equivalent  to  a  provision  that  the  bank 
should  never  loait  to  the  Government  at  all,  for  it  is  clear  that  Congress 
could  lay  no  other  competitor  with  the  bank  for  the  loan  under  the  same 
restriction;  nor  could  the  bai^ik,  under  such  a  restriction,  ever  enter  into 
competition  with  other  proposers  for  the  loan  not  so  restricted.  Among 
the  great  public  benefits  of  a  National  Bank,  with  a  capital  proportioned  to 
the  extent  of  its  operation^,  the  subscriber  considers  this  very  facility  fur- 
nished to  the  Government,  of  contracting  loans  upon  moderate  terms,  as  the 
exigencies  of  the  public  interest  may  require,  holds  a  conspicuous  rank.  He 
believes  those  very  loans  to  which  the  majority  report  refers,  to  be  signal 
examples  of  the  benefit  of  the  bank  to  the  nation.  He  is  well  assured,  that 
if  at  the  time  when  those  loans  were  contracted,  there  had  been  no  National 
Bank,  the  loans  must  have  been  made  upon  terms  much  more  burdensome 
to  the  borrowers,  while  the  public  treasury  would  have  lost  all  the  profit  of 
the  participation  in  the  loan  to  the  nation  as  stockholders  of  one  fifth  of  the 
capital  of  the  bank. 

The  fifth  and  sixth  subjects  of  charges,  considered  by  the  majority  report 
as  amounting  to  violations  of  the  charter,  come  within  the  purview  of  one 
and  the  same  principle.  They  consist  of  expenditures  made  by  authority 
of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  for  the  purpose  of  improving  and 
of  adding  value  to  the  real  estate,  of  which,  in  the  course  of  their  business, 
they  have  become  lawfully  possessed.  There  are  two  donations  of  1,500 
dollars  each  to  turnpike  road  companies — some  appropriations  for  canal  ba- 
sins— for  building  of  six  warehouses,  and  perhaps  some  other  houses.  There 
appears  to  be  in  the  principle  of  these  charges  something  of  an  instinctive 
aversion  to  internal  improvements — a  sentiment  with  which  the  subscriber 
must  disclaim  all  sympathy  whatevei;.  The  majority  report  presents  the 
donations  to  the  two  turnpike  road  companies  as  offences  highly  aggravated 
by  the  circumstance  that  the  General  Government  had  declined  maldng  ap- 
propriations for  si?nilar  objects;  which  declining^  for  similar  objects,  be- 
comes, in  the  very  next  sentence  of  the  report,  a  direct  refusal  of  ihe  Gov- 
ernment to  expend  its  revenues  on  the  veri/  same  objects. 

But  this  assertion,  in  either  of  its  forms,  is  liable  to  much  controversy, 
and  must  be  received  with  muclx  qualification.  It  is  admitted,  in  a  note  to 
the  report,  to  he  possible  that  the  improvements  were  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  real  estate  of  the  bank,  and  upon  the  ground  that  such  donations 
would  increase  the  value  of  that  real  estate;  and  this  possibility  the  majority 
would  have  found  to  be  positive  fact,  if  they  had  thought  proper  to  ask  for; 
an  explanation  of  it  before  passing  censure  upon  ttie  transaction^ 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  401 

The  assertion  is  therefore  altogether  gratuitous,  that  the  Government  had 
declined  to  make  appropriations  for  similar  objects.     The  Government  has 
made  many  and  very  large  appropriations  for  the  construction  of  roads, 
because  they  would  give  additional  value  to  the  public  lands  through  or 
near  which  the  road  was  to  pass.     It  was  the  main  argument  upon  which 
the  first  very  expensive  work  of  internal  improvement,  the  Cumberland 
road,  was  undertaken.     It  has  silenced  many  a  stubborn  objection,  satisfied 
many  a  timid  scruple,  subdued  many  a  constitutional  obstacle.     So  decisive 
has  been  its  effect,  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  single  instance  of  the 
refusal  of  Congress  to  make  an  appropriation  to  assist  in  the  construction  of 
a  road  \\^hen  it  has  been  made  apparent  to  Congress  that  it  would  raise  the 
value  of  the  public  lands.     If,  therefore,  the  proceedings  of  the  bank  were 
to  be  influenced  by  the  example  of  the  Government,  they  had  the  full  sana- 
tion of  their  authority  for  their  appropriations  for  these  turnpike  roads. 
Nor  is  it  just  to  consider  them  in  the  light  of  donations  or  gratuities,  waste* 
ful  of  the  property  of  the  stockholders.     For  such  expenditures,  the  board 
ofdirectors  at  Philadelphia  could  have  no  imaginable  motive  other  than  that  of 
promoting  the  interest  of  their  stockholders,  and  making  their  funds  more 
available.     With  regard  to  the  building  of   houses,  the   majority  report 
quotes  the  restriction  in  the  charter  upon  the  holding  of  real  estate  by  the 
bank.     The  corporation  is  permitted  to  hold  lands,  tenements,  and  heredita- 
ments, bona  fide  mortgaged  to  it  by  way  of  security,  or  conveyed  to  it  in 
satisfaction  of  debts  previously  contracted  in  the  course  of  its  dealings,  or 
purchased  at  sales  upon  judgments  obtained  for  such  debts.     It  is  not  al- 
leged that  the  bank  holds  one  acre  more  of  land  than  is  thus  allowed  by 
law.     But  the  majority  report  seems  to  consider  the  restriction  as  affecting 
not  only  the  quantity  of  lands  which  they  might  hold,  but  the  right  of  im- 
proving that  which   was  their  own — the  common  proprietary  right.     If 
there  had  been  any  manifestation  of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  corporation 
to  increase  the  quantity  of  their  lands,  tenements,  and  hereditaments,  per- 
manently held,  the  subscriber  would  have  been  among  the  first  to  censure 
their  design,  and  the  readiest  to  restrain  them  from  the  indulgence  of  such 
a  desire  by  law.     But  almost  all  these  lands  were  held  in  one  place — Cin- 
cinnati, in  the  State  of  Ohio.     They  had,  according  to  the  declaration  of 
the  president  of  the  bank,  come  into  their  possession  strongly  against  their 
own  inclinations.     He  stated,  and  it  appears  to  be  perfectly  natural,  that 
all  the  lands  which  came  into  their  hands  were  considered  by  them  as  in- 
cumbrances; that  their  design  was  to  dispose  of  them  as  speedily  as  they 
possibly  could;  that,  for  this  purpose,  they   had  erected  a  small  number  of 
houses  to  make  both  the  land  on  which  they  stood,  and  the  adjoining  lands, 
more  easily  and  more  freely  saleable.     The  buildings  were  also  erected, 
partly  by  contributions,  in  labor  and  materials,  by  debtors  to  the  bank,  who 
had  no  other  means  of  payment.     The  advantage  of  all  this  was  princi- 
pally to  the  stockholders  of  the  bank,  and  the  subscriber  believes  that  the 
solicitude  for  their  interests,  so  warmly  manifested  in  the  majority  report, 
when  denying  the  right  of  the  president  and  directors  to  spend  their  money 
in  donations  and  gratuities,  will  find  no  responsive  voice  amongst  the  stock- 
holders themselves.     It  was  indeed  the  unfortunate  condition  of  those  to 
whom  the   management  of  the  affairs  of  the  corporation  was  entrusted, 
that,  whatever  they  have  done,  must  be  made  a  subject  of  censure.     If  they 
increase  their  business  and  their  profits  by  branch  drafts  upon  the  bank»  ft 
is  a  heinous  offence,  because  Congress  had  neglected  to  give  a  power  to  sigii 

51  r 


402  [  Rep.  No.  460.  2 

the  bank  bills  to  any  other  officers  than  the  president  and  cashier.  If  they 
increase  the  value  of  their  real  estate,  by  contributing  to  a  turnpike  road, 
it  is  wasting  the  property  of  the  stockholders  in  gratuities  and  donations. 
If  they  enlarge  their  discounts  and  accommodations,  they  supply  tempta- 
tions to  over-trading,  and  bring  the  bank  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  If  they  con- 
tract their  issues,  they  produce  unheard  of  distress  in  the  trading  commu- 
nity. Do  they  trade  in  foreign  silver  and  domestic  gold  coins?  They  are 
accessary  to  the  pernicious  exportation  of  the  precious  metals.  Do  they 
substitute  bills  of  exchange  for  silver  dollars  in  the  exportation  to  China? 
Who  does  not  see  that  they  must  send  to  London  the  coin  which  formerly 
went  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope?  And,  besides,  the  transaction  looks 
very  like  respondentia  securities.  The  most  perfect  parallel  to  the  ma- 
jority report  known  to  the  subscriber,  is  the  lively  lady  in  "Much  Ado 
about  Nothing:'^ 

"  who  never  yet  saw  man, 
"How  wise,  how  noble,  young,  how  rarely  featur'd, 
"  But  she  would  spell  him  backward.^ 

Thus,  when  the  administration  of  Mr.  Cheves  can  be  exhibited  in  favor- 
able contrast  with  that  of  the  present  president,  it  is  presented  with  high  and 
earnest  commendation  :  but  when  a  charge  of  usury  can  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  bank  upon  the  credit  of  a  confession  implied  in  a  demurrer,  the 
occasion  to  stigmatize  the  bank  cannot  be  passed  over,  though  ten  long  years 
have  slumbered  over  the  sin,  and  though  Langdon  Cheves  himself  must  be 
branded  as  the  usurer. 

The  subscriber  will  no  longer  tax  the  time  and  patience  of  the  House,  by 
pursuing  into  their  microscopic  details  a  series  of  inculpations  and  crimina- 
tions, not  one  of  which,  in  his  deliberate  opinion,  has  a  shadow  of  reasona- 
ble foundation.  How  could  he  consider  otherwise  than  a  waste  of  time  a 
prying  scrutiny  into  the  q^uesliion- — who  of  the  stockholders  have  usually 
voted  at  the  election  of  the  directors?  Who  were  the  voters  present?  And 
who  held  the  proxies  of  the  absent?  When  it  is  notorious  that  in  this,  as  in 
all  similar  institutions,  whose  stockholders  have  confidence  in  their  presid- 
ing officer,  the  great  difficulty  is  to  prevail  upon  the  stockholders  to  attend 
and  vote  at  the  elections  at  all.  How  could  he  consider  as  a  grievance  to  be 
probed  to  the  quick,  and  reported  upon  to  the  House,  that  whereas  the  char- 
ter provides  that  there  shall  be  twenty-five  directors,  there  are  at  this  very 
hour  only  twenty-four,  because  the  stockholders,  at  their  annual  meeting,  did 
elect  Nicholas  Biddle  one  of  their  director's,  and  the  President  of  the  United 
States  did  nominate,  and,  by  and  with  the  advice  of  the  Senate,  did  appoint 
the  same  Nicholas  Biddle  one  of  the  five  directors  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 
ernment? Such  has,  for  several  years,  been  the  fact,  and  the  conclusion  na- 
turally and  justly  to  be  drawn  from  it  is,  that  Mr.  Biddle  has  enjoyed  the 
unquestioning  and  entire  confidence  both  of  the  Government  and  of  the  in- 
dividual stockholders.  The  reason  of  the  double  election  has  been  this: 
the  president  of  the  bank  is  elected  by  the  directors  on  the  first  Monday  of 
January,  and  none  but  a  director  is  eligible  to  the  office  of  president.  The 
nomination  of  Government  directors  sometimes  lingers  in  the  Senate  until 
after  the  first  Monday  of  January.  The  stockholders,  therefore,  elect  Mr. 
Biddle  as  one  of  their  directors,  that  he  may  with  certainty  be  re-eli^ible 
as  president.  When  the  nonairiation  of  Mr.  Biddle,  as  a  Government  ilir 
rector,  has  been  completed  in  time  to  be  known  to  the  stockholders  at  their 


I 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  403 

election,  they  have  not  chosen  him;  when  it  has  not,  he  has  been  appointed 
and  elected.  And  thus  there  are  only  twenty-four  instead  of  twenty-five 
directors.  In  all  former  years,  however,  Mr.  Biddie  has  declined  accept- 
ing the  appointment  as  a  Government  director,  and  his  place  has  been  sup- 
plied. So  that,  until  the  present  year,  the  board  of  directors  has  been  full. 
The  efifect  of  his  not  declining  the  appointment  from  Government  the  pre- 
sent year  is,  that  he  is  removable  from  office  at  the  pleasure  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States. 

Te-n  years  long  has  this  confidence  been  enjoyed  and  justified  by  that  dis- 
tinguished citizen  and  honorable  man.  No  question  had  ever  been  invidi- 
ously started  how  many  proxies  he  held?  The  more  he  held,  the  more  ex- 
tensive was  the  confidence  of  the  stockholders  in  him.  No  scruple  had 
ever  crossed  the  mind  of  any  President  of  the  United  States  to  deter  him 
from  nominating  him  year  after  year  as  a  Government  director.  Not  a  voice 
had  ever  been  raised  in  the  Senate  to  cause  their  hesitation  to  confirm  his 
appointiuent,  and  so  perfectly  in  harmony  with  this  confidence  has  been  that 
of  the  public,  that  not  a  rumor  has  ever  been  raised  of  a  prospect  or  even 
of  a  project  for  the  election  of  any  other  person  as  president  in  his  place. 
After  ten  years  of  fair  fame  thus  sustained  without  an  adverse  whisper  be- 
ing heard,  it  has  been  a  source  of  deep  mortification  to  the  subscriber  to 
see  the  character  and  feelings  of  such  a  citizen  treated  by  a  committee  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  as  if  he  had  been  an  inmate  fresh  issued  from 
a  penitentiary  to  preside  over  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  As  an  exem- 
plification of  this  fact,  it  might  be  sufficient  to  refer  to  the  tone  of  the  majo- 
rity report  from  beginning  to  end;  to  the  consciousness  of  authoritative 
power  which  pervades  all  its  pages,  unmingled  with  that  courtesy  which  ar- 
rays even  authority  itself  in  the  ornaments  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit — to 
the  continual  contestation  even  of  facts  stated  by  the  president  of  the  bank 
upon  oath — to  expressions  so  divested  of  all  semblance  of  delicac}''  as  these; 
that  "  the  bank  as  it  collects  the  revenue,  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  that  it 
will  be  called  upon  by  the  Government  to  reimburse  it."  The  subscriber 
forbears,  for  he  finds  it  difficult  to  express  his  sensations  without  using 
terms  obnoxious  to  the  same  criticism  which  he  is  compelled  to  apply  to  these. 

A  large  portion  of  the  same  report,  and  that  with  which  it  closes,  con- 
sists of  an  elaborate  argumentative  parallel  between  the  condition  of  the 
bank  in  1819,  when  it  is  stated  to  have  been  upon  the  verge  of  bankruptcy, 
and  its  present  condition.  Without  entering  into  the  particulars  of  this  dis. 
quisition,  the  subscriber  will  close  this  his  own  report  with  a  few  general 
remarks  concerning  it. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  he  observes  that  the  bank  cannot,  with  an}'  pro- 
priety, be  said  to  have  been  upon  the  verge  of  bankruptcy  in  1819.  it 
did  not  suspend  specie  payments  for  an  hour— it  had  met  with  heavy  loss- 
es— its  capital  had  not  been  punctually  paid  in,  conformably  to  its  charter. 
Imprudent  and  irregular,  if  not  fraudulent  speculations  in  its  stock  had  been 
allowed  and  shared  by  one  or  more  of  its  directors.  It  had  failed  in  the  in- 
discreet attempts  to  make  all  its  bills  payable  at  all  its  branches.  Had  a  se- 
vere pressure  come  upon  it,  a  short  interval  might  have  ensued,  during 
which  it  might  have  suspended  cash  payments,  and  that  would  greatly,  per- 
haps permanently,  have  effected  its  credit.  But  the  bank  was  never  near 
the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  The  majority  report  itself  states  that,  in  April, 
1819,  when  its  difficulties  were  the  greatest,  its  means  of  specie,  notes  of 
other  banks,  and  funded  debt,  amounted  to  upwards  of  ten  millions  of  dol 


404  t  I^^P-  No.  460.  ] 

lai's,  while  the  whole  demands  which  could  come  against  it  in  the  same 
month,  amounted  to  only  about  fourteen  millions.  There  is  nothing  like 
an  approach  to  bankruptcy  in  this.  But  the  pressure  on  the  bank  in  1819 
did  not  proceed  from  the  errors  or  imprudences  of  the  corporation  itself  on- 
ly. There  is  an  ebbing  and  flowing  of  the  tides  of  commerce  almost, 
though  irregularly,  periodical  throughout  the  world,  and  there  is  a  sort  of 
galvanic  sympathy  in  the  contractions  and  expansions  of  the  great  moneyed 
institutions  in  both  hemispheres.  The  restoration  of  specie  payments  by 
the  Bank  of  England  in  1817  and  1818,  undoubtedly  produced  an  immense 
pressure  upon  the  circulation,  and,  of  course,  upon  the  commerce  of  the 
world.  All  paper  circulation  beyond  the  amount  representing  the  precious 
metals  is  fictitious  capital,  or  rather  it  is  credit.  The  question  whether  the 
balance  of  moral  influence  upon  the  condition  of  men,  arising  from  cir- 
culating credit  and  banking,  be  a  blessing  or  a  curse,  is  a  speculation  for  the 
closet.  Money  has  long,  and,  upon  divine  authority,  been  pronounced  the 
<<  root  of  all  evil,"  and  paper  money  shares  in  its  full  proportion  the  char- 
acter of  its  prototype.  Power  for  good,  is  power  for  evil,  even  in  the  hands 
of  Omnipotence.  Had  there  been  in  1819,  no  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
the  pressure  must  have  been  incomparably  greater,  and  the  ruin  far  more 
widely  spread  than  it  was.  The  opinions  exhibited  in  this  portion  of  the 
majority  report  are  reproduced  in  the  interrogatories  of  the  member  of  the 
committee  to  the  president  of  the  bank  appended  to  it.  The  subscriber  will 
barely  refer  to  the  answers  by  the  president  of  the  bank,  which  render  ali 
further  discussion  of  them  surperfluous. 

But  if  it  were  true  that  the  condition  of  the  bank  in  1819,  was  upon  the 
verge  of  bankruptcy;  and  if  it  were  also  true  that  the  present  condition  of, 
the  bank  were  of  exact  resemblance  to  its  deplorable  state  at  that  time,  the 
discretion,  the  patriotism,  and  the  humanity  of  the  committee  could  scarcely 
have  sanctioned  the  disclosure  of  so  disastrous  a  secret  to  the  world.  The 
market  price  of  the  bank  stock  at  the  time  when  this  inquisition  into  the 
afi*airs  of  the  bank  was  instituted,  was  at  an  advance  of  at  least  25  per  cent, 
upon  its  nominal  value.  In  spite  of  ali  the  denunciation  against  it,  in  spite 
of  all  the  learned  arguments,  all  the  arithmetical  calculations,  all  the  statis- 
tical theorems,  corollaries,  and  demonstrations,  with  which  it  had  been  for 
years  assailed,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  the  price  current  of  bank  stock,  the 
thermometer  of  public  confidence,  was  still  at  25  per  cent,  advance  upon  the 
shares.  If  the  majority  of  the  committee  had  really  made  the  discovery  that 
the  afiairs  of  this  bank  were  in  such  a  desperate  state  from  the  extraordinary 
pressure  upon  the  money  market  and  the  depression  of  trade,  considering 
the  large  stake  which  the  nation  holds  in  the  stock  of  the  bank,  it  would 
have  been  but  prudent  forecast  in  the  majority  of  the  committee,  and  would 
have  manifested  a  tender  regard  for  the  public  interest,  to  have  reserved 
the  exposure  of  this  crisis  of  terror  and  dismay  until  it  should  have  explo- 
ded or  passed  away.  In  such  emergencies,  the  most  formidable  of  all  dan- 
gers to  banking  institutions  is  the  spreading  of  a  panic  among  its  creditors. 
The  issues  and  circulation  of  the  bank  paper  are  undoubtedly  large,  and  there 
has  been  for  some  months  a  severe  pressure,  though  not  a  universal  one,  on 
the  money  market.  The  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  became  aware 
of  this  pressure  on  its  first  approach,  and  took  measures  of  precaution  as 
early  as  October  last,  to  prepare  for  meeting  it,  and  breaking  its  force.  On 
the  7th  of  that  month,  a  circular  was  issued  to  the  cashiers  of  all  the  branches, 
noticing  the  pressure  which  was  to  be  expected,  particularly  upon  the  offices 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  405 

at  Philadelphia  and  New  York;  instructing  them  so  to  shape  their  business 
as  to  furnish  them,  so  far  as  might  be  practicable,  with  the  means  which 
were  likely  to  be  required.  At  that  time,  the  Government  had  given  notice 
of  a  payment  of  six  millions  of  funded  debt  to  be  paid  on  the  first  of  January 
then  next.  But  it  had  gone  further,  and  authorized  the  creditors  thus  to  be  paid 
oflf  in  January,  to  claim  their  payments  even  at  any  time  of  the  preceding 
quarter,  although  the  Government  had  in  deposite  scarcely  half  the  sum  re- 
quired  for  that  anticipated  payment.  The  bank  made  no  complaint,  but 
took  this  measure  of  precaution.  The  same  vigilant  and  restrictive  policy 
was  pursued  through  the  winter  and  spring,  except  when  mollified  by  the 
dispensations  of  Providence  in  the  overflowings  of  the  Ohio  at  Cincinnati 
and  at  Louisville. 

At  these  places,  the  credits  of  the  bank  had  been  very  large;  yet,  immedi- 
ately upon  being  informed  of  this  visitation  of  calamity,  every  facility  was 
again  extended,  by  direction  of  the  president  and  directors  at  Philadelphia, 
to  those  who  had  sufiered  by  the  floods.  Shortly  after,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  makes  a  confidential  intimation  of  a  wish  to  pay  ofi"  six  millions 
of  three  per  cent,  stocks  on  the  1st  of  July  next.  To  ease  the  pressure  up- 
on the  commerce  of  New  York,  and  to  save  the  bank  from  the  necessity  of 
curtailing  the  discounts  of  the  merchants'  debts  to  Government  for  duties, 
the  president  proceeds  to  Washington,  and,  in  a  conference  with  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  suggests  the  expediency  of  postponing,  until  the  first 
of  October,  the  payment  of  the  six  millions  of  three  per  cent,  stock.  The 
Secretary  accedes  to  the  arrangement,  the  bank  stipulating  to  pay  the  quar- 
ter's interest,  in  consideration  of  having,  during  the  interval,  the  use  of  the 
money;  and  this  adjustment,  so  advantageous  to  the  Government,  so  provi- 
dent of  the  interests  of  the  stockholders,  so  beneficent  to  the  debtors  both 
of  the  Government  and  of  the  bank,  and  so  facilitating  to  the  collection  of 
the  revenue  at  a  time  of  considerable  commercial  embarrassment,  is  seized 
upon  in  the  majority  report,  as  if  the  dearth  of  reasonable  cause  of  com- 
plaint had  bred  a  famine^  and  harped  upon,  as  if  it  had  been  the  convulsive 
gasp  of  the  bank  in  the  very  agonies  of  bankruptcy. 

Now,  all  this  has  led  the  mind  of  the  subscriber,  reflecting  upon  it  with 
all  the  anxious  intensity  of  which  it  is  capable,  to  a  directly  opposite  con- 
clusion. That  there  was  over-trading  to  considerable  extent  in  the  course 
of  the  last  two  years,  he  has  no  doubt.  That  the  issues  of  bank  credit  and 
circulation,  unusually  large,  partly  furnished  the  means  to  this  over-energy 
of  enterprise,  he  is  not  prepared  to  deny.  That,  in  the  earnest  and  proper 
anxiety  to  re-invest  in  productive  funds  the  mass  of  capital  thrown  back  up- . 
on  their  hands  by  the  payment  of  the  seven  millions  of  the  Government's 
debt  for  the  stock  of  the  nation  in  the  bank,  the  president  and  directors  may 
have  for  a  moment  overstepped  the  line  where  that  prudence  which  includes 
all  the  attributes  of  the  Divinity  might  have  stopped,  is  possible.  The  sub- 
scriber is  far  from  affirming  that  they  did.  If  they  did,  he  is  sure  that  it 
was  from  motives  pure  as  rectitude  itself,  and  from  infirmities  of  judgment 
incident  to  all  the  labors  of  man. 

The  president  of  the  bank  very  forcibly  stated  to  the  committee  the 
extremely  delicate  position  in  which  the  institution  stands  towards  the  com- 
mercial community  in  this  respect.  So  long  as  the  bank  keeps  within  the 
line  of  safe  operations  upon  its  own  funds,  it  leaves  those  of  commerce  to 
regulate  themselves.  It  neither  seeks  to  increase  nor  diminish  them. 
When,  from  whatever  cause,  thcfi'e  is  among  the  merchants  a  tendency  to 


406  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

over-trading,  it  is  not  the  province  of  the  bank,  directly,  to  interpose  against 
it;  for  that  would  be  to  exercise  an  invidious  and  improper  control  over 
business  with  which  it  has  but  a  remote  concern.  Its  geaeral  duty  is  to 
grant  facilities  while  it  has  disposable  funds  uninvested.  The  point  at 
which  it  ought  to  stay  its  hand  is  a  matter  of  difficulty  to  determine,  and 
upon  which  the  soundest  discretion  may  come  to  different  results  in  different 
men.  From  the  first  appearance  of  the  impending  pressure,  the  measures 
of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  appear  to  the  subscriber  to  have 
been  marked  with  great  judgment,  and  to  have  been  continued  and  modi- 
fied according  to  the  progress  of  events  with  equal  steadiness  of  purpose, 
and  benevolence  of  intention. 

But,  whether  the  corporation  issues  its  circulation  with  liberality,  or  cur^ 
tails  it  with  provident  caution,  it  equally  meets  the  censure  of  the  majority 
report.  After  quoting  two  passages  from  a  report  of  Mr.  Rush,  commend- 
ing the  bank  for  its  prudence  in  limiting  the  amount  of  its  circulation,  it 
gives  two  statements,  showing  that,  between  August,  182S,  and  the  first  of 
April  last,  the  circulation  had  been  augmented  to  what  it  calls  the  astonish- 
ing increase  of  upwards  of  ten  millions  in  less  than  four  years.  But  it 
omits  all  notice  of  two  facts  which,  if  duly  considered,  would  have  taken 
off  all  the  edge  of  astonishment  The  first  is,  that,  daring  that  same  interval, 
the  seven  millions  of  stock,  held  by  the  Government,  were  repaid.  The 
second,  that  upwards  of  three  millions  of  the  public  debt,  held  by  the  bank^ 
were  paid  off:  so  that  the  astonishing  increase  of  circulation  is  a  mere  re-in- 
vestment of  capital,  which  had  been  returned  upon  the  hands  of  the  bank, 
and  only  the  substitution  of  one  species  of  productive  property  for  another. 
And  scarcely  has  the  sentence  of  censure  been  expressed  in  the  report,  but 
it  turns  and  complains,  and  appeals  to  the  circular  addressed  to  the  branches, 
and  correspondence  with  them  since  October  last,  that  the  chief  object  of 
the  bank  has  been  barely  to  sustain  itself;  and  that,  since  that  time,  the 
bank  has  not  increased  its  facilities  to  the  trading  community  in  any  part 
of  the  Union. 

The  subscriber  believes  that  nothing  can  be  more  delusive  than  the  parallel 
drawn,  in  the  majority  report,  between  the  state  and  condition  of  the  bank 
In  1819,  and  in  1832;  but  that  report  has  subjected  itself  to  one  test  which 
is  already  disclosing  the  true  character  of  its  reasoning.  It  has  ventured 
upon  the  field  of  prophecy,  and  the  failure  of  its  predictions  is  ah*eady  bright-' 
ening  into  demonstration. 

In  the  anticipation  that  there  will  be  a  curtailment  of  discounts  for  several 
months  to  come,  the  foresight  of  the  majority  report  is  probably  correct. 
This,  of  course,  must  occasionally  happen  in  all  banking  establishments.  It 
is  incidental  to  all  the  unavoidable  fluctuations  of  trade,  and  is  believed  to 
be  at  this  time  indispensable,  not  only  to  the  bank,  but  to  the  whole  com- 
mercial community.  This  operation  has,  indeed,  been  quietly  proceeding 
in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  ever  since  the  circular  of  7th  October, 
1831;  which  the  majority  report  turns  to  so  large  account  for  its  purposes. 
It  has  been  in  progress  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  direction  of  the  bank  has 
been  reserving  and  husbanding,  and  prudently  applying,  the  means  to  the 
commercial  portion  of  our  fellow  citizens,  of  meeting  and  passing  through  this 
critical  emergency  with  as  little  detriment  to  the  public  and  to  individuals  as 
possible.  This  would  explain,  one  would  think,  very  satisfactorily,  the  fact  - 
stated  in  the  letter  of  the  president  of  the  bank  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury, of  the  29th  of  March  last,  that,  in  compliance  with  an  iiitimatioafrom 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  407 

the  collector  at  New  York,  an  extension  of  loans  had  been  promptly  acceded 
to  in  the  preseding  month  of  February,  to  assist  the  mercantile  debtors  of 
the  Government  in  the  punctual  payment  of  their  bonds;  without  needing 
an  argument  such  as  that  of  the  majority  report  against  this  plain  and  direct 
assertion  of  a  very  notorious  and  unquestionable  fact.  The  author  of  the 
report  finds,  by  reference  to  the  weekly  statements  of  the  office  at  New 
York,  from  July,  1831,  to  April,  1832,  no  aggregate  increase  of  loans;  but, 
on  the  contrar^^  a  reduction  of  the  amount.  He  finds  that  the  tot^l  amount 
of  discounts  at  the  New  York  branch,  between  the  4th  of  October,  1831, 
and  the  28th  of  March,  1832,  was  actually  diminished  $468,447  17,  while, 
during  the  same  time,  the  bonds  paid  at  that  port  amounted  to  between  nine 
and  ten  millions  of  dollars.  Can  it  be  imagined  that  he  discovers  in  his 
statement,  compared  with  that  in  the  letter  from  the  president  of  the  bank, 
to  which  he  refers,  not  an  unanswerable  demonstration  of  the  prudence  as 
well  as  of  the  liberality  with  which  the  afiairs  of  the  bank  have,  in  this  re- 
spect, been  conducted,  but  an  occasion  of  contesting,  by  unavoidable  impli- 
cation, the  veracity  of  the  president  of  the  bank; — and  this  in  a  report 
which,  upon  an  immediately  preceding  page,  charges  the  bank  with  "Me 
loss  of  Jive  millions  of  its  specie}' ' 

On  the  first  perusal  of  the  report,  the  subscriber  was  himself  greatly  at  a 
loss  to  know  what  was  meant  by  this  "  loss  of  five  millions  of  its  specie," 
of  which  he  was  very  sure  that  no  evidence  had  been  given  to  the  commit- 
tee ;  and  it  was  only  after  a  repeated  examination  of  the  paragraph  in  com- 
j>arison  with  another  part  of  the  report,  that  he  found  this  form  of  expres- 
sion was  only  an  ingenious  mode  of  accusing  the  bank  of  a  loss  qf  five  mil- 
lions of  specie  between  the  first  of  September  and  the  first  of  April,  be- 
cause there  was  nearly  that  amount  more  of  specie  in  the  funds  of  the  bank 
at  the  former  period  than  at  the  latter.  This  construction,  by  which  pay- 
ment of  debts  is  converted  into  loss  of  specie,  may  serve  as  a  consolation 
for  the  disappointment  arising  from  the  inability  to  convict  the  bank  of  any 
other  serious  loss  since  1819, 

With  regard  to  the  increase  of  the  number  of  the  branches,  to  the  precise 
manner  in  which  the  annual  election  of  directors  has  been  conducted,  to  the 
alarming  magnitude  of  the  sums  recently  paid  for  printing,  to  the  sums  paid 
to  the  solicitors  and  counsellors,  distinct  from  those  paid  to  attorneys,  to  the 
number  of  useful  documents  not  referrible  to  any  particular  head,  and  to  the 
many  statements  called  for,  which  the  business  of  the  bank  and  the  short- 
ness of  the  time  allowed  for  the  investigation  would  not  admit  to  be  fur- 
nished, the  subscriber  will  pass  over  all  these  subjects  as  they  are  passed 
over  by  the  majority  of  the  committee,  with  the  expression  of  his  satisfac- 
tion that  the  labors  of  the  committee  upon  them  were  abridged  by  the 
march  of  time,  and  of  his  hope  that  no  committee  of  Congress  will  ever 
again  be  called  to  an  investigation  ujjon  a  plan  of  such  interminable  outline. 
He  is  convinced,  that  to  fill  it  up,  according  to  the  comprehensiveness  of  its 
conception  and  the  multifarious  complication  of  its  details,  a  committee  ap- 
pointed at  this  time,  which  should  sit  the  year  round,  and  he  might  safely 
add  night  and  day,  would,  at  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  the  present 
bank,  be  left,  like  the  present  committee,  with  a  multitude  of  subjects  of 
complaint  which  they  would  be  *^  compelled  to  abandon  for  the  want  of 
time.'' 

With  regard  to  the  numerous  matters  of  vital  importance  in  the  re-organ- 
ization O'f  the  bank,  specie  payments,  domestic  and  f;:)reign  exchanges^  in- 


408  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

vestments  in  public  debt  by  the  bank  in  1824  and  1825,  and  its  ability  to 
make  loans  to  the  Government,  the  influence  of  the  operations  of  the  bank 
upon  trade,  on  the  increase  of  the  paper- circulation  of  the  bank,  its  agency 
in  diminishing  or  enlarging  the  circulation  of  local  banks,  and  the  means  of 
permanently  regulating  our  general  circulation  so  as  to  prevent  its  injurious 
effects  upon  the  trade  and  currency  of  the  country,  concerning  which  the 
committee,  or  rather  one  of  its  members,  submitted  a  number  of  inquiries 
to  the  president  of  the  bank:  a  copy  of  the  answers  of  the  president  of  the 
bank  to  these  inquiries  has  already  been  submitted  to  the  House.  It  is  hop- 
ed they  will  be  satisfactory  to  the  House,  and  that  they  will  contribute,  with 
other  considerations,  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
ought,  with  such  modifications  as  may  be  deemed  expedient  by  the  legisla- 
ture, to  be  immediately  re-chartered. 

The  subscriber  has  long  entertained  the  opinion  that  the  existence  of  a 
National  Bank  is  indissolubly  connected  with  the  continuance  of  our  Na- 
tional Union.  The  fiscal  operations  of  the  Government  in  all  its  branches, 
he  believes,  cannot,  without  the  aid  of  such  an  institution,  be  conducted,  he 
w^ill  not  say  well,  but  at  all.  He  does  not  say  that  the  present  Bank  of  the 
United  States  is  indispensable,  and  his  mind  has  sometimes  hesitated  upon 
the  question,  whether,  at  the  expiration  of  the  present  charter  of  the  bank, 
the  establishment  of  another,  though  similar  institution,  might iiot  be  more 
expedient  than  the  renewal  of  the  charter.  Inclining  rather  to  the  latter  of 
these  measures  before  the  institution  of  this  inquiry,  he  has  been  very 
strongly  confirmed  in  that  opinion  by  the  result  of  the  investigation  in  which 
he  has  shared. 

The  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  corporation  during  the  administra- 
tion of  the  present  president,  not  exempt  from  human  error  and  infirmity, 
has  yet  appeared  to  him  marked  with  all  the  characters  of  sound  judgment, 
of  liberal  spirit,  of  benevolent  feeling,  and  of  irreproachable  integrity,  A 
large  proportion  of  its  officers  in  subordinate  trust  are  of  the  Society  of 
Friends;  a  class  of  citizens  peculiarly  qualified  for  the  performance  of  duties, 
and  the  exercise  of  qualities  appropriate  to  the  successful  management  of 
moneyed  establishments — industry,  punctuality,  temperance,  and  a  conscien- 
tious discharge  of  all  moral  obligations. 

In  considering  the  numerous  and  important  public  seryices,  and  the  large 
contributions  of  the  present  bank  to  the  Government  and  people  of  the 
United  States,  he  thinks  the  least  return  which  they  are  justly  authorized  to 
expect  from  the  equity  of  the  nation,  is  the  renewal  of  their  charter.  The 
benefits  and  profits  of  the  bank  have  been  enjoyed  by  the  nation  far  beyond 
those  shared  by  the  individual  stockholders.  Besides  the  bonus  of  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  of  dollars  paid  to  the  public  Treasury  for  the  charter;  besides 
the  saving  of  the  expense  of  loan  offices  for  the  payment  of  the  public  debt, 
principal  and  interest;  besides  the  obligation  of  transferring  the  Government 
funds  to  and  from  every  part  of  the  Union  as  the  public  exigencies  require, 
the  nation  has  held  one-fifth  part  of  the  stock  from  the  commencement  of 
the  institution  to  this  time,  without  payment  of  one  dollar  to  its  capital,  until 
within  the  last  two  years.  It  has  received  the  dividends  in  common  with  the 
other  stockholders;  has  exercised  the  exclusive  right  of  appointing  one-fifth 
of  the  directors;  has  been  supplied  with  loans  whenever  the  occasions  of  the 
Government  have  needed  them,  upon  terms  more  advantageous  to  the  pub- 
lic than  could  have  been  secured  from  any  other  institution  or  company  of 
individuals:  while  the  bank,  by  its  salutary  control,  and  its  universally  ex- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  409 

tended  credit,  has  compelled  the  restoration  of  cash  payments,  and  f  irnish- 
ed  a  currency  equivalent,  in  substantial  value,  to  specie,  thfough»mt  the 
Union.  These  have  been  the  advantages  of  the  bank  to  the  nation,  while 
the  individual  stockholders  have  realized,  upon  their  invested  capitals, 
scarcely  more  than  a  yearly  interest  of  six  per  cent,  even  including  the  ad- 
vance of  the  stock  at  this  time  in  the  market.  This  circumstance  has  af- 
forded proof,  nothing  short  of  demonstration,  of  the  rashness  and  folly  of 
all  those  projects  for  the  establishment  of  a  new  bank,  which  have  been  pre- 
sented to  Congress,  with  a  lure  of  enormous  premiums  for  the  grant  of  a 
charter.  The  subscriber  has  no  doubt  that  the  destruction  of  such  an  estab- 
lishment would  be  speedy  and  inevitable,  either  by  the  absorption  of  all  its 
profits  to  pay  the  premium,  or,  by  forcing  its  direction  into  a  wild  and  reck- 
less extent  of  business,  ruinous  to  the  commerce  of  the  country,  not  less 
than  to  the  bank  itself. 

In  considering  the  expediency  of  renewing  the  charter,  the  subscriber 
discards  all  considerations  of  the  interests  or  wishes — not  only  of  the  Pre- 
sident and  directors  of  the  bank,  but  of  all  the  individual  stockholders  of  the 
corporation .  In  the  question  between  chartering  a  new  corporation  and  re- 
chartering  the  old  one,  if  the  interests  of  the  individual  adventurers  a-re  to 
be  considered  at  all,  like  opposite  quantities  in  algebra,  they  annul  each 
other.  It  is  the  public  interest  alone  that  can  determine  the  question,  and, 
in  that  view  alone,  the  subscriber  would  prefer  the  renewal  of  this  institu- 
tion to  the  establishment  of  another.  The  present  establishment  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  long  experience,  and  of  a  system  matured  by  the  acquired  know- 
ledge of  many  years,  and  by  the  correction  of  its  own  errors.  That  know- 
ledge has  been  purchased  at  no  inconsiderable  -cost,  and  a  set  of  new  un^ 
dertakers  would  most  probably  have  to  pass  through  a  similar  noviciate. 
The  result  of  his  examination  has  been  an  entire  conviction  that,  with  a 
view  to  the  public  interest  alone,  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  ought  forthwith  to  be  renewed. 

In  the  free  and  unreserved  animadversion  upon  the  course  of  proceedings 
pursued  in  this  investigation  by  the  majority  of  the  committee,  and  upon  the 
consequences  to  which  they  necessarily  led,  which  he  has  felt  it  his  duty  to 
indulge,  he  trusts  it  will  not  be  understood  as  his  intention  to  speak  in  cen- 
sure of  any  individual  member  of  the  committee.  He  imputes  no  injustice 
of  intention  to  any  one,  even  where  he  sees  it  most  flagrant  in  the  result  c^' 
measures.  If,  in  the  examination  of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  bank, 
a  penetrating  and  severe  scrutiny  into  the  official  conduct  of  the  president' 
and  directors  of  that  institution  was  within  the  scope  of  the  labors  of  the 
committee,  and  he  has  no  doubt  it  was,  he  was  equally  clear  in  the  convic- 
tion that  the  resolution  of  the  House  gave  them  no  right,  and  that  the  firist 
principle  of  national  justice  denied  them  the  right,  to  bring  before  themselves, 
for  censure  or  vindication,  the  persons  or  the  concerns  of  any  other  indivir 
dual.  The  majority  of  the  committee  thought  otherwise.  Editors  of  news- 
papers, printers,  attorneys,  counsellors,  solicitors,  brokers,  members  of  Con- 
gress, and  officers  of  Government,  they  thought  game  fairly  to  be  hunted 
down,  if  they  had  an  account  in  hank,  because  the  committee  were  autho- 
rized to  examine  the  books  and  the  proceedings  ol  the  corporation.  They 
thought  this  a  /f^era/ construction  of  their  powers.  Differing  from  them  in 
their  definition  of  liberality,  he  has  seen  no  cause  to  question  the  liberality 
of  disposition  of  any  one  of  them,  according  to  their  sense  of  the  term.  He 
does  all  possible  justice  to  their  intentions,  though  often  and  essentially  dis- 
52 


410      /  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

senting  from  their  reasoning  and  from  their  philology.  Liberality,  in  his 
vocabulary,  is  a  word  of  very  different  import,  and  as  unintelligible  to  them 
as  in  theirs  it  is  to  him.  From  this  remark,  he  deems  it  a  tribute  of  candor 
to  except  the  member  of  the  committee  who  constituted  the  majority,  and 
the  generosity  of  whose  nature  licensed  the  report  made  by  the  chairman  of 
the  committee  to  the  House.  That  same  generosity  of  his  nature  impelled 
him,  when  the  report  was  presented,  to  rise  in  his  place,  and  declare,  that, 
in  the  whole  course  of  this  investigation,  he  had  seen  in  the  conduct  of  the 
president  and  directors  of  the  bank  nothing  inconsistent  with  the  purest 
honor  and  integrity.  Had  that  same  candid  and  explicit  declaration,  due, 
as  the  subscriber  believes,  to  the  most  rigorous  justice,  been  made  by  the 
other  members  who  sanctioned  the  majority  report,  many  a  painful  remark 
in  the  paper  now  submitted,  perhaps  the  whole  paper  itself,  would  have  been 
suppressed.  But  to  vindicate  the  honor  of  injured  worth,  is,  in  his  opinion, 
among  the  first  of  moral  obligations;  and,  in  concluding  these  observations, 
he  would  say  to  every  individual  of  the  House,  and  to  every  fellow-citizen 
of  the  nation,  inquisitive  of  the  cause  of  any  over-anxious  sensibility  to  im- 
putations upon  the  good  name  of  other  men  which  they  may  here  find — 

"  When  truth  and  virtue  an  affront  endures, 

**The  offence  is  mine,  my  friend,  and  should  be  yours." 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 
I4th  May^  1832. 

I  concur  fully  in  all  tho  statements  made,  and-  principles  developed,  in  the 
above  report. 

'  J.  G.  WATMOUGH. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.*]  411 


DOCUMENTS 

ACCOMPANYING 

THE  REPORT  OF  MR.  ADAMS,  OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 
Relative  to  the  affairs  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 


INDEX. 

Doc.     1,  Journal  of  the  committee. 

Doc.    2,  No.     1.  Questions  of  Mr.  McDuffie  and  Mr.  Clayton,  respecting 
Mr.  Biddie's  visit  to  New  York  in  1825. 

2.  Answer  of  Mr.  Biddle  thereupon. 

3.  Copy  of  letter  of  Mr.  Biddle  to  Isaac  Lawrence,  cashier 

of  the  Bank  at  New  York,  22d  November,  1825. 

4.  Answer  of  Mr.  Lawrence  23d  of  November,  1825. 
Doc.    3,                 Resolution  requesting  copies  of  correspondence  between 

the  President  of  the  Bank,  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury, and  Isaac  Hill,  late  Second  Comptroller  of  the 
Treasury,  relating  to  the  President  of  the  Branch 
at  Portsmouth,  with  the  answer  thereto. 

1.  Correspondence  with  the  Secretary  of  Treasury  from 

July  11th,  1829,  to  October  9,  1829. 

2.  Copy  of  letter  from  Isaac  Hill,  to  J.   N.  Barker,  and 

John  Pemberton,  Esqs. ,  Washington,  July  17,  1829. 

3.  Petition  to  the  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 

signed  A.  H.  Bell  and  others,  27th  June,  1829; 
charging  mal-administration  upon  the  direction  of 
the  branch  at  Portsmouth,  N.  H. 

4.  Petition  to  the  Directors  of  the  Bank  United  States,  sign- 

ed Lyman  B.  Walker  and  others,  dated  29th  June, 
1829,  recommending  ten  persons  for  directors  of  the 
branch  at  Portsmouth,  N.  H. 

5.  Correspondence  of  Jeremiah   Mason,   President  of  the 

Branch  Bank  at  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  with  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the  War 
Department,  from  31st  July,  to  31st  August,  1829, 
relating  to  the  transfer  of  the  pension  agency  to 
Concord,  N.  H. 
Doc.  4,  No.  1.  Answer  to  question  respecting  establishment  of  agencies 
by  the  bank. 

2.  Extracts  from  the   minutes  of  the  board  of  directors 

from  19th  October,  to  21st  January,  1831,  relating 
to  the  agency  at  Macon,  Georgia. 

3.  Letter  of  N.  Biddle  to  the  Acting  Secretary  of  War,  15th 

July,  1831. 


412  '  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.    4,  No.    4.  Answer  from  J.  L.  Edwards,  Acting  Secretary  of  War, 
2Sth  July,  1831. 

5.  Reply  from  N.  Biddle  to  Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  War, 

10th  August,  1831. 

6.  Letter  from  Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  o^War,  to  N.  Biddle, 

1st  March,  1832. 
Doe.    5,  No.     1.  Statement  of  buildings  erected  or  enlarged  at  Cincinnati. 

2.  Opinions  of  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Binney. 

3.  Statement  of  president  of  the  bank  respecting  building 

houses. 

4.  Real  estate — Hotel  in  Cincinnati — Extracts  of  the  min- 

utes of  the  board  of  directors,  November  7,  1828. 

5.  Minutes  of  the  board  authorizing  warehouses  at  Cincin- 

nati, June  3,  1828. 

6.  Minutes  of  the  board  4th  January,  &c. — Real  estate  at 

Pittsburg. 

7.  Minutes  of  the  board  17th  March,  1826,         do. 

8.  Letter  from  agent  W.  Key  Bond  to  W.  M'llvaine,  cashier, 

20th  January,  1822. — Real  estate  at  Chillicothe. 

9.  Minutes  of  board  of  directors,   9th  March,   1832 — Real 

estate  Chillicothe. 
10.  Letter  from  W.  Key  Bond  to  W.   Mcllvaine,  Chillico- 
the, 25th  January,  1832,  and  proceedings  of  board 
of  directors  thereon. 

Doc.     6,  Question  respecting  proxies. — -Answer  thereto. 

Doc.    7,  Extracts  from  minutes,   9th  July,   1830. — Authority  to 

Committee  of  Exchange  to  loan  at  5  per  cent. 

Doc.     8,  Extracts  from  minutes,  17th  September,    1820. — Autho- 

rity to  same,  to  loan  at  4^  per  cent. 

Doc.     9,  Account  of  bills  receivable  in  bank. 

Doc.  10,  Statement  of  same  annual  profit  and  loss  account  from 

July,  1817,  to  January,  1832. 

Doc.  11,  Letter  from  Mr.  Biddle,  March  26,  1832,  to  Chairman  of 

committee,  with  statement  of  directors  of  parent 
bank  from  1817.  2d.  Tabular  statement  of  public 
money  in  bank  at  the  end  of  each  month,  for  each 
year,  since  1817.  3d.  Extent  of  the  late  orders 
for  curtailing  or  increasing  discounts — Answer 
marked  C.  4th.  Business  of  the  last  three  years, 
and  increase  of  branches — Answer  marked  D.  5th. 
Weekly  statement  of  the  affairs  of  the  bank  under 
the  15th  fundamental  article  since  Lst  January,  1832 — 
marked  E.  6th.  Importation  and  exportation  of 
specie,  marked  F.  7th.  Misconduct  of  President 
and  Cashier  of  the  Norfolk  branch — Answer,  refer- 
ence to  letters.  8th.  Difference  made  by  the  bank 
receiving  notes  from  the  Federal  Government  and 
from  citizens — Answer.  9th.  Average  per  cent, 
charged  for  receiving  bills  from  citizens — Answer. 
10th.  Cases  of  usury  at  the  branches — Answer  re- 
,  fers  to  statement  G.     11th.   Difference  at  the  bank 

^  between  members  of  Congress  and  other  citizens. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  418 

in  granting  loans  and  selling  bills  of  exchange — An- 
swer.    12th.  Disguised  loans  at  the  branches  with 
usurious  interest — Negative  answer.     13th.  Secret 
understanding  with  brokers  to  job  in  3  per  cent, 
stocks — Answer,  refers  to  letters  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  29th  September,  1831,  and  9th 
February,   1832.     14th.    Can   foreigners   or  their 
trustees  vote  for  directors? — Negative  answer.  15th. 
Bran(5h  drafts — Answer  referring  to  statement  H. 
[Note. — The  tabular  statements,  &c.  referred  to  in  the  above, 
are  to  be  found  with  the  documents  accompa- 
nying Mr.  Clayton's  report.] 
Doc.  12,  No.    1.  Letter  from  S.  D.  Ingham,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
17th  Sept.  1830. 

2.  Answer  of  N.  Biddle,  21st  Sept.  1830. 

3.  Reply  of  S.  D.  Ingham,  23d  Sept  1830,  respecting  price 

of  doubloons. 
Doc.   13,  Correspondence  with  the  cashiers  of  the  branches,  from 

26th  Oct.  1831,  to  March,  1832,  24  letters,  to  wit: 
1.  Extract  of  a  letter  from  N.  Biddle  to  W.  B.  Rochester, 
president  of  office,  Buffalo,  Oct  26,  1831. 

5.  Extract  of  a  letter  from  Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cashier,  to  W". 

W.  Frasier,  dated  Nov.  5,  1831. 

3.  Extract  of  a  letter  from  Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cashier,  to  S. 

Jaudon,  dated  Nov.  24,  1831. 

4.  Letter  from  Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cashier,  to  E.  Wentworth, 

cashier  office  Portsmouth,  dated  Dec.  3,  1831. 
*    5.  Extract  of   a  letter  from   Wm.   Mcllvaine,   cashier,   to 
Saml.  Jaudon,  cashier  office  New  Orleans. 

6.  Letter  frora  Wm.  Mcllvaine,  cashier,  to  P.  Bacot,  cashier 

office  Charleston,  dated  Jan.  19,  1832. 

7.  Letter  from  same  to  James  Hunter,    cashier  office  Sa- 

vannah, dated  Jan.  19th,  1832. 

8.  Letter  from  same  to  Joseph  Towler,  cashier  office  Lex- 

ington, dated  January  19th,  1832. 

9.  Letter  frora  same  to  J  as.  Robertson,  cashier  office  Rich- 

mond, dated  January  19,  1832. 

10.  Letter  from  same  to  P.   Benson,  cashier  office  Cincin- 

nati, dated  January  20,  1832. 

11.  Letter  from  same  to  Ed.  Shippen,  cashier  office  Louift- 

ville,  dated  January  20,  1832. 

12.  Letter  from  same  to  J.  Correy,  cashier  office  Pittsburg, 

dated  January  21,  1832. 

13.  Letter  from  same  to'L.  R.  Marshall,  cashier  office  Nat- 

chez, dated  January  21,  1832. 

14.  Letter  from  same    to  George  Poe,  jr.  cashier  office  Mo- 

bile, dated  January  21,  1832. 

15.  Letter  frora  same  to  J.  Sommerville,  cashier  office  Nash- 

ville, dated  January  21,  1832. 
,     ^     16.  Letter  from  same  to  Richd.  Smith,  cashier  office  Wash- 
ington, dated  January  23,  1832.     , 


414  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  '        , 

Doc.  13,  17.  Letter  from  same  to  Ed.  Shippen,  cashier  oflfice  Louis- 

ville, dated  Feb.  4,  1832. 

18.  Letter  from'same  to  L.  R.   Marshall,  cashier  oflBce  Nat- 

chez, dated  Feb.  4,  1832. 

19.  Letter  from  same  to  Peter  Benson,  cashier  office  Cincin- 

nati, dated  Feb.  4,  1832. 

20.  Letter  from  same  to  J.  Sommerville,  cashier  office  Nash- 

ville, dated  Feb.  4,  1832. 

21.  Letter  from  same  to  Geo.   Poe^  jr.  cashier  office  Mobile, 

dated  Feb.  4,  1832. 

22.  Letter  from  same  to  J.  P.  Burnham,  cashier  office  Hart- 

ford, dated  Feb.  4,  1832. 

23.  Letter  from  same  to  Ed.  Shippen,   cashier  office  Louis- 

ville, dated  March  3d,  1832. 

24.  Letter  from  same  to  P.  Benson,  cashier  office  Cincinnati, 

dated  March  Sd,  1832. 
Doc.  14,  No.  1  &  2.   Questions  respecting  the  payment  of  the  public  debt, 
1st  Oct.  1831,  and  1st  Jan.  1832,  and  answers. 
3.  Letter  from  N.  Biddle   to  Secretary  of  Treasury,  29th 
Sept.   1831. 
4.  Letter  from  Secretary  of^ Treasury,  to  N.  Biddle,  29th 
Sept.  1831. 
Doc.  15,  Nos.   1.  Question  for  copy  orcorrespondence,  or  statement,  re- 
&  2.  specting  suspension  of  three  per  cent,  on  1st  July 

next — Statement  refers  to  letter  from  Asbury  Dick- 
ens, Acting  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  24th  March, 
1832. 
Doc.  ,1 6,  Question — interest  of  the  bank  in  slaves,  with  the  an- 

swer. 
Doc.  17,  Question — difference  between  Federal  Government  and 

other  citizens,  wdth  the  answer. 
Doc.  18,  Question — difference  between  members  of  Congress  and 

other  citizens,  with  the  answer. 
Doc.  19,  Non-user  of  the  charter,  with  answer. 

Doc.  20,  Foreigners  voting  for  directors,  with  answer. 

Doc.  21,  1.  Question — interest  of  the  bank  in  pledges  of  State  bank 

&  2.  stock — Answer  by  statement,  April  4th,  1832. 

Doc.  22,  Receipt  of  branch  paper,  1828,  ^29,  30,  and  '31. 

Doc.  23,     1,  &  2.  Nett  calculation,  at  its  minimum  in  1823,  two  papers. 
Doc.  24,     1,  &  2.  Do.  1st  January,  1832,  two  papers. 

Doc.  25,  Profit  and  loss  at  each  office,   1st  January,   1828,  '29, 


'30,  '31,  and  '32. 


Doc.  26,  Public  moneys  deposited  in  bank  and  branches,  1st  Janu- 

ary, 1832. 

Doc.  27,  Investments  made  on  account  of  foreigners,  since  Janu- 

ary 1,  1831. 

Doc.  28,  Statement  of  fees  paid  to  counsel — Opinion  on  branch 

drafts. 

Doc.  29,  Statement  of  specie  y^Sirly,  from  1818  to  1832. 

Doc.  30,  Letter  from  N.  Biddle  to  A.  S.   Clayton,  18th  April, 

1832,  with  answers  to  Mj,  Cambreleng's  questions. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  415 

Doe.  31,    '  Letter  from  Mr.  Biddle  to  same,  23d  April,  with  further 

answers. 
Doc.  32,        ^  [Papers  withdrawn.] 

Doc.  33,    No.  1,  Letter  from  Nicholas  Biddle  to  C.  C.  Cambreleng,  en- 

2,  closing  answers  to  his  interrogatory  respecting  cer- 

3.  tain  bye-laws,  dated  25th  April,  1832. 
Doc.  34,                  [Papers  withdrawn.] 

Doc.  35,  Letter  from  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  N.  Biddle,  29th 

September,  1831 — Sales  of  the  three  per  cent,  stocks. 

Doc.  36,  Weekly  state  of  bank,  from  1st  January  to  5th  April,  1832. 

Doc.  37,  Examinations  of  Joseph  Cowperthwaite. 

Doc.  38,  Joshua  Lippincott. 

Doc.  39,  '  Samuel  Nicholas. 

Doc.  40,  William  Gulager. 

Doc.  41,  John  Bohlen. 

Doc.  42,  Abraham  Carlisle,  jr. 

Doc.  43,     1,2,3.  John  Burtis,  (three.) 

Doc.  44,  John  T.  Sullivan. 

Doc.  45,     1,2,3.  Charles  Lehman,  (three.) 

Doc.  46,  William  Rush,  jr. 

Doc.  47,  Thomas  P.  Cope. 

Doc.  48,  ,  John  R.  Neff. 

Doc.  49,  Mathew  L.  Bevan. 

Doc.  50,  Johii  Andrews. 

Doc.  51,  Letter  from  Richard  Smith,  cashier,  to  J.   Q.  Adams, 

9th  May,  1832.       ^ 

Doc.  52 f  1.  Letter  from  Richard  Smith,  cashier,  to  J.   Q.  Adams, 

dated  14th  May,  1832,  enclosing 

2.  A  statement  of  money  advanced  by  the  office   of  the 

Bank  U.  S.  at  Washington,  to  the  members  of  Con- 
gress, during  the  present  session,  on  account  of  their 
pay  and  mileage,  in  anticipation  of  the^appropriation. 

3.  A  statement  showing  the   amount  of  weekly  balances  to 

the  credit  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States — 
the  amount  advanced  to  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
in  anticipation  of  the  appropriation,  and  the  balance 
to  tbe  credit  of  the  Government,  after  deducting  the 
amounts  advanced. 


416  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


Doc.  No.  1. 
JOURNAL  OF  THE  COMMITTEE. 


TWENTY-SECOND  CONGRESS— FIRST  SESSION. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  14,  1830. 

''  Resolved,  That  a  select  committee  be  appointed  to  inspect  the  books,  and 
examine  into  the  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  to  report 
thereon,  and  to  report  whether  the  provisions  of  its  charter  have  been  vio- 
lated or  not;  that  the  said  committee  have  leave  to  meet  in  the  city  of  Phi- 
ladelphia, and  shall  make  their  final  report  on  or  before  the  twenty-first  day 
of  April  next;  that  they  shall  have  power  to  send  for  persons  and  papers, 
and  to  employ  the  requisite  clerks,  the  expense  of  which  shall  be  audited 
and  allowed  by  the  Committee  of  Accounts,  and  paid  out  of  the  contingent 
fund  of  the  House. 

Ordered,  That  Mr.  Clayton,  Mr.  Adams,  Mr.  McDuffie,  Mr.  Johnson, 
of  Kentucky,  Mr.  Cambreleng,  Mr.  Thomas,  of  Maryland,  and  Mr.  Wat- 
mough,  be  the  said  committee. 

[SEAL.]      Attest:  M.  ST.  CLAIR  CLARKE, 

Clerk  House  Reps,    U,  S. 


Capitol,  Washington,  Friday,  March  16,  1832. 

Pursuant  to  a  call  by  the  Chairman  of  the  committee,  appointed  under  the 
foregoing  resolution  to  examine  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  ol 
the  United  States,  the  following  members  attended:  Messrs.  Clay  ton,  Adams, 
Cambreleng,  McDuffie,  Johnson,  Thomas,  and  Watmough. 

The  committee  was  then  organized,  and  came  to  the  following  resolution: 
That  they  would  meet  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  on  Thursday,  the  22d 
instant,  to  proceed  to  the  duti*3S  assigned  ^them  by  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, in  their  resolution  passed  on  the  15th  instant,  in  relation  to  the 
said  bank. 

Adjourned  till  to-morrow  morning  at  ten  o'clock. 

Saturday,  March  17 — 10,  «^.  M, 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present  as  at  the  former 
meeting. 

The  committee  declined  appointing  any  clerk  until  their  arrival  in  Phila- 
delphia, having  agreed  to  commence  their  business  at  the  bank  in  that  place, 
where,  if  necessary,  such  appointment  can  be  made. 
Adjourned. 

Philadelphia,  Thursday,  March  22. 

The  committee  met:  present  as  at  the  last  meeting. 
The  Chairman  was  directed  to  enclose  a  copy  of  the  resolution,  authoriz- 
ing the  committee  to  investigate  the  proceedings  of  the  bankf  to  the  Presi- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  417 

dent  thereof,  and  to  request  him  to  assign  an  hour  of  the  next  day,  which 
would  suit  his  convenience  to  commence  the  business  of  their  mission. 

A  committee,  consisting  of  Messrs.   Camberlen^  and  Watmough,  was  ap- 
pointed to  select  some  fit  person  to  act  as  clerk  to  this  committee. 
Adjourned  to  Friday,  9  A.  M. 

Friday,  March  23. 

* 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  as  at  the  last  meet- 
ing. 

The  Chairman  reported  that  he  had  performed  the  duty  assigned  to  him 
at  he  last  meeting,  by  addressing  to  the  President  of  the  bank  the  follow- 
ing note,  enclosing  a  copy  of  the  resolution  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
of  the  14th  instant.  - 

Philadelphia,  if/arc^  22,,  1832. 

Sir:  The  enclosed  resolution  of  Congress  will  inform  you  of  the  reaso^ 
for  troubling  you  at  this  late  hour  with  this  note.  You  will  perceive  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  object  of  the  resolution,  the  committee  is  limited  as  to 
time,  and  having  had  a  meeting  since  their  arrival  this  afternoon,  they  have 
requested  me  to  state  to  you  that  they  are  anxious  to  commence  the  busi- 
ness of  their  mission  to-morrow,  if  it  will  suit  your  convenience.  And,  if  it 
will,  to  ask  the  favor  of  you  to  assign  such  hour  as  will  be  most  agreeable 
to  you. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be. 

Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

A.  S.. CLAYTON, 
Chairman 
N.  BiDDLE,  Esq. 

President  of  the  Bank  of  the   U.  S. 

To  which  he  received  the  following  answer: 

Bank  of  the  United  States^ 

Fkiladelphia,  March  22,  1832, 

Sir:  I  have  had  the  honor  of  receiving  your  note  of  this  evening,  ap 
prising  me  of  the  Vv^ish  of  the  Committee  of  Investigation  1x)  commence  their 
duties  to-morrow.  It  will  afford  me  great  pleasure  to  see  the  cornmittee  at 
any  time  in  the  course  of  the  morningf  and,  if  the  hour  of  ten  would  suit 
their  convenience,  I  shall  be  happy  to  receive  them  at  that  time. 
In  the  mean  while,  I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 
Hon.  A.  S.  Clayton, 

Chairman  of  the  Committee 

of  Investigation,  Philadelphia. 

Whereupon,  the  committee  repaired  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
and  received  from  the  President  a  succinct  history  of  the  bank  and  its  ope- 
rations, and  an  assurance'  that  he  would  render  every  facility  in  his  power 
to  aid  and  expedite  the  business  of  the  committee. 
53 


418  [  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

Mr.  Watmough,  from  the  committee  appointed  to  select  some  fit  and  pro- 
per person  to  act  as  clerk,  reported  that  they  had  chosen  Mr.  William  B. 
Reed,  who  was  thereupon  appointed  clerk  to  this  committee. 

The  committee  then  adjourned,  to  meet  in  their  room  at  the  United 
States'  Hotel,  at  5  o'clock  this  afternoon. 

Friday,  5  P.  M. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment;  present,  as  at  the  last  meet- 
ing. 

On  motion  by  Mr.  McDuffie, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the 
committee  with  the  tabular  statements  exhibited  to  them  in  the  morning, 
with  the  substance  of  the  explanatory  remarks  made  by  him  at  the  time,  and 
which  he  may  think  proper  to  communicate. 

Saturday,  March  24. 

The  committee  met  at  the  bank  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  as  at 
the  last  meeting. 

The  committee  required  of  the  President  of  the  bank  the  following  in- 
formation : 

1st.  A  tabular  statement  of  the  directors  of  the  parent  bank  from  1S17. 
2d.  A  tabular  statement  to  show  the  amount  of  public  moneys  (Treasurer 
and  public  officers,)  in  the  bank  at  the  end  of  each  month  for  each  year  since 
1817. 

3d.  The  extent  of  the  late  orders  for  curtailing  or  increasing  discounts. 
4th.  What  has  been  the  extent  of  its  business  for  the  last  three  years, 
compared  with  former  periods  of  the  same  time  in  any  other  preceding 
three  years.?  and,  under  this  head,  the  following  inquiries  to  be  made: 
1st.   Increase  of  issues. 
2d.   Increase  of  debts  since  that  time. 
3d.  Increase  of  branches  since  that  time. 
4th.  Number  of  branches  promised  or  favorably    answered, 

where  applied  for,  since  that  time. 
5th.  Banking  houses  built  since  that  time. 
5th.  A  weekly  statement  of  the  affairs  of  the  bank  under  the  head  of  the 
15th  fundamental  article  since  the  1st  of  January. 

6th.  The  importations  and  exportations  of  specie  during  the  last  year. 
7th.  The  misconduct  of  the  President  and  Cashier  of  the  Norfolk  branch, 
in  relation  to  overdrawing  in  favor  of  the  Navy  Agent,  and  purchasing  his 
checks  at  a  discount;  also,  an  improper  interference  at  elections  for  political 
purposes;  also,  charging  the  Government  a  premium  for  specie. 

8th.  Has  the  bank  made  any  difference  in  receiving  notes  from  the  Fed- 
eral Government  and  from  the  citizens  of  the  States;  and,  if  said  difference 
has  been  made,  state  to  what  extent,  and  upon  what  principle? 

9th.  In  answering  this  question,  state  what  is  the  average  per  cent,  charged 
for  receiving  bills  from  the  citizens  at  banks  where  they  are  not  payable; 
and'the  different  rates  at  different  places,  and  the  aggregate  profit  to  the  in- 
stitution from  this  branch  of  business. 

10th.  Have  any  cases  of  usury  in  the  transactions  of  the  branches  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  parent  bank?  St^e  fully. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  419 

1  Ith.  Has  there  been  any  difference  made  by  the  bank  or  its  branches  be- 
tween members  of  Congress  and  other  citizens  in  granting  loans  and  selling 
bills  of  exchange,  or  between  one  merchant  and  another? 

12th.  Have  any  cases  of  disguised  loans  on  domestic  bills  of  exchange 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  directors  of  the  parent  bank  in  which  the 
branches  have  received  usurious  interest? 

13th.  Has  the  bank  had  any  secret  understanding  with  brokers  to  job  ia 
stocks;  for  example,  to  buy  up  the  three  per  cent,  stock,  and  force  the  Go- 
vernment to  pay  for  it  at  par? 

14th.  Have  foreigners,  or  the  trustees  of  foreigners,  in  any  case  voted  for 
directors? 

15th.  The  President  was  then  requested  to  furnish  a  full  statement  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  bank  in  relation  to  the  issue  of  the  tranch  bank  orders, 
and  the  amount  issued  at  each  branch ,  the  manner  they  were  received  by 
each  branch,  and  if  they  are  re-issued  by  the  parent  bank  as  a  currency  af- 
ter being  paid  off  by  said  bank. 

A  motion  was  made  at  two  o'clock  to  adjourn  till  5  o'clock  this  after- 
noon, at  the  committee's  room,  at  the  United  States'  Hotel.  Whereupon, 
a  motion  was  made  to  take  the  yeas  and  nays  on  that  question: 

Those  who  voted  in  the  affirmative,  were 

Messrs.  Adams,  Cambreleng,  Johngon,  Thomas — 4. 

Those  who  voted  in  the  negative,  were 

Messrs.  McDuffie,  Watmough — 2. 

The  committee  then  adjourned  till  5  P.  M. 

SaturdaT;  5   p.  M. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  as  at  the  last  meet- 
ing. 

The  Chairman  submitted  copies  of  correspondence  between  the  President 
of  the  bank  and  Mr.  George  Mcintosh,  relative  to  the  administration  of 
the  branch  at  Norfolk. 

Mr.  Joseph  Cowperthwaite,  one  ot  the  officers  of  the  bank,  who  attend- 
ed at  the  request  of  the  committee,  submitted  the  correspondence  between 
the  President  of  the  bank  and  Mr.  Roberts,  the  Cashier  of  the  branch 
at  Norfolk,  accompanied  with  affidavits,  and  a  statement  of  facts  explana- 
tory of  the  same  transaction. 

Oh  motion  of  Mr.  Johnson,  adjourned  till  Monday  at  9  A.  M. 

Monday,  March  2Q. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  commit- 
tee. 

Mr.  Cambreleng  offered  the  following  resolutions,  which  were  read,  and 
agreed  to: 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  proceed  to  inspect  and  examine  the  books 
and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

Resolved,  That,  in  examining  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  no  person  shall  be  employed  to  aid  the  committee,  except 
such  as  may  be  designated  by  the  President  of  the  bank. 

Resolved,  That  the  examination  of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  shall  be  deemed  confidential,  except  such  ab 


420  *  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

strarts  or  statements  as  the  committee  may  think  proper  to  insert  in,  or  ap- 
pend to  their  report. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  furnished  with  a  copy  of 
these  resolutions. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Thomas,  the  following  resolution  was  agreed  to: 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  be  re- 
quested to  furnish  the  committee  with  a  copy  of  the  protest  recently  made 
by  the  Bank  of  Maryland  against  the  acts  and  proceedings  of  the  officers 
of  the  Branch  of  the  United  States'  Bank  at  Baltimore. 

The  committee  then  repaired  to  the  bank,  and  proceeded  to  examined  the 
books  and  proceedings  of  the  same. 

A  communication  was  received  from  the  President  of  the  bank,  contain- 
ing the  information  required  by  the  order  made  by  the  committee  on  the 
24th  instant.     See  appendix  No.  1. 

At  3  P.  M.  adjourned  till  to-morrow  at  9  A.  M.  ' 

»' 

Tuesday,  March  27 — U.  S.  Hotel. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  pres-ent,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

The  minutes  of  the  previous  sessions  of  the  committee  were  read  and 
approved. 

The  committee  then  proceeded  to  the  bank,  and  took  up  the  subject  of 
the  charges  relating  to  the  conduct  of  the  Cashier  of  the  branch  at  Norfolk, 
which  were  as  follows: 

1st.  That  the  Cashier  of  the  said  branch  suffered  Miles  King,  late  navy 
agent,  to  overdraw  ^40,144,  the  amount  of  his  funds  in  that  bank,  with- 
out the  knowledge  or  consent  of  the  board  of  directors. 

2d.  That,  in  permitting  this  overdrawing,  he  purchased  the  checks  of  the 
Navy  Agent  drawn  upon  the  bank,  and,  also,  accounts  against  the  Govern- 
ment, when  the  Government  had  no  funds  there,  and  paid  them  at  a  discount, 
not  at  a  certain  per  cent  as  is  usual,  but  of  a  certain  number  of  days'  interest, 
and  this  without  the  knowledge  of  the  bank,  and  for  his  own  private  emolu- 
ment. 

3d.  That  when  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  in- 
formed of  this  matter,  he  called  upon  the  Cashier  for  the  checks  thus  dis- 
counted, who  denied  ever  having  had  any  such  transactions. 

The  committee  then,  examined  the  papers  marked  in  appendix 
being  the  charges   and   evidences  in   support  of  them,   furnished  by  Mr. 
George  Mackintosh  to  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  in 
relation  to  the  conduct  of  the  Cashier  of  the  branch  at  Norfolk,  and,  also,  the 
papers  marked 
documents  produced  by  the  Cashier,  in  refutation  of  said  charges. 

The  following  form  of  the  oath  or  affirmation  to  be  administered  to  wit- 
nesses to  be  examined  before  the  committee,  was  agreed  on : 

**  You  do  solemnly  (swear  or  affirm)  that  you  will  true  answers  make  to 
such  questions  as  may  be  asked  you  touching  the  examination  of  the  books 
and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  (so  help  you  God.) 

Mr.  Joseph  Covvperthwaite,  the  second  Cashier  of  the  Bank  of  the  Unit- 
ed States,  attended  as  a  witness,  at  the  request  of  the  committee,  and  was 
affirmed  and  examined.     (See  appendix        ) 


J 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  421 

On  motion, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  and  Directors  of  the  Branch  Bank  at  Nor- 
folk be  requested  to  furnish  the  committee  with  a  list  of  the  Navy  Agent's 
accounts  from  the  1st  of  February  to  the  1st  of  May,  1828,  and  from  the 
18th  of  June  to  the  1st  of  September,  1829,  and  to  state  the  amount  of  dis- 
counts charged  on  his  checks,  and  to  whose  credit  the  same  was  applied; 
also,  a  list  of  all  the  public  accounts  purchased  by  the  Cashier  in  July,  Au- 
gust, September,  and  October,  1829,  and  afterwards  paid  by  Nash  Le  Grand, 
navy  agent,  and  the  discounts  charged  on  the  said  accounts. 

Resolved,  That  the  Chairman  be  directed  to  write  to  Mr.  Mcintosh  to  fur- 
nish the  evidence  which  was  returned  to  him  in  accordance  with  his  request 
made  to  the  Second  Cashier,  a  list  of  the  witnesses  by  whom  he  can  establish 
the  charges  preferred  against  the  Cashier  and  President  of  the  Branch  Bank 
at  Norfolk,  and  what  he  expects  to  prove  by  each  witness. 
On  motion  by  Mr.  McDuffie, 

Resolved,  That  the  report  made  to  the  board  of  directors  by  the  Committee 
on  the  Offices,  in  reference  to  the  charges  preferred  by  Mr.  Mcintosh,  be  co- 
pied and  appended  to  the  documents  before  the  committee. 
Adjourned. 

Webnesdav,  March  28,   1832. 

The  committee  met  at  the  bank  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the 
whole  committee. 

The  journal  of  yesterday  was  read  and  approved. 
On  motion  of  Mr-  Cambreleng, 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  proceed  to  examine  the  officers  and  books 
of  the  bank  relative  to  the  discounts  or  loans  made  by  said  bank  to  James 
Watson  Webb,  Mordecai  M.  Noah,  jlnd  Silas  E.  Burrows. 

Mr.  John  Burtis  was  then  called  as  a  witness,  and  sworn.  ,  (His  examina- 
tion marked         ) 

Mr.  Charles  Lehman  was  called  and  sworn.   (His  examination  marked 

Thursday,   March  29,^  1832. 

The  committee  met  at  the  bank  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the 
whole  committee. 

The  committee  continued  the  examination  of  the  subject  of  yesterday. 

The  following  witnesses  were  examined:  Messrs.  John  Burtis,  Charles 
Lehman,  Abraham  Carlisle,  jun.  William  Gulager,  Samuel  Nicholas,  Wil- 
liam Rush,  jun.  and  John  Bohlen,  whose  testimony,  in  the  order  in  which 
it  was  given,  is  marked 

The  report  of  the  committee  on  the  offices,  required  by  the  resolution  of 
the  27th  instant,  with  the  documents,  was  communicated.     (Marked  ) 

Adjourned  till  to-morrow  at  10  A.  M.  at  the  bank. 

Friday,  March  30,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  commit- 
tee. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Cambreleng, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the 
committee  with  a  statement,  in  detail,  of  the  purchases  and  sales  of  coin  and 
bullion,  at  home  and  abroad,  distinguishing  between  each  kind  of  coin,  ta- 


422  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

gether  with  the  expenses  attending  such  purchases  or  sales  from  its  com- 
mencement to  1st  January,  1832. 

Resolved^  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the 
committee  with  a  statement  of  the  nett  amount  of  notes  and  branch  drafts 
in  circulation  on  the  1st  January  last,  issued  from  each  of  the  offices  at  Bal- 
timore, Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  and  a  similar  statement  for 
each  of  the  other  offices  of  the  bank;  and  if,  from  such  statements,  it  should 
appear  that  the  issues  from  the  other  offices  have  greatly  exceeded  those 
from  the  offices  at  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  then  to 
state  the  reason  of  such  excess. 

The  CO  nmittee  then  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them 
yesterday,  and  examined  the  following  witnesses,  viz.  John  R.  Neff  and 
John  Andrews. 

Adjourned  till  to-morrow,  at  10  A.  M.,  at  the  bank. 

Saturday,  March  31,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
miltee. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  the  following  witnesses;,  viz.  Thomas  P.  Cope  and 
Matthew  L.  Bevan.  ^ 

Mr.  John  Burtis,  one  of  the  witnesses  examined  by  the  committee  on  the 
the  2Sth'and  29th  instants,  made  some  explanation  of  his  former  evidence, 
which  was  received,  and  appended  to  his  exammation,  marked 

Mr.  McDuffie  laid  before  the  committee  certain  letters  of  Walter  Bowne, 
M.  M.  Noah,  vFames  Watson  Webb,  and  others,  relative  to  the  two  loans, 
one  of  ^20,000,  in  August,  1831,  and  the  other  of  ^15,000,  in  December, 
1831,  made  by  the  bank  to  J.  W.  Webb. 

Mr.  Adams  called  for  the  production  of  a  letter  dated  19th  March,  1832, 
from  James  Watson  Webb  to  Mr.  Cambreleng,  read  by  the  latter  gentleman 
to  the  committee,  and  received  by  him  under  enclosure  to  the  President  of 
the  bank.     The  letter  was  then  produced,  and  marked 

The  following  resolution  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Cambreleng: 

Resolvedf  That  the  attendance  of  James  Watson  Webb  be  required  be- 
fore this  committee,  and  that  he  be  subpoenaed. 

Mr.  Adams  asked  for  the  yeas  and  nays,  which  were, 

Yeas — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Johnson,  Thomas,  Clayton — 4. 

Nays— Messrs.  Adams,  McDuffie,  Watmough — 3. 

So  it  was  adopted. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Cambreleng, 

Resolved,  That  the  attendance  of  Silas  E.  Burrows  be  required  before 
this  committee,  and  that  he  be  subpoenaed. 

Yeas — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Johnson,  Thomas,  Clayton — •\. 

Nays — Messrs.  Adams,  McDuffie,  Watmough — 3. 

MoNDAT,  ^jon7  2,  1332. 

Thecommittee  met  at  the  bank  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the 
whole  coramittee. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Clayton, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the  fol- 
lowing statements  for  the  us©  of  the  committee. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  423 

1st.  A  statemont  of  all  the  remittances  made  to  Europe,  since  1st  July, 
1831,  in  bills,  specie,  or  otherwise,  and  all  sums  placed  to  the  credit  of  the 
bank  by  their  bankers;  stating  from  what  sources  they  come. 

2d.  A  statement  showing  the  amount  to  the  credit  of  the  Treasury  at  each 
period  of  the  jjayments  of  the  public  debt,  made  by  it  since  January,  1823, 
and  the  balance  remaining  after  the  amount  of  such  payments  was  deducted. 

3d.   A  statement  giving  the  particulars  of  the  additions  to  the  <*  contingent 
fund,''  between  the  30th  August,  lS22j  and  the  1st  August,  1S31 ;  the  amount, 
at  the  former  period  being  ^3,743,899,  and  the  latter  ^5,613,193  15. 

4th.  A  statement  giving  the  particulars  of  the  amount  of  debts  "  consid- 
ered as  lost,"  the  amount  on  the  1st  August  being  ^3,452,976  16;  distin-.' 
guishing  those  contracted  prior  to  the  30th  August,  1822,  from  those  con- 
tracted subsequently,  with  the  amount  of  each. 

5th.  A  statement  of  all  the  bills  of  exchange  on  London  and  Paris,  fur- 
nished by  the  bank  to  go  circuitously;  stating  the  places  they  wire  condi- 
tioned by  the  purchasers  to  go  to,  and  the  amount  at  each  place;  the  amount 
in  each  year,  and  the  amount  now  out  and  unsettled  for. 

6th.  A  statement  of  all  the  specie  exported  by  the  bank  since  1819,  whe- 
ther in  coin  or  bullion;  the  description  and  amount  of  each,  and  to  what 
countries  exported:  also,  the  specie  imported  by  the  bank,  whether  in  coin 
or  bullion,  the  description  and  amount  of  each,  and  from  what  countries 
imported. 

7th.  A  statement  of  all  the  particulars  of  the  loans  **  on  other  stocks," 
transferred  from  the  item  of  *<  bills  discounted  on  personal  security,''  be- 
tween the  SOth  January  and  the  1st  March,  1832,  as  per  monthly  statement; 
stating  particularly  if  any,  and  what  description  of  those  stocks,  loans  have 
been  diminished  or  increased  since  1st  January,  1831,  and  the  maximum 
amount  of  each  within  that  period. 

8th.  A  statement  of  the  specie  on  hand  at  the  bank  between  1st  October, 
1825,  and  the  1st  April,  1826,  at  each  period  of  the  week  when  the  state- 
ment is  made  up;  also,  the  amount  due  to  or  from  the  State  banks  on  the  set- 
tlement for  each  of  those  days,  during  the  same  period. 

9th.  A  statement  of  the  whole  number  of  votes  given  at  each  annual  elec- 
tion since  1822;  what  portion  was  given  in  person,  and  what  by  proxy,  and, 
in  the  latter  case,  by  whom. 

10th.  A  statement  of  the  specie  drawn  from  each  of  the  southern  and 
western  offices,  since  1819,  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the  branch 
at  New  York;  also,  the  specie  sent  to  the  southern  and  western  offices. 

11th.  A  statement  of  the  branch  orders,  in  the  shape  of  bank  notes,  issued 
since  the  commencement  of  issuing  them;  the  amount  from  each  office,  the 
whole  amount  now  in  circulation,  and  the  amount  in  circulation  from  each 
office. 

12th.  A  statement  of  the  sums  paid  to  brokers  in  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia in  each  year,  from  1823  to  1831,  inclusive,  and  to  whom,  as  well 
for  account  of  the  agencies  of  the  bank  as  its  own. 

1 3th.  A  statement  of  the  sales  of  the  shares  of  the  stock  of  the  bank  for- 
feited to  it;  the  amount  the  whole  produced,  including  the  exchange  of  the 
day  upon  such  as  were  sold  in  Europe;  together  with  the  whole  amount  of 
shares  forfeited  and  sold. 

14th.  A  statement  of  the  amount  of  funded  debt  sold  by  the  bank  each 
year,  between  1824  and  1S31,  inclusive;  the  cost  of  the  same,  and  the 
amount  it  produced. 


424  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Cambreleng, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the 
committee  with  a  monthly  statement  of  the  amount  of  branch  bank  notes, 
and  drafts  of  other  branches,  which  have  been  redeemed  at  each  of  the  offices 
at  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  bank  to  the  present  time. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the  com- 
mittee with  a  statement,  in  detail,  of  the  donations  made  by  the  bank,  and 
their  dates,  for  roads,  or  for  any  other  purpose,  by  the  parent  bank  or  any 
of  its  branches,  from  its  commencement  to  the  present  time. 

Resolved,  That '  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the 
committee  with  a  monthly  statement  of  the  amount  of  loans  made  on  stocks 
pledged  as  collateral  security,  designating  the  description  of  stocks  pledged, 
from  the  commencement  of  the  bank  to  the  present  time. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the 
committee  with  copies  of  all  the  resolutions  of  the  board  of  directors  con- 
cerning the  public  debt  of  the  United  States,  and  copies  of  any  correspon- 
dence with  the  Treasury  upon  that  subject. 

The  committee  proceeded  to  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them 
yesterday,  and  examined  the  following  witnesses,  viz.  Thomas  P.  Cope,  and 
Nicholas  Biddle,  president  of  the  bank. 

Tuesday,  Jlpril  3,  1832. 

The  committee  met  at  tlie  bank  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the 
whole  committee. 

Mr.  Thomas  submitted  the  following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  be  requested  to  furnish  the  com- 
mittee with  the  following  papers: 

1st.  A  tabular  statement  showing  the  aggregate  amount  of  notes  discount- 
ed and  still  due  the  bank,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  non-residents  of  Philadel- 
phia. 

2d.  The  aggregate  amount  of  good  notes  offered  for  discount  and  rejected 
by  the  board,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  residents  of  Philadelphia,  on  the  fol- 
lowing days,  respectively:  9th  August,  16th  December,  1831,  2d  January, 
10th  February,  2d  and  14th  March,  1832,  24th  September,  and  15th  Octo- 
ber,  1S30. 

3d.  The  aggregate  amount  of  notes  discounted  on  personal  security,  and 
made  payable  more  than  six  months  after  date. 

4th.  The  aggregate  of  notes  now  due  the  bank,  discounted  for  a  firm,  or 
the  partners  of  a  firm,  without  the  name  of  some  person  not  belonging  to 
the  firm,  as  drawer  or  endorser;  distinguishing  in  each  of  the  above  state- 
ments, the  amount  loaned  to  members  of  Congress,  editors  of  newspapers, 
or  persons  holding  offices  under  the  General  Government. 

Mr.  Clayton  moved  an  amendment,  by  adding,  ^'  a  statement  of  tKe  loans 
made  by  the  bank  and  its  branches  to  members  of  Congress,  editors  of  news- 
papers, and  officers  of  the  General  Government,  and  the  terms  of  such 
loans." 

Mr.  Adams  moved  an  amendment,  by  adding,  <<and  the  names  and 
^mounts  of  payments  to  members  of  Congress  in  anticipation  of  their  pay  as 
members,  before  the  passage  of  the  general  appropriation  bill." 

Mr.  Thomas  moved  an  amendment,  by  adding,  **  and  the  amount  of  mo- 


•      C  Eep.  Na.  460.  ^  425 

ney  due  the  United  States,  and  on  deposite  in  the  bank,  after  deducting  there- 
from the  sum  thus  advanced  to  those  to  whom  the  United  States  are  indebt- 
ed." 

Mr.  Cambrcleng  moved  an  amendment,  by  adding,  «  and,  lastly,  a  state- 
ment, i«  detail,  of  the  amounts  paid  to  those  who  are  now,  or  have  been 
members  of  Congress,  or  officers  of  Government,  since  1^16,  for  services 
rendered  to  the  bank,  stating  the  nature  of  the  service." 

The  resolution,  as  amended,  was  adopted. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  the  following  witnesses:  Joshua  Lippincott  and  John 
T,  Sullivan. 

Wednesdat,  JiprilA,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  tlie  whole  com- 
mittee. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Cambreleng, 

Resolved f  That  the  committee  proceed  to  examine  the  President  and  Di- 
rectors of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  on  the  questions  of  loans,  exchanges, 
funded  debt,  banking,  specie,  and  paper  circulations,  and  on  the  general  effect 
of  the  operations  of  the  bank  and  its  branches  upon  the  trade,  industry,  cur- 
rency, foreign  and  domestic  exchanges,  and  revenue  of  the  United  States. 

The  committee  resumed  the  subject  before  them  yesterday,  and  examined 
James  Watson  Webb  as  a  witness. 

Thursday,  *^pril  5,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Clayton, 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  be  furnished  with  the  following  accounts, 
made  up  semi-annually,  prior  to  declaring  dividends  for  each  period  between 
the  1st  January,  1823,  and  the  1st  January,  1S32,  inclusive,  viz. 

1st.  The  statement  of  losses. 

2d.  The  general  profit  and  loss  account. 

3d.  The  amounts  of  interest  on  suspended  debt,  in  which  is  distinguished 
good,  doubtful,  and  bad. 

4th.  All  the  other  papers  made  up  at  the  bank  at  the  periods  of  declaring 
dividends,  with  a  copy  of  the  report  of  the  directors  of  the  1st  July,  1821, 
published  at  that  time  in  the  gazettes. 

Also,  a  statement  of  all  investments  made  by  the  bank,  as  agent  for  ac- 
count of  foreigners,  of  funds  received  by  it  for  funded  debt  paid  by  the 
Government;  and  stating,  particularly,  the  period  each  order  was  received  re- 
questing the  investment  to  be  made,  the  date  on  which  it  was  made,  the 
description  of  stock  purchased,  and  the  cost  of  the  same;  gmd  whether  bro- 
kerage was  paid,  and  the  rate  and  amount  in  each  case. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  continued  the  examination  of  J.  W.  Webb. 

Friday,  ^pril  6,  1S32. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

54 


426  [  Kep.  No.  4G0.  ] 

The  following  resolution,  submitted  by  Mr.  Adams,  was  laid  on  the  ta- 
ble till  Monday  next:  ' 

Resolved,  That  this  committee  will,  on  Monday,  the  9th  instant,  close 
their  examination  of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  corporation  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  then  adjourn  to  meet  on  Wednesday,  the  1  Ith 
instant,  at  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  concluded  the  examination  of  J.  W.  Webb. 
Oj:r  motion  of  Mr.  Clayton, 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  accounts  of 
Thomas  Biddle,  and  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  as  to  the  following  partici:lar.>.: 

1st  Whether  he  ever  obtained  money  from  the  bank  by  leaving  a  cer- 
tificate of  some  kind  of  stockjVhich  was  put  in  the  drawer  of  the  First  Tel- 
ler, and  called  cash;  whether  he  returned  the  money  without  paying  interest, 
and  received  back  his  certificate  of  stock,  and  to  what  amount  such  transac- 
tions were  allowed?     This  inquiry  relates  to  transactions  in  May,  1824. 

2d.  Whether  discounts  had  been  made  for  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.,  of  indi- 
vidual notes,  and  entered  bacly  upon  the  books,  say  added  to  the  discounts 
of  the  preceding  discount  day?  This  inquiry  also  relates  to  transactions  in 
May,  1824. 

3d.  Whether  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  have  received  interest  on  their  de- 
posites,  and,  if  he  has,  to  what  amount,  and  if  it  has  been  allowed  to  any  one 

4lh.  Whether  bills  of  exchange  offered  to  the  Exchange  Committee  for 
sale  by  T.  Biddle  &  Co.,  and  refused  by  them,  were  afterwards  purchased 
by  any  of  the  officers  of  the  bank  for  the  bank? 

The  following  witnesses  were  examined  on  this  subject:  Nicholas  Bid- 
dle, William  Mcllvaine,  John  Andrews,  Joseph  Cowperthwaite,  and  Tho- 
mas Cadwalader. 

Saturdat,  ^Spril  7,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
i?iittee. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  Thomas  Wilson. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Clayton, 

Resolved,  That  Reuben  M.  Whitney  and  Paul  Beck  be  subpoenaed. 

Monday,  *^pril  9,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  Reuben  M.  Whitney,  and  John  Andrews,  and  Nicho- 
las Biddle. 

After  the  examination  of  Reuben  M.  Whitney,  Mr.  Adams  moved  that 
the  following  minutes  should  be  entered  on  the  journals  of  the  2d  and  3d  of 
April,  being  the  renewal  of  a  motion  which  he  had  made  on  the  latter  of 
those  days,  which  had  been  postponed,  which  was  now  agreed  to. 

2dJ3pril,  1832. 

The  Chairman  having  proposed  that  a  subpoena  should  be  issued  to  Tho-j 
mas  WilsWn,  who  was  cashier  o'f  the  bask  in  die  ytfar  1824,  to  appear  fcte- 


•       [  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  427 

fore  the  committee  to  testify,  Mr.  Adams  desired  that  it  might  be  stated 
what  it  was  expected  Mr.  Wilson  would  prove. 

The  Chairman  declined  saying  more,  than  that  he -had  reason  to  believe 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  Wilson  was  material. 

Mr.  Adams  then  objected  to  the  issuing  of  the  subpoena. 

After  some  discussion,  the  Chairman  withdrew  the  motion  for  the  sub- 
poena, and  the  committee  adjourned. 

3d^priif  IS 32. 

The  Chairman  read  from  a  [)aper  statements,  which  Mr.  Adams  under- 
stood to  be  certain  charges  agaiVist  Nicholas  Biddle,  president  of  the  bank, 
which  the  Chairman  then  stated  contained  the  grounds  upon  which  he  mov- 
ed again  for  the  subpcena  to  Thomas  VVilson. 

Mr.  Adams  asked  for  the  name  of  the  person  from  whom  the  Chairman 
had  received  the  information  upon  which  these  suggested  charges  were 
made,  which  the  Chairman  declined  to  give. 

Mr.  Adams  moved  that  a  copy  of  the  charges,  as  read  by  the  Chairman, 
be  entered  on  the  journal  of  the  committee,  to  which  the  Chairman  objected; 
but  that  they  should  be  submitted  in  the  shape  of  resolutions,  which  was  ac- 
cordingly done.   (Seepage      ,) 

The  Chairman  moved  that  the  following  be  also  entered  upon  the  minutes, 
w^hich  was  agreed  to : 

"  Mr.  Clayton  wishes,  in  answer  to  a  question  asked  by  Mr.  Adamis  of  Mr. 
Whitney,  viz.  whether  he  had  ever  communicated  what  he  has  now  testified 
to  any  member  of  this  committee,  that  the  following  be  entered  upon  the  mi- 
nutes: That  Mr.  Whitney  did  communicate  to  me,  in  the  presence  of  Mr. 
Cambreleng,  in  my  parlor  at  the  United  States'  Hotel,  what  he  has  now  testi- 
fied to:  that  1  had  sought  of  him,  and  every  one  else  that  I  thought  could  give 
any  information  on  the  subject  of  the  misconduct  of  the  bank:  that  I  had 
been  recommended  to  Mr.  Whitney,  by  Col.  Benton,  as  a  person  who,  from 
having  been  an  active  director  of  the  bank,  could  give  me  as  much  informa- 
tion as  any  one  else:  that  I  took  a  memorandum  of  the  information  at  the  time^ 
and  predicated  thereon  certain  resolutions,  which  are  now  the  subject  of  in- 
quiry: that,  at  the  time  I  submitted  said  resolutions,  I  stated  I  could  producd 
the  witness,  to  be  examined  on  the  facts;  that,  accordingly,  he  has  been  pro- 
duced.  I  have  nothing  to  conceal,  and  will,  on  all  occasions,  which  1  have 
frequently  stated  in  the  committee,  seek  of  my  fellow-citizens  information, 
publicly  and  privately,  on  all  subjects  that  may  come  before  me  to  act  upon 
in  a  public  capacity." 

Mr.  Adamses  resolution  of  the  6th  instant,  by  his  eonsentlaid  oh  the  table, 
to  be  called  up  by  the  movw. 

Tuesday,  *^prii  10,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yds^ 
terday,  and  examined  Paul  Beck,  jr.,  Joseph  Cowperthwaite,  John  Burtis, 
and  Patterson. 


428  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Wednesdat,  y9prilUy  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  Thomas  Biddle,  Reuben  M.  Whitney,  John  Andrews, 
and  Joseph  Patterson. 

Thursday,  jJpril  12,  1832. 

The  committee  met:  present,  the  whole  committee. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Clayton, 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  be  furnished  with  the  monthly  statements 
for  the  month  of  March,  1832;  also,  the  same  for  each  month  from  Septem- 
ber 1,1818,  to  June  1,  1819. 

The  Chairman  read  a  letter  from  Mr.  M.  M.  Noah,  which  was  ordered  to 
be  appended. 

Mr.  Thomas  moved  the  following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  Chairman  of  this  committee  address  letters  to  Albert 
Gallatin,  president  of  the  National  Bank,  and  Isaac  Wright,  presidcntof  the 
City  Bank  of  New  York,  and  inquire  whether  they,  or  any  officer  or  director, 
recollect  that  James  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah,  or  either  of  them,  made 
application  to  either  of  those  banks  for  a  loan  subsequent  to  the  1st  April, 
1831;  and  if  yea,  why  such  application  was  refused,  and  request  the  said 
presidents  to  verify,  by  affidavit,  their  reply;  and,  also,  to  notify  Mr.  Webb 
and  Mr.  Noah  of  the  time  and  place  of  making  iheir  deposition. 

Mr.  Adams  moved  to  amend  the  resolution,  by  striking  out  all  after  the 
word  resolved,  and  inserting,  ^'  that  it  is  inexpedient  to  authorize  the  Chair- 
man of  this  committee  to  write  letters  to  the  presidents  of  the  National  and 
City  Banks  to  take  their  depositions  on  the  matters  referred  to  in  the  said 
resolution ;'' 

1st.  Because  this  committee  is  not  authorized  by  the  resolution  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  under  which  they  were  appointed,  to  issue  com- 
missionsfor  the  taking  of  depositions  by  any  other  persons. 
I  •2d.  Because  the  objects  of  inquiry  stated  in  the  resolution,  have  no  rela- 
tion to  the  examination  of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  Uni- 
ted States. 

3d.  Because  the  resolution  cannot  be  carried  into  execution,  without  a 
great  and  useless  expense. 

The  question  was  then  taken  on  adopting  the  amendment: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Adams,  McDuffie,  Watmough — 3. 

Nays — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Clayton,  Johnson,  Thomas — 4» 

The  question  was  then  taken  on  the  resolution: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Clayton,  Johnson,  Thomas — 4^ 

Nays — Messrs.  Adams,  McDuffie,  Watmough — 3. 

So  it  was  adopted. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  Joseph  Swift;  and,  at  the  request  of  the  President  of 
the  bank,  also  examined  Joseph  Parker  Norris  and  William  Fry. 

Fbiday,  .^jon/lS,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present^  the  whole  com- 
mittee'. 


'    [  Rep.  No.  460.  3  426 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  Joseph  Lippincott  and  Wilson  Hunt 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Clayton, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  bank  cause  to  be  furnished  a  copy  of 
the  resolution  passed  by  the  board  of  directors  on  13th  March  last,  on  the 
subject  of  empowering  the  Committee  of  Exchange  to  make  arrangements 
with  the  holders  of  the  three  per  cent,  stock,  as  to  the  redemption  of  the 
same. 

Resolved^  That  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a  copy  of  the  correspondence 
between  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  its  branches,  on  the  subject  of  is- 
suing the  branch  drafts. 

Mr.  Cambreleng  submitted  a  series  of  questions,  to  be  propounded  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States'  Bank,  on  the  subject  of  branch  notes  and 
drafts,  having,  at  previous  meetings  of  the  committee,  in  pursuance  of  the 
resolution  of  April  4,  submitted  to  that  officer  queries  under  the  following 
heads:  1st.  On  the  restoration  of  specie  payments  on  the  20th  February, 
1817,  and  the  agency  of  the  bank  in  accomplishing  that  object;  2d.  Domes- 
tic and  foreign  exchanges,  and  the  agency  of  the  bank  in  equalizing  ex- 
changes; 3d.  On  influence  of  operation  of  bank  on  trade  and  currency;  4th. 
On  the  investment  of  the  bank  in  public  debt  in  1824,  and  the  ability  of  the 
bank  to  make  loans  to  Government. 

Mr.  Adams  objected  to  these  queries  being  put  to  the  President  of  the 
Ixmk,  and  declared  his  intention  to  put  on  the  journal  his  specific  objections, 
and,  to-morrow,  to  take  the  sense  of  the  committee  upon  them. 

The  Chairman  communicated  to  the  committee  the  subpoena  which  was 
directed  to  be  issued  for  Silas  E.  Burrows,  with  the  return  of  the  Marshal  of 
New  York,  that  he  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  city  of  New  York;  also,  the  re- 
turn of  the  Sergeant-at-Arms,  that  he  was  not  to  be  found  in  Washington 
city.  The  Chairman  also  communicated  that  he  had  directed  the  Marshal 
of  the  district  of  Pennsylvania  to  keep  a  close  look  out  for  the  witness,  and 
to  notify  the  committee  of  his  arrival  in  this  city,  in  order  that  he  might  be 
brought  before  them;  that  the  Marshal  reported  to  the  Chairman,  which  he  is 
ready  to  verify  on  oath,  that  he  ascertained  that  Mr.  Burrows  had  arrived 
here  on  Thursday  evening,  the  5th  instant,  and  that  he  continued  diligent 
search  for  him  without  being  able  to  find  him. 

The  committee  proceeded  to  investigate  the  subject  of  two  discounts  re- 
cently made  for  the  honorable  Philander  Stevens,  and  examined  Nicholas 
Biddle  and  Joseph  Cowperthwaite, 

SATURDAr,  April  14,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

The  committee  resumed  the  investigation  of  the  subject  before  them  yes- 
terday, and  examined  John  Andrews. 

The  committee  also  received  some  explanatory  statements,  under  oath, 
from  R.  M.  Whitney,  which  it  was  agreed  to  record  as  part  of  his  evidence. 

Yeas — Messrs.  Adams,  Clayton,  Johnson,  Thomas — 4. 

Nays — Messrs*  Cambreleng,  McDuffie,  Watmough — 3. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Watmough, 

Resolved,  That  the  President  oi  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  be  request- 
ed to  furnish  the  committee  with  copies  %t  iht  ©orrwpondenee  between. 


430  C  Hep.  No.  460.  ] 

himself  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  Isaac  Hill,  late  Second  Comp- 
troller of  the  Treasury,  with  reference  to  charges  made  against  the  official 
conduct  of  Jeremiah  Mason,  president  of  the  United  Slates' Branch  Bank  in 
New  Hampshire. 

The  committee  then  proceeded  to  the  consideration  of  the  queries  to  be 
propounded  to  the  President  of  the  bank,  submitted  by  Mr.  Cambreleng. 

Mr.  Adams  submitted  the  following  objections  to  these  queries: 

On  the  presentation,  by  Mr.  Cambreleng;  of  forty-two  questions,  under 
the  title  of  examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on 
the  question  of  the  restoration  of  specie  payments  on  the  20th  February, 
1817,  and  the  agency  of  the  bank  in  accomplishing  that  object,  Mr:  Adams 
objected  to  these  questions  being  put  to  the  President  of  the  bank;  for  that, 

1st.  Almost  the  whole  of  those  questions  are  irrelevant  to  this  examina- 
tion, and,  although  some  portion  of  them  may  be  proper,  this  committee 
have  not  time  to  discuss  them  separately,  and  he  is,  therefore,  obliged  to  ob- 
ject to  them  all. 

2d.  That,  upon  many  of  those  questions,  the  testimony  of  the  President 
of  the  bank  is  not  the  best  testimony  to  the  points  contained  in  the  ques- 
tions, which  it  would  be  in  the  power  of  this  committee  to  obtain. 

3d.  That  many  of  the  questions  are  not  to  facts,  but  to  the  opinions  of  the 
President,  which  it  cannot  be  required  of  him  to  answer,  and  which  cannot 
be  answered  within  the  time  at  which  the  committee  is  required  to  report, 
nor  without  encroaching  upon  the  discharge  of  the  ordinary  duties  of  the 
President  of  the  bank. 

On  Mr.  Cambreleng  presenting  twenty-eight  questions,  under  the  title  of 
examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on  the  ques- 
tion of  domestic^  and  foreign  exchanges,  and  its  agency  in  equalizing  ex- 
changes, Mr.  Adams  made  the  same  objections  for  the  same  reasons,  and  for 
the  additional  reason  that  the  greatest  part  of  them  are  not  UfM>n  the  books 
and  proceedings  of  the  bank,  but  upon  what  the  bank  might,  would,  could, 
or  should  do,  on  supposed  circumstances. 

On  Mr.  Cambreleng  presenting  thirty-four  questions,  under  the  title  of 
examination  of  the  President  of  the  bank  on  the  increase  of  its  paper  circu- 
lation, its  agency  in  diminishing  or  enlarging  the  circulation  of  local  banks, 
and  the  means  of  permanently  regulating  the  general  circulation,  &c.  Mr. 
Adams  objected  to  them  for  all  the  foregoing  reasons. 

On  Mr.  Cambreleng  presenting  nine  questions,  entitled  an  examination 
of  the  President  of  the  bank  on  its  investment  in  public  debt  in  1824,  '5, 
and  the  ability  of  the  bank  to  make  loans  to  Government,  Mr.  Adams  ob- 
jected to  them  for  all  the  foregoing  reasons. 

Finally,  Mr.  Adams  objects  to  the  whole  of  these  several  sets  of  ques- 
tions, because  it  is  impossible  for  the  committee  to  acton  them  at  all,  if  they 
should  be  answered;  because  they  introduce  into  this  investigation  various 
and  extensive  topics  entirely  foreign  to  it,  and  having  a  tendency  merely 
to  produce  delay  upon  the  action  of  this  committee,  for  the  report  required 
by  the  resolution  of  the  House,  and  upon  the  action  of  the  House  itself  on 
the  subject  of  this  investigation. 

On  Mr.  Cambreleng  presenting  the  caption  of  certain  queries  hereafter 
to  be  submitted,  entitled  examination  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  on  the  paper  circulation  of  the  bank,  its  influence  upon  cur- 
rency and  trade,  and  the  means  of  permanently  diminishing  or  regulating 
it,  Mr.  A-dams  ohjeoted  i&  the  examination  of  the  President  of  the  bank  up* 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  431 

on  any  questions  not  submitted  to  the  committee  before  the  close  of  the  ex- 
amination by  the  committee. 

The  committee  then  agreed  to  adopt  the  sets  of  questions  submitted  by 
Mr.  Cambreleng: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Clayton,  Johnson,   McDuffie,  Thomas — 5, 

Nays — Messrs.  Adams,  Watmough — 2. 

The  following  resolution  was  submitted  by  Mr.  McDuffie: 

Resolved^  That  Mr.  Clayton,  Mr.  Adams,  Mr.  Cambreleng,  Mr.  John- 
son, Mr.  Thomas,  and  Mr.  Watmough,  or  a  majority  of  them,  be  appointed 
a  sub-committee,  with  authority  to  receive  the  statements  from  the  bank 
which  have  been  already  called  for  by  the  committee,  and  to  ask  any  ques- 
tions explanatory  of  such  statements;  and,  also,  with  authority  to  receive 
from  the  President  the  answers  he  may  make  to  the  questions  already  pro- 
pounded, or  which  may  be  propounded  to  him,  relative  to  the  currency, 
the  exchanges,  and  the  general  effect  of  the  operations  of  the  bank  upon 
these,  and  upon  the  commerce  of  the  country;  and  that  the  committee,  when 
it  adjourns  this  day,  do  adjourn  till  Friday,  the  20th  of  the  present  month, 
when  it  shall  meet  at  11  o'clock  at  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  in  the  room 
of  the  Committee  on  Commerce. 

Mr.  Adams  moved  to  amend  the  resolution,  by  striking  out  all  after  the 
w^ord  resolved,  and  inserting,  <*that  this  committee  do  now  close  their  ex- 
amination of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
and  do  now  adjourn,  to  meet  at  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 

The  question  was  then  taken  on  the  amendment: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Adams,  Watmough — 2. 

Nays — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Clayton,  Johnson,  McDuffie,  Thomas — 5. 

The  original  resolution  was  then  adopted. 

Capii^ol,  Washington,  Saturday,  April  21,  1832. 

The  committee  met  pursuant  to  adjournment:  present,  the  whole  com- 
mittee. 

The  Chairman  having  stated  that  it  had  not  been  in  his  power,  for  want  of 
time,  to  prepare  his  report,  leave  was  granted  him  to  ask  further  time  from 
the  House. 

On  motion,  the  committee  adjourned  until  Tuesday  morning  next,  at  10 
o'clock. 

Tuesday,  .4??n/ 24,  1832. 

The  committee  met:  present,  the  whole  committee. 
The  Chairman  again  stated  that  his  report  was  not  ready. 
On  motion,   the  committee  adjourned  to  meet  again  to-morrow,  at  10 
o'clock. 

Wednesday,  April  25,  1832. 

Committee  met:  present,  the  whole  committee. 

The  Chairman  commenced  reading  his  report,  which  was  discussed,  from 
time  to  time,  as  the  reading  progressed. 
Adjourned  until  to-morrow,  at  10  o'clock. 

Thursday,  April  26,  1832, 

Committee  met:  members  all  present. 

Further  progress  was  made  in  the  reading  and  discussion  of  the  report 

Adjo*urnWd  until  Id  mbrrbw,  10  o'clocfk. 


482  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Friday,  ^pril  21  ^  1832. 

Committee  met:  members  all  present 

Reading  and  discussion  continued  until  the  reading  was  gone  through. 

Adjourned  until  to-morrow,  10  o'clock. 

Saturday,  */Spril  28,  1832. 

Committee  met:  members  all  present. 

The  examination  and  discussion  of  the  report  being  renewed, 

Mr.  Adams  moved  to  strike  out  all  of  the  report  after  the  introductory 
paragraph,  and  insert  the  following: 

*'  The  time  within  which  the  committee  were  limited  by  the  resolution 
of  the  House  for  making  their  report,  having  been  absorbed  in  making  the 
examinations  of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the  bank  deemed  to  have  been 
authorized  by  the  resolution,  the  committee  have  not  been  able  to  examine 
the  documents  collected  by  their  direction,  still  less  to  consult  together,  or 
to  discuss  the  principles  of  any  reasonings  or  deductions  to  be  drawn  from 
them.  They  report,  therefore,  to  the  House  those  documents,  a  list  of 
which  is  hereto  annexed,  and  upon  which  they  leave  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
House  to  draw  their  own  conclusions.'' 

The  question  being  put  to  agree  to  this  proposition,  it  passed  in  the  ne- 
gative, as  follows: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Adams,  McDuffie,  Watmough — 3. 

Nai/s — Messrs.  Cambreleng,  Johnson,  Thomas,  Clayton — 4. 

Monday,  */9pril  30,  1832. 

Committee  met:  all  members  present. 

The  report  having  been  ordered  to  be  made,  Mr.  Watmough  offered  the 
following  resolutions: 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  committee,  formed  from  the  most 
searching  and  unrestricted  examination  of  the  books  and  proceedings  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  there  does  not  exist  the  slightest  ground  of  im- 
putation against  the  integrity  and  honor  of  the  President,  or  of  the  other  di- 
rectors of  that  institution. 

Resolved,  That  the  grave  and  infamous  charge  brought  against  the  Presi- 
dent by  Reuben  M.  Whitney,  touching  the  transactions  of  the  bank  with 
the  house  of  Thomas  Biddle  &  Co.  and  Charles  Biddle,  was  clearly  and 
conclusively  disproved:  that  there  does  not  exist  the  slightest  ground  for 
charging  the  President  with  having  shown,  or  manifested  a  disposition  to 
show,  any  partiality  to  those  individuals;  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  appears  to 
have  been  governed  by  strict  honor,  and  a  delicate  and  scrupulous  sense  of 
propriet}',  in  all  the  transactions  between  them  and  the  bank. 

And,  after  debate,  Mr.  Thomas  moved  to  amend  said  resolution,  by  sub- 
stituting therefor  the  following: 

That  it  is  inexpedient  for  the  committee  to  express  any  opinion  on  the 
motives  of  those  whose  transactions  with  tJbe  Bank  of  the  United  States  are 
disclosed  by  this  report,  nor  on  the  motives  of  the  officers  of  that  institution, 
but  esteem  it  most  just  to  all  parties  concerned,  to  leave  to  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  the  decision  on  all  the  matters  respectfully  submitted;  but 
it  is  due  to  the  officers  of  the  bank,  to  state  that  great  facility  was  rendered 
by  them  in  explaining  the  books,  and  assisting  the  researches  of  the  com- 
mittee. 


[  Rep.  No.  460*  }  4^3 

Mr.  Adams  moved  that  the  committee  adjourn,  which  was  decided  in  the 
negative,  as  follows: 

Yeas — Messrs   Adams,  McDuiFie,  Watmough — 3. 

Nays — Messrs.  Clayton,  Johnson,  Thomas,  Cambreleng— 4. 

The  question  was  then  taken  on  Mr.  Thomas'  amendment,  and  negatived, 
as  follows: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Clayton,  Thomas,  Cambreleng — 3. 

Nays — Messrs.  Adams,  McDuffie,  Johnson,  Watmough — 4. 

Mr.  Watmough's  resolution,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  McDufie,  was 
modified  to  read  as  follows: 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  committee,  the  charges  brought 
against  the  President  of  the  bank,  of  lending  money  to  Thomas  Biddle  & 
Co.  without  interest,  and  of  discounting  notes  for  that  house  and  for  Charles 
Biddle,  without  the  authority  of  the  directors,  are  without  foundation:  that 
there  does  not  exist  any  ground  for  charging  the  President  with  having 
shown,  or  manifested  a  disposition  to  show,  any  partiality  to  those  indi- 
viduals in  their  transactions  with  the  bank. 

As  thus  modified,  the  resolution  was  adopted  by  the  committee. 

And  thereupon  the  committee  adjourned,  sine  die. 


Doc.  No.  2. 

(No.  I.)  Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie. — ^'  You  have  stated  in  the  course 
df  your  evidence,  that  yoa  had  a  particular  object  in  raising  funds  in  Octo- 
ber, 1825.     Have  you  any  objection  to  state  the  nature  of  that  object? 

Addition  to  the  above  by  Mr.  Clayton. — State,  if  you  please,  particular- 
ly, the  object  of  your  visit  to  New  York  at  the  time  you  mention;  what  was 
the  precise  aid  you  sought  and  obtained  for  the  bank;  and  whether  you  sent 
a  special  agent  a  second  time  for  further  relief,  and  what  was  the  extent  of 
that  relief.'^ 

(No.  2.)  Jinswer. — I  can  have  no  objection,  whatever,  to  state  it,  except 
that  it  obliges  me  to  speak  of  myself  more  than  I  should  desire;  but  as  the 
circumstances  are  interesting  in  connection  with  the  moneyed  history  of  the 
country,  I  will,  as  the  committee  request,  detail  them. 

The  fall  of  1825  was  probably  the  most  disastrous  period  in  the  financial 
history  of  England.  It  was  then  that  the  wild  speculations  in  the  Ameri- 
can mines,  and  the  wilder  speculations  in  American  cotton,  recoiled  upon 
England,  and  spread  over  it  extensive  ruin.  In  the  midst  of  this  suffering,  it 
required  little  to  produce  a  panic,  and  accordingly  there  ensued  a  state  of 
dismay,  which,  for  a  time,  threatened  to  involve  all  interests  in  confusion. 
That  state  of  things  was  described  by  Mr.  Huskisson,  in  Parliament,  on  the 
10th  February,  1826,  when  he  said,  that,  in  the  middle  of  December,  there 
existed,  <*  for  two  or  three  days,  a  state  of  affairs  in  the  money  market,  which 
rendered  it  impossible  to  procure  money,  even  upon  the  most  unobjectiona- 
ble security.  He  appealed  to  every  gentleman  present,  connected  with  the 
city,  whether  it  was  not  a  fact,  that,  during  forty-eight  hours,  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  convert  into  money,  to  any  extent  at  least,  the  best  securities  of  the 
Government:'^  and,  again,  "if  the  difficulties  which  existed  in  the  money 
market  a  short  time  since  had  continued  for  only  forty-eight  hours  longer,  he 
5S 


484  [  Kep.  No.  460.  "J 

bejieved  that  the  effect  would  have  beea  to  put  a  stop  to  all  dealings  between 
man  and  man,  except  by  means  of  barter." 

Mr.  Thompson  declared,  "  that  every  body  acquainted  with  the  commer- 
cial business  of  this  great  metropolis  knew,  that,  within  the  last  week,  not 
one  man  in  tea  could  negotiate  upon  the  exchange  the  most  undeniable  bill 
he  had  to  offer  for  discount;"  that  prices  had  fallen  20  per  cent.,  and  that  pro- 
bably there  had  been  a  reduction  in  consequence  of  the  recent  shock  of  50 
per  cent,  in  the  currency  of  the  country. 

Mr.  T.  Wilson  spoke  of  himself,  not  as  a  party  man,  but  '^  as  a  represen- 
tative of  the  city  of  London,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  hearing,  day  after  day^ 
of  the  ruin  and  distress  in  which  so  many  of  our  merchants,  manufacturers, 
and  traders,  were  involved." 

Mr,  Peel  decribed  the  distresses  of  the  country  in  a  very  feeling  manner^ 
declaring,  *Hhat,  in  the  late  eventful  crisis,  there  were  75  failures  among  the 
bankers  of  the  country  and  the  metropolis,  and  that  it  would  not  be  too 
much  to  say  that  the  failures  were  four  times  as  many  as  the  bankruptcies.'* 

Mr.  Pearse  said,  that  it  was  notorious  that,  '*  at  the  present  moment,  mer- 
chants of  the  highest  respectability  were  in  a  state  of  great  embarrassment^ 
being  left  without  the  means  of  carrying  on  business." 

Finally,  Mr.  Senor,  the  professor  of  political  economy,  in  his  publicalioa 
in  1828,  describes  it  thus:  '<  It  was  under  these  circumstances  of  commercial 
distress,  that  accident  or  malice  occasioned  a  sudden  run  upon  a  considera- 
ble bank  in  the  west  of  England.  Then  followed  that  dreadful  week 
which  has  been  called  <^'the  panic,"  in  which  the  question,  evety  morning, 
was  not  who  has  fallen,  but  who  stands?  in  which  nearly  seventy  banks  sus- 
pended their  payments;  a  slate  of  things  which,  if  it  had  continued  only  for- 
ty-eight hours  longer,  would,  according  to  Mr,  Huskisson,  have  put  a  stop 
to  all  dealings  between  man  and  man,  except  by  barter;  in  which,  in  fact,  no- 
thing but  the  unexpected  arrival  of  about  200,000  sovereigns  from  France, 
the  discovery,  in  the  cellars  of  the  Bank  of  England,  of  800,000  one  pound 
notes,  long  before  condemned  to  be  burnt,  and  the  intervention  of  a  Sunday. 
prevented  the  manifest  failure  of  an  establishment  which  we  have  been  ac- 
customed to  consider  a  part  of  the  constitution.  Most  happily  the  Bank  of 
England  did  not  decidedly  stop  payment;  and  most  happily  its  notes  retain- 
ed their  currency;  and  happily,  also,  the  directors  had  the  courage  to  increase 
their  issues."  In  short  there  was,  probably,  at  no  period  of  English  history, 
?i0  intense  and  general  a  distress  as  there  was  in  December,  1825. 

Now,  the  very  same  storm  which  thus  broke  on  England,  passed  over 
this  country  a  few  weeks  before:  it  was  on  the  eve  of  producing  precisely 
the  same  results;  and  certainly  I  have  never  felt  any  uneasiness  about  the. 
banks  of  this  country  except  on  that  occasion.  Just  as  the  difficulties  were 
commencing,  the  Government  paid  off,  on  the  1st  of  October,  a  loan  ofsevea 
millions,  of  vi^hich  ^3,366,761  64  were  payable  in  Philadelphia.  The  pay- 
ment  of  this  sum  by  the  bank,  of  course,  diminished  its  means  for  active 
business,  and  brought  it  largely  in  debt  to  the  State  banks  both  in  New  York 
and  Philadelphia.  It  became,  therefiore,  an  object  of  extreme  solicitude  to 
prepare  for  the  relief  of  the  community,  and  to  provide  against  the  danger 
which  was  obviously  approaching. 

The  first  object  of  the  bank  was  to  relieve  itself  from  the  debt  which  the 
payment  of  the  seven  millions  threw  upon  it.  Accordingly,  it  began  by 
making  sales  of  its  funded  debt  and  bank  stock  at  New  York,  and  Boston, 
$nd  Philadelphia,  amounting,  in  the  month  of  October,  to  $51,828,210  19  in 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  485 

iunded  debt  alone,  and  by  husbanding  all  its  means  till  it  could  place  itself 
in  a  position  of  perfect  security.  The  effect  of  these  measures  will  be  seen 
in  the  following  sketch  of  the  debt  which  the  bank  owed  to  the  city  banks 
of  Philadelphia. 


Dr. 


Oct. 


1,    ^ 

-  39,000 

Oct.  17, 

-  480,000 

3,   - 

-  98,000 

18,   - 

-  437,000 

4,   - 

.  275,000 

19,   - 

-  425,000 

5,   - 

-  386,000 

20,   - 

'  368,000 

6,   - 

-  478,000 

21,   - 

-  292,000 

V,   - 

-  485,000 

22,   . 

-  280,000 

8,   - 

-  464,000 

24,   - 

-  272,000 

10,   - 

-  472,000 

25,    - 

-  257,000 

11,   - 

-  479,000 

2Q,        - 

-  305,000 

12,    - 

-  463,000 

27,   - 

-  280,000 

13,   - 

-  482,000 

28,    . 

-  220,000 

14,    - 

-  530,000 

29,    - 

-  127,000 

Cr. 

15,   - 

-  479,000 

Nov.  1, 

- 

-  83,000 

It  will  be  seen,  that,  by  the  first  of  November,  the  bank  had  been  extricat- 
ed from  debt,  and  continued  daily  to  strengthen  itself.  In  the  midst  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  community,  two  circumstances  contributed  to  increase 
them:  the  one  was  a  heavy  demand  for  specie  for  the  use  of  the  British  go- 
vernment in  Canada;  the  other  was  a  similar  demand  for  specie  to  pay  the 
instalments  of  the  new  bank,  then  recently  established  in  New  Orleans.  This 
want  was  to  be  supplied  before  any  ease  could  be  extended  to  the  com- 
munity, and  it  was  pressing  with  extreme  urgency.  The  effect  of  it  was  to 
rnspire  a  general  distrust  and  alarm,  and,  by  the  middle  of  November,  all  the 
indications,  which  it  was  impossible  to  mistake,  denoted  an  approaching  panic, 
which  would  have  been  fiital  to  the  country.  If  the  strength  and  wealth  of 
England  could  not  withstand  such  an  alarm,  its  effects  on  this  country  would 
have  been  incalculable.  That  moment  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  very  crisis 
of  the  country,  to  be  met  only  by  some  decided  and  resolute  step  to  rally 
the  confidence  of  the  community.  In  such  a  situation,  I  did  not  hesitate  on 
the  course  which  my  duty  prescribed.  I  went  immediately  to  New  York, 
where  I  sought  the  gentleman  who  was  preparing  to  draw  specie  from  the 
banks  of  Philadelphia,  in  order  to  send  it  to  New  Orleans,  and  gave  him 
drafts  on  thai  city.  These  drafts  were  not  given  to  protect  the  bank  itself, 
which  was  then  a  creditor  of  the  Philadelphia  banks  for  more  than  the  amount 
of  them,  but  they  were  employed  to  avert  from  these  city  banks  a  drain 
which  could  not  fail  to  embarrass  them.  I  then  endeavored  to  ascertain  the 
real  state  of  things  by  separating  the  danger  from  the  alarm,  and,  having  done 
so,  on  the  22d  November  the  letter  annexed  was  addressed  to  the  branch 
at  New  York,  suggesting  the  propriety  of  increasing  its  loans.  This  was 
adopted  by  an  increase,  the  next  day,  of  the  loans  of  the  branch  to  the 
amount  of  ;S50,000,  as  stated  in  the  annexed  letter  from  the  president  of 
the  branch. 

From  this  moment  confidence  revived,  and  the  danger  passed.  I  then 
thought,  and  still  think,  that  this  measure,  the  increase  of  the  loans  of  the 
bank,  in  the  face  of  an  approaching  panic,  could  alone  have  averted  the  same 
consequences,  which,  in  a  few  days  afterwards,  were  operating  with  such  fa- 
tal effect  upon  England,     t  have  never  doubted  that  the  delay  of  a  week 


486  [  Hep.  No.  460.   ] 

would  have  been  of  infinite  injury,  and  that  the  prompt  interposition  of  the 
bank  was  the  occasion  of  protecting  the  country  from  a  greai  calamity. 

I  have  only  to  add,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Clayton's  inquiry,  that  as  the  whole 
.operation  was  intended  to  give  relief,  not  to  seek  it,  no  assistance  of  any  kind 
was  asked  or  received,  from  any  quarter,  on  that  or  on  any  other  occasion 
during  the  operation. 

It  was  while  engaged  in  preparing  for  that  interposition,  while  we  were 
endeavoring  to  strengthen  the  bank,  so  as  to  enable  it  to  relieve  the  general 
distress,  that,  anxious  to  avoid  pressing  on  he  community  by  a  reduction  of 
our  loans,  and  finding  the  disposal  of  the  stocks  impeded  by  the  general  de- 
pression, I  told  the  gentleman,  who  was  charged  with  the  sales,  that  if  he 
couid  anticipate  them  by  placing  funds  immediately  at  the  service  of  the  bank, 
he  snould  be  allowed  interest  on  them,  and  this  sum  of  J§739  was  the  whole 
expense  of  the  measure.  In  the  state  of  the  country,  and  for  the  purposes 
which  it  was  destined  to  accomplish,  it  seemed  to  me,  as  it  still  seems  to  me, 
a  judicious  and  fortunate  one. 


(No.  3.) — Bank  of  the  United  States, 

November  22d,  1825. 

Sir:  The  present  state  of  the  bank,  and  particularly  of  your  oifice,  connect- 
ed with  the  great  moneyed  concerns  of  the  country,  has  engaged  our  anxious 
attention  for  some  time  with  a  view  to  ascertain  the  practicability  of  afford- 
ing some  relief  to  the  community  at  this  moment  of  pressure. 

Heretofore,  the  board  have  been  obliged,  by  their  first  duty,  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  safety'and  credit  of  the  institution,  at  all  times,  and  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, to  restrict  their  business  during  a  season  of  so  much  exposure. 

The  bank  had,  on  the  1st  October,  to  disburse,  on  account  of  the  Govern- 
ment,  a  sum  of  more  than  seven  millions  of  dollars;  an  amount  greater,  it  is 
believed,  than  has  ever  yet  been  claimed  at  any  onetime,  and  under  circum- 
stances which  rendered  it  more  invonvcnient  thanit  would  have  been  at  any 
other  period.  The  payment  took  place  at  a  season  when  the  revival  of  the 
general  business  of  the  country  required  additional  funds  tor  the  transaction 
of  it,  and  when  the  mercantile  misfortunes,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  occa- 
sioned the  want  of  new  means  to  repair  the  waste  of  so  much  property.  To 
these  was  added  a  demand  for  specie,  as  well  for  exportation  as  for  the  do- 
mestic uses  of  the  bai.ks  in  other  (quarters,  which  threatened  seriously  to  in- 
commode those  of  this  section  of  the  country.  The  combination  of  these 
causes  produced  a  pressure  on  the  bank  which  was  naturally  and  necessarily 
met  by  the  precaution  of  restraining,  in  a  small  degree,  its  loans,  and  by  the 
utmost  circumspection  in  the  distribution  of  them.  The  operation  of  some 
of  these  causes  is  now  passing  away;  the  payments  on  account  of  the  public 
debt  have  nearly  ceased,  or  are  so  far  completed  as  to  be  no  longer  inconve- 
nient; and  the  public  reven'ie,  although  we  cannot  calculate  on  any  large  de- 
posites  at  any  one  period,  will  probably  be  absorbed  in  gradual  disburse- 
ments. In  the  present  state  of  exchange,  there  is  no  temptation  to  ship  specie 
to  England;  and  the  large  floating  demand  for  the  north  and  the  south,  which 
has  been  for  some  weeks  hanging  over  the  banks,  may  be  considered  as 
nearly  satisfied;  so  that  the  country  will  probably  be  able,  during  the  winter, 
to  recruit  its  stock  of  specie.     The  pressure  is  no  longer  for  specie,  but  for 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  437 

bank  credits,  which  are  much  diminished  by  the  want  of  confidence  in  the 
solvency  of  the  borrowers,  and  in  part  by  a  mutual  distrust  on  the  part  of  the 
banks,  lest  one  should  invade  the  Specie  means  of  the  other. 

In  this  state  of  things,  it  becomes  a  matter  of  serious  and  anxious  conside- 
ration, whether,  as  the  immediate  causes  which  pressed  on  the  bank,  the  pay- 
ment of  the  public  debt,  and  the  demand  for  specie,  have,  in  a  great  degree  ceas- 
ed, it  would  be  necessary  for  the  office  to  remairv  any  longer  in  the  position 
forced  upon  it  by  circumstances,  or  whether  it  might  now  safely  venture  to 
set  the  example  of  a  more  free  use  of  its  credits.  This  is  a  very  delicate  and 
difficult  operation,  in  the  present  state  of  private  embarrassment  and  alarm. 
The  object  should  be  to  ease  the  community,  but  to  let  the  relief  reach  them 
through  channels  perfectly  secure  to  the  bank.  Any  extension  should,  there- 
fore, be  very  gentle  and  gradual,  and  confined  to  such  limits  as  not  to  incur 
any  risk,  and,  while  it  placed  the  state  institutions  at  their  ease  from  .in y  de- 
mand on  our  part,  should  yet  not  tempt  them  into  sudden  issues  or  enlarged 
loans,  which  are  sure  to  react  upon  the  community  they  profess  to  serve. 

The  subject  is  therefore  suggested  to  the  sound  judgment  of  the  gentlemen 
of  your  direction  If,  on  looking  into  all  their  relations  and  dependencies, 
they  think  that  a  gradual  and  limited  expansion  of  the  business  of  the  office, 
on  undoubted  security,  would  place  the  community  at  its  ease,  and  yet  pro- 
duce no  risk  to  the  institution,  such  a  measure  would  be  acceptable  to  the 
board.  It  is  believed  that  a  very  small  extension,  in  fact,  would  accomplish 
the  object,  by  restoring  confidence  in  the  public  and  in  the  State  institutions. 

The  question  is  thus  presented  with  perfect  reliance  on  the  discretion  of 
your  direction,  who  will  not,  we  are  persuaded,  adopt  any  measure  which 
may  bring  the  office  into  hazard,  but  who,  if  they  are  satisfied  of  its  propriety, 
will  accomplish  the  object  with  safety  to  the  office  and  advantage  to  the  com-* 
munity. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 
Isaac  Lawrence,  Esq- 

Pres't  Off.  Disc't  and  Dep'te,  New  York. 


(No.  4.)     Extract  of  a  letter  from  I.  Lawrence,  President  Office  New 
York,  to  N.  Biddle,  President  Bank  United  States,   23d  November y 

1825. 

<*  Your  favor  of  yesterday  is  received,  and  read  this  morning  to  our  board. 
After  attentively  considering  the  same,  they  concluded  to  extend  our  dis- 
counts about  $50,000  beyond  our  receipts.  .  The  city  banks,  I  presume, 
will  let  out,  and  endeavor  to  give  some  relief  to  the  community,  which  is 
very  important  at  this  time." 

<*P.  S.  The  balance  due  the  city  banks  is  about  100,000  dollars." 


Doc.  No.  3. 

CORRESPONDENCE   WITH  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  be  re- 
quested to  furnish  to  the  Committee  of  Investigation  copies  of  the  corres- 
pondejice  between  himself  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  Isaae 


438  [  Hep.  No.  460.  ] 

Hill,  late  Second  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury,  in  reference  to  charges  made 
against  the  official  conduct  of  Jeremiah  Mason,  President  of  the  United 
States'  Branch    Bank  in  New  Hampshire;  « 

The  correspondence  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  myself  is 
sent  herewith.  No  correspondence  took  place  betwen  Isaac  Hill,  Second 
Comptroller  of  the  Treasury,  and  myself  on  the  subject.  The  letter  from 
Mr.  Hill,  to  which  allusion  is  made  in  my  correspondence  with  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  was  addressed  to  J.  N.  Barker  and  John  Pemberton, 
esquires,  and  was  delivered  to  me  in  person  by  those  gentlemen.  A  copy 
0/  it  is  annexed. 


^CONFIDENTIAL.] 

(No.  1.) — Treasury  Department, 

July  11,  1829. 

Sir:  I  herewith  transmit  a  copy  of  a  confidential  letter  received  from  the 
Hdn.  Levi  Woodbury,  Senator  of  the  United  States  from  New  Hampshire, 
containing  a  complaint  against  the  president  of  the  Branch  Bank  of  the 
United  States  at  Portsmouth.  Complaints  of  a  similar  nature  have  also 
been  suggested  from  other  places, particularly  Kentucky  and  Louisiana.  These, 
when  presented  in  a  more  distinct  form,  will  also  be  communicated  to  you. 

The  character  of  Mr.  Woodbury  justifies  the  belief  that  he  would  not 
make  such  a  charge  upon  slight  or  insufficient  grounds:  and,  frOm  some  ex- 
pressions  in  his  letter,  it  may  be  inferred  that  it  is  partly  founded  on  a  sup- 
posed application  of  the  influence  of  the  bank,  with  a  view  to  political  efiect. 
But,  in  whatever  aspect  it  may  be  regarded,  I  would  invite  the  serious  at- 
tention of  your  board  to  the  alleged  evil,  and  if  it  should  be  found  to  exist, 
I  cannot  doubt  that  you  will  apply  an  efficient  remedy. 

You  cannot  be  insensible,  that  the  power  possessed  by  extensive  moneyed 
institutions  to  distribute  favors  or  inflict  injuries,  almost  with  an  unseen  and 
irresponsible  hand,  that  may  elevate  to  wealth,  or  sink  to  poverty,  whomso- 
ever they  may  desire  thus  to  distinguish,  must  ever  be  an  object  of  serious 
and  deserved  jealousy;  for  it  is  in  vain  that  fundamental  laws  are  establish- 
ed for  the  security  of  property,  if  the  artificial  institutions  created  to  facili- 
tate its  acquisition,  shall  be  permitted  to  disturb  its  just  relations  by  exerting 
their  power  in  subservience  to  the  passions  or  prejudices  of  local  or  party 
strife.  And  hence,  the  very  high  obligation  of  those  who  are  charged  with 
administering  the  concerns  of  such  an  institution  as  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  to  introduce  into  the  arrangement  of  its  officers  such  checks  and  coun- 
terbalances as  may  be  necessary  to  maintain  a  just  equilibrium  in  its  move- 
ments. 

The  basis  of  credit  are  to  be  found  in  integrity,  industry,  economy,  skill, 
and  capital;  and  that  unity  of  action  which  may  be  necessary  to  give  effi- 
ciency and  preserve  harmony  in  the  operations  of  a  bank,  is  essentially  se- 
cured by  regarding  these  considerations  alone  as  constituting  the  proper 
claim  to  the  benefit  of  its  credit. 

I  cannot  doubt  that  these  views  are  in  harmony  with  those  entertained  by 
you  and  the  other  gentlemen  who  are  associated  in  the  direction  of  the  bank. 
Nevertheless,  I  feel  it  due  to  the  relations  which  exist  between  this  depart- 
ment and  that  institution,  to  present  them  on  this  occasion  to  your  notice. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  489 

1  will  not  suppose  that  you  would,  under  any  influence,  intentionally  permit 
the  power  of  the  bank  to  be  made  an  instrument  for  the  accomplishment 
of  other  objects  than  those  for  which  it  may  be  legitimately  exercised.  But, 
in  a  matter  of  so  much  delicacy,  I  wish  to  place  the  views  of  the  department 
beyond  the  reach  of  misapprehension. 

Allow  me,  therefore,  to  assure  you,  that  those  charged  with  the  adminis- 
tration  of  the  Government,  relying  for  support  only  on  the  intelligence 
which  shall  discern  and  justly  appreciate  the  character  of  their  acts,  disclaim 
all  desire  to  derive  political  aid  through  the  operations  of  the  bank.  And 
though,  under  other  circumstances  than  those  which  exist  at  present,  such 
an  avowal  would  he  unnecessary,  I  find  myself  called  upon  explicitly  to 
state  that  they  would  learn  with  not  less  regret,  than  that  which  has  prompt- 
ed this  communication,  that  any  supposed  political  relationship,  either  favor- 
able or  adverse  towards  them,  had  operated  with  the  bank  or  any  of  its 
branches,  either  in  granting  or  withholding  pecuniary  facilities,  which,  apart 
from  that  consideration,  would  have  been  diflferently  dispensed. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  the  officers  of  a  bank  must  be  considered  the  best 
judges  of  the  claims  of  applicants  for  its  benefits,  and  that  their  motives  for 
refusing  them  are  very  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  At  the  same  time,  it  is 
easy  to  practice  the  abuse  now  presented,  to  a  considerable  extent,  under  very 
colorable  pretexts.  It  is  difficult,  therefore,  to  ascertain  the  fact,  or  scan  the 
motive,  and,  perhaps,  the  only  safe  guide  to  test  the  justice  of  such  com- 
plaints, is  the  public  opinion  of  the  vicinity  from  which  they  emanate. 

Having  discharged  the  unpleasant  duty  of  presenting  this  important  sub- 
ject distinctly  before  you ,  together  with  the  views  of  the  administration  in  re- 
lation to  it,  I  take  the  occasion  to  express  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  Treasury 
Department  at  the  manner  in  which  the  president  and  directors  of  the  parent 
bank  have  discharged  their  trusts  in  all  their  immediate  relations  to  the  Go- 
vernment, so  far  as  their  transactions  have  come  under  my  notice,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  facilities  affijrded  in  transferring  the  funds  of  the  Governmentj 
^nd  in  the  preparation  for  the  heavy  payment  of  the  public  debt  on  the  1st 
instant,  which  has  been  effiscted  by  means  of  the  prudent  arrangement  of 
your  board,  at  a  time  of  severe  depression  on  all  the  productive  employ- 
ments of  the  country,  without  causing  any  sensible  addition  to  the  pressure, 
or  even  visible  effect,  upon  the  ordinary  operations  of  the  State  banks. 

I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM, 
Sen^etary  of  the  Treosury.. 
Nicholas  Biddle,  Esq. 

President  Bank  U.  States,  Philadelphia, 


[confidential.] 

Portsmouth,  N.  H. 
(Enclosure.)  21th  June,  1829. 

Dear  Sir;  Your  situation  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department,  and 
the  deep  interest  which  the  United  States  possess  in  the  concerns  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  must  be  my  apology  for  this  intrusion. 

The  presideat  of  she  branch  at  this  place  was  changed  last  year,  and  fhfe 


440  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

salary  greatly  increased;  both  which  measures  have  given  much  dissatisfac-^ 
tion,  as  well  to  the  public,  as  to  many  of  the  stockholders. 

The  new  president,  Jeremiah  Mason,  is  a  particular  friend  of  Mr.  Web- 
ster, and  his  political  character  is  doubtless  well  known  to  you.  Mr.  W. 
is  supposed  to  have  had  much  agency  in  effecting  the  change.  The  course 
pursued  during  the  year,  has  greatly  aggravated  the  original  dislike  to  the 
appointment.  Our  commercial  men  are  almost  unanimous  in  their  com- 
plaints, and  the  people  in  the  interior,  who  were  wont  to  be  accommodated 
formerly  at  the  branch,  join  with  them  in  a  desire  for  the  removal  of  the 
present  president. 

The  objections  to  the  continuance  of  Mr.  Mason  in  office,  are  two-foid — 
first,  the  want  of  conciliatory  manners,  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  our 
business  men,  and,  secondly,  the  fluctuating  policy  pursued,  in  relation  to  both 
loans  and  collections  at  the  bank,  together  with  the  partiality  and  harshness 
that  accompany  them. 

In  making  these  general  representations,  I  am  repeating  what  are  in  the 
mouths  of  almost  every  citizen,  of  whatever  political  denomination,  and  am 
inviting,  at  the  request  of  many,  your  influence  at  the  mother  bank  in  pro- 
ducing a  change. 

Of  course,  my  situation  has  been  such  as  to  deprive  me  of  much  personal 
knowledge  of  Mr.  Mason's  administration  of  the  bank  concerns;  but  never, 
on  any  occasion,  have  I  known  complaints  so  wide  and  bitter  as  in  the  case 
now  under  consideration. 

if  any  relief  can  be  afforded  by  the  selection  of  different  directors  for  this 
branch,  as  any  board  without  him  in  it,  or  with  him,  not  at  its  head,  would 
at  once  furnish  relief;  it  is  thought  the  interests  of  the  bank,  and,  conse- 
quently, of  the  United  States,  would  not  only  render  such  a  board  proper, 
but  induce  you  to  communicate  with  some  of  the  directors  of  the  mother 
bank  in  favor  of  such  a  change. 

Any  aid  that  you  can  with  propriety  furnish  in  the  premises,  will  be  like- 
ly to  confer  a  great  and  lasting  favor  on  this  community,  and  to  contribute 
to  the  permanent  welfare  of  the  bank. 

Wirh  high  consideration  and  respect, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

LEVI  WOODBURY. 
Hon.  S.  D.  Ingham. 

P.  S.  I  understand  the  board  is  selected  for  this  branch  early  in  July. 


[(confidential.] 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

July  18,  182J^. 

1)ear  Sir:  You  have  done  me  the  honor  of  enclosing  a  letter  frohi  the 
Hon.  Levi  Woodbury,  Senator  from  New  Haihpshire,  dated  the  27th  uli. 
stating  certain  charges  against  the  president  of  the  office  of  this  bank  at 
Portsmouth,  and  urging  his  removal.  This  communication  has  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  board  of  directors,  who  will  not  fail  to  examine  the  allegations 
of  Mr.  Woodbury,  and,  should  they  appear  to  be  well  founded,  to  apply  an 
appropriate  corrective. 


t  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  441 

In  the  mean  time,  I  take  oecasion  to  state,  as  an  act  of  justice  to  Mr. 
Mason,  that,  so  far  as  the  facts  within  my  own  knowledge  warrant  any  ex- 
pression of  opinion,  Mr.  Woodbury  labors  under  great  misapprehension. 
He  says,  for  instance,  "  the  president  of  the  branch  at  this  place  was 
changed  last  year,  and  the  salary  greatly  increased,  which  measures  have 
given  great  dissatisfaction  as  well  to  the  public  as  to  many  of  the  stock- 
holders. The  new  president,  Jeremiah  Mason,  is  a  particular  friend  of 
Mr.  Webster,  and  his  political  character  is,  doubtless,  well  known  to  you. 
Mr.  W.  is  supposed  to  have  had  much  agency  in  effecting  this  change. '^ 
This  statement  naturally  produced  in  your  mind  the  impression  that  the 
icharge  against  Mr.  Mason  *<  is  partly  founded  on  a  supposed  application  of 
the  influence  of  the  bank  with  a  yiew  to  political  effect;'^  and  the  obvious 
inference  from  it  was,  that,  under  the  influence  of  Mr.  Webster,  a  former 
prjcsident  of  the  office  was  removed  to  make  way  for  Mr.  Mason  with  an 
increased  salary,  and  that  this  president  was  using  the  influence  of  the  bank 
against  the  present  administration. 

In  answer,  it  is  fit  to  say  that  this  view  of  the  subject  is  entirely  erro- 
neous, and  perhaps  the  misapprehension  of  a  gentleman  of  Mr.  Woodbury's 
general  intelligence  is  the  best  illustration  of  the  extreme  caution  vyrith 
which  such  statements  should  be  regarded.     For, 

1st.  The  president  of  the  branch  was  not  changed.  The  late  president, 
Mr.  Shapley,  voluntarily  declined  serving,  without  the  slightest  intimation 
of  a  wish  on  the  part  of  the  bank,  and  solely,  as  he  staled,  *'  in  conse^' 
quence  of  his  advanced  age  and  declining  health,  together  with  his  close 
confinement  to  the  office,  which  prevents,  in  a  great  measure,  his  attention 
to  his  private  business." 

2d.  The  salary  of  the  new  president  was  not  increased  a  dollar.  Mr. 
Mason  was  employed  as  the  counsel  of  the  bank,  and  an  annual  allowance 
was  made  to  him  in  that  capacity,  which  the  bank  would  have  been  obliged 
io  pay  to  any  other  lawyer,  and  which  had  no  relation  whatever  to  hi8 
other  duties  as  president. 

3d.  Mr.  Webster  had  not  th«  slightest  agency  in  obtaining  for  him  the 
appointment.  His  nomination  wa?  resolved  upon  without  the  knowledge 
either  of  Mr.  Webster  or  Mr.  Mason,  and  the  only  agency  of  Mr.  Webster 
was,  that,  after  the  agent  of  the  bank  charged  to  make  a  choice  had  deter- 
flfiined  to  recomniend  Mr.  Mason,  Mr.  Webster  was  requested  to  endeavor 
to  prevail  upon  him  to  serve;  a  request  which  the  agent  naturally  made  of 
Mr.  Webster  as  a  director  of  the  bank. 

4th.  I  am  surprised  that  Mr.  Woodbury  should  consider  the  complaints 
about  Mr.  Mason  as  having  the  remotest  connexion  with  politics;  and  I  am 
surprised  for  this  reason.  Mr.  Woodbury  wrote  to  you  on  the  27th  of 
June;  on  the  same  day  he  wrote  a  similar  letter  to  me.  I  answerejj,  thank- 
ing him  for  his  suggestions,  and  requesting  him  to  guide  my  inquiries  by 
stating  wh^t  was  the  nature  of  the  complaints  against  Mr.  Mason.  Tq  this 
he  replied  on  the  3d  instant,  and  that  letter  has  the  following  declaration; 

<*  From  the  confidential  character  pf  this  letter,  it  is  due  in  perfect  fraiik» 
ness  to  state,  that  the  president  of  the  present  board,  as  a  politician,  is  not 
very  acceptable  to  the  majority  in  this  town  and  State.  But  it  is  at  the 
same  time  notorious,  that  the  charges  against  him,  in  his  present  qfficef 
originated  exclusively  with  his  political  Jriends,  and  it  was  not  till  thejr 
created  a  personal  rancor  and  inflamed  condition  of  the  public  mind,  scjidom 
56 


442  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

if  ever  before  witnessed  in  this  region,  that  others  interposed,  from  a  vsup- 
posed  danger  to  the  interests  of  both  the  town  and  the  bank." 

It  appears,  then,  from  Mr.  Woodbury's  own  statement,  that,  so  far  from 
employing  the  influence  of  the  bank  "  with  a  view  to  political  effect,"  it  is 
a  notorious  fact,  that  the  complaints  are  made  by  Mr.  Mason's]own  political 
friends;  so  that,  in  truth,  if  there  be  any  politics  in  the  matter,  it  is  a  ques- 
tion between  Mr.  Mason  and  politicians  of  his  own  persuasion;  that  is  to 
say,  (for,  after  all,  I  suspect  it  will  result  in  this,)  that  Mr.  Mason  has  had 
the  courage  to  do  his  duty  whether  he  offends  his  political  friends  or  not. 
He  may  have  done  his  duty  too  rigidly:  that  is  a  fit  subject  of  examination, 
and  shall  be  examined;  but  Mr.  Woodbury's  own  declaration  to  me  seems 
to  be  irreconcilable  with  his  letter  to  you. 

Having  said  thus  much,  I  think  it  due,  in  further  justice  to  Mr.  Mason, 
to  state  to  you  the  real  situation  of  the  whole  matter.  The  office  at  Ports- 
mouth had  originally  the  misfortune  to  have  at  its  head  a  Mr.  Cutts,  who 
ended  by  defrauding  the  United  States  of  upwards  of  ^20,000  of  the  pension 
fund,  which  the  bank  was  obliged  to  replace,  and  last  year  the  office  was 
nearly  prostrated  in  the  general  ruin  which  spread  over  that  country.  Out 
of  ^460,000  of  loans,  $148,000  was  thrown  under  protest;  still  further  pro- 
tests were  expected,  and  the  actual  loss  sustained  there  will  not  be  less  than 
^112,000.  At  this  period,  the  late  president,  a  worthy  man,  but  not  cal- 
culated for  such  a  state  of  things,  resigned  his  place,  and  it  became  neces- 
sary at  once  to  adopt  the  most  energetic  measures  to  save  the  property  of 
the  bank.  A  confidential  officer  was  despatched  to  Portsmouth,  who  found 
the  affairs  of  the  office  in  great  jeopardy,  covered  with  the  wrecks  which 
bad  management,  and  the  most  extensive  frauds,  had  occasioned.  To  re- 
trieve it,  it  became  necessary  to  select  a  man  of  the  first  rate  character  and 
abilities;  such  a  man  was  Mr.  Mason.  Of  his  entire  competency,  espe- 
cially in  detecting  the  complicated  frauds,  and  managing  the  numerous  law 
suits  which  seemed  inevitable,  there  could  be  no  doubt.  Of  his  political 
opinions,  we  neither  knew  nor  inquired  any  thing.  In  order  to  induce  him 
to  give  up  so  much  of  his  valuable  time  to  the  service  of  the  bank,  an  esti- 
mate was  made  of  the  probable  amount  which  we  would  have  to  pay  for 
the  professional  services  of  a  lawyer,  and,  by  engaging  Mr.  Mason  in  that 
character,  we  were  enabled  to  obtain  his  consent  to  accept  the  appointment. 
Since  he  has  been  in  office,  he  has  been  exceedingly  useful — has  saved  the 
i)ank  from  great  losses — has  secured  the  bad  debts — nor,  until  Mr.  Wood- 
bury's letter,  was  I  informed  of  any  complaint  against  him.  What  is,  more- 
over, to  be  much  considered,  is,  that  while  he  has  been  gradually  reducing 
the  old  accommodation  loans,  he  has  actually  increased  the  amount  of  the 
general  loans  ofthe  office.  Thus  when  he  went  into  the  bank,  August  25, 
1828,  the  loans  were — 

Notes  discounted,        -  -  -         ^80,072  56 

Bills  of  exchange,        -  ,  -  22,622  94 

302,695  50 


In  July  6th,  1829,  Notes  discounted,        -  -  -  198,60144 

Bills  of  exchange,        -  .,^.  ;:  -  122,263  33 

320,864  77 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  443 

which  shows  a  conversion  of  a  portion  of  the  old  permanent  debt  into  the 
more  active  and  useful  form  of  business  transactions. 

On  the  whole,  I  incline  to  think  that  it  is  a  mere  question  of  the  securing 
and  reducing  a  part  of  the  old  debt,  which  oujj;ht  never  to  have  been  in- 
curred, and  as  there  is  obviously  no  political  feeh'ng  connected  with  it,  it 
is  a  matter  of  much  delicacy  to  interfere  with  the  operations  of  the  board. 

Mr.  Mason  is  only  one  member  of  that  board,  consisting  of  the  same 
gentlemen  who  have  had  charge  of  the  branch  for  many  years;  and  even 
supposing  him  inclined  to  measures  of  extreme  rigor,  his  colleagues,  judg- 
ing from  the  ordinary  sympathies  of  our  nature,  would  naturally  be  disposed 
to  act  with  as  much  lenity  towards  their  townsmen  and  neighbors  as  would 
be  at  all  consistent  with  their  duty  to  the  bank, 

I  have  run  the  risk  of  fatiguing  you  with  these  details,  because  T  am 
anxious  that  you  should  understand^  the  true  state  of  the  case,  and  because 
it  furnishes  a  good  example  of  the  sort  of  reproach  to  which  the  officers  of 
the  bank  are  often  liable. 

I  shall  be  happy  to  hear  from  you  whenever  you  obtain  the  communica- 
tions from  Kentucky  and  Louisiana,  which  shall  receive  immediate  attea- 
tion:  and,  in  the  mean  time, 

I  remain. 

Very  respectfully,  your's, 

N.  BIDDLE,  Pres, 

Hon.  S.  D.  Ingham, 

Sec.  of  the  Treasury,  Washington, 


[confidential,] 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

July  ISth,  1829, 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  had  the  honor  of  receiving  your  confidential  letter  of 
the  11th  instant,  reserving  for  the  separate  communication  enclosed,  the  de- 
tails in  regard  to  the  branch  at  Portsmouth,  which,  I  trust,  will  prove  sa- 
tisfactory to  you.  I  proceed  to  explain,  in  the  same  spirit  of  unreserved 
conlidence,  the  views  of  the  board  on  the  general  topics  to  which  you  have 
invited  their  attention. 

Your  own  good  judgment  has  indicated  the  true  theory  of  administering 
the  bank,  which  is,  as  you  justly  state,  'Uhat  the  basis  of  credit  are  to  be 
found  in  integrity,  industry,  economy,  skill,  and  capital,  and  that  unity  of 
action  which  may  be  necessary  to  give  efficiency  to,  and  harmony  in,  the 
operations  of  a  bank,  is  essentially  secured  by  regarding  these  considera- 
tions alone  as  constituting  the  proper  claim  to  the  benefits  of  its  credit;"  and 
that  moneyed  institutions  should  not  disturb  the  relations  of  property,  *^  by- 
exerting  their  power  in  subservience  to  the  passions  or  prejudices  of  local 
or  party  strife;"  and  you  add  the  very  satisfactory  assurance,  that  those  who 
are  charged  with  the  administration  of  the  Government,  "disclaim  all  de- 
sire'to  derive  political  aid  through  the  operations  of  the  bank,  and  would 
learn  with  regret,  that  any  supposed  political  relationship,  either  favorable 
or  adverse  to  them,  had  operated  with  the  bank,  or  any  of  its  branches^ 
either  in  granting  or  withholding  any  pecuniary  facilities,  which,  apart  from 
that  consideration,  would  have  been  differently  dispensed." 


444  [  Eep.  No.  460.  ] 

These  clear  and  sound  principles  contain  the  whole  elements  of  the  sys- 
tem of  the  bank,  and  its  true  relation  to  the  Government.  It  has  been  the 
settled  policy  of  the  institution,  pursued  with  the  most  fastidious  care,  to 
devote  itself  exclusively  to  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  instituted;  to  ab- 
stain from  all  political  contests;  to  be  simply  and  absolutely  a  bank,  seeking 
only  the  interests  of  the  community,  and  the  judicious  employment  of  the 
funds  intrusted  to  its  management;  and  never,  for  a  moment,  perverting  ita 
power  to  any  local  or  party  purposes.  The  officers  of  the  bank  and  all  its 
branches  are  thoroughly  imbued  with  this  spirit,  knowing,  as  they  do,  that 
their  interference  in  political  contentions  would  he  highly  offensive  to  the 
general  administration  of  the  institution.  Accordingly,  I  have  never,  dur- 
ing more  than  nine  years  of  intimate  knowledge  of  the  bank,  perceived  an 
example  of  any  such  interference.  I  believe  that  there  are  not  in  the  whole 
country,  any  other  five  hundred  persons  of  equal  intelligence  so  abstracted 
from  public  affairs,  as  the  five  hundred  who  are  employed  in  administering 
the  bank;  and  I  am  satisfied  that  no  loan  was  ever  granted  to,  pr  withheld 
from  any  individual,  on  account  of  political  partiality  or  hostility.  So  true 
is  this,  that,  during  the  extraordinary  excitements  of  the  two  last  elections 
for  President,  when  the  bank  was  regarded  as  exposed  to  peculiar  tempta- 
tion, because  the  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury,  towards  whom  it  was  supr 
posed  to  feel  a  special  sympathy,  were  candidates,  its  perfect  neutrality  was 
universally  acknowledged.  On  the  only  occasion  when  an  imputation  of 
partiality  was  made,  in  a  form  susceptible  of  inquiry,  it  proved,  on  examiT 
nation,  to  be  wholly  without  foundation;  and  I  think  you  will  be  satisfied 
tliat  the  present  charge  in  regard  to  the  branch  at  Portsmouth,  is  equally 
groundless.  When  we  consider,  too,  that  the  bank  comes  into  constant  col- 
lision with  the  keenest  passions  of  men;  that  its  daily  duty  is  to  deny  per 
sonal  favors;  to  resist  unfounded  pretensions  urged  with  the  impatient  anxie^ 
ty  of  want  and  pride;  and,  when  we  reflect  how  readily  those  who  are  dis- 
appointed in  borrowing,  ascribe  their  failure  to  any  cause  but  their  own 
want  of  credit,  we  may  be  disposed  to  wonder,  not  that  there  is  so  much, 
^t  that  there  is  so  little  complaint,  and  to  accept  the  extreme  rarity  of  these 
re.proaches,  as  some  evidence  that  the  bank  has  succeeded  in  that  object  of 
particular  solicitude — its  preservation  from  all  political  bias. 

That  success,  whatever  may  be  its  degree,  is  entirely  due  to  two  funda- 
mental principles  in  its  administration:  First,  that,  in  the  choice  of  its  agents 
and  the  distribution  of  its  loans,  it  should  be  wholly  indifferent  to  political 
parties;  and,  second,  that,  in  all  its  operations, it  should  be  totally  independ- 
ent of  the  officers  of  the  Government. 

In  respect  to  the  first,  the  infusion  of  the  spirit  of  party  into  every  thing 
around  us,  causes  a  constant  effort  to  draw  the  institution  within  the  sphere 
of  what  are  called  politics.  With  these^  the  bank  disclfi^ms  all  connection. 
Belonging  to  the  nation,  and  feeling  that  itfi  prosperity  and  its  usefulness  are 
destroyed  the  moment  it  losses  its  independence,  the  bank  owes  allegiance 
to  no  party,  an<l  will  submit  to  none.  A  melancholy  experience,  moreover, 
has  taught  it  a  truth  so  applicable  to  all  p£^,ties,  that  the  expression  of  it 
should  offend  none  of  them,  that,  in  general,  ^the  class  of  persons  actively 
engaged  in  political  contentions,  as  well  fro«i  their  own  v^ants  as  from  the 
train  of  adherents  whose  claims  they  are  too  -prone  to  support,  are  among 
the  niost  dangerous  inmates  of  a  bank.  Its  principle,  therefore,  is,  that,  as 
in  private  life,  no  man  confides  his  own  health  or  fortune  to  persons  of  in- 
ferior skill,  because  they  are  politicians,  the  bank,  in  administeriug  the  pro- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  445 

perty  of  others,  has  an  equal  right  to  choose  Its  agents  on  account  of  their 
qualifications  for  the  specific  duties  assigned  to  them,  not  for  their  opinions 
on  matters  wholly  foreign  to  those  duties.  Its  practice  accordingly  is,  in  the 
choice  of  directors  and  officers,  neither  to  seek  nor  to  shun  any  individual 
for  his  political  sentiments;  to  regard  only  his  personal  fitness,  rejecting  no 
competent  person,  and  selecting  no  incompetent  person,  because  he  may 
chance  to  belong  to  a  particular  party.  This  course  naturally  offends  those 
whom  it  disappoints,  but  it  is  sustained  by  the  sober  judgment  of  the 
country;  and,  even  in  the  worst  event,  it  is  better  to  encounter  hostility, 
than  appease  it  by  unworthy  sacrifices  of  duty ;  and  far  better  to  lose  the  es- 
teem of  others  than  our  own.  The  result  of  this  unbiased  selection  un- 
doubtedly has  been,  that  the  boards  of  directors  of  the  several  branches  are 
uniformly  chosen  from  among  the  most  respectable  members  of  the  com- 
munity, and  will  bear  a  very  advantageous  comparison  with  the  boards  of 
similar  State  institutions. 

In  regard  to  the  second,  the  bank  has  always  kept  itself  aloof  from  all  po- 
litical connection  with  the  Government;  and  while,  in  whatever  concerns 
its  appropriate  duties,  it  has  yielded  the  most  ready  and  faithful  support  to 
all  the  officers  of  the  Government,  it  has,  at  the  same  time,  maintained  the 
most  entire  independence  of  them.  Their  respective  powers  and  duties  are 
assigned  to  them  by  the  same  common  authority — the  laws  of  the  country. 
Beyond  these  lim^,  it  has  never  sought  nor  desired;  nor  would  it  ever  have 
permitted  any  connection  with  the  Government,  or  any  interference  on  its 
part — content  with  being  the  friend  of  every  administration  but  the  par- 
tizan  of  none.  In  truth,  were  the  sentiment  of  personal  independence  in- 
sufficient, the  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  would  find,  in  the 
very  nature  of  their  duties,  enough  to  warn  them  against  the  danger  of  such 
an  influence.  It  is  their  especial  function  to  secure  the  blessings  of  a  whole- 
some currency,  the  reward  and  the  measure  of  the  country's  industry,  which 
alone  can  preserve  the  equal  value  of  private  property,  or  give  uniformity 
and  security  to  the  public  revenue;  and  they  know  perfectly  well,  that,  if 
their  vigilance  were  relaxed  for  a  single  month,  the  currency  would  relapse 
into  a  confusion,  from  which  some  convulsion  of  the  country  could  alone 
retrieve  it.  In  accomplishing  these  objects,  it  has  often  been  necessary  to 
withstand  popular  clamor;  to  resist  the  overweening  pretensions  of  the  State 
legislatures;  to  oppose  the  public  views,  and  to  thwart  the  private  interests 
of  persons  in  place,  and  to  refuse  the  solicitations  for  personal  favors  of  the 
highest  officers  of  Government.  In  these  anxious  and  intense  responsibili- 
ties, their  best  support  is  the  consciousness  of  their  own  personal  independ- 
ence, in  maintaining  their  own  convictions  of  duty,  the  foundation  alike  of 
their  power  and  their  usefulness.  These  would  be  irretrievably  gone,  and 
with  them  the  whole  purpose  for  which  the  bank  was  established,  if  the  di- 
rectors ever  submitted  to  any  extraneous  influence — ever  suffered  themselves 
to  be  controlled  in  the  perfectly  free  choice  of  their  own  agents,  or  could 
so  far  forget  their  duty  as  to  delegate  the  important  trusts  confided  to  their 
care  to  incompetent  persons,  because  they  were  the  supporters  or  the  op- 
ponents of  any  political  administration. 

The  footing,  therefore,  on  which  the  intercourse  between  the  bank  and 
the  Government  has  always  been  distinctly  placed — the  only  safe  basis  for 
the  country,  the  Government,  or  the  bank — is  simply  this:  The  bank  has 
given  the  most  cordial  and  decided  cooperation  in  all  the  financial  operations 
of  the  Government;  it  has  taken  especial  care,  as  a  point  equally  of  duty 


446  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

and  of  delicacy,  that  none  of  its  agents  should  abuse  their  trust,  by  injustice 
towards  the  existing  administration  or  its  friends,  being  always  ready  'to 
apply  the  most  decisive  relief  against  such  a  perversion  of  its  power.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Government  has  uniformly  and  scrupulously  forborne 
from  all  interference  with  the  concerns  of  the  bank. 

Of  these  views,  the  recent  conduct  of  the  institution  may  furnish  the  best 
illustration.  You  were  desirous  of  paying  off  a  much  larger  amount  of  debt 
than  was  ever  redeemed  at  one  period.  To  the  bank,  regarding  merely  its 
pecuniary  interest,  it  was  more  advantageous  that  this  sum  should  not  be 
paid.  But  every  consideration  of  a  selfish  kind  yielded  to  the  strong  de- 
sire to  second  your  views  for  the  public  benefit;  and  the  bank,  not  limiting 
itself  to  the  passive  performance  of  its  mere  duty,  immediately  and  heartily 
co-operated  with  you,  and  made  the  utmost  exertion  to  prevent  every  em- 
barrassment which  might  have  been  made  the  pretext  of  reproach  for  a  mea- 
sure, the  apparent  boldness  of  which  is  justified  by  its  complete  success.  It 
is  a  source  of  much  gratification  to  the  directors,  that  those  efforts  have  not 
been  unobserved  by  you.  But  what  they  have  done  on  this  occasion,  they 
w^ould  do  on  any  other,  looking,  as  they  are  bound  to  do,  only  to  the  public 
interests,  by  whomsoever  they  may  be  administered.  In  fact,  their  very 
ability  to  serve  any  administration,  would  be  lost  by  subserviency  to  it,  and 
the  true  relation  of  the  bank  to  the  Government,  is  that  of  an  impartial  and 
independent  friend,  not  a  jwrtizan.  9 

During  the  successive  changes  of  administration,  these  views  have  been 
frankly  presented  to  the  Government,  who  has  felt  their  propriety.  The 
voluntary  declaration  contained  in  your  letter,  is  a  gratifying  evidence  that 
the  same  sentiment  is  entertained  by  the  present  administration,  and  that  the 
real  nature  and  interests  of  the  institutionTare  perfectl}"  understood  and  ap- 
preciated. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  your's, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 
Honorable  S.  D.  Ingham, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Washington, 


[confidential.] 

Treasury  Department, 

July  23d,  1829. 

Sir:  I  have  received  your  favor  of  the  18th,  in  reply  to  mine  of  the  1 1th  in- 
stant. In  framing  my  letter,  I  endeavored  to  avoid  the  slightest  imputation 
against  the  directors  of  the  parent  bank  for  having  used  their  power  with 
a  view  to  political  effect;  but,  as  this  topic  was  even  remotely  brought  to  the 
notice  of  the  department,  there  was  no  alternative  between  a  silence  that 
might  have  been  deemed  significant,  and  such  an  avowal  of  the  views  of  the 
administration  on  that  subject  as  could  not  fairly  be  misunderstood.  The 
latter  course  was  adopted,  and  I  am  much  gratified  to  find  so  entire  a  con- 
currence in  our  opinions  as  to  the  principle  which  ought  to  govern  in  the 
administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  bank.  When  principles  are  thus  cordial- 
ly settled,  there  is  much  reason  to  expect  that  any  material  error  of  practice 
will,  in  time,  be  properly  corrected;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  while 
tlie  action  of  the  Government  upon  the  bank,  and  that  of  the  bank  upon 


[  Kep.  No.  460.  ]  447 

those  within  the  sphere  of  its  influence,  shall  be  practically  regulated  by 
these  principles,  the  institution  will  not  fail  to  secure  the  great  ends  for 
which  it  was  established.  But  as  every  institution  that  is  conducted  by  hu- 
man exertion  must  necessarily  be,  in  some  degree,  controlled  by  the  feelings 
and  passions  inseparable  from  human  nature,  there  are  none,  however  pure 
and  elevated  the  intention,  or  dispassionate  and  impartial  the  judgment  of 
those  who  manage  them,  which  can,  with  propriety,  claim  an  entire  exemp- 
tion from  the  influence  that,  more  or  less,  govern  the  actions  of  men.  Im- 
pressed with  these  truths,  which  may,  indeed,  be  considered  undeniable,  I 
was  not  prepared  for  so  confident  an  assertion  of  the  universal  purity  of  the 
bank  and  all  its  branches,  in  practice  as  well  as  principle,  as  is  to  be  found 
in  your  letter;  and  while  I  would  scrupulously  forbear  to  assume  any  fact 
derogatory  to  the  character  of  your  board  or  those  of  the  branches,  it  is  not 
deemed  incompatible  with  the  most  rigid  justice,  to  suppose  that  any  body 
of  five  hundred  men,  not  selected  by  an  Omniscient  eye,  cannot  be  fairly  en- 
titled to  the  unqualified  testimony  which  you  have  been  pleased  to  ofier  in 
their  behalf.  It  is  morally  impossible  that  the  character  of  all  the  acts  of 
the  directors  of  the  branches,  much  'less  their  motives,  could  be  known 
to  the  parent  board;  hence,  the  declaration  that  *^no  loan  was  ever 
granted  to,  or  withheld  from  any  individual,  on  account  of  political 
partiality  or  hostility,"  must  be  received  rather  as  evidence  of  your  own 
feelings,  than  as  conclusive  proof  of  the  fact  so  confidently  vouched  for.  In 
offering  these  observations,  I  endeavor  to  divest  myself,  as  much  as  possi- 
ble, of  the  impression  reluctantly  received  from  numerous  complaints,  C9m- 
municated  verbally  and  by  letter,  since  I  was  called  to  the  charge  of  the 
Treasury  Department;  and  if  I  have  been  led  by  feeling,  rather  than  expe- 
rience and  judgment,  to  distrust  the  purity  of  institutions  governed  by  men, 
or  to  indulge  too  little  confidence  in  their  exemption  from  the  passions  that 
more  or  less  effect  all  human  actions,  none  can  be  more  sensible  of  the  re- 
sponsibility encountered  in  entering  upon  this  discussion.  But  it  is  not 
deemed  transcending  the  just  obligation  of  the  department  to  which  is  as- 
signed the  direction  of  the  relations  between  the  Government  and  the  bank, 
to  suggest  its  views  as  to  their  proper  management.  lam  fully  aware  that, 
however  sincerely  the  performance  of  this  duty  is  intended  to  promote  the 
proper  independence  of  the  bank  of  the  ofiicers  of  the  Government,  which 
you  have  so  justly  asserted,  any  suggestion  that  can  be  made  on  this  subject 
is  liable  to  be  attributed  to  a  motive  directly  opposite  to  that  which  ought , 
alone  to  govern  it.  I  am,  therefore,  deeply  sensible  of  the  delicacy  of  the 
duty  devolved  on  me,  and  that  any  further  correspondence  ma}'^  give  new 
ground  for  misinterpretation,  whatever  may  be  the  character  of  the  motive 
that  dictates  it.  But  looking  less  to  appearance  than  to  official  obligation, 
I  find  myself  compelled,  by  additional  considerations,  arising  from  a  careful 
examination  of  the  general  scope  of  your  letter,  to  reiterate  the  wish  inti- 
mated  in  mine  of  the  11th  instant,  and  to  add  the  expression  of  a  hope  that, 
when  any  abuse  is  suggested  through  a  channel  entitled  to  respect,  whatever 
motives  it  may  be  attributed  to,  the  truth  may  be  sought  without  prejudice, 
from  such  sources  as  may  be  most  likely  to  disclose  it. 

The  complaints  at  Portsmouth,  as  you  justly  observe,  do  not  appear  to 
be  generally  of  a  political  character,  or  confined  to  one  party  only.  But 
without  intending  to  invite  any  controversy  on  this  point,  I  cannot  forbear 
to  remark  that  this  fact  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  conclusive  evidence  of 
their  being  groundless.   On  the  contrary,  when  it  is  known  that  political  at- 


448  I  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 

tachment,  m  times  of  high  party  excitement,  often  seeks  to  screen  from  jus- 
tice atrocious  offenders  against  the  laws,  it  may  be  presumed  to  be  no-  ordi. 
nary  case  where  different  parties,  violently  opposed,  make  common  cause 
against  any  person  who  is  regarded  as  a  partizan  of  either.  In  making 
these  remarks,  I  must  not  be  understood  as  assuming  the  truth  of  any 
charge,  but  merely  as  objecting  to  a  course  of  action  that  either  resists  in- 
quiry, or,  what  is  of  the  same  tendency,  enters  upon  it  with  a  full  persuasion 
tliat  it  is  not  called  for. 

I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury > 
N.  BiDDLB,  Esq., 

President  of  the  Bank  U,  S. 


Bank  op  the  United  States^ 

4ih  Jiugust,  1829. 

Sir:  On  the  27th  ultimo,  I  had  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  letter  of  the  33d,  headed  <*  confidential,"  and  it  was  my  intention,  as 
I  then  stated,  to  leave  the  subject  to  the  president  of  the  bank,  who  would, 
after  his  return,  determine  whether  it  was  necessary  to  prolong  a  corres- 
pondence, on  a  topic  not  less  new  than  ungracious. 

Your  letter,  however,  having  been  since  read  at  the  board,  and  the  di- 
rectors having  interchanged  opinions  upon  it,  they  have  instructed  me  to 
express  to  you  their  entire  concurrence  in  every  sentiment  communicated  in 
the  letter  of  the  president  of  the  bank  of  the  18th  July. 

Lest,  however,  any  misapprehension  might  exist  as  to  the  opinion  they  en- 
tertain of  the  perfect  exemption  of  the  bank  from  any  political  bias,  it  is 
deemed  fit  to  repeat  precisely  that  opinion,  which  was,  as  will  be  obvious  on 
recurring  to  the  president's  letter,  not  a  general  voucher  for  the  freedom 
from  error  of  five  hundred  persons,  but  an  assertion  that  there  were  not  ano- 
ther equal  number  of  men,  of  the  same  intelligence,  so  abstracted  from  public 
affairs,  and  that  no  loan  was  ever  granted  to,  or  withheld  from,  any  individual 
on  account  of  political  partiality  or  hostility. 

This  opinion  is  reiterated  by  the  members  of  the  board  with  the  fullest 
confidence;  nor  need  it  be  very  surprising,  that,  while  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  our  citizens  in  tke  various  pursuits  of  life,  refuse  to  yield  their  honest 
convictions  to  party  prejudices,  a  few  hundredlof  our  countrymen,  carefully 
selected  from  the  most  independent,  intelligent^  and  upright,  should  be  found 
sufficiently  honest  to  prefer  their  duty  to  their  party. 

If,  however,  it  can  be  shown  that,  in  any  quarter,  the  officers  of  the  bank 
have  lent  themselves  as  ministers  of  a  party,  or  have  used  the  power  of  the 
corporation  to  political  purposes,  not  a  moment  will  be  lost  in  visiting  such 
offences  with  the  utmost  severity  of  censure  and  punishment. 

With  regard  to  the  Portsmouth  business,  it  was  immediately  put  into  a 
train  of  investigation,  and  the  presiding  officer  of  the  bank,  as  you  have  been 
apprised,  is  to  proceed  thither  on  that  duty. 

In  the  meantime,  you  will,  it  is  hoped,  upon  reflection,  be  disposed  to  ad- 
mit that  the  individual  whose  conduct  is  in  question,  may  fairly  claim  from 
the  directors  of  this  bank,  by  whom  he  was  invited  into  its  service,  on  ac- 
count solely  of  business  qualifications  of  the  highest  order,  without  the  re- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  449 

motest  reference  to  his  political  sentiments,  and  who  have  in  their  possession 
striking  evidences  of  the  intelligence,  impartiality,  zeal,  and  fidelity  with 
which  he  appears  to  have  administered  the  interests  of  the  institution,  pro- 
bably at  some  sacrifice  of  his  own,  the  common  privilege  of  every  man  ac» 
cused — that  of  being  deemed  innocent  until  he  has  been  proved  guility. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be. 

Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

T.  CADWALADER, 
Acting  President. 
Hon.  SiMiTEL  D.  Ingham, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
P.  S.  In  a  letter  just  received  from  Mr.  Mason,  who  has  learned,  from 
sources  exterior  to  the  bank,  that  a  memorial  and  numerous  letters  have 
been  addressed  to  the  directors,  complaining  of  his  official  conduct,  he  in- 
vites immediate  inquiry,  and  requests  to  be  informed  of  the  facts  stated,  and 
by  whom,  that  he  may  be  enabled  to  repel  them.  The  board  will,  of  course, 
proceed  to  investigate  the  subject  as  soon  as  possible;  and  should  the  allega- 
tions against  him  appear  to  be  well  founded,  to  apply  at  once,  as  you  havo 
been  already  assured,  an  appropriate  corrective. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

4M  August,  1829. 
Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  31st  ult  has  been  read  at  the  board,  and  referred 
to  the  Committee  on  the  Offices. 

The  president  of  the  bank  is  now  on  his  way  to  Buffalo,  in  the  State  of 
New  York.  On  his  return  he  is  to  visit  Portsmouth,  when  you  will  receive 
from  him  every  explanation  in  regard  to  the  matter  adverted  to  in  the  latter 
part  of  your  letter. 

Mr.  Biddle  will  proceed  across  the  country  from  Albany. 

I  am,  with  great  respect,  sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

T.  CADWALLADER, 
Acting  President, 
J.  Mason,  Esq. 

Pres't  Off,  B.  U.  S.  Portsmouth,  N.  H. 


Treasury  Department,  Aug.  5, 1829. 
Sir;  I  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  27th  ultimo,  and  have  this  day  re- 
cfeived  that  of  the  4th  instant,  on  the  same  subject,  written,  as  you  inform  me, 
under  the  special  instructions  of  the  board  of  directors.  In  reply,  I  haveto 
observe,  that,  perceiving  nothing  in  the  emphatic  repetition  of  the  senti- 
ments contained  in  Mr.  Biddle's  letter  of  the  18th  of  July,  or  in  what  you 
have  urged  in  their  support,  to  change  in  any  degree  the  views  heretofore 
presented,  I  find  no  occasion  to  add  to  what  has  been  said  in  my  letters  of 
the  11th  and  23d  July,  except  to  remark,  that,  when  called  upon  to  dis- 
charge a  high  public  duty,  I  cannot  allow  myself  to  estimate  the  extent  of 
the  obligation  by  any  supposed  ungraciousness  of  the  topics  with  which  it 
may  be  connected. 

•I  am,  sir,  verv  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM. 
T.  Cadwalader,  Esq.  AcVg  Preset  Bank  U,  S, 
57 


450  [  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

Bank  op  the  United  States, 

September  15,  1829. 

Sir:  On  my  return,  a  few  days  since,  after  a  long  absence,  I  found  your 
favors  of  the  23d  of  July  and  5th  ult.  These  have  been  already  acknow- 
ledged, and,  as  far  as  was  then  deemed  necessary,  answered  by  General  Cad- 
walader;  but  the  views  which  they  present  of  the  relations  between  the 
bank  and  the  Treasury  are  so  new  and  important,  and  it  is  so  essential  to 
the  public  service  to  understand  distinctly  their  respective  rights  and  duties, 
that  it  is  deemed  proper  to  resume  the  subject  without  delay.  Such  is  the 
purpose  of  this  communication,  in  which  I  shall  endeavor  to  collect  from 
your  whole  correspondence  with  the  bank  the  points  on  which  we  have  the 
misfortune  to  differ,  and  then  attempt  to  compare,  and  perhaps  reconcile, 
our  opinions. 

The  earliest  operation  of  the  Treasury,  since  you  were  charged  with  it, 
in  which  the  bank  had  any  share,  was  the  reimbursement  of  the  public  debt 
on  the  1st  of  July  last.  This  was  your  first  essay  in  the  department,  the 
first  important  measure  of  the  new  administration;  and,  if  it  had  occasioned 
any  inconvenience,  or  any  pressure,  these  would  certainly  have  been  made 
the  cause  or  the  pretext  of  great  reproach  against  yourself  and  your  political 
associates;  and  undoubtedly  much  inconvenience  and  much  pressure  would 
have  been  felt  if  the  bank  had  not  labored  to  avert  them,  with  a  promptness, 
a  cordiality,  and  an  efficacy,  rare  even  in  its  own  active  history.  Before  de- 
termining on  the  measure,  you  did  the  board  the  honor  to  consult  them,  and 
certainly  if  they  had  listened  to  considerations  merely  pecuniary,  they  would 
have  discouraged  it;  if  they  had  desired  to  shun  the  responsibility  of  an  ope- 
ration, of  which  the  result  might  be  doubtful,  they  would  have  been  silent; 
and,  if  it  had  been  possible  for  them  to  feel  any  reluctance  to  aid  the  new  ad- 
ministration, it  would  have  been  sufficient  merely,  and  irreproachably,  to 
have  done  their  duty.  But  regarding  only  what  they  considered  the  en- 
larged interest  of  the  country,  and  too  conscious  of  their  own  independence 
to  fear  that  their  zeal  in  the  public  service  should  be  mistaken  for  a  devotion 
to  the  public  servants,  they  at  once  assumed  all  the  responsibility,  within 
their  proper  sphere,  of  encouraging  the  operation,  and,  from  the  commence- 
ment to  the  termination,  watched  and  guarded  its  progress  with  an  unweari- 
ed attention  which  the  most  zealous  friend  of  the  administration  could  not 
have  surpassed.  To  these  efforts  you  have  yourself  borne  the  amplest  tes- 
timony. Thus,  in  your  letter  of  the  6th  of  June,  you  have  the  goodness  to 
Bay:  "I  am  fully  sensible  of  the  disposition  of  the  bank  to  afford  all  practi- 
cable facility  to  the  fiscal  operations  of  the  Government,  and  the  offers  con- 
tained in  your  letters  with  that  view  are  duly  appreciated.  As  you  have  ex- 
pressed the  willingness  of  the  bank  to  make  the  funds  of  the  Treasury  imme- 
diately available  at  the  various  points  where  they  may  be  required  for  the 
approaching  payment  of  the  debt,  the  drafts  for  effecting  the  transfers  for 
that  object  will  be  made  to  suit  the  convenience  of  the  bank  as  far  as  the  de- 
mands of  other  branches  of  the  service  will  permit.''  On  the  19th  of  June, 
you  write:  "I  cannot  conclude  this  communication  without  expressing  the 
satisfaction  of  the  department  at  the  arrangements  which  the  bank  has  made 
for  effecting  these  payments  in  a  manner  so  accommodating  to  the  Treasury, 
and  so  little  embarrassing  to  the  community."  And,  again,  ©n  the  11th  of 
July:  "  I  take  the  occasion  to  express  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  Treasury 
Department  at  the  manner  in  which  the  president  and  directors  of  the  parent 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  451 

bank  have  discharged  their  trusts  in  all  their  immediate  relations  to  the  Go- 
vernment, so  far  as  their  transactions  have  come  under  my  notice,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  facilities  afforded  in  transferring  the  funds  of  the  Government, 
and  in  the  preparation  for  the  heavy  payment  of  the  public  debt  on  the  1st 
inst,  which  has  been  effected  by  means  of  the  prudent  arrangements  of  your 
board,  at  a  time  of  severe  depression  on  all  the  productive  employments  of 
the  country,  without  causing  any  sensible  addition  to  the  pressure,  or  even 
visible  effect  upon  the  ordinary  operations  of  the  State  banks." 

I  recall  these  voluntary  testimonials  to  your  remembrance,  because  they 
show  that,  in  ail  its  legitimate  relations  to  the  Government,  the  bank  has 
completely  filled  the  measure  of  its  duty  to  the  country,  and  that  towards 
yourself  and  your  political  colleagues,  there  existed  the  most  friendly  dispo- 
sition on  the  part  of  the  bank.  Unfortunately,  however,  you  seemed  to 
adopt  the  opinion,  that  there  were  certain  other  duties  to  the  Government 
which  it  was  your  special  function  to  superintend.  Accordingly,  on  the 
llth  of  June  last,  you  addressed  to  the  bank  a  letter  covering  one  from  Mr. 
Woodbury,  requesting  your  interference  to  cause  the  removal  of  Mr.  Ma- 
son, the  president  of  the  branch  at  Portsmouth.  The  complaint  first  in  or- 
der, and  obviously  first  in  importance,  was  that  Mr.  Mason  was  a  particular 
friend  of  Mr.  Webster,  and  that  his  political  character  was  doubtless  well 
known  to  you,  whence  you  were  led  to  infer  that  he  had  perverted  his  trust 
to  political  purposes.  Your  letter  was  immediately  followed  by  the  com- 
munication of  one  subscribed,  <^Isaac  Hill,  Second  Comptroller  of  the  Trea- 
sury," transmitting  two  memorials.  One  of  them  was  said  to  be  from  "most 
of  the  business  men  and  merchants  of  Portsmouth,  without  distinction  of 
party;"  the  other  he  described  as  coming  from  "about  sixty  of  the  most 
respectable  members  of  the  New  Hampshire  Legislature,"  requesting  Mr. 
Mason's  removal,  and,  moreover,  nominating  a  new  board  of  directors.  To 
these,  the  Second  Comptroller  adds  his  own  opinion,  that  "no  measure  short 
of  Mr.  Mason's  removal  will  tend  to  reconcile  the  people  of  New  Hamp- 
shire to  the  bank,"  and  that  this  measure  is  asked  for  by  individuals  whom 
he  characterizes  as  "the  friends  of  General  Jackson  in  New  Hampshire." 
In  answer  to  your  letter,  you  were  apprized  that  the  complaints  of  Mr. 
Woodbury  would  be  duly  examined,  and  that  the  bank  had  uniformily,  and, 
it  was  believed,  successfully,  endeavored  to  prevent  the  abuse  of  its  power 
to  party  purposes.  Your  reply  of  the  23d  of  July  treats  this  exemption 
from  political  bias,  as  a  moral  impossibility;  and,  in  allusion  to  a  suggestion 
that  the  bank  was  disinclined  to  the  interference  of  the  Government  in  these 
matters,  you  declare  that  "it  is  not  deemed  transcending  the  just  obligation 
of  the  department  to  which  is  assigned  the  direction  of  the  relations  be- 
tween the  Government  and  the  bank,  to  suggest  its  views  as  to  their  proper 
management."  You  speak  of  the  "action  of  the  Government  on  the  bank, 
and  that  of  the  bank  on  those  within  the  sphere  of  its  influence,"  and,  finally, 
you  remove  the  impression  that  these  were  only  your  private  sentiments  of 
which  the  friendly  purpose  might  justify  the  communication,  by  stating  that 
your  first  letter  contained  "such  an  avowal  of  the  views  of  the  adminis- 
tration, as  could  not  fairly  be  misunderstood." 

On  recurring  to  these  views,  which  now  assumed  additional  important 
they  exhibited  very  strong  and  very  satisfactory  declarations  of  the  unwil 
lingnessof  the  administration  to  derive  political  aid  from  the  bank,  and  ytTv 
judicious  remarks  on  the  principles  of  credit  which  should  regulate  its 
loans.     But  the  mode  of  securing  these  objects,  though  recommended  \ifith 


452  [  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

the  best  motives,  seemed  ill  adapted  to  sustain  them.  It  was,  that  it  wa» 
the  •**  very  high  obligation  of  the  bank  to  introduce  into  the  arrangement  of 
its  officers,  such  checks  and  counterbalances  as  may  be  necessary  to  maintain 
a  just  equilibrium  In  its  movements;''  and  that,  when  complaints  are  made 
of  abuses  for  party  purposes,  "as  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  fact,  or  to 
flcan  the  motive,  perhaps  the  only  safe  guide  to  test  the  justice  of  such  com- 
plaints, is  the  public  opinion  of  the  vicinity  from  virhich  they  emanate." 
Without  discussing  here  the  general  merit  of  such  a  plan,  1  will  only  say 
that  there  is  scarcely  conceivable  a  more  striking  example  of  its  extreme 
danger,  and  of  the  abuse  to  which  it  may  be  perverted,  than  this  very  case 
of  Mr.  Mason.  On  the  eve  of  an  election  for  an  officer  of  this  bank  Id 
New  Hampshire,  the  Senator  from  New  Hampshire,  the  Second  Conptrol- 
ler  from  New  Hampshire,  the  Legislature  of  New  Hampshire,  the  merchants 
of  all  parties  in  New  Hampshire,  were  all  arrayed  to  complain  of  his  abuses, 
and  to  show  how  loudly  public  opinion  demanded  his  removal,  just  at  the 
moment  when  the  administration  had  declared  to  the  bank  that  public  opi- 
nion was  the  only  safe  test  of  such  accusations. 

Happily  the  board  of  directors  are  but  little  sensible  to  influences  of  that 
description.  Instead  of  yielding  to  these  complaints,  they  examined  them, 
and,  after  a  calm  and  thorough  investigation,  they  found  that  all  these  accu- 
sations were  entirely  groundless;  that  the  most  zealous  of  his  enemies  did 
not  venture  to  assert  that  he  had  ever,  on  any  occasion,  been  influenced  by 
political  feelings,  and  that  this  public  opinion,  so  imposing  in  the  mist  of 
distance,  degenerated  into  the  personal  hostility  of  a  very  limited,  and,  for 
the  most  part,  very  prejudiced  circle.  Mr.  Mason  was,  therefore,  immedi- 
ately  re-elected. 

Having  now  disposed  of  the  case  which  gave  rise  to  this  correspondence, 
it  remains  to  understand  the  views  which,  in  the  course  of  it,  have  been 
presented  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

After  a  very  deliberate,  and  we  hope  a  very  dispassionate  consideration 
of  all  these  circumstances,  the  board  of  directors  think  it  evident  that  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  believes — 

1st.  That  the  '* relations  between  the  Government  and  the  bank"  confer 
some  supervision  of  the  choice  of  the  officers  of  the  bank,  to  the  **proper 
management"  of  which  his  interpretation  is  authorized; 

2d.  That  there  is  some  "action  of  the  Government  on  the  bank"  not 
precisely  explained,  but  in  which  he  is  the  proper  agent;  and,  finally, 

•Sd.  That  it  is  his  right  and  his  duty  to  suggest  the  views  of  the  adminis- 
tration as  to  the  political  opinions  and  conduct  of  the  officers  of  the  bank. 

Presuming  that  we  have  rightly  apprehended  your  views,  and  fearful  that 
the  silence  of  the  bank  might  be  hereafter  misconstrued  into  an  acquies- 
cence in  them,  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  state  to  you  in  a  manner  perfectly  res- 
pectful to  your  official  and  personal  character,  yet  so  clear  as  to  leave  no  pos- 
sibility of  misconception,  that  the  board  of  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  boards  of  directors  of  the  branches  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  acknowledge  not  the  slightest  responsibility  of  any  descrip- 
tion whatsoever  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  touching  the  political 
opinions  and  conduct  of  their  officers,  that  being  a  subject  on  which  they 
never  consult,  and  never  desire  to  know,  the  views  of  any  administration. 
It  is  with  much  reluctance  the  board  of  directors  feel  themselves  contrained 
to  make  this  declaration.  But,  charged  as  they  are  by  Congress  with  duties 
of  great  importance  to  the  country,  which  they  can  hope  to  execute  only 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  453 

while  they  are  exempted  from  all  influences  not  authorized  by  the  laws^ 
they  deem  it  most  becoming  to  themselves,  as  well  as  to  the  Executive,  to 
state  v^'ith  perfect  frankness  their  opinion  of  any  interference  in  the  concerns 
of  the  institution  confided  to  their  care.  In  the  same  spirit,  I  will  endeavor 
to  explain  the  reasons  of  that  opinion,  which  are,  that  the  interposition  of 
the  Secretary  seems  to  want  the  sanction  of  any  law,  or  usage,  or  especial 
fitness.     Of  these  in  their  turns — 

1st.  As  to  his  authority.  The  bank  is  created  by  an  act  of  Congress:  to 
that  ajct  alone  can  it  look  for  all  its  powers  and  responsibilities;  and  ail  pre- 
tensions to  exercise  an  influence  over  its  movements,  not  found  in  that  act 
of  Congress,  must  be  wholly  illegitimate.  Now,  so  far  from  giying  any  au- 
thority over  the  bank  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  the  fact  is,  that  the 
whole  structure  of  thie  institution  was  cautiously  adapted  to  exclude  that  very 
influence.  Congress  felt  that  the  greatest  danger  of  the  bank,  that  which 
has  destroyed  every  sifnilar  institution  weak  enough  to  submit  to  it,  was  the 
influence  of  the  Executive  officers.  They  knew  that  a  time  might  come 
when  these  officers  would  be  raised  into  power  by  the  spirit  of  party;  tha^ 
the  spirit  of  party  would  retain  or  remove  them;  and  that  they  would  feel 
6ueh  an  anxiety  to  maintain  the  ascendancy  of  the  party  to  which  ihey  owed 
their  elevation,  as  to  render  their  control  or  their  influence  hazardous  to  the 
bank.  Accordingly,  thegj-eatest  division  of  sentiment  in  Congress  was  pn 
the  point  whether  the  Executive  should  have  the  power  of  nominating  any 
directors  at  all.  In  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  most  animated  efforts 
were  made  to  preyent  it,  and,  on  a  motion  to  that  effect,  the  votes  were  91 
to  54.     In  the  Senate  a  similar  n^otion  failed,  by  a  vote  of  21  to  14. 

But  the  provision  inserted  in  the  original  plan  of  the  bank,  giving  the 
appointment  of  the  presidents  of  the  branches  to  the  Executive,  was  entirely 
rejected.  So,  too,  the  provision  that  the  president  of  the  bank  should  be 
chosen  from  among  the  Government  directors,  was  expunged  by  a  vote  of 
nearly  two  to  one.  And,  ag^in,  in  the  choice  of  these  directors,  the  Execu- 
tive was  limited,  by  an  amendment,  to  the  appointment  of  not  more  than  three 
from  any  one  State.  These  vvhole  proceedings  indicate  the  dread  of  the  in» 
fluence  of  the  Executive  over  the  bank:  but  the  most  sensitive  jealousy  of 
Congress  seems  never  to  have  anticipated,  and,  therefore,  never  to  have  for- 
bidden, that,  in  addition  to  the  influence  of  the  five  Government  directpr3, 
the  bank  should  ever  receive  a  formal  and  official  declaration  of  the  views  pf 
the  Executive  officers  in  regard  to  the  political  opinions  and  conduct  of  the 
agent  of  the  bank. 

A.ccordingly,  the  act  of  Cpngress  simply  declares,  <<that,  for  the  manage- 
ment of  the  affairs  of  the  said  corporation,  there  shall  be  twenty-five  di- 
rectors." When  these  are  chosen,  tjie  whole  administration  of  the  bank  is 
committed  to  their  exclusive  care.  Their  responsibility  for  the  manage- 
ment of  it  is  to  Congress,  and  to  Congress  alone:  but  no  Executive  officer 
of  the  Government,  from  the  President  of  the  United  States  downwards,  has 
the  slightest  authority  to  interfere  in  it;  and  there  can  be  no  more  warrant 
for  suggesting  the  views  of  the  administration  to  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  than  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  absence  of  any  specific  authority,  there  might  be  some  established 
usage  to  justify  this  interposition.  But,  from  the  foundation  of  the  Govern- 
ment, no  such  claim  has  ever  before  been  asserted.  Your  predecessors,  Mr. 
Morris,  General  Hamilton,  Mr.  Wplcott,  Mr.  Gallatin,  Mr.  Campbell,  Mr. 
Dallas,  Mr.  Crawford,  and  Mr.  Rush,  were  gentlemen  of  acknowledged  intelli-f 


454  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

gence  and  fidelity  to  their  duties.  Yet,  neither  during  the  existence  of  the 
first  Bank  of  the  United  States,  even  when  there  were  no  Government  di- 
rectors, nor  since  the  existence  of  the  present  bank,  nor  in  the  interval  be- 
tween them,  does  it  seem  ever  to  have  occurred  to  them  that  it  formed  any 
part  of  those  duties  to  inquire  into  the  political  opinions  and  conduct  of  the 
of  the  officers  of  the  banks  in  which  the  public  funds  were  deposited.  On 
the  contrary,  when  that  distinguished  statesman,  Mr.  Crawford,  was  con- 
sulted by  the  bank,  in  1819,  on  a  subject  entirely  financial,  he  accompanied 
l>is  answer  with  this  declaration:  "I  wish  to  have  no  other  influence  upon 
the  decision  which  the  board  of  directors  is  called  upon  to  make,  than  the 
views  which  I  have  presented  are  calculated  to  produce.  The  first  duty  of 
the  board  is  to  the  stockholders;  the  second  to  the  nation.''  If  neither  au- 
thority nor  custom  sanctions  it,  there  seems — 

3d.  No  peculiar  fitness  in  the  Secretary  for  the  suggestion  of  such  views. 
Undoubtedly  it  was  the  aim  of  Congress  to  exclude  the  operation  of  party, 
and  the  influence  of  the  Executive.  For  this  purpose,  they  committed  the 
care  of  the  bank  to  twenty-five  gentlemen,  chosen  partly  by  the  President 
and  Senate,  and  partly  by  the  stockholders;  trusting  to  this  variety  in  tlie 
composition  of  the  body,  and  to  the  natural  confidence  which  an  Ameri- 
can Congress  would  feel  in  the  uprightness  of  American  citizens,  that  they 
would  not  abuse  their  trusts.  In  this,  I  must  be  allowed  to  say,  they  have 
succeeded.  They  have  obtained  the  services  of  a  body  of  gentlemen,  of 
whose  general  intelligence  and  independence  it  is  unnecessary  to  speak;  but 
who  are  so  entirely  aloof  from  all  connection  with  politics,  that,  from  its  es- 
tablishment to  the  present  hour,  no  director  of  the  bank  has  ever  received, 
nor,  as  far  as  I  know,  ever  asked  any  office  or  any  favor  from  the  Govern- 
ment. Experience  has  accordingly  ^ratified  the  judgment  of  Congress 
that  a  body  thus  constituted,  composed  of  members  of  all  political  parties, 
standing  between  them  all,  yet  connected  with  none  of  them,  having 
nothing  to  ask,  nor  to  hope,  nor  to  fear,  from  the  Executive,  furnishes  a 
much  greater  security  for  an  independent  administration,  than  the  officers  of 
of  the  Government  could  possibly  ofier. 

Ti»ese  officers,  too,  are  the  more  unsafe  counsellors;  because,  such  is  the 
delusion  of  the  spirit  of  party,  they  often  advice  very  honestly  with  an  entire 
unconsciousness  of  their  own  motives.  Of  this  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a 
stronger  illustration  than  the  present  occasion.  You  give  it^  as  your  delibo' 
rate  opinion,  that  such  is  the  power  of  party  feelings,  that  it  is  morally  im- 
possible for  any  five  hundred  American  citizens,  carefully  selected  in  small 
responsible  bodies,  and  the  greater  part  of  whom  have  sworn,  as  I  have,  to 
execute  their  duty  faithfully,  not  to  betray  their  trusts,  by  granting  or  re- 
fusing loans  from  political  hostility  or  partiality.  Now,  I  must  be  per- 
mitted to  remark,  that  this  judgment  seems  to  be  exceedingly  severe.  I 
should,  indeed,  dispair  of  the  country,  if  1  did  not  think  that  these  free  and 
manly  institutions  of  ours  had  reared  up,  not  five  hundred,  but  five  hundred 
thousand  men  too  proud  to  surrender  their  honor,  or  desert  their  duty,  to 
promote  the  cause  of  any  party;  and  that  whenever  the  people  or  the  peo- 
ple's leaders  were  misled  into  excesses,  they  would  both  be  rebuked  back 
to  tiieir  duty  by  the  temperate  firmness  of  these  independent  citizens.  But 
tbey ,  who  assert  the  irresistible  power  of  the  spirit  of  party,  might  reflect 
that  this  spirit  becomes  more  intense  by  concentration  in  those  who  receive 
most,  and  expect  most  from  its  influence.  And  yet,  while  it  is  considered 
morally  impossible  for  the  directors  of  the  bank  not  to  pervert  their  autho- 


[  Eep.  No.  460.  3  455 

rity  to  party  purposes,  the  officers  of  the  Genera!  and  State  Governments  in- 
voke  the  interposition  of  the  bank  against  a  person  guilty  of  friendship  to  a 
political  antagonist,  without  the  least  suspicion  that  it  may  he  morally  impos- 
sible for  them  also  not  to  share  in  the  general  infirmity.  For  their  agency, 
moreover,  on  the  present  occasion,  there  was  no  necessity.  AH  these  repre- 
sentations from  New  Hampshire  might  have  come,  and,  doubtless,  would 
have  come  directly  to  the  bank,  but  for  the  design  of  producing  an  "  aotioa 
of  the  Government  on  the  bank"  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Trea- 
sury. That  instrumentality  might  be  perfectly  harmless,  and  it  was  doubt- 
less well  intended;  but  the  danger  is,  that  they,  who  listen  to  the  advice  of 
others,  may  soon  be  made  to  follow  it.  In  the  vocabulary  of  power,  to  sug- 
gest, to  advise,  to  influence,  and  to  control,  are  too  often  synonimous;  and 
the  descent  is  short  and  treacherous  from  being  the  instrument  of  party,  to 
being  its  victim. 

It  accords  with  the  unreserved  freedom  of  this  communication  to  add  a 
few  words  in  regard  to  the  course  of  policy  recommended  by<the  adminis- 
tration. I  will' not  permit  myself  for  a  moment  to  doubt  that  this  course 
has  been  maturely  considered  by  them  as  useful  and  proper,  alike  for  the 
bank  and  the  country:  and  yet,  I  think  they  will  perceive  that  in  practice 
it  would  prove  ruinous  to  the  institution.  The  success  of  the  bank,  and  the 
prosperity  of  the  country,  so  far  as  they  are  connected,  depend  mainly  on 
the  capacity  and  fidelity  of  its  officers,  who  are  necessarily  the  depositories 
of  an  almost  unlimited  confidence;  but,  from  the  moment  they  are  to  be  cho- 
sen for  any  reason  but  their  fitness — from  the  moment  that  the  officers  of  the 
General  or  the  State  Governments^are  allowed  «to  interfere  in  the  selection — ^ 
all  command  over  its  own  materials,  and  all  responsibility  for  its  measures, 
depart  from  the  institution.  To  choose  these  officers  according  to  any  sys-» 
tem  of  political  **  checks  and  counterbalances, '^  would  oblige  the  bank  to 
jEonsult  the  wishes  of  the  party  which  chanced  to  predominate  for  the  mo- 
ment in  the  public  councils,  and  to  change  them  with  every  change  of  po- 
litical administration  in  the  General  or  State  Governments. 

Now,  the  very  avowal  of  a  principle  of  political  division  amongst  the 
officers,  would  require  a  constant  subserviency  to  the  pretensions  of  the  nu- 
merous parties  who  divide  the  country,  and  these  checks  and  counterba- 
lances themselves  would  need  perpetual  re-adjustment;  till  at  length  the  ve- 
ry effijrt  to  please,  would  end,  as  it  ought  to  end,  in  universal  discontent. 
For  the  bank,  which  has  specific  duties  to  perform,  and  which  belongs  to  the 
country  and  not  to  any  party,  there  is  but  one  course  of  honor  or  of  safety. 
Whenever  its  duties  come  in  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  party,  it  should  not 
compromise  with  it,  nor  capitulate  to  it,  but  resist  it — resist  it  openly  and 
fearlessly.  In  this,  its  interest  concurs  with  its  duty,  for  it  will  be  found  at 
last,  such  is  the  good  sense  of  the  country,  that  the  best  mode  of  satisfying 
all  parties  is,  to  disregard  them  all. 

Nor  could  the  board  of  directors  adopt  the  remedy  proposed  by  the  adl 
ministration,  that,  when  an  officer  of  the  bank  is  accused  of  abusing  his  trust 
to  the  purposes  of  party,  as  "  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  fact  or  to  scan 
the  motive,  perhaps  the  only  safe  guide  to  test  the  justice  of  such  com- 
plaints is  the  public  opinion  of  tlie  vicinity  from  which  they  emanate."  It 
would  seem  more  natural  that,  in  all  cases  of  accusation,  the  difficulty  of  as- 
certaining the  fact,  should  make  us  slow  to  believe,  and  doubly  vigilant  to 
discover  it.  The  difficulty  of  scanning  motives  should  teach  us  how  easily 
they  may  be  misconstrued.     But  fact,  and  motive,  and  character,  and  con- 


456  C  Eep.  No.  460.  ] 

duct,  would  all  be  prejudged  in  deference  to  a  public  opinion,  which  is  itself 
more  ignorant  both  of  facts  and  motives  than  the  board  of  directors  them- 
selves who  are  to  submit  to  it.  This  is  too  summary,  and  too  dangerous; 
for  this  public  opinion  which  is  to  supercede  all  inquiry,  to  be  respected, 
must  be  respectable.  Even  in  its  best  state,  it  is  like  a  thing  rathe;*  to  con- 
sult than  to  obey,  by  those  who  are  charged  with  duties  not  connected  with 
it.  But,  in  its  ordinary  condition,  the  public  opinion,  which  every  party 
claims,  and  which  almost  every  party  can  make  for  the  moment;  the  public 
opinion  whose  sudden  impulses  it  is  the  whole  purpose  of  our  institutions, 
judges,  juries,  and  legislatures,  to  rectify  and  moderate;  this  public  opinion, 
in  its  crude  state,  is  the  most  dangerops  of  all  guides.  The  bank  cannot 
obey  it.  The  bank  is  strong  enough  to  exercise  the  noblest  prerogative  of 
strength,  not  to  be  afraid  of  being  just  to  its  officer?;  and,  content  that  they 
perform  their  duty,  it  will  not  pursue  them  into  private  life  with  inquisitions 
into  their  friendships,  nor  will  it  ever  sacrifice  them  either  tp  appease  any 
clamor,  or  to  propitiate  any  authority. 

It  is,  I  hope,  almost  superfluous  to  add,  that,  while  the  board  of  directors 
deem  it  their  duty  to  express  their  dissent  from  your  views  in  regard  to 
the  administration  of  the  bank,  the  difference  is  wholly  unaccompanied 
with  any  feeling  of  unfriendliness  towards  yourself  or  the  administration. 
To  both,  in  the  sphere  of  duty  allotted  to  it,  the  bank  has  given  the  most 
cordial  support;  to  both  it  will,  hereafter,  give  a  co-operation  equally  zeal* 
ous   in  all  its  appropriate  duties. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  yourSj, 

.      N.  BIDDLE,  President, 
Hon.  S.  D.  Ingham, 

Secretary/  of  the  Treasury, 

,  Washingtony  D,   C. 


[confidential.] 
Treasury  Department,  5th  October y  1829. 

Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  15th  ultimo,  superadded  to  a  correspondence 
which  I  had  presumed  at  an  end,  has  remained  unanswered,  in  consequence 
of  official  engagements,  from  which,  until  recently,  I  have  been  unable  tp 
withdraw  my  attention.  Its  length,  character,  and  source,  entitled  it  to  a  re- 
spectful consideration,  which  I  beg  you  to  believe  it  has  received. 

Intending  to  review  the  contents  of  your  communication  with  the  "  un- 
reserved freedom'^  by  which  it  is  happily  characterized,  I  must  congratu- 
late you  and  your  associates,  as  well  as  myself,  that,  whatever  differences 
exist  between  us,  they  are  yet  on  points  purely  speculative;  that  the  alleged 
practical  abuse  of  station,  towards  which  my  first  letter  invited  the  inquiries 
of  the  board,  has  been  scrutinized  by  the  president  of  the  bank  in  person, 
doubtless  with  impartiality  and  candor;  and  that  <*the  public  opinion"  re- 
specting Mr.  Mason,  which  was  **  so  imposing  at  a  distance,"  in  your  pre- 
sence "  degenerated  into  the  personal  hostility  of  a  very  limited,  and,  for 
the  most  part,  very  prejudiced  circle."  I  cannot  but  be  gratified  to  hear 
that  the  directors  instituted  "a  calm  and  thorough  investigation:"  thus  com- 
plying with  the  ^nly^wish  entertained  or  expressed  by  me  on  the  subject; 


[  IJep.  No.  460.  ]  457 

and,  as  it  is  said,  this  examination  has  proved  ^^  that  the  accusatiojis  were 
eniirehj  grounclless^'^  an  hal)itual  reliance  upon  the  fairness  and  justice  of 
my  fellow-citizens,  inspires  the  ])ope  that  their  framers  will  contentedly 
acquiesce  in  the  re  election  of  a  vindicated  officer.  If  such  results  alone  are 
to  flow  from  occasional  correspondence  between  the  ''public  servants^' 
here,  and  the  ''public  servants^'  in  your  board,  it  is  presumed  that  the 
most  wary  sensitiveness  would  lack  cause  for  disquietude.  I  am  not  the 
less  gratified  with  these  results,  as  may  well  be  imagined,  at  finding  them 
sustaii:ed  b}-  the  test  of  '^public  opinion,"  which  1  took  occasion  to  refer 
to,  with  some  ccnfidence,  as  a  safe  guide  in  the  investigition  of  matters  of 
that  character. 

I  had  thought  my  objects  and  sentiments  so  plainly  conveyed,  and  in- 
deed your  recognition  of  them  so  forcibly  and  flatteringly  ex])ressed,  that 
no  danger  of  subsequent  misinterpretation  was  to  be  apprehended.  When, 
in  reply  to  my  letter  of  the  11th  of  July,  you  were  obliging  enough  to  say, 
that  my  "  good  judgment  had  indicated  the  true  theonj  of  administer- 
ing the  bank:^^  that  my  "clear  and  sound  principles  contained  the 
whole  elements  of  the  system  of  the  bank,  and  its  true  relation  to  the 
Government ^^^  and  that  *'  the  real  nature  and  interests  of  the  institu- 
tion are  perfectly  understood  and  appreciated  by  the  present  adminis- 
iratio7if^  it  was  impossible  not  to  he  pleased  at  the  prospect  of  justly  and 
harmoniously  transacting  what,  though  a  measure  of  public  duty,  was  cer- 
tainly of  a  delicate  and  disagreeable  character.  This  pleasure  was  promptly 
and  unafiectedly  confessed  in  my  letter,  addressed  to  you  under  date  of  the 
23d  of  July,  and-,  notwithstanding  a  careless  phrase  inserted  in  the  reply, 
written  and  transmitted  to  me  during  your  absence,  it  remained  undiminish- 
ed, until  the  receipt  of  the  one  I  am  now  noticing.  Unwilling  to  suppose, 
for  a  moment,  that  you  can  have  either  an  inclination  or  a  motive  to  do  me, 
individually  or  officially,  a  wrong,  the  unexpected  transition  from  confi- 
dence to  suspicion,  from  complimentary  intercourse  to  a  jealous  assertion 
of  corporate  chastity,  by  which  your  last  is  characterized,  however  unac- 
countable, 1  would  gladly  interpret  most  favorably  to  your  character  for  in- 
telligence and  consistency,  in  the  comments  I  have  to  make  upon  what  are 
ostensibly  the  hinges  of  this  intellectual  revolution.  These,  however,  will 
be  made  with  ♦'  unreserved  freedom,"  not  doubting  that  further  reflection 
will  enable  you  to  perceive  that  you  have  gratuitously  attributed  to  me,  a'nd, 
through  me,  to  th2  administration,  certain  acts,  without  knowing  whether 
we  sanctioneil  them  or  not;  and  that  you  have  unintentionally  distorted,  by 
partial  quotations,  the  natural  and  obvious  meaning  of  expressions  in  my 
former  letter.  Having  done  this,  I  will  proceed  to  your  general  theories  re- 
specting the  connection  subsisting,  by  law  and  in  practice,  between  the 
Government  and  the  bank. 

The  communication  made  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  by  Mr.  Isaac 
Hill,  accom.t)anying  two  memorials,  was  wholly  unknown  to  me,  until  I  saw 
it  adverted  to  in  your  letter.  It  was  of  a  nature  distinct  from  an  official 
act,  notwithstanding  his  having  described  himself  as  "  Second  Comptroller 
of  the  Treasury.'-  It  is  to  be  regretted,  that,  before  invoking  his  language 
as  shade  for  ground-work  of  your  picture,  an  eflbrt  had  not  been  made  to 
ascertain  how  hr  the  administration  either  knew  or  approved  it.  With 
great  respect  for  the  motives  which  prompted  him  as  a  public  officer,  I  can 
neither  assume  the  merit,  nor  incur  the  responsibility  of  the  act. 

You  farther  take  occasion,  twice  in  the  course  of  your  letter,  to  consider 
5S 


458  [  Ecp.  No.  460.  ] 

avowed  by  me,  a  sentiment  utterly  alien  to  my  feelings  and  judgment,  in- 
consistent with  my  uniform  language,  and  preposterous  in  principle.  *'  Your 
reply  (say  you,)  of  the  23d  of  July,  treats  the  exemption  from  political 
bias,  as  a  moral  impossibility."  Again:  ^'You  give  it  as  your  deliberate 
opinion,  that  such  is  the  power  of  party  feelings,  that  it  is  morally  impos- 
sible for  any  five  hundred  American  citizens,  carefully  selected  in  small  re- 
sponsible bodies,  and  the  greater  part  of  whom  have  sworn,  as  I  have,  to 
execute  their  duty  faithfully,  and  not  to  betray  their  trusts,  by  granting  or 
refusing  loans,  from  political  partiality  or  hostility."  Stating  this  as  my 
written  sentiment,  you  are  pleased  to  denounce  it,  both  eloquently  and  just- 
ly. If  you  will  turn  to  the  paragraph  which  has  been  thus  strangely  dis- 
colored, and  repeat  it  to  your  board,  my  respect  for  their  sense  of  justice 
and  fairness,  persuades  me  that  they  will  regret  having  precipitately  and 
unadvisedly  sanctioned  the  conversion  of  an  immutable  truism  into  an  opi- 
nion as  abhorrent  in  the  abstract,  as  it  is  unnatural  to  me.  These  are  my 
words:  «*  Impressed  with  these  truths,  which  may  indeed  be  considered 
un'deniable,  I  was  not  prepared  for  so  confident  an  assertion  of  the  yniver- 
sal  purity  of  the  bank  and  all  its  branches,  in  practice  as  well  as  principle, 
as  is  to  be  found  in  your  letter;  and,  while  I  would  scrupulously  forbear  to 
assume  any  fact  derogatory  to  the  character  of  your  boards  or  those  of  the 
branches,  it  is  not  deemed  incompatible  with  the  most  rigid  justice,  to  sup- 
pose that  a  body  of  five  hundred  men,  not  selected  by  an  Omniscient  eye, 
cannot  be  fairly  entitled  to  the  unqualified  testimony  which  you  have  been 
pleased  to  offer  in  their  behalf.  It  is  morally  impossible  that  the  character 
of  all  the  acts  of  the  directors  of  the  branches,  much  less  their  motives, 
could  be  known  to  the  parent  board:  hence,  the  declaration  that  no  loan 
was  ever  granted  to,  or  withheld  from  any  individual,  on  account  of  politi- 
cal partiality  or  hostility,  must  be  received  rather  as  evidence  of  your  own 
feelings,  than  as  conclusive  proof  of  the  fact  so  confidently  vouched  for." 

The  ability  of  the  parent  board,  to  know  the  character  of  all  the  acts  of  the 
directors  of  the  branches,  and  their  motives,  is  physically,  as  well  as  morally 
impossible:  were  it  otherwise,  how  should  we  limit  the  shame  of  the  enor- 
mous frauds  which  have  signalized  some  of  your  subordinates?  And  a  volun- 
teer affirmation  of  their  universal  purity,  to  their  freedom  from  ordinary  feel- 
ings, passions,  and  vices  of  human  nature,  made  prior  to  an  investigation  on 
a  particular  charge  of  culpability,  may  indicate  a  liberal  confidence,  but  can- 
not be  accepted  as  evidence  of  innocence. 

That  men  may,  and  often  do  act  with  exemption  from  improper  bias,  in 
the  discharge  of  the  trust  confided  to  them,  is  indisputable,  but  it  is  equally 
true,  however,  that  they  do  not  always  thus  act;  and  it  will  not  be  denied, 
that,  to  remove  the  motive  and  destroy  the  power  to  commit  an  abuse,  are 
the  most  desirable,  as  well  as  effectual  preventives.  That  he  who  now 
writes,  habitually  and  fearlessly,  trusts  in  the  readiness  as  well  as- capacity 
to  "  execute  duty  faithfully,"  with  *'  an  exemption  from  political  bias,"  is 
strongly  exemplified  in  the  undisguised  manner  in  which,  on  behalf  of 
mme  complaining  fellow  citizens,  he  has  appealed  to  the  justice  and  integri- 
ty of  the  existing  directors  of  the  Banli  of  the  United  States. 

A  casual  su^jgestion  in  my  first  letter,  as  to  the  most  effectual  mode  of 
averting  the  pernicious  tendency  of  party  spirit,  and  defending  the  character 
of  the  bank  from  the  imputation  of  it,  seems  now  to  be  seen  through  a  new 
medium,  and  to  furnish  evidence  of  some  fearful  purpose  of  interference  in 
the  election  of  officers  of  the  bank;  but,  for  the  importance  which  you  have 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ]  459 

given  the  remark,  I  should  not  feel  excused  for  occupying  a  moment  oi 
your  time,  to  show  that  you  have  erred,  not  less  in  the  conception  of  my 
purpose,  than  the  propriety  of  the  suggestion.  Indulging  an  anxious  wish 
that  your  institution  should  not  only  be  pure,  but  beyond  suspicion;  I  in- 
timated, not  ^'  a  formal  declaration  as  to  the  political  opinion  and  conduct  of 
the  officers,"  but  what  every  one  knows  to  be  true,  that  <^  checks  and  coun- 
terbalances are  necessary  to  obtain  a  just  equilibrium'^  in  all  moving  bodies 
The  proposition  was  not  only  undeniable  in  the  abstract,  but  In  perfect  con- 
formit};-  to  the  severest  rules  of  justice  and  policy,  and  in  strict  analogy  with 
the  principle  which  requires  the  impartial  selection  of  every  tribunal,  which 
tries  the  property,  liberty,  or  life,  of  a  fellow  being;  but,  in  the  present  case, 
the  suggestion,  coming  through  any  other  channel,  must  have  had,  in  your 
estimation,  even  stronger  recomm.endations  than  these.  It  happened  to  be 
in  conformity  with  your  own  expressed  views  of  the  true  theory  of  selec- 
tion as  prescribed  in  the  charter,  for  you  have  justly  remarked,  that  one 
great  foundation  of  confidence  in  the  uprightness  of  the  bank,  was  based 
in  the  '^  variety  in  the  composition  of  the  body.^^  I  apprehend  it  would 
not  be  material  as  to  to  the  mode  by  which  ''  this  variety"  was  effected:  in 
such  matters  forms  are  nothing,  substance  every  thing.  Nor  have  I  been 
able  to  see  the  force  of  your  argument  against  such  a  policy,  founded  on 
the  supposed  necessity  of  changing  your  officers  to  suit  the  political  views 
of  successive  administrations,  inasmuch  as  the  ^^  variety  in  the  composition 
of  the  body,"  being  made  a  part  of  the  system  necessary  to  safety,  w^ould 
require  no  change  to  suit  the  legitimate  purposes  of  any  party.  I  cannot 
but  be  gratified  with  every  rational  assurance,  that  the  selections  of  your 
officers  have  been  so  '*  entirely"  successful,  and  at  receiving  any  evi- 
dence tending  to  weaken  the  force  of  complaints  as  to  the  alleged  partizan 
organization  and  persecuting  disposition  of  some  of  your  branches. 

In  the  phraseology,  too,  of  the  action  of  the  Government  upon  the  bank, 
you  have  imagined  some  unexplained  and  mysterious  pretensions  implied. 
The  words,  when  violently  torn  from  their  context,  may  convey  to  the 
imagination  an  idea  big  with  the  fate  of  corporate  inviolability,  and  teeming 
with  corruption;  but  restore  them  to  their  right  place,  and  they  defy  mis- 
construction. The  principles  suggested  in  my  letter  of  the  Ilth  July,  in- 
dicating the  views  of  the  Treasury  Department  as  to  the  proper  duties  of 
the  bank,  met  with  j^our  cordial  and  unqualified  approbation;  which  was 
responded  in  no  measured  terms  of  eulogy.  Allow  me  to  repeat  them: 
f'' my  good  judgment  had  indicated  the  true  theory  of  administering 
the  bankf^  that  my  ^'  clear  and  sound  pririciples  contained  the  whole 
elements  of  the  system  of  the  bank,  and  its  true  relation  to  the  Govern- 
ment f^  that  ''the  real  nature  and  interests  of  the  institution  are  per- 
fectly understood  and  appreciated^^  by  the  administration,  &.c.  &c. 

The  reply,  in  my  letter  of  the  23d  July,  to  this  part  of  yours,  contains  the 
expression  that  seems  to  have  awakened  your  sensibility  for  the  indepen- 
dence and  purity  of  the  bank.  It  is  as  follows:  "  I  am  gratified  to  find  so  en- 
tire a  concurrence  in  our  opinions  as  to  the  principles  which  ought  to  govern 
in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  bank.  When  principles  are  thus 
cordially  settled,  there  is  mucii  reason  to  expect  that  every  material  error 
of  practice,  will,  in  time,  be  properly  corrected,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  while  the  action  of  the  Government  upon  the  bank,  and  that  of  the 
bank  upon  those  within  the  sphere  of  its  influence,  shall  be  practically 
regulated  by  these  principles,  the  institution  will  not  fail  to  secure  the 


460  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

great  ends  for  which  it  vva^  established."  I  forbear  to  offer  any  further 
comment  upon  the  use  you  have  been  pleased  to  make  of  the  .'.(bducted 
phrase,  and  proceed  to  consider  its  character  even  in  the  naked  form  it  has 
been  made  to  assume. 

The  Government  of  this  nation  is  presumed  to  act,  directly  or  indirectly, 
obviously  or  insensibly,  upon  all  who  enjoy  its  blessings  or  suljmit  to  its 
control.  In  conducting  the  business  of  the  people,  it  acts  visibly  through 
recognized  officers,  Ujjon  those  in  any  manner  connected  v/ith  that  business; 
and  while  the  first  general  action  is  modified  and  restricted  by  settled  prin- 
ciples, the  great  system  of  pure  and  (ree  institutions  is  preserved  unim- 
paired. The  bank  cannot,  if  it  would,  avoid  the  '^action  of  the  Govern- 
ment" in  all  its  legitimate  operations  and  policy,  however  disposed  it  might 
be,  after  calculating  the  immensity  of  its  coffers,  and  the  expansion  of  its 
])0\ver,  to  assert  a  superiority  or  insensibility  to  such  action.  The  pretension 
could  only  excite  a  smile;  compared  to  the  Government,  the  bank  is  essen- 
tially insignificant.  I  make  these  remarks  with  no  view  to  disparage  the 
real  importance  and  dignity  of  your  institution;  nor  to  insinuate  that  the 
highly  respectable  citizens,  by  whom  its  wealth  is  wielded,  do  now,  or  ever 
have  entertained  projects  of  ambition;  but  to  enable  you  more  distinctly  to 
understand  the  signification  given  by  me  to  the  word  "  government,"  in 
the  phrase  under  consideration. 

Had,  however,  this  word  been  used  in  a  more  humble  sense,  importing 
the  Executive  officers  of  the  administration,  as  even  their  action  upon  the 
bank  is,  in  expressed  cases,  not  merely  permissive,  but  necessary,  I  might 
reasonably  have  anticipated  any  construction  other  than  that  which  would 
provoke  jealousy  or  excite  alarm.  The  administration  is  empowered  to 
acl  upon  the  bank  in  various  ways:  in  the  appointment  or  removal  of  five 
of  the  directors;  in  the  withdrawing  of  the  public  deposites;  in  the  exac- 
tion of  weekly  statements,  and  the  inspection  of  its  general  accounts;  and 
in  all  the  modes  incident  to  the  management  of  the  pecuniary  collections 
and  disbursements  of  the  Government.  That  these  opportunities  of  action 
might  be  perverted  and  abused  is  conceivable,  but,  subjected  to  the  principle 
on  which  w£  early  and  cordially  agreed,  they  become  causes  of  security 
and  benefit;  and  before  I  dismiss  this  branch  of  the  subject,  I  take  the  oc- 
casion to  say,  if  it  should  ever  appear  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  that  the  bank  used  its  pecuniary  power  for  purposes  of  injus- 
tice and  oppression,  he  would  be  faithless  to  his  trust  if  he  hesitated  to 
lessen  its  capacity  for  such  injury,  by  withdrawing  from  its  vaults  the  pub- 
lic deposites.  That  such  a  power  exists,  is  not  more  certain,  than  that  it  may 
be  exerted  for  such  a  purpose;  and  the  only  qualification  of  it,  viz.  that 
the  reasons  for  its  exercise  shall  be  reported  to  Congress,  necessarily 
implies  the  right  and  the  duty  to  admonish  against,  or  inquire  into  the  acts 
that  might  lead  to  such  a  consequence. 

The  disposition  of  these  topics  hringsmeto  the  more  important  and  peculiar 
object  of  your  letter,  and  at  its  threshhold  I  must  take  the  liberty  to  recapitu- 
late, briefly,  the  steps  heretofore  taken  in  this  correspondence. 

On  the  i  Ith  of  July,  1829,  I  transmitted  to  the  president  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  a  written  complaint,  which  had  been  confided  by  a  distinguish- 
ed citizen  of  New  Hampshire,  to  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sur}',  against  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Mason,  president  of  the  branch  at  Ports- 
mouth. The  document  thus  sent,  contained  allusions  and  expressions,  with 
which,  as  a  public  officer,  I  could  not  cojisisteatly  link  myself,  and  therefore 


[  Eep.  No,  460.  ]  46  t 

introduced  into  my  own  communication  some  general  remarks,  to  forestall 
the  leasi  supposition  that  I  become  a  party  to  the  complaint,  was  conversant 
with  its  foundation,  or  entertained  any  imaginable  purpose  but  that  of  frank, 
full,  and  fair,  inquiry.  My  single  suggestion  was,  that  the,  board  should  give 
to  the  subject  their  '^serious  attention,^^  not  doubting  that,  <'  if  the  alleged 
evils  were  found  io  exists  an  efficient  remedy  would  be  applied  by  them.^^ 
Your  answer  to  this  letter  is  dated  ISth  July,  1829.  It  speaks  courteously 
of  my  *«  good  judgment;''  <*  clear  and  sound  principles"  respecting  the  ba- 
«is  of  credit  and  moneyed  institutions,  '^  abstaining  from  exerting  their  power 
in  subservience  to  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  local  or  party  strife;"  and 
it  especially  notices  my  unequivocal  and,  intentionally,  impressive  disclaimer 
of  ^11  desire  to  derive  political  aid  from,  or  to  '^  form  political  relationship" 
with,  the  bank  or  any  of  its  branches.  Your  reply  further  passed  an  ample, 
and  perhaps  merited  panegyric  upon  the  corps  of  <*five  hundred  persons" 
employed  in  administeringthe  bank,  and  injdeveloping  the  past  or  explaining 
the  present  principles  of  operation,  it  claimed  a  high  and  not  questioned  me- 
rit for  its  political  neutrality  and  patriotic  disinterestedness.  Accompany- 
ing this  letter,  came  another  of  the  same  date,rrelating,  exclusively,  to  the  ^^al- 
legations of  Mr.  Woodbury;"  ^^  the  misapprehensions  of  a  gentleman  of  his 
general  intelligence,"  his  *'  irreconcilable  declarations;  and  the  entire  com- 
petency," exceeding  usefulness,  and  freedom  from  political  feeling,  ol  Mr. 
Mason. 

I  wrote  in  reply,  on  the  23d  of  July,  1829,  expressing  my  gratification  at 
the  concurrence  of  our  principles;  reiterating  the  wish  of  the  11th  instant, 
that  the  serious  attention  of  the  board  should  be  given  to  the  complaint  of 
Mr,  Woodbury ;  added  the  expression  of  a  hope  that,  "  when  any  abuse  is  sug- 
gested through  a  channel  entitled  to  respect,  whatever  motive  it  may  be  attri- 
buted to,  the  truth  may  be  sought,  without  prejudice,  from  such  -sources,  as  may 
be  most  likely  to  disclose  it;"  and  concluded  other  observations  by  saying, 
that  ''  I  must  not  be  understood  as  assuming  the  truth  of  any  charge,  butmere- 
ly  as  objecting  to  a  course  of  action  that  either  resists  inquiry,  or,  what  is  of  the 
same  tendency,  enters  upon  it  with  a  full  persuasion  that  it  is  not  called  for." 

Another  communication,  penned  in  your  absence  from  Philadelphia,  but 
by  the  instruction  of  the  board  of  directors,  and  dated  on  the  4th  of  August, 
1829,  was  subsequently  received  at  this  department.  It  re-asserted  your 
panegyric  upon  the  ^' five  hundred;"  predetermined  that  *'  no  loan  was  ever 
granted  to,  or  witheld  from,  any  individual  on  account  of  political  partiality 
or  hostility;"  averred  that  those  employed  in  administering  the  bank  were 
the  *^most  intelligent,  independent,  and  upright;"  and  that  Mr.  Mason, 
whose  **  business  qualifications  were  of  the  highest  order,"  had  given  *^  strik- 
ing evidences  of  inteUigence,  impartiality,  zeal,  and  fidelity."  Two  brief 
and  unimportant  letters,  dated,  respectively,  on  the  5th  and  10th  of  Augus-t, 
closed  the  correspondence,  until,  on  the  15th  of  September,  having  returned 
from  New  England,  you  revived  it. 

Having  obtained  from  the  board  of  directors,  as  you  inform  me,  all  that 
was  ever  asked,  '*a  calm  and  thorough  investigation"  of  a  charge  made  by 
an  eminent  citizen  against  an  officer  of  the  bank,  it  would  be,  perhaps,  in 
■more  strict  conformity  with  my  sense  of  public  duty  to  let  the  matter  termi- 
nate there,  unless  future  disclosures  should  demand  and  warrant  further  in- 
terposition on  my  part. 

It  cannot  be  unknown  to  you,  or  your  associates,  that  the  labor  inseparable 
from  this  departmentof  the  Government^  are  so  multifarious  and  pressing  as  to 


462  [  Rep,  No.  460.  ] 

preclude  its  incumbent  from  that  species  of  mental  exercise  to  which  you  invite 
him,  the  methodical  arrangement  of  principles',  and  the  discussion  of  points  6i 
constitutional  or  legal  power,  notdirectly  connected  with  any  practical  operation 
of  business.  Nevertheless,  the  extraordinary  emphasis,  and  unqualified  phrase- 
ology with  which  the  board  of  directors  have,  through  you,  made  their  de- 
claration of  independence  on  the  Government  of  their  country;  the  singular 
and  unaccountable  sensitiveness  evinced  at  the  reception  of  a  request  for  in- 
buiry  into  truth  from  a  highly  esteemed  and  responsible  citizen;  the  broad 
and  Utopian  challenge,  for  all  the  *'  five  hundred,"  of  unerring,  and,  therefore, 
unquestionable,  virtue;  and  the  ill-disguised  attempt  to  fasten  upon  the  admi- 
nistration, or  upon  one  of  its  members,  the  imputation  of  an  effort  on  the  vir- 
gin purity  of  the  bank;  persuade  me  that  some  reply  upon  these  points  can- 
not be  forborne  without  hazarding,  by  seeming  acquiescence,  the  introduc- 
tion of  doctrines,  and  practices,  and  pretensions,  injurious  to  the  country^ 
inconsistent  with  law,  and  dishonorable  to  the  officers  of  the  Government. 

In  yielding  to  this  impulse  of  high  and  solemn  obligation,  and  in  convey- 
ing to  you  my  opinions  on  the  rightful  relations  and  forms  of  intercourse  be- 
tween the  national  authorities  and  the  bank,  I  must  premise,  notwithstanding 
the  peculiar  incredulity  shown  to  similar  assurances,  that  no  wish  is,  or  ever 
has  been,  felt  by  me,  to  convert  or  attach  the  influence  of  the  bank  to  any 
political  party;  but,  on  the  contrary,  speaking  with  *^  unreserved  freedom,^'* 
although  in  the  joint  discharge  of  public  functions,  comity  and  co-operation- 
cannot  be  too  much  cultivated  in  the  arena  of  party  conflict,  which  you  almost 
tempt  me  to  believe  unavoidable,  the  hostility  of  the  bank,  as  a  political  engine^ 
would  be  preferred  to  its  amity. 

With  a  view  to  precision,  and  to  show  upon  how  baseless  an  issue  the  su- 
perstructure of  your  dissertation  has  been  built,  permit  me  to  say  what  my 
opinions  and  views  are  not: 

1st.  It  is,  say  you,  <<  thought  evident  that  the  Secretary  believes  that  the 
relations  between  the  Government  and  the  bank  confer  some  supervision  of 
the  election  of  the  officers  of  the  bank,  to  the  proper  management  of  which 
his  interposition  is  authorized." 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  disclaims,  once  for  all,  any  such  belief. 
The  choice  of  the  officers  of  the  bank  rests  exclusively  with,  and  upon  th& 
responsibility  of,  the  board  of  directors.  It  is  not  a  responsibility  distributed 
by  law,  and  no  one  looking  to  the  past  or  present  would  wish  to  share  it. 

2d.  It  is  *'  thought  evident  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  believes  that 
there  is  some  'action  of  the  Government  on  the  bank'  not  explained,  but  in 
which  he  is  the  proper  agent. " 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  does  not  doubt  the  existence  of  such  an  ac- 
tion, but  apprehends  that  it  is  perfectly  explained  in  character  and  extent  to 
those  who  are  familiar  with  causes  which  affect  bank  currency  and  credit,, 
who  justly  appreciate  the  nature  of  our  institutions,  and  know  the  provisions 
of  our  laws. 

3d.  It  is  '<  thought  evident  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  believes  it 
is  his  right  and  his  duty  to  suggest  the  views  of  the  administration  as  to  the 
political  opinions  and  conduct  of  the  bank." 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  disclaims  either  the  right  or  the  duty  to  in- 
termeddle, individually  or  on  behalf  of  the  administration,  with  the  politi- 
cal opinions  or  political  conduct  of  any  American  citizen  whatever:  that  right 
and  that  duty  he  equally  denies  to  the  bank.  Such  opinions  and  such  con- 
duct are  beyond  and  above  the  sphere  of  official  scnitiny  or  control,  and 


i  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  463 

should  be  zealously  protected  from  invasion,  either  by  those  who  have  the 
power  of  place,  or  the  more  subtle  potency  of  the  purse. 

These  distinct  denials,  however,  of  the  three  postulates  to  which  is  ap- 
pended the  disquisition  of  the  board  upon  the  relations  between  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  bank,  leave  untouched  its  conspicuous  drift,  and  upon  this  I 
feel  no  reluctance  to  communicate,  undisguisedly,  my  fixed  sentiments  and 
purposes  as  a  public  agent. 

The  old  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  created  in  1791,  and  expired, 
agreeably  to  its  legal  limitation,  on  the  4th  of  March,  ISIl.  Its  capital,  at 
that  time  considered  enormous,  was  but  two-sevenths  of  that  of  the  present 
bank,  of  which  one-fifth  was  subscribed  by  the  Government,  and  its  twen- 
ty-five directors  were  all  chosen  by  the  private  stockholders.  It  would  be 
tedious  to  myself,  and  your  own  recollection  must  make  it  unnecessary,  to 
enumerate  in  detail  the  causes  which,  long  before  the  lapse  of  its  appropri- 
ate 20  years,  made  that  institution  odious  to  the  great  mass  of  the  American 
people.  As  a  renewal  of  the  charter  became  the  subject  of  common  can- 
vass and^ discussion,  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States  formally  and  em- 
phatically denounced  it.  During  the  animated  debates  in  Congress,  in  the 
winter  of  IS  10,  '11,  at  a  season  when  the  proximity  of  war  could  not  but 
be  perceived  by  every  statesman,  and  the  National  Bank  be  therefore  mag- 
nified in  importance;  it  was  depicted,  both  in  the  Senate  and  House  of  Re- 
presentatives, as  a  prostituted  machine  of  political  party,  partial  in  allowing 
discounts  to  those  who  professed  the  favorite  tenets,  influencing  elections, 
and  jeopardizing  the  liberties  of  the  land.  One  distinguished  member, 
whose  eloquent  and  sterling  republicanism  attracted  at  this  time  universal 
enconfiiums,  spoke  thus:  *^  but,  without  these  declarations  of  political  influ- 
ences exercised  by  the  stockholders  and  directors,  our  own  reason  would 
teach  us  to  believe  all  we  have  heard  of  the  oppression  and  partiality  of  this 
bank:  it  is  composed  of  individuals,  these  individuals  have  their  passions, 
their  feelings,  their  prejudices,  their  partialities,  and  their  politics;  and  they 
will  act  accordingly:  self  preservation  will  always  induce  them  to  support 
and  keep  in  power  the  party  that  will  be  most  friendly  to  moneyed  aristo- 
cracies, and  ttieir  own  institutions."  <*  The  influence  of  this  bank  is  palpa- 
ble and  notorious."  It  is  not  for  me  to  insist  upon  the  truth  of  such  a  de- 
lineation. The  prevailing  belief  in  its  fidelity,  however,  formed  one  of  the 
strongest  grounds  against  the  renewal;  and  although  it  was  encountered  by 
prodigal  assertion  of  purity  and  of  exemption  from  politics,  all  the  vividly 
described  dangers  of  demolition  were  boldly  hazarded,  rather  than  prolong, 
for  mere  financial  facilities,  the  existence  of  a  corporation  whose  alleged 
operations  were  in  steady  hostility  to  the  measures  of  the  Government,  and 
subversive  of  practical  freedom. 

A  state  of  war  produced  perplexities  in  currency  and  cre<lit,  which  seem- 
ed to  force  upon  a  reluctant  country  the  alternative  of  a  bank  or  a  bankrupt- 
cy, and  under  auspices  of  men,  whose  well  tried  vigilance  and  known  soli- 
citude to  preserve  an  equality  of  rights  and  immunities  inspired  confidence, 
it  was  thought  that  some  improvement  might  be  grafted  upon  the  old  plan 
to  prevent  the  mischief  before  experienced.  I  need  hardly  say  what  these 
improvements  were.  In  the  original  project  of  Mr.  Dallas,  who  rightly 
judged  that  some  surpervisory  agency  was  essential,  and  that  it  could  no 
where  be  more  safely  deposited,  a  power  to  appoint  five  directors,  and 
of  designating  one  of  the  five  as  president,  was  proposed  to  be  con- 
ferred upon  the  elected  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  country,  and  the  dis- 
Citetion  to  withdraw  the  public  deposites  upon  the   Secretary  of  the  Trea- 


46-1  [  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 

sury.  A  modification  of  this  proposal  was  made  and  acquisccd  in;  not,  as 
would  seem  to  be  your  impression,  because  the  friends  of  the  measure 
dreaded  the  consequence  of  so  much  government  interfeience,  but,  because  by 
yielding  a  little,  while  enough  for  the  desired  object  was  retained,  they  were- 
able  to  concilitate  a  few  hesitating  colleagues.  The  design  in  these  new 
features  in  the  organization  of  the  bank,  was  never  concealed,  and  never 
doubted.  Without  them,  the  representatives  of  a  people,  who,  but  six  years 
before  demanded  the  prostration  of  the  old  institution,  would  not  have  con- 
sented to  erect  the  new. 

By  a  reference  to  the  debates  in  both  Houses,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  fea- 
tures of  the  charter  which  you  have  brought  into  this  discussion,  were  made 
the  ground  for  an  issue  between  those  who  had  condemned  and  those  who 
had  justified  the  conduct  and  policy  of  the  old  bank.  It  is  not  for  me  to  say 
how  far  the  sentiments  and  feelings  of  the  latter  find  a  sympathy  in  those 
of  the  present  board,  but  the  coincidence  in  your  doctrinesis  too  striking. 
to  escape  notice.  On  one  side  it  was  urged  that  the  Government  ought  not  to 
have  a  representation  for  its  stock  in  the  management  of  the  bank;  <'  that 
it  ought  to  have  no  concern  in  the  stock;  nor,. beyond  what  the  value  of  its 
custom  or  business  gave  it,  ought  the  Government  to  have  any  control  over 
the  bank.''  These  were  the  arguments  and  doctrines  of  those  who  voted? 
against  the  charter.  What  was  the  language  of  its  friends?  ^'  The  true  policy 
of  the  creation  of  a  bank  is  to  give  it  a  double  character;  to  combine  in  it  the 
elements  of  public  and  private  interest:  but  to  secure  to  the  former  a  con- 
trol over  the  latter;  for  the  Government  which  creates  this  institution  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  fulfilment  of  the  great  objects  of  its  creation,  and  it  is  wiser 
to  use  means  of  precaution,  than  to  rest  upon  ultimate  means  of  severe  cor- 
rection.'' Again:  '*  The  Government  ought  to  have  an  interest  in  the  bank^ 
asthey  would  thereby  be  informed  of  all  the  plans  which  might  be  at  any  time 
entertained  by  the  directors  of  so  powerful  an  institution."  That  *'  it  was 
necessary  as  well  to  guard  the  public  interest,  as  to  secure  a  just  administra- 
tion of  the  affairs  of  the  bank  as  regarded  the  public,  tliat  a  proportion  of 
the  direction  should  be  appointed  by  the  Government;  tliat  Government 
should  have  a  due  control  over  the  concerns  of  the  bank."  That  *'  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  a  sacrifice  of  pecuniary  to  politicalintercst  or  party 
politics;  this  institution  might,  in  the  course  of  time,  fall  into  the  hands  of 
men  who  would  think  it  immoral  and  criminal  to  loan  their  money  for  the 
necessary  purposes  of  Government."  To  guard  against  such  evils,  "an 
immediate  agency  in  the  direction  was  necessary."  To  the  remark  that  *'mo- 
neyed  men  would  not  like  the  introduction  of  this  direct  influence,"  it  was 
replied  thaf  moneyed  men  have  no  objection  to  manage  your  funds  for 
their  benefit,  but  have  no  desire  to  admit  yonr  influence  in  the  management 
of  theirs." 

These  copious  extracts  from  the  debates  on  the  charter,  are  given  to  show 
truly  what  were  the  opposite  views  among  its  friends  and  opponents  as  to 
the  policy,  as  well  as  the  character  of  a  proper  influence  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  over  the  bank;  that  the  same  contrariety  of  opinion,  founded 
on  the  same  basis,  then  existed,  and  had  divided  parties  on  questiion  of 
rechartering  the  old  bank,  which  is  now  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole  cause  of 
this  discussion;  but  having  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  purposes  and  po- 
licy that  established  the  present  institution,  even  better  founded  than  upon 
the  debates  of  the  day,  1  should  exhibit  not  less  deficiency  in  memory  and 
judgment  than  dereliction  of  duty  and  principle,  in  assenting  to  your  argu- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  465 

ments,  or  yielding  to  the  doctrines  unveiled  by  the  scope  and  tenor  of  your 
dissertation;  doctrines  whose  tendency  and  undisguised  purpose  is  to  divest 
the  bank  of  the  features  deemed  most  essential  by  those  who  created  it,  and 
only  obnoxious  to  those  opposed  to  its  creation:  in  a  word,  to  transform  it 
from  what  its  friends  determined^  and  all  agreed  at  the  time  it  was,  to  what 
its  enemies  desired  to  make  it. 

However  ingeniously  the  real  point  in  controversy  may  be  concealed,  or 
liowever  plausibly  perverted,  it  has  its  origin  in  distinctly  opposite  opinions. 
The  first  is,  that  the  bank  ought  to  exist  exclusively  for  national  purposes, 
and  for  the  common  benefit  of  all;  that  the  employment  of  private  interest 
is  only  an  incident,  perhaps  an  evil,  founded  in  mere  convenience  for  care 
and  management.  The  second  is,  that  its  prominent  use  is  to  strengthen 
the  arm  of  wealth,  and  counterpoise  the  influence  of  extended  suffrage  in  the 
disposition  of  public  affairs,  and  in  rendering  the  deposites  of  the  Govern- 
ment tributary  to  this  object,  in  consideration  of  an  aid  equal  to  *'  the  value 
of  its  custom  and  its  business."  Hence  we  have  constantly  seen  the  advo- 
cates of  the  opposite  theories  of  administration  in  Government,  ranged  upon 
the  corresponding  sides  in  the  organization  of  the  bank.  Need  I  illustrate 
by  reference  to  names.^  Do  we  not  find,  on  our  side,  Dallas,  Calhoun,, 
Lowndes,  Tucker,  Smith,  Bibb,  Barbour,  Forsyth,  Robertson,  Wright, 
&c. ;  and,  on  the  other,  Webster,  Mason,  King,  Sergeant,  Hopkinson,  Pit- 
kins,  &c.  .^  But  I  forbear  to  press  these  considerations:  they  are  too  well  un- 
derstood to  require  more  than  a  glance.  Aside  from  the  political  complex- 
ion of  these  gentldhnen,  it  will  not  be  contended  that  the  former  were  a  jot 
less  competent  than  their  truly  able  antagonists  to  understand  and  uphold 
the  sound  policy  and  genial  establishments  of  a  free  and  virtuous  people. 

This  principle  of  governmental  supervision  was  incorporated  in  the  char- 
ter in  obedience  to  an  impulse  from  the  body  of  the  people,  who  did  not 
fear  to  trust  those  whom  they  could  periodically  remove,  and  who  believed 
that  the  preservation  of  the  elective  franchise,  in  its  entire  purity,  would 
be  more  likely  to  engage  thfe  afiections  and  ambition  of  their  immediate 
'*  public  servants,"  than  a  detached,  secret,  irresponsible  and  moneyed  con- 
clave. It  is  a  principle  intended  for  the  protection  of  the  citizen  at  large,  ' 
and  not  for  the  increase  of  executive  power.  It  is  a  defensive  principle, 
and  is  the  only  rampart  raised  to  withstand,  and  to  <' rebuke  back"  the  tor- 
rent of  such  abuses  as'were  believed  to  have  copiously  flovved  in  the  wake 
of  the  old  Hank  of  the  United  States,  and  which  were  thcight  almost  inse- 
parable from  any  similar  institutipn.  The  safety  of  this  principle,  and  its 
practical  execution  are  provided  for  by  the  two  novel,  hut  quite  adequate 
features  in  your  charter  already  referred  to.  Their  adaptation^'  was  actu- 
ated by  no  other  motive,  and  their  exercise  will  probably  have  no  other  end. 
Their  existence,  however,  suggests  duties  as  positively  as  it  imparts  power. 

Whether  the  Government  will  always,  as  heretofore,  be  able  or  fortu- 
nate enough  to  select  faithfuf  representatives  at  your  board,  may  be  doubted. 
Certainly,  however,  from  them  or  their  constituents,  the  administration  may 
justly  expect  to  receive  prompt  and  satisfactory  intelligence  of  any  contri- 
vances or  connivances,  injurious,  not  to  this  or  that  political  party,  but  to 
the  fundamental  principles  of  republican  action.  Certainly  these  officers  can 
scarcely  be  presumed  altogether  independent  of  those  who  create  them,  nor 
stationed  solely  as  sentinels  to  mark  the  rise  and  fall  of  slocks,  or  the  grada- 
tions of  exchange;  nor  so  lavishly, benign,  as,  before  hand,  to  ascribe  moral 
*  So  in  the  original. 
59 


466  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

and  political  perfection  to  the  countless  agents  whose  conduct  they  should 
inspect,  and,  if  necessary,  report.  And  certainly,  whether  they  be  compe- 
tent to  their  high  and  honorable  posts,  or  otherwise;  whether  they  slumber 
in  the  security  of  implicit  confidence;  are  faithful,  or  unfaithful;  still  the 
right  and  the  duty  of  the  Government  remain  unaffected;  and  the  ability  to 
enforce  that  right,  and  to  perform  that  duty,  is  in  their  own  hands  to  be 
exerted  at  their  own  discretion,  under  a  prescribed  and  direct  responsibility 
to  the  nation  and  its  representatives. 

The  Executive  is  constitutionally  bound  to  see  that  the  laws  be  faithfully 
<i^rried  into  effect,  1  need  not  add,  in  their  spirit,  or  according  to  their  let- 
ter: upon  general  principles,  he  cannot  silently  permit  them  to  be  made  a 
flkreen  for  the  indulgence  of  bad  passions,  nor  an  instrument  of  any  sort  of 
oppression,  without  risking  the  reproach  of  a  want  either  of  vigor  or  of 
virtue.  Often,  however,  he  has  not  the  means  of  information;  and  still 
oftener,  he  is  unprovided  with  legal  modes  of  correction.  When  Congress 
has  furnished  him  with  both,  inaction  would  be  inexcusable. 

With  these  remembrances  and  convictions,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
tjwhesitatingly  and  frankly  called  the  "serious  attention"  of  your  board  to 
the  imposing  complaints  against  the  officers  at  Portsmouth. 

The  complaints  were  seemingly  of  the  very  evil  so  destructive  to  the 
former  bank,  and  which  as  certainly  as  it  shall  ever  be  found  to  exist  and 
be  diffused,  will  consign  the  present  one  to  the  same  fate.  The  administra- 
tion intends  fid-elity  to  the  people  in  protecting  their  interests,  as  well  those 
of  a  pecuniary  kind,  as  others  of  a  far  loftier  nature.  Nor  was  the  *^  inter- 
ference" deemed  less  respectful  than  preservative  to  a  valuable  institution. 
Our  citizens  do  not  forego  complaint  and  remonstrance,  because  they  are 
diregarded: — with  them,  to  be  slighted,  is  to  be  roused.  A  patient  hearing 
and  a  fair  investigation,  result  as  they  may,  soothe  excited  feelings,  and  in- 
spire confidence  for  the  future.  To  shrink  from,  or  embarrass  inquiry;  to 
pronounce  an  accusation  unfounded  as  soon  S^s  it  is  heard,  or  throwing  off 
the  attributes  of  judges  to  become  the  voluntary  pledges  of  the  accused  prior 
to  trial,  and  in  the  absence  of  all  information,  must  produce,  in  this  saga- 
<clous  country,  any  thing  but  submission,  acquiescence,  and  content. 

That  the  invitation  to  their  "  serious  attention,"  however,  should  emanate 
from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  or  even  indirectly  bear  the  sanction  of 
the  administration,  seems  to  have  awakened  the  jealousy  and  pride  of  the 
board  of  directors.  The  incumbent  of  this  department  has  in  especial  charge 
the  financial  concerns  of  the  country,  and  in  principle,  law,  and  practice, 
he  is  the  official  guardiain  of  the  public  stocks,  funds,  and  moneyed  interests. 
He  cannot  hear  the  depository  of  seven  millions  of  capital,  and  of  almost  all 
the  current  revenue^  assailed  from  a  respectable  quarter,  and  on  topics  of 
•deep  and  dangerous  momentum,  without  anxiously  looking  forward,  as  well 
to  do  both  the  hank  and  iits  accusers  justice,  as  to  regulate  his  own  conduct 
Before  he  can  be  tempted  to  exercise  the  authority  with  which  Congress  have 
invested  him,  to  withdraw  tlje  puhUc  deposites,  lie  will  do  as  he  has  d/Jiie; 
submit  directly  to  your  board  whatever  imputation  may  be  made,  and  ro- 
-spectfully,,  resolutely,  ^and  confidently  ask,  nay  demand,  the  fullest  examina- 
tion; and  he  trusts  that  he  may  not  be  misconceived  when  he  adds,  that 
Bothing  could,  in  his  opinion,  more  imperatively  exact  this  energetic  moire- 
iHient  than  a  well-founded  conviction  of  the  bank's  being,  as  was  said  of  i}> 
fpredecessor,  an  engine  of  political  party. 

To  the  examples  afforded  by  iho  distinguished  gentkn*en,  who  have  so 


[  Rep,  No.  460.  ]  467 

much  more  worthily  than  myself  occupied  the  public  station  now  assigned 
to  me,  1  at  all  times  respectfully  refer.  Whether  a  parallel  case  ever  op 
eurred,  during  their  different  careers  of  service,  I  cannot  pretend  to  say; 
but  I  do  not  entertain  a  doubt,  that  either  of  them  would,  under  like  circum- 
stances, have  pursued  a  similar  course — certainly  with  greater  skill  and 
ability,  but  with  only  an  equal  rectitude  of  intention.  The  relations  bei» 
tween  this  department  and  the  old  Bank  of  the  United  States,  would  proba» 
bly  not  be  regarded  as  exactly  similar  to  those  between  it  and  your  corpo^ 
ration;  nor  had  Mr.  Plamilton,  Mr.  VVolcott,  nor  Mr.  Gallatin,  the  stimu- 
lating reminiscence  of  such  an  event  and  its  incident,  as  the  Congressional 
refusal  to  renew  the  charter.  Mr.  Morris,  whom  you  mention,  had  ceased 
all  connection  with  the  Government  long  anterior  to  the  formation  of  any 
National  Bank.  The  sentiments  of  Mr.  Dallas,  as  developed  in  his  letter  to 
tlie  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  dated  the  17th  October,  1814,  contain- 
ing the  "  original  plan,"  are  too  palpable  to  need  comment;  and  the  very 
paragraph  which  you  arc  pleased  to  extract  from  a  letter  of  Mr.  Crawford, 
does  not  necessarily  conflict  with  my  own  conceptions  of  the  subject.  The 
board  has  **  a  duty  to  the  nation  to  fulfil;  whether  in  a  conflict  between  that 
duty  and  their  'duty  to  the  stockholders,'  the  one  or  the  other  ought  to 
yield,  and  be  secondary,  although  my  patriotism  would  not  doubt,  I  sub- 
mit to  *  sounder  casuists  than  you  or  me.'"  The  acknowledgment  of  a 
*<duty  to  the  nation,"  involves  a  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  proper 
officers  of  the  Government  to  interest  themselves  in  its  performance.  That 
Mr.  Crawford  rc^rded  it  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ra«nt  to  interfere^  and  to  admonish  the  bank  of  its  duty  to  the  community y 
as  well  as  to  the  nation  and  the  stockholders,  cannot  be  disputed.  In  writing 
to  the  Government  directors,  upon  a  subject  involving  this  consideration, 
he  says:  "  In  whatever  point  of  view  I  have  been  able  to  consider  the  sub- 
ject, it  appears  fraught  with  mischief  to  the  community^  calculated  to  draw 
upon  the  bank  the  public  indignation,  and  effect  its  extinction  at  the  expira- 
tion of  the  charter.  It  places  the  bank  and  the  community  in  a  state  of 
open  hostilit}',  continually  exciting  to  acts  of  mutual  aggression  upon  the 
rights  and  interests,  of  each  other.  In  such  a  contest  the  Government  tvill 
have  no  alternative.  It  cannot  hesitate  upon  the  course  which  public 
duty  requires  it  to  take.^^  Its  weight  and  influence  must  be  exerted  to 
save  the  community  from  the  cupidity  to  which  the  adoption  of  such  a  sys- 
tem mu^t  inevitably  subject  the  bank. 

These  remarks  fix  the  belief  that  he  would  have  agreed  with  me  that  no 
more  obvious  duty  to  the  nation,  or,  if  you  please,  the  community,  could  well 
be  conceiv«sd  than  that  of  maintaining  the  operations  of  the  bank  free  from 
the  persecutions  or  partialities  of  politics;  and  this  is  the  duty  which  I  have 
asserted  the  right  to  invite  "  the  serious  attention  of  your  hoard." 

Nor  is  it  wholly  irrelative  to  remark,  that  your  esteemed  predecessor,  Mr. 
Cheves,  than  whom  no  man  could  keep  more  steadily  and  successfully  in  view 
the  interests  of  the  bank,  and  whose  talents,  disinterestedness,  and  assiduity,  in 
the  language  oftheCommitteeoflnspection  and  Investigation,inOctober,  1822, 
*'  had  placed  its  affairs  in  an  attitude  so  safe  and  prosperous,  as  that  the  bur- 
then of  duty  devolving  upon  his  successor  was  comparatively  light;"  con- 
stantly interchanged  views  and  opinions  with  Mr.  Crawford,  untrammelM 
by  any  suspicion  of  a  design  upon  the  honor  of  the  institution,  or  the  least 
notion  that  he  was  compromising  its  safety  or  independence.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  a  letter  dated,  2d  April,  1819,  referring  to  a  prior  communica- 


468  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

tTon  from  Mr.  Crawford,  he  says,  "the  board,  wilh  myself,  felt  particularly 
obliged'  by  the  frankness  and  fulness  of  the  information  it  contained,  on 
points  of  ihefi^realesi  materiality  to  the  management  of  the  institution.^^ 
He  proceeds:  "we  depend  on  the  fidelity,  skill,  and  obedience  of  the  officers 
of  eighteen  establishments,  acting  under  general  riiles^  susceptible,  necessa- 
rily, of  some  latitude  of  construction,  and  therefore  of  abuse  and  ne- 
glect." And  he  adds,  "  it  would  be  gratifying  to  me,  and  no  doubt  equally 
ao  to  the  board,  to  have  your  views  on  the  subject,  and  particularly  your 
approbation  of  the  only  course  which  can  afford  us  safety,  if  that  be  at  all 
practicable.''  On  the  6th  April,  1819,  Mr.  Crawford  writes:  "Indeed,  a 
full  communication  of  the  measures  of  the  bank,  and  of  the  reasons  upon 
ysrhich  they  are  founded,  will  not  only  be  acceptable,  but  can  hardly  fail  to 
be  useful,  both  to  the  bank  and  this  department.  It  may  not  be  improper 
to  state  that  most  of  the  measures  of  the  bank,  which  were  the  subject  of 
censure,  both  in  the  public  papers  and  in  the  report  of  the  committee,  never 
were  communicated  officially,  or  unofficially,  to  this  department." 

Under  the  same  date,  Mr.  Cheves  writes:  '*The  very  critical  situation  of 
the  bank,  which  is  becoming  more  so  every  hour;  the  great  interests,  bdth 
public  and  private,  which  are  involved  in  its  fate,  and  the  intimate  con' 
neccion  it  has  with  your  department,  I  hope  will  be  a  sufficient  apology  for 
the  frequency  of  my  communications."  And,  again,  on  the  27th  May,  1819, 
Mr.  Cheves  writes,  "  We  have  too  many  branches,  and  the  directors  are 
frequently  governed  by  individual  and  localinterests  and  feelings. ^^ 

If  this  correspondence  be  carefully  considered,  it  willtbe  found  that,  in- 
stead of  striving  to  diminish,  it  was  the  wish  of  Mr.  Cheves  to  increase  the 
cords  of  connexion  between  the  Treasury  Department  and  the  bank.  '*  The 
action  of  the  Government,"  neither  denied  nor  deprecated,  seemed  essential 
Co  keep  alive  the  hope  of  ultimate  redemption  from  the  most  perilous  en- 
tanglements, and  decline.  How  far  the  victorious  effects  of  untiring  zeal 
and  consummate  ability,  were  aided  by  this  "  action,"  it  is  impossible  to  say; 
but  it  is  evident,  that,  although  unrestricted  in  its  objects,  the  arrangement, 
.policy  and  proceedings  of  the  bank  and  of  the  branches,  being  all  alike  open 
'\^tp  its  influence,  it  was  accompanied  by  no  apprehensive  jealousy,  and  was 
ibllowed  by  no  perceptible  evil. 

It  is  true  that  no  act  of  Congress  has  prescribed  the  modes  in  which  the 
administration  shall  conduct  its  communications  with  the  bank,  whether 
orally  or  in  writing,  by  one  officer  or  by  another,  circuitously  through  the 
Government  directors,  or  directly  to  the  president.  That  would  be  a  legis- 
lation little  reconcilable  to  the  wisdom  or  dignity  of  national  representa- 
tives. If,  indeed,  they  had  desired  to  enter  into  such  details,  and  to  multi- 
ply the  obstacles  to  any  approach  of  Executive  influence,  or  act,  they  would 
naturally  have  bound  the  Grovernment  never  to  transact  business  with  your 
institution,  except  amid  all  the  solemnities  of  pen,  ink  and  paper,  under  the 
responsibility  of  the  highest  officer  of  finance,  and  by  documents  openly 
laid  for  inspection  before  all  the  intelligence  and  all  the  integrity  of  your 
hoard,  and  yet  their  utmost  ingenuity  might  have  failed  to  divise  an  expe- 
dient of  safety  which  has  not  characterized  the  origin  and  progress  of  this 
correspondence,  as  far  as  respects  the  Treasury  Department. 

Having  thus,  at  greater  length  than  was  anticipated,  frankly  unfolded  my 
views  of  the  relations  between  the  Government  and  the  bank,  as  well  for 
the  justification  of  those  with  whom  I  am  associated,  as  of  myself,  1  feel  au- 
^orized  to  expect  that  I  shall  not  be  subjected  to  further  imputations  of  im- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  469 

proper  design  or  pretension,  resting  upon  the  foundation  of  dislocated  lan- 
guage, assumed  facts,  and  strained  inferences.  Such  a  course  can  only  tend  to 
disturb  the  narmony,  which,  as  agents  engaged  in  the  discharge  of  their  re- 
spective functions,  the  incumbent  of  this  department  and  the  board  of  di- 
rectors must  be  equally  anxious  to  preserve.  No  one  can  more  fervently 
desire  than  I  do,  that  the  bank  shall,  in  all  its  ramifications,  be  absolutely 
independent  of  party;  that  it  shall  so  conduct  its  affairs  as  to  accomplish 
every  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended,  and  stand  above  the  reach  of  the 
least  plausible  suspicion.  No  one  can  see  with  more  unalloyed  satisfaction 
its  flourishing  condition,  or  has  borne  more  cheerful  testimony  to  the  cha- 
racter of  its  present  management.  Having  labored  ardently  to  create  it,  I 
may  not  be  supposed  the  first  to  contaminate  or  decry  it,  but,  however  im- 
posing its  attitude,  if  once  satisfied  that  the  powers  of  its  charter,  and  the  re- 
sources of  its  wealth  are  debased  and  perverted  to  practices  at  war  with  the 
liberties  of  the  country,  and  the  rights  and  interests  of  my  fellow  citizens, 
no  consideration  of  a  personal  nature  will  curb  me  in  exercising  the  legal 
power  with  which  I  may  be  invested,  to  check  its  tendencies,  and  reform 
its  abuses;  and  it  will  be  my  care,  not  less  than  my  duty,  never  to  surren- 
der any  of  the  rights  vested  in  the  Government  for  this  purpose. 
I  am,  very  respectfully. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.   INGHAM, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
Nicholas  Biddle,  Esq. 

President  Bank  U.  Slates,  Philadelphia, 


Bank  of  the  United  States, 

October  9th,  1829. 

Sir:  I  had  yesterday  the  honor  of  receiving,  and  have  this  day  submit- 
ted to  the  board  of  directors,  your  letter  of  the  5th  instant.  They  have  in- 
structed me  to  say  in  reply,  that,  observing,  as  they  do  with  great  pleasure, 
that  the  views  which  they  thought  disclosed  in  your  previous  correspon- 
dence, are  disclaimed,  the  whole  object  of  the  board  in  renewing  it  is  accom- 
plished; and  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  consider  the  remarks  bearing  on 
the  presumed  assertion  of  those  views  as  no  longer  applicable.  We  may, 
therefore,  both  be  relieved  from  a  correspondence,  in  every  respect  pain- 
ful, but,  in  closing  it,  I  take  advantage  of  an  occasion  which  may  not  recur, 
to  add  a  few  words  of  necessary  explanation:  1st.  I  think  you  have  misap- 
prehended the  disposition  of  the  board  in  regard  to  the  office  at  Portsmouth, 
In  answer  to  your  letter  transmitting  the  complaint,  they  j^aid  at  once  that 
they  would"  not  fail  to  examine  the  allegations  of  Mr.  Woodburj',  and,  should 
they  appear  to  be  well  founded  to  apply  an  appropriate  corrective;''  that 
they  had  *<  taken  especial  care,  as  a  point  equally  of  duty  and  of  delicacy,  that 
none  of  their  agents  should  abuse  this  trust  by  injustice  towards  the  existing 
administration  or  its  friends,  being  always  ready  to  apply  the  most  decisive 
relief  against  such  a  perversion  of  its  power."  In  the  same  strain  General 
Cadwalader  wrote  to  you  that  **  if  it  can  be  shown  that,  in  any  quarter,  the 
oflicers  of  the  bank  have  lent  themselves  as  ministers  of  a  party,  or  have 
used  the  power  of  the  corporation  to  political  purposes,  not  a -moment  will 
be  lost  in  visiting  such  offences  with  the  utmost  severity  of  censure  and  pun- 


470  [  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

ishment."  This  purpose  was  immediately  carried  into  efiect.  The  eleo- 
tion  of  Mr.  Mason  was  postponed  until  an  investigation  took  place.  A 
committee  of  the  board  was  charged  with  the  inquiry,  and  the  presiding 
officer  of  the  bank,  with  one  of  the  cashiers,  went  to  Portsmouth,  where 
they  devoted  six  days  to  the  examination.  In  the  mean  time,  as  Mr.  Ma- 
son, although  personally  unknown  to  me,  and  to  almost  all  the  board,  was 
still  a  fellow  citizen  and  an  officer  of  the  institution,  it  was  thought  an  act  of 
justice  to  him  and  of  courtesy  to  you,  to  explain  that,  hitherto,  his  conduct 
had  furnished  no  ground  for  the  interposition  of  the  board.  To  this  expla- 
nation, you  seem  to  att:>ch  an  undue  importance,  while  too  little  is  bestowed 
on  the  facts  of  an  immediateoffer  of  an  investigation,  and  an  immediate  actual 
investigation.  But  I  think  you  will  perceive  that  the  board  have  evinced  a 
strong  desire  to  do  justice  to  all  parties,  and  that  the  observations  ascribing 
a  disposition  not  to  examine  the  case,  or  to  examine  it  partially,  are  without 
any  foundation. 

2.  The  difference  to  which  you  allude  between  my  first  and  second  letter, 
is  easily  explained.  The  reason  is  simply  this:  Your  first  communication 
was  avowedly  the  expression  of  your  own  individual  opinion.  As  such,  the 
board  quoted  with  just  commendation  your  remarks  on  the  principles  of 
credit,  and  the  disavowal  of  any  wish  to  derive  political  aid  from  the  bank 
for  yourself  or  your  colleagues.  That  commendation  is  cheerfully  repeat- 
ed. The  principles  of  credit  were  just  and  sound ;  the  disavowal  proper  and 
gratifying.  But  the  whole  aspect  of  the  question  was  changed,  when,  in 
your  second  letter,  you  urged  anew,  and  in  an  altered  tone,  this  investiga- 
tion, which  had  been  already  promised;  when  views  hitherto  deemed  your 
own  as  to  the  mode  of  choosing  and  dismissing  the  officers  of  the  bank,  and 
on  which,  from  an  extreme  unwillingness  for  controversy,  the  board  had 
forborne  all  comment,  were  now  presented  as  coming  officially  from 
the  administration;  when  these  views  seemed  to  lead  to  very  dangerous 
connexions  with  politic^;  and,  finally,  when  cotemporanecus  movements 
from  other  quarters,  all  tending  towards  the  same  point,  indicated  that  there 
was  abroad  great  misapprehension  of  the  true  relation  of  the  bank  to  its 
officers.  It  then  became  essential,  in  the  opinion  of  the  board,  to  come  to  a 
distinct  understanding  in  regard  to  their  rights,  and  they  accordingly  stated 
what  they  presumed  were  the  views  af  the  administration,  contrasting  them 
with  their  own  opinions.  This  they  did  in  a  manner  perfectly  respect- 
ful, imputing  ho  improper  motives,  and  seeking  only  a  mutual  understand- 
ing on  points  essential  to  their  cordial  co-operation  in  the  public  service- 
Even  the  interference  of  your  subordinate  officer  was  not  ascribed  in  any 
degree  to  you;  it  was  only  mentioned  in  illustration  of  the  danger  of  the 
theory  you  were  understood  to  maintain. 

3.  In  regard  to  the  exemption  from  political  bias  of  the  persons  employ- 
ed in  the  bank,  it  is  enough  for  you  to  disclaim  that  meaning  to  satisfy  the 
board  that  it  was  not  intended. 

4.  In  regard  to  the  former  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  the  comparison 
between  the  characters,  and  the  supposed  principles  of  gentlemen  who  were 
conspicuous  in  those  division  of  party  now  understood  to  be  obsolete,  the 
board  do  not  sufficiently  perceive  their  relation  to  the  preseni  subject,  to  of- 
fer any  opinion.  They  collect  from  your  remarks,  however,  that  you  think 
the  old  bank  became  odious  from  the  belief  that  it  was  an  engine  of  party. 
it  is  precisely  for  that  reason  that  the  directors  of  the  present  bank  have  so 
studiously  kept  it  aloof  from  politics,  and  never  suffered  it  to  be  what  that 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  471 

bank  was  reproached,  whether  justly  or  not,  with  being — an  engine  of  party. 
It  is  precisely  for  that  reason  that,  in  all  the  changes  of  parties,  and  of  ad- 
ministrations, they  have  specially  avoided  that  class  of  persons  whom  they 
consider  most  calculated  to  mislead  them — the  officers  of  the  Government. 
But,  in  doing  this,  they  have  not  the  slightest  disposition  to  shun  any  respon- 
sibility, authorized  by  law,  and  the  assumption  that  they  seek  to  withdraw 
themselves  from  a  rightful  control,  or  indulge  in  party  feelings,  or  entertain 
any  political  designs  of  any  description,  is  so  entirely  gratuitous,  as  to  re- 
quire no  disavowal.  For,  if  they  were  disposed  to  make  any  sacrifice  of 
duty  to  party,  the  accession  of  a  new  administration  would  be  the  most  pro- 
pitious moment  to  make  new  friends.  If  these  can  be  gained  by  a  faith- 
ful performance  of  what  is  due  to  the  country,  it  is  well;  but  they  have  never 
yet  sought,  and  will  not  now  seek,  to  increase  their  number  by  other  mean*. 
As  to  the  course  which  you  intimate  that  your  duty  may  require  you  to 
take  towards  the  bank,  the  board  do  not  presume  to  judge  of  it.  That  course, 
they  cannot  doubt,  will  be  influenced  by  proper  considerations,  and  anxious 
as  both  the  directors  and  yourself  are  to  preserve  the  bank  from  the  spirit  of 
party,  they  will  not  anticipate  any  future  difficulty.  All  they  require  is, 
and  this  they  would  deem  it  their  duty  to  maintain  at  all  hazards,  that,  in  ad- 
ministering the  concerns  entrusted  to  them,  they  should  not  be  subject  to 
the  influence  or  control  of  political  persons,  whether  in  place  or  out  of  place. 
This  they  deem  vital,  not  merely  to  the  pecuniary  interests  of  the  bank, 
but  to  the  far  higher  interests  of  the  country,  and  the  safety  of  its  institu- 
tions; and  neither  the  loss  of  the  good  will  of  any  administration,  nor  the 
withdrawal  of  the  funds  of  the  nation  by  the  Treasury,  or  the  refusal  to  renew 
its  charter,  would  have  the  slightest  weight  in  inducing  the  board  to  sur- 
render a  principle  which  admits  of  no  compromise. 

5.  You  have  quoted  various  passages  of  the  correspondence  betweeo 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  president  of  the  bank,  to  prove  the 
unsuspicious  tone  of  their  intercourse.  This  is  perfectly  true;  but,  you 
will  find  that  every  one  of  these  letters  related  to  the  proper  financial  busi- 
ness of  the  Treasury  and  the  bank.  They  are  not  more  cordial  than  what  has 
already  passed  between  yourself  and  the  board  on  similar  subjects,  and  what 
I  trust  may  often  pass  hereafter.  But  to  make  the  cases  at  all  analogous,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  find  an  answer  to  some  letter  from  a  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  communicating  the  views  of  the  administration  as  to  the  mode  of 
choosing  and 'dismissing  the  officers  of  the  bank. 

6.  It  is  scarcely  worth  mentioning,  and  I  remark  it  only  lest  you  should 
have  any  occasion  to  repeat  the  observation,  that  you  err,  I  think,  in  regard 
to  Mr.  Morris.  He  was  Superintendent  of  Finance  in  1781,  when  Congress 
first  established  the  Bank  of  North  America. 

There  are  other  parts  of  your  letter  which  might  seem  to  require,  or  to 
justify,  many  observations,  but  I  confine  myself  to  what  is  deemed  material 
explanation,  leaving  to  your  own  reflection  to  satisfy  you,  as  I  think  it  will 
hereafter,  that  you  have  done  somewhat  less  than  justice  to  the  views  of  the 
board,  as  well  in  regard  to  themselves,  as  towards  you  and  your  colleagues. 
Satisfied,  however,  on  the  points  which  alone  occasioned  a  revival  of  this 
correspondence,  they  are  reluctant  to  prolong  it;  and  I  will  therefore  add 
only  that  I  am,  very  respectfully,  your's, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President, 
Hon.  Samuel  D.  Ingham, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 

Washington^  D,  C. 


472  [  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  3. — No.  2. 

Washingtox,  July  17,   1829. 

Gentxemen:  Agi»ecably  to  ray  suggestion  when  I  snw  you  in  Phila- 
delphia, 1  now  senil  yon  two  petitions  to  the  President  and  Directors  of 
the  Banlv  of  the  United  States,  asking  for  a  change  in  the  Board  of  Di- 
rection at  the  branch  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  together  with  a  let- 
ter from  John  S.  Jenness,  Es((.  a  respectable  merchant  of  that  town,  in 
favor  of  the  same  object,  and  requesting  that  you  will  present  them  to  the 
President  of  the  Bank  in  your  city.  One  petition  is  subscribed  by  about 
sixty  of  the  most  respectable  members  of  the  New  Hampshire  Legislature, 
naming  suitable  persons  for  Directors  at  Portsmouth,  and  the  other  peti- 
tion is  subscribed  by  most  of  the  business  men,  merchants,  at  Portsmouth, 
without  distinction  of  party. 

Having  recently  spent  several  weeks  in  New  Hampshire,  1  am  able  to 
say,  from  my  own  knowledge,  that  the  sentiment  of  dissatisfaction  on  ac- 
count of  the  recent  management  of  the  branch  at  Portsmouth  by  Mr.  Ma- 
son, is  general;  that  his  conduct  has  been  partial  and  oppressive,  and  cal- 
culated not  less  to  injure  the  institution  than  to  disgust  and  disaffect  the 
principal  business  men;  and  tliat  no  measure  short  of  his  removal,  will 
tend  to  reconcile  the  people  of  New  Hampshire  to  the  Bank.  A  letter  from 
a  gentleman  at  Portsmouth,  now  before  me,  says:  "This  man  (Mr.  Ma- 
son) controls  the  whole  concerns  of  the  Bank;  it  is  like  having  but  one 
director;  he  is  unaccommodating  to  pensioners;  has  put  them  to  unneces- 
sary trouble  and  expense;  he  has  ordered  large  discounts  to  be  made  to 
Mr.  Lawrence,  his  brother-in-law,  at  Boston;  at  the  same  time  he  has  re- 
fused to  accommodate  our  merchants  with  two  or  three  thousand  dollars, 
and  this,  too,  on  the  very  best  of  paper." 

The  friends  of  General  Jackson  in  New  Hampshire  have  had  but  too 
much  reason  to  complain  of  the  management  of  the  branch  at  Portsmouth. 
All  they  now  ask  is,  that  this  institution  in  tliat  State  may  not  continue  to 
be  an  engine  ot  political  oppression  by  any  party.  The  Board  has,  I  be- 
lieve, invariably  and  exclusively  consisted  of  individuals  opposed  to  the 
General  Government.  Of  the  ten  persons  named  in  the  petition  for  Di- 
rectors, six  are  friends  of  the  last,  and  Jour  are  friends  of  the  present  ad- 
ministration; they  a?'e,  however,  alike  gentlemen  of  respectability,  who 
have  no  sinister  objects  to  be  promoted,  understanding  well  tiie  responsi- 
bilities and  the  Mants  of  business  men.  With  such  a  direction,  I  do  not 
doubt  the  branch  at  Portsmouth  will  be  secure  and  prosperous,  and  satis- 
fy all.  The  advantage  of  having  two  reputable  men  in  the  Board,  (one  of 
whom  is  State  Treasurer)  out  of  Portsmouth,  must  be  obvious. 

I  hope  the  petitions  will  receive  the  friendly  consideration  of  the  Direc* 
tors  of  the  parent  Bank. 

1  am,  gentlemen,  with  great  respect, 

Your  friend,  and  most  obedic?it, 

ISAAC  illLL, 
Second  Comptroller  U,  8.  Treasury. 

J.  N.  Barker  and  Joum  Pemberton,  P^squires. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


473 


Doc.  3.— No.  S. 

To  the  Directois  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States: 

The  subscribers  would  i-espectfully  represent,  that  the  condition  of  the 
branch  of  said  Bank  at  Portsmouth.  New  Hampshire,  appears  to  us  to 
demand  ^'our  especial  attention.  The  administration  of  its  concerns,  dur- 
ing the  past  year,  has  created  great  dissatisfaction  in  this  quarter  of  the 
country,  and  has  been  of  a  character,  in  our  opinion,  partial,  harsh,  and 
no  less  injurious  to  tlie  interests  of  the  Bank  itself,  tiian  to  tiiose  of  the 
people  who  are  accustomed  to  do  business  with  it.  The  course  pursued,  in 
some  instances,  has  been  entirely  novel,  in  others,  vacillating;  and  in 
many  cases  of  magnitude,  not  agreeing  with  the  habits  of  other  similar 
institutions  of  the  commercial  community  at  large.  Believing  tliat  these 
changes  Imve  been  adopted,  and  harshly  applied,  chiefly  by  the  influence 
of  the  President  of  this  branch,  we  would  respectfully  remonstrate  against 
his  re-appointment  as  a  director,  and  earnestly  ask  that  its  concerns  may 
in  future  be  placed  under  the  immediate  control  of  ofiicers  well  acquainted 
with  the  business  and  character  of  our  trading  community,  and  well  dis- 
posed to  manage  the  affairs  of  this  branch  with  impartiality,  with  useful- 
ness, and  convenience  to  tins  region  of  country,  to  be  benefitted  by  its  es- 
tablishment, and,  at  the  same  time,  with  all  good  fidelity  to  the  lasting  in- 
tererest  of  the  branch  itself. 

PoiiTSMouTFi,  N.  H.  June  27,  1829. 

A.  e.  Bell, 

Lewis  Barnes,  ♦ 

Josliua  Hubbard, 

Joshua  B.  Wliidden, 

Taylor  &  WaMen, 

.Tenness  &  Robinson, 

John  F.  Robinson, 

A.  R.  H.  Fernald, 
I  James  Smitli, 

'  James  Foss. 

Thomas  P.  Tread ^vell, 

David  Kimball, 

M.  B.  Trunney, 

Orlando  Fenton, 

W.  Melclier, 

Oliver  P.  Kennard, 

Elisha  Whidden, 

Pray  &  Neal, 

K.  C.  Crane, 

W.  D.  Little, 

Daniel  Knight, 

Jereh.  L,  Lunt, 

J.  Atkinson  Handy, 

J.  S.  Brewster, 

G.   G.  Brewster, 

J.  J.  Abbott, 

Silvester  Mclcher, 

Wm.  Goddard, 

Jenness  &  Pickering, 
60 


Wm.  Burley, 
J.  H.  Simes, 
J.  F.  Sliores, 
Wm.  B.  Hill, 
Samuel  Cushman, 
Charles  B.  Goodrich, 
S.  &  S.  Hill, 
Joim  N.  Nutter, 
Lie  Hasselton, 
Cljarles  Robinson, 
Wm.  J.  Southring, 
Isilac  F.  Nrlson, 
W.  D.  Bell, 
Charles  Bowles, 
J.  D.  Petimes, 
M'm.   Bodge, 
John  Bowles, 
Woodman  k  Willard, 
Elisha  Plaisfed, 
Andrew  W.  Bel!,  Jr. 
Thos.  B.  Laightdu, 
Joseph  W,  Laighton, 
Nathaniel  Rogers, 
J.  S.  Norther, 
S.  P.  Wiggin, 
,Tona.  Barker, 
Robert  Hindman, 
Samuel  Elkins, 
Caleb  Currier. 


474 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

Doc.  3. — No.  4. 


To  tlie  President  and  Directors  of  ihr.  Bank  of  the  United  States  at  PhilKt- 

delphia: 

The  fiii!).^'ci'ibcrs  respectfully  represent  that  they  have  good  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  late  management  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Branch 
Bank  at  Portsmouth  has  been  oppressive  to  the  men  of  business  in  this 
Slate,  and  tends  greatly  to  the  injury  of  the  institution  itself.  That  loaas 
to  the  business  men  of  the  country,  in  small  sums,  where  the  Bank  has 
met  with  no  losses,  have  been  denied,  while  large  sums  have  been  loaned 
out  of  tlie  State,  liable  to  greater  risk.  That  the  conduct  of  the  head  ot 
the  Board  has  been  destructive  to  the  business  of  Portsmouth,  and  offensive 
to  the  whole  community.  We,  therefore,  ask  that  the  folh)wing  persons, 
or  a  selection  from  them,  may  be  appointed  the  next  Board  of  Directors  to 
^-he  Branch  at  Portsmouth,  viz:  Isaac  H'aldron,  Titus  Salter,  Thomas  fV* 
Penhalbw,  John  Ball,  John  S,  Jenncss,  Samuel  Cushman,  Richard  H. 
Ayer,  Joseph  IV,  Haven,  of  Portsmouth;  John  Harvey,  of  North  wood; 
William  Pickering,  Concord. 

June  29,  1829.  | 


Lyman  B.  Walker, 
Peter  Sweatt, 
Sanuicl  Tilton, 
Charles  Lane, 
Squire  B.  Ilaseall, 
Benning  W.  Jenness, 
Josliua  Chadwick, 
Amos  Tebbetts, 
Samuel  Webster, 
Hanover  Dirkey, 
Nathan  S.  Colby, 
James  B.  Creighton, 
Asa  Taylor, 
Geo.  P.  Plaisted, 
Joseph  Hammon«, 
Jesse  Carr, 
Andrew  Beascl, 
Edward  Gould, 
J.  W.  Carper, 
Horace  Cliase, 
Bod  well  Emerson. 
Dudley  Pike, 
Samuel  Sargent, 
Phinehas  Cloiigh, 
Fliphalet  Richard, 
bamuel  Park, 
Rjchard  Eastman, 
Benjamin  Kelly, 
JoiiFi  Quiwby, 


Silas  Noble, 
Thomas  Lyford, 
Isaac  O.  Barnes, 
John  Pussey, 
James  Tucker, 
Ephraim  Holt, 
Jumes  Perkins, 
Ezekiel  Went  worth, 
Reuben  Hayes,  jr. 
Moses  Hoy t, 
James  Law, 
Smith  Lamj)ry, 
Ezra  Young, 
Hamson  Hoit, 
Jacob  R.  Pilsbury, 
Benjamin  Jenness, 
Wenthred  Hilton, 
Jacob  Fruse, 
Chavles  F.  Gove, 
James  Harrington, 
Jason  H.  Ames, 
Mattliias  Kimball, 
Jacob  Rice, 
James  Clark, 
Samuel  Cartland, 
James  B, ♦Thornton* 
Asa  Sawyer, 
Ahner  B.  Kelly. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  475 

Doc,  3.--N0.  3. 

Offick  op  the  Bank  or  U.  States, 

Fortsmouthy  July  SI,  1829. 

Dear  Sir:  Am  attempt  is  making  to  remove  t!ic  pension  agency  from 
this  office  to  Concord,  in  this  State.  During  the  session  of  our  Legisla- 
ture, in  June,  a  memorial  for  that  purpose  was  gotten  up  by  Mr.  Isaac 
Hill,  Second  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,and  signed 
by  divers  of  his  warm  political  partisans,  and  others  specially  interested 
in  the  matter,  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  mging  the  cen- 
tral situation  of  Concord  as  n  r^ison  for  tl»e  removal.  1  <lo  not  under- 
stand that  any  fault  was  alleged  in  tlie  manner  of  doing  the  business 
here.  Mr.  Hill's  object,  doubtless,  is  to  benefit  a  small  bank  at  Concord, 
of  which,  till  liis  removal  to  Washington,  he  was  President.  Believing 
that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  could  not  be  desirous  of  the  removal, 
and  that,  even  if  he  was,  the  act  of  Congress,  transferring  the  duties  of  the 
Commissioners  of  Loans  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  its  offices, 
disabled  him  from  doing  it,  1  took  little  notice  of  the  project.  But  I  am 
now  informed  of  an  application  to  the  District  Attorney,  for  his  approval 
of  the  sureties,  on  a  bond  to  the  United  States,  for  the  due  performance  of, 
the  duties  of  the  pension  office,  at  the  aforesaid  bank  at  Concord.  I  do 
not  know  that  the  Secrctai-y  of  the  Treasury  has  given  any  directions  foi* 
this,  but,  under  these  circumstances,  I  think  it  proper  to  apprise  of  what 
is  doing. 

This  State  is  so  small  that  no  considerable  inconvenience  can  be  expe- 
rienced by  the  pensioners.  Nearly  all  the  pensions  arc  received  by  attor- 
neys, and  can  be  leadily  transmitted  by  mail.  In  my  opinion,  this  town, 
though  less  central,  is  more  convenient  for  a  major  part  of  the  pensioners 
than  Concord.  The  j)ayments  at  tliis  agency  for  the  last  year,  amounted 
to  near  g80,000.  The  removal  contemplated  would  lessen  our  means  of 
circulation,  and,  as  1  think,  be  vcvy  injurious  to  this  office. 

It  is  with  some  reluctance  tiiat  I  take  tjje  liberty  of  mentioning  another 
subject.  I  have  been  lately  informed,  tlmt  a  memorial  and  numerous  letters 
have  been  ad<lressed  to  tlie  Parent  Bank,  complaining  of  my  official  con- 
duct, aud  that  two  agents  have  been  engaged  to  inform  them  by  personal 
application.  If  ilie  memorial  and  letters  contain  all  the  absurd  untruths, 
that  were  made  use  of  to  obtain  signers  to  them,  they  must  be  extraordinary 
productions.  I  am  desirous  of  knowing  the  facts  stated,  and  by  ivhom^  to 
enable  me  to  repel  them,  which,  I  fear  not,  I  can  easily  do.  I,  therefore, 
re<iuest  you  to  give  me  this  ififormation.  At  present  I  forbear  making 
any  comment  on  motives,  or  the  singular  course  pursued,  for  the  purpose 
of  influencing  the  concerns  of  this  office.  It  seems  to  me  projier  and  ne- 
cessary, that  this  matter  should  be  explaiued. before  the  Board  of  Directors 
of  this  office,  for  the  ensuing  year,  be  appointed. 

I  am,  with  great  respect, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

J.  MASON,  Frmdent. 

N.   BiDDLE,    Es<l. 

President  of  Bank  United  Statts. 


476  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Office  of  Bank  of  Umtf.d  States, 

Portsmouth^  August  10,   1829. 

Sir:  In  my  last  I  stated,  what  information  I  had  respecting  an  intended 
removal  of  the  pension  agency  from  this  office;  to  wliich  1  am  favored 
with  an  answer  from  the  acting  President,  of  the  4tli  instant,  saying;  that 
my  letter  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Offices,  and  that  Mr. 
Biddle  would,  in  a  short  time,  visit  this  place.  By  to-day's  mail  I  Isavo 
received  a  letter  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  of  which  tlje  enclosed  is  a 
copy.  I  presume  Mr.  Pickering  will  soon  jn-esent  the  order  for  tijo 
books,  ]»apers,  and  halanceof  money.  Donhting  tiie  right  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  trajisfer  the  Pension  Ai'iencv  witliout  an  act  of  Coni^ress  authoriz- 
ing  it,  and  not  knowing  what  communications  may  have  been  made  to  the 
parent  Bank,  or  wi»at  may  be  its  wish  on  this  subject,  I  sliall  feel  embar- 
rassed when  the  order  shall  be  presented.  I  know  it  must  be  unpleasant 
to  have  any  contest  with  the  Government.  I  think,  however,  I  shall  decline 
to  make  tlie  delivery  required,  till  I  receive  directions  from  tlie  parent 
Board,  or  from  the  President,  after  his  arrival  here.  And  not  knowing 
the  time  when  I  may  expect  him,  I  deem  it  projier  to  forward  this  infor- 
mation, and  to  request  early  instructions.  As  the  next  semi-annual  j)ay- 
mentsof  the  invalid  and  revolutionary  pensions  will  be  due  the  first  of 
next  month,  any  considerable  delay  of  a  determination  would  occasion  in- 
convenience. It  will  be  recollected,  that,  altiunigh  the  returns  to  t!je  de- 
partments at  Washington,  state  a  balance  of  pension  funds  due  tlie  Govern- 
ment at  this  agency,  yet,  that  there  is  an  actual  deficiency  of  about  seven- 
teen thousand  dollars,  occasioned  by  the  defalcation  of  Mr.  Cutts,  the 
first  President.  This  has,  agreeably  to  directions  heretofore  received, 
been  supplied  by  over-drafts  of  tlie  Pension  Agency,  on  the  Bank.  I  sup- 
pose this  loss  must  be  borne  by  the  Bank,  and  not  by  the  Goverrmient- 
But  on  this  point,  in  case  the  transfer  is  to  he  mide«  I  want  insti'uctions. 
The  Secretary  of  War  has  no  control  over  the  navy  and  j)rivatecr  funds, 
and  yiit,  it  seems,  by  his  letter,  that  the  order  to  transfer  them,  with  the 
invalid  and  revolutionary  funds,  is  to  come  from  him.  No  intimation  is 
given  of  any  direction  of  the  Presidef»t  of  the  United  States  for  doing  this. 

I  am,   with  muclj  respect, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

J.  MASON,  President. 

The  Prebidknt  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  Skites, 


W  AK  D  riPAKTM B N T, 

Jug\ist  S,  1829. 

Sm:  It  having  been  found  necessary  to  change  the  Pension  Agency,  in 
tlie  State  of  New  Hampshire,  from  Portsmouth  to  Concord,  William  Pick- 
ering, Esquire,  of  the  latter  place,  has  been  appointed  agent  for  paying  ])en- 
sions  in  that  State.  Yoji  are,  therefore,  hereby  requested  to  deliver  into  his 
possession,  on  the  production  of  an  order  which  will  be  sent  to  him  from  this 
Department,  all  the  books,  papers,  and  any  balance  of  public  funds  in  rela- 
tion to,  or  having  any  connexion  with,  the  duties  of  the  New  Hampshire 
P'?nsion  Ag^^ncy,  for  which  you  will  take  triplicate  receipts,  one  of  which 


r  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  477 

you  will  be  j)Ir;jsed  to  trajigmit  to  the  Third  Auditor,  one  to  the  Pension  Of- 
iScc,  and  the  other  you  will  retain. 

I  am,  resjjectrully, 

Yotir  obedient  servant, 

'     JNO:  H.  EATON. 
Jeremiah  Masox,  Esq. 

President  U.  S.  Br.  Bank,  Portsmouth,  JV.  H. 


Wau  Department,  Pension  Office, 

August  3,  1829. 

Sir:  Conformably  to  the  letter  addressed  to  you  from  the  head  of  this 
Department,  of  this  date,  you  will  be  pleased,  on  the  receipt  hereof,  to  de- 
liver to  William  Pickering,  Esq.  or  his  order,  all  the  books,  papers,  funds, 
and  other  property,  belonging  to  the  Pension  Agency  of  New  Hampshire, 
now  in  your  possession,  taking  triplicate  receipts  therefor,  one  of  which 
will  be  sent  to  the  office  of  the  Third  Auditor,  another^to  this  office,  and  the 
other  you  will  retain  in  your  possession. 

1  am,  very  respectfully, 
your  obedient  servant, 

JAMES  L.  EDWARDS. 
J.  Mason,  Esq. 

Portsmouth,  wY.  I£. 


Bank  op  the  United  States, 

Mgust  17,  ISQ9, 

Sir:  I  am  this  day  favored  with  your  letter  of  the  13th  instant,  enclos- 
ing a  copy  of  an  order  from  Mr.  James  L.  Edwards,  for  the  delivery  to 
Mr.  Pickering,  of  **  all  the  books,  papers,  funds,  and  other  property,  be- 
longing to  the  Pension  Agency  of  New  Hampshire,  now  in  your  posses- 
sion." 

Since  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  10th  instant,  enclosing  the  ropy 
of  a  communication  to  you  from  the  Secretary  of  War  upon  the  same  sub- 
ject, the  Directors  of  this  Bank  "have  caused  the  acts  of  Congress  to  be 
carefully  examined,  and,  though  they  do  not  affirm  positively  that  there  is 
no  such  authority  as  the  Secretary  has  claimed,  it  is  believed  there  is  none. 

This  Board,  therefore,  cannot  but  approve  the  advice  of  the  Directors 
of  your  office;  in  which  you  declined  complying  with  the  order,  until  the 
instructions  of  the  parent  Bank  should  be  received. 

You  are  now,  therefore,  instructed  accordingly,  respectfully  to  inform 
ihe  Secretary  of  War,  that  no  such  authority,  as  he  claims,  is  perceived  in 
the  acts  of  Congress;  and  that,  as  the  Bank  must  act  under  legal  responsi- 
bility, you  must  request  him  to  have  the  goodness  to  point  out  whence  his 
authority  is  derived;  stating  that,  to  prevent  inconvenience  to  the  Govern- 
ment, as  well  as  to  individuals,  the  payments  to  the  pensioners  will  be  con- 
tinued as  heretofore,  until  a  further  communication  shall  have  been  received 
from  him,  and  submitted  to  the  parent  Board. 
I  remain,  most  respectfully,  , 

Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

T.  CADWALADER,  Acting  Presiden 


478  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Office  of  Bank  op  United  States, 

Portsmouth,  August  13,  1829. 

Sir:  Mr.  Pickering  has  this  day  presenter!  an  order  for  the  delivery  of 
the  books  and  funds  of  the  Pension  Oifice  here,  of  which  I  enclose  a  copy. 
I  submitted  the  order,  together  with  the  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
tjf  wiiich  a  copy  was  eiicltjsed  in  my  last,  to  the  Directors  of  this  otHce, 
who  advised  me.  not  to  make  the  delivery  without  the  directions  of  the  pa- 
rent Board.  I  accordingly  informed  Mr.  Pickering  that  I  must  decline 
complying  with  the  order  at  the  j)resent  time,  but  that  I  would  immcdiate- 
}y  communicate  this  (infer  to  the  parent  Bank,  and  wait  for  instructions. 

In  llie  mean  time,  no  pensions  will  be  paid,  as  I  consider  this  a  virtual 
Girder  not  to  pav,  and  fear  there  might  be  objections  to  allowing  payment,-? 
made  after  the  presentation  of  the  onler.  Very  few  ajjplications  for  pay- 
ment will  be  made  before  the  first  of  September.  Tlie  aggregate  of  the 
pension  funds  is  about  eight  or  tiine  thousand  dollars,  if  no  deduction  be 
made  for  Mr.  Cutts's  defalcation.  I  presume  this  proceeding  is  without 
eny  previous  arrangement  with  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  if  so, 
1  think  it  most  extraordinary.  The  paying  ])ensions  was  part  of  the  du- 
ties of  tlie  Commissioners  of  Loans,  when,  by  an  act  of  Co?»gress,  all 
tJiose  duties  were  transferred  to  the  Bank,  and  the  ottice  of  the  Commis- 
sioners abolished.  The  revolutionary  pensions,  although  created  since  the 
passing  of  that  act,  have,  by  tbe  consti-uction  given  to  it  l)y  the  Govern- 
ment, been  included  within  its  provisions.  How  can  the  Executive  Go- 
vernnient  then  sever  tiiese  duties,  and  assign  one  part,  the  pacing  of  pen- 
Kions,  to  agents  appointed  without  legal  authority,  (as  I  think)  and  leave 
the  otlier  part,  the  transferring  the  public  debt,  and  j)a}'ing  tlie  interest 
and  principal,  to  be  j)erformed  by  the.  Bank?  The  circumstance  that  the 
im[)osing  these  duties  on  the  Bank  by  tlie  act  of  incorporation,  was  intend - 
eil  to  relieve  the  Government  from  expense,  by  subjecting  the  Bank  to  it, 
kas  no  bearing  on  the  power  of  the  Executive  to  make  this  change. 

The  order  also  seems  to  mo  to  be  quite  singular.  Without  having  ex- 
amined the  statutes  of  the  United  States  to  ascertain,  (for  which  I  have 
not  ha<i  time)  1  believe  there  is  no  pension  office  in  the  War  Department, 
with  duties  legally  defined.  I  suppose  Mr.  Edwards  to  be  a  mere  clerk 
in  that  Department,  entrusted  with  tlie  ordinary  superintendence  of  mili- 
tary pensions.  And  for  tbe  measure  in  question,  something  more  than  the 
signature  of  a  clerk  miglit  be  expected.  Besides,  that  Department  has  no 
eontrol  of  the  Navy  and  Privateer  Pensions,  and  no  special  direction  of 
l-be  President  of  the  United  States  is  intimated  in  the  letter  or  order. 

I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  making  these  suggestions  rather  .is  a  justifi- 
(.jtttion  of  my  own  conduct,  than  through  a  wisii  to  intiuence  the  course  to 
b€  pursued  by  the  Bank. 

I  am,  &c. 

3.  MASON,  President, 

1'he  President  nf  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 

Bank  op  the  U.njtsd  States, 

18//J  Jugmt,  1829. 
Sir:   Knchised  I  send  you  a  copy  of  the  opinion  of  Messrs.  Binney  and 
Sergeant,  in  regard  to  tbe  autlnwity  assumed  by  the  S^iicretary  of  War,  U* 
remove  tbe  Pension  agency  from  your  office. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  479 

Yon  wiTr^)bse!*vc  that  the  Directors  of  this  Bank  have  framed  the  in- 
structions, conveyed  to  you  in  my  letter  of  yesterday,  in  accordance  witli 
that  opinion.  We  have  no  late  intelligence  of  the  movements  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Bank.  He  will,  of  course,  see  all  the  communications  which 
Imvc  been  addressed  to  you,  upon  his  airival  at  Portsmouth. 
I  am,  with  great  respect. 

Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

T.  CADWALADER,  Acting  President 
J.  Mason,  Esq. 

Fresident  Office  B.  U,  S.  Portsmouth,  JV.  H, 

War  Depaktment, 

Pension  Office,  Jlngnst  25,  1829. 

Sir:  On  the  21  st  of  the  present  month  a  letter  was  received  at  this  De- 
partment, front  W.  Pickering,  Esf^.  the  agent  recently  appointed  by  the 
iiecretary  of  War,  for  paying  the  United  States'  pensionei's  in  New  Dam|>< 
shire,  intimating  your  unwillingness  to  turn  over  to  him  the  books,  funds, 
&c.  of  the  agency. 

Mr.  P.  was  appointed  at  the  request  of  a  large  portion  of  the  membe!«s 
of  the  Legislature  of  your  State,  and  witii  a  view  of  accommodating  the 
jMjnsioners.  In  changin.^  the  agency,  the  Secretary  of  War  conceived  him- 
self authorized  by  law  to  do  so,  and  was  actuated  by  a  i^egard  to  the  in- 
tei-ests  of  the  pensioners,  in  wishing  to  have  tliem  paid  in  tliat  part  of  the 
State  where  the  greatest  facilities  are  presented.  The  Secretary  of  War 
is,  however,  now  absent,,and  befoi*e  the  discussion  of  the  right  of  this  De- 
]>artmcnt  to  appoint  Mr.  P.  could  be  terminated,  the  time  for  the  semi- 
aunual  payments  would  probably  arrive;  and  from  a  controversy,  thus  pro- 
tracted, great  inconvenience  and  disappointment  to  the  pensioners  might 
ai'ise.  '^Pho  acting  Secretary  of  War  has  therefoi'c  directed  me  to  say  to 
yi>u,  that  he  waives  a  discussion  of  the  subject,  and,  in  accordance  with 
the  proposal  which  you  have  made  in  your  letter  of  20th  inst.,  desires  you 
to  continue  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  Pension  agent,  as  heretofore, 
until  the  return  of  the  Secretary  of  Wai*  to  the  seat  of  Government.  Mr. 
Pickering  has  been  requested  to  deliver  to  you  the  sum  of  §24,862  25, 
and  the  semi-annual  statements  which  have  been  recently  transmitted  to 
Uim,  to  the  end  that  no  obstacle  may  bo  presented  to  tiie  iTgular  payment 
(»f  the  pensioners. 

I  am,  kc, 

JAMES  L.  EDWARDS. 
J*  Mason,  Esq.  President 

U.  S.  BrancJi  Bank,  Portsmouth,  JV.  H. 

Office  of  Bank  of  U.  States, 

Portsmouth,  Aupist  31,  1829. 
Deak  Sin:    I  have  receivcMJ.  frosn  the  Dej)artmeut  of  War,  a  letter  re- 
JntiHg  to  tlie  Pensio?!  ;)gcncy  Iiere,  of  which  I  ti'ansmit.  herewith,  a  copy. 
I  have  written  to  Mi*.  Pirkeiing,  ijiforming  him  of  my  readiness  to  receive 
t1*e  money  metitiouei!  in  tiio  letter  frujii  t!»e  Department. 

I  am,  ike, 

J.  MASOX,  President 
N.  Diddle,  Es<i.  President 

Bank  U,  8.  Philadelpfda* 


4S0  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  4.— No.  1. 

Jlnstver  of  A'.  Diddle  to  a  question  concerning  Jigeiicies  of  the  Bank, 

Tl)c  only  agencies  \\\\\c\\  the  Bank  has  made  are  two: 
1st.    The  agency  at  Macon,  in  the  State  of  Georgia,  tlic  particulars  of 

whicfi  will  be  explained  in  the  enclosed  extract  from  the  minutes  of  the 

Bank,  on  the  19th  of  October,  1830. 

2d.    The  agency  of  the  Mechanics  and  Farmers'  Bank  at  Albany,  for 

the  paymerit  of  pensions,  created  at  the  request  of  the  War  Department. 
The  history  of  this  agency  will  be  found  in  tije  enclosed  correspondence 

witii  the   Department,  of  the   15th  July,    l83l,  another   of  the    10th  of 

August,  1831,  and  a  letter  to  me  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  of  tho  Istof 

March,  1832. 


Doc.  4. — No.  2. 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  October  19,  1830. 

*<The  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was  referred,  on  the  1  Ith  of  June 
last,  an  application  for  the  establishment  of  an  office  of  this  Bank  at 
Macon,  in  the  State  of  Georgia,  dated  the  29th  of  May  last,  and  also 
letters  from  the  President  and  Cashier  of  the  office  at  Savannah,  dated 
respectively  May  29th,  and  June  10th,  report: 

That,  having  kept  the  subject  under  advisement  for  a  long  time,  in  order 
to  obtain  the  benefit  of  the  most  accurate  information,  they  are  satisfied 
that  the  period  has  not  yet  arrived  when  such  an  office  should  be  established. 
Tirey  believe,  hosvever,  that  all  the  benefits,  both  to  the  Bank  and  tho 
community,  which  an  office  would  produce,  may  be  obtained  in  a  much 
more  simple  and  economical  form,  by  the  appointment  of  an  agent  at 
Macon,  authorized  to  purchase  bills  of  exchange,  drawn  chiefly  on  Savan- 
nah, upon  the  shipments  of  produce  from  Macon,  which  will  probably  be 
not  less  than  two  millions  of  dollars  in  value,  during  the  approachirig 
season  of  business.  The  details  of  sucli  an  agency  were  explained,  in  an 
interview^  between  the  Committee  and  the  President  of  the  office  at  Savan- 
nah, who  is  of  opinion,  that  these  bills  may  be  purchased  w  ith  great  safety 
and  great  profit;  and  he  particularly  recommends  the  plan  of  an  agency, 
because  he  believes  that  the  Bank  can  obtain  the  services  of  a  higijjy  con- 
fidential gentleman,  who  is  now  acting  as  the  temporary  President  of  tlie 
office  at  Savannah,  and  who  designs  lo  settle  at  Macon. 

Under  tlicse  circumstances,  the  Committee  think,  that  it  w^ould  be  ex- 
pedient to  commence  with  an  agency,  which  may  hereafter,  as  circumstan- 
ces recommend,  be  withdrawn,  or  continued,  or  converted  into  an  office. 

They  accordingly  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  resolutions: 

Resolved^  Tliat  the  Board  of  the  ofilce  at  Savannali  ;ire  hereby  autiioriz- 
e<l  to  app'  int  some  suitable  agent  for  the  purpose  of  jmrchasing,  at  Macon, 
feills  of  exchange,  drawn  on  actual  shipments  of  produce  from  that  place, 
under  such  regulations  as  the  said  Board  shall  prescribe. 

Resolved^  That  the  said  agent  shall  be  so  appointed  for  a  time,  not  ex- 
ceeding one  year,  and  shall  receive  for  his  services,  including  those  of  any 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  481 

clerk  or  other  person,  employed  by  him  in  the  business  of  the  agency,  a 
sum  not  exceeding  the  rate  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars  per  annum." 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  ofM)vemher  I6th,  1830. 

<»  A  letter  to  the  President  from  John  Gumming,  President  of  the 
office  at  Savannah,  dated  the  6th  instant,  acknowledging  receipt  of  the 
resolution  of  this  Board,  authorizing  the  appointment  of  an  agent  at 
Macon,  Georgia,  was  read.'^ 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  JS^ovember  26th,  1830. 

"  A  letter  to  the  President  from  John  Gumming,  President  of  the  office 
at  Savannah,  dated  the  18th  instant,  transmitting  copies  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Board  of  that  office,  on  the  9th  and  10th  of  the  same  month, 
in  relation  to  the  appointment  of  an  agent  at  Macon,  under  the  authority 
given  them  by  a  resolution  of  this  Board,  of  the  19th  ultimo,  was  read, 
together  with  a  copy  of  the  instructions,  addressed,  under  date  of  the  lOth 
instant,  by  the  President  of  that  office,  to  Wm.  P.  Hunter,  Esq.  the 
agent  chosen  for  one  year  from  the  1st  instant.'* 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  January  21  si,  1831. 

"  A  letter  to  the  Cashier  from  J.  Hunter,  Gashier  of  the  office  at  Savan- 
nah, dated  the  7th  instant,  enclosing  a  copy  of  the  first  monthly  return 
made  to  him,  of  the  state  of  the  agency  at  Macon,  exhibiting  purchases  of 
bills  to  the  amount  of  gll7',94r  28,  producing,  at  the  credit  of  the  exchange 
account  at  that  office,  $1,800  26,  was  read." 


Doc.  4. — No.  3. 

. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

July  15th,  1831. 

Sir:  Having  recently  heard  that  a  transfer  had  been  made  of  a  considera- 
ble part  of  the  pension  list,  from  the  office  at  New  York,  to  a  Bank  in 
Albany,  I  applied  to  the  President  of  the  office  for  information,  and  have 
in  consequence  received  from  him  copies  of  two  letters  from  the  Secretary 
of  War  to  him,  of  the  26th  of  February  last,  and  also  sundry  other  papers 
explanatory  of  the  transfer.  On  submitting  these  to  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors, Ihey  have  deemed  it  their  duty  to  lose  no  time  in  inviting  your  atten- 
tion to  the  subject;  and  I  shall  accordingly  present  to  you  their  views  in 
regard  to  it. 

From  these  documents,  it  appears  that  the  Secretary  of  War,  on  the 
26th  of  February  last,  wrote  to  the  President  of  the  office  in  New  York, 
as  follows:  <<  Pensioners  in  the  State  of  New  York,  who  reside  in  the 
counties  of  Sullivan,  Ulster,  and  Dutchess,  and  all  others  lying  south  of 
these  bounties,  will  hereafter  be  paid,  as  heretofore,  at  the  office  in  the  city 
of  New  York.  Those  who  reside  in  other  counties  in  the  State,  will  make 
61 


482  [  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 

application  at  the  Mechanics  and  Farmers'  Bank  in  the  city  of  Albany. 
This  arrangement  is  made  on  account  of  the  distance  which  most  of  the 
pensioners  live  from  the  city  of  New  York;  and  because,  Albany  being  the 
seat  of  Government,  where  the  members  of  the  Legislature  attend  each 
year,  greater  facilities  will  be  afforded  to  the  pensioners  in  procuring 
their  dues.  Conformably  to  this  regulation  you  will  cease  to  pay  any 
pensioner  residing  within  the  limits  of  the  Albany  agency."  Accordingly 
a  warrant  for  the  semi-annual  payment,  amounting  to  3^120,184,  was 
drawn  on  the  3d  of  March  last,  by  the  Treasurer,  on  the  office,  in  favor 
of  the  President  of  the  Mechanics  and  Farmers'  Bank  of  Albany;  and 
the  money  paid  to  him  on  the  12th  of  March.  The  circumstances,  thus 
stated,  present  for  consideration,  the  questions  of  the  authority  of  the  Se- 
cretary of  War  to  make  this  arrangement,  and  the  authority  of  the  Trea- 
surer to  draw  from  the  Bank  the  public  funds  to  carry  it  into  effect.  The 
determination  of  these  two  points  depends  exclusively  on  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress, whicli  it  becomes  essential,  therefore,  to  review.  The  first  Com- 
missioners of  Loans  for  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  the  public  debt, 
were  appointed  for  each  of  the  States,  by  an  act  of  Congress,  passed  on 
the  4th  of  August,  1790.  The  first  act  of  Congress,  under  the  present 
Government,  on  the  subject  of  military  pensions,  passed  on  the  29th  of 
September,  1789,  provided  for  the  payment  of  them,  *<  under  such  regula- 
tions as  the  President  of  the  United  States  might  direct;"  and  again,  the 
act  of  March  3d,  1791,  provided,  that  they  should  be  paid  «  out  of  the 
Treasury,  under  such  regulations  as  the  President  of  the  United  States 
should  direct."  By  virtue  of  this  authority,  the  President  directed  that 
the  Commissioners  of  Loans  should  act  as  pension  agents,  and  they  have 
accordingly  so  acted  from  that  period,  until  the  establishment  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  on  the  10th  of  April,  1816.  By  this/.ct  chartering 
the  Bank,  it  is  declared,  that  the  Bank  <*  shall  do  and  perform  the  several 
and  respective  duties  of  Commissioners  of  Loans  for  the  several  States,  or 
for  any  one  or  more  of  them." 

To  carry  into  effect  this  provision,  another  act  of  Congress  was  passed 
•on  the  Sd  of  March,  1817,  which  declares  that  the  duties  of  Commis- 
sioners of  Loans  in  the  several  States,  «  shall  be  done  an(^  performed  by 
the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  Presidents  of  the  se- 
veral branches  of  the  said  Bank,  and  the  Presidents  of  such  State  Banks 
as  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  may  employ  in  States  where  no  branch 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  shall  be  established."  The  third  section 
then  declares,  that  it  **  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
to  notify  the  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  that  the  duties 
performed  by  the  Commissioners  of  Loans  will  be  transferred  to  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  and  he  shall  direct  the  Commissioners  of  Loans, 
and  the  agents  for  military  pensions,  where  there  is  no  Commissioner  re- 
spectively in  the  several  States,  to  deliver  to  the  President  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  or  to  the  President  of  a  branch  thereof,  or  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  such  State  Bank  as  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  may  employ,  on 
such  day  or  days  as  he  may  designate,  the  register,  and  all  the  books  and 
papers  of  their  respective  offices,"  &;c.;  concluding  with  a  proviso,  "  that 
this  act  shall  not  be  construed  to  extend  to  any  agent  for  military  pensions, 
in  any  State  where  there  is  no  Bank  established  by  law." 

From  these  acts,  it  was  obviously  the  intention  of  Congress,  that  the 
Bank  was  to  perform  the  duty  of  pension  agents,  doing  the  business  itself 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  483 

in  those  States  where  there  was  a  branch,  and   doing  it  through  a  State 
Bank  in  those  States  where  there  was  no  branch. 

It  remains  then  to  inquire,  whether  any  power  to  dispense  with  these 
acts  is  delegated  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  His  only  authority  to  appoint 
pension  agents  is  the  act  of  Congress,  passed  on  the  24th  of  April,  1816, 
by  which  the  Secretary  of  War  is  »<  authorized  and  required  to  appoint 
some  fit  and  proper  person,  in  those  States  and  Territories  where  there  is 
no  Commissioner  of  Loans,''  and  also  in  the  «« District  of  Maine,  to  perform 
the  duties  in  those  States  and  Territories,  and  in  said  district  respectively, 
relating  to  pensions  and  pensioners,  which  are  now  required  of  said  Com- 
missioners in  their  respective  States."  This  seems  to  be  the  limit  of  his 
power;  that  it  was  so  understood  by  Congress,  is  apparent  from  the  fact, 
that  special  acts  of  Congress  have  been  passed,  empowering  the  Secretary 
of  War  to  create  new  pension  agencies.  Thus  the  act  of  March  Sd,  1819, 
authorized  him  to  appoint  an  additional  agent  in  East  Tennessee,  .where, 
at  that  time,  there  was  no  branch  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States;  and 
the  act  of  May  20,  1826,  authorized  him  to  establish  a  pension  agency  at 
Pittsburgh,  for  the  payment  of  pensioners  in  certain  specified  counties  of 
Ohio  and  Pennsylvania;  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  authoriz- 
ed, by  the  second  section  of  the  act,  to  make  arrangements  with  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  for  paying  the  pensioners  at  the  office  of  the  Bank  at 
Pittsburgh. 

From  these  details  it  will  be  evident  that,  until  the  establishment  of  the 
Bank,  the  commissioners  of  loans  were  pension  agents — that  the  charter 
of  the  Bank  and  the  act  of  March,  18ir,  transferred  their  duties  to  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  presidents  of  whose  branches  are,  official- 
ly, pension  agents.  It  is  equally  clear,  that  the  Secretary  of  War  has  no 
authority  to  create  a  pension  agency,  except  in  States  or  territories,  where, 
in  1816,  there  was  no  commissioner  of  loans,  and  where  there  is  now  no 
branch  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  no  State  bank. 

Now,  as  there  was,  in  1816,  a  commissioner  of  loans  in  the  State  of 
New  York,  and,  as  there  are  now  three  branches  of  the  Bank  in  that 
State,  whose  presidents  are  capable  of  acting  as  commissioners  of  loans, 
and  also  numerous  State  banks,  it  does  not  appear  to  be  within  the  power 
of  the  Secretary  of  War  to  create  a  pension  agency  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  without  authority  from  Congress.  This  same  question  was  agita- 
ted on  a  former  occasion,  and  the  Board  presumed  had  been  then  finally 
settled.  It  will  be  recollected  that  an  order  was  issued  by  the  Secretary 
of  War,  on  theSd  of  August,  1829,  directing  the  President  of  the  Branch 
Bank  at  Portsmouth  to  deliver  to  the  president  of  a  State  bank  at  Con_- 
cord  all  the  books,  papers,  and  funds,  of  the  pension  agency,  which  was 
thenceforward  to  be  transferred  to  that  State  bank.  The  Board  of  Direct* 
ors,  on  hearing  of  this  order,  instructed  the  president  of  the  branch  bank 
to  decline  a  compliance  with  it,  and  to  ask  of  the  Secretary  of  War  the 
authority  for  this  proceeding.  No  such  authority  was  exhibited,  and  the 
order  was  recalled.  On  the  present  occasion,  had  the  Board  of  Directors 
been  apprised  of  the  intention  of  transferring  the  funds,  they  would,  in 
like  manner,  have  deemed  it  their  duty  to  interpose.  The  transfer,  having 
been  made  without  their  knowledge,  is  beyond  their  control;  but  they  take 
the  earliest  opportunity  of  explaining  their  unwillingness  to  acquiesce  in  a 
repetition  of  it,  and  to  suggest,  very  respectfully,  the  propriety  of  leaving 
the  pension  agencies  on  the  footing  prescribed  by  Congress.  It  will  doubt- 


484  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

less,  be  satisfactory  to  observe,  that  this  course  will  be  not  merely  the  most 
regular,  but  the  most  convenient  to  the  pensioners  themselves.  The  letter 
of  the  Secretary,  under  date  of  the  26th  of  February  last,  suggests  two 
motives  for  the  change.  Tlie  first  is,  *«  the  distance  which  most  of  the 
pensioners  live  from  New  York."  But  for  this  there  is  an  obvious  and  a 
better,  because  a  legal  remedy^  There  are  three  branches  of  the  Bank 
in  the  State  of  New  York,  the  presidents  of  which  are  capable  of  acting 
as  commissioners  of  loans — one  in  the  city  of  New  York,  one  in  Utica, 
and  one  in  Buffalo,  the  centre  and  the  two  extremes  of  the  State;  and  the 
pensioners  who  might  find  it  inconvenient  to  visit  or  to  send  to  the  city  of 
New  York,  would  be  paid  almost  at  their  own  doors  in  Utica  and  Buffa- 
lo. If  you  will  examine  the  lists  of  pensioners  transferred  to  Albany, 
with  their  respective  residences,  you  will  find  that,  out  of  the  2,358  pen- 
sioners so  transferred,  whose  residences  are  specified,  no  less  than  1,753 
reside  nearer  to  Buffalo  and  Utica,  respectively,  than  they  do  to  Albany; 
while  only  605  can  possibly  be  better  accommodated  at  Albany.  Even  of 
these,  127,  residing  in  the  northern  counties,  might  be  more  conveniently 
paid  by  the  commissioner  of  loans,  at  Burlington;  and  with  respect  to  the 
remaining  478,  residing,  as  they  do,  along  the  margin  of  the  North  river, 
or  in  the  counties  of  which  New  York  is  the  business  centre,  their  pay- 
ment in  New  York  would,  probably,  be  quite  as  convenient  as  at  Albany. 
The  accommodation  proposed  was  doubtless  meant  for  the  pensioners  re- 
siding west  of  Albany:  and  yet  it  will  be  perceived  that,  for  the  largest 
part  of  them,  it  will  be  a  great  inconvenience  to  be  compelled  to  resort  to 
Albany,  instead  of  being  paid  in  their  immediate  neighborhood,  at  Utica 
and  Buffalo.  For  example,  within  a  circuit  of  a  few  miles,  the  counties 
of  which  Buffalo  is  the  centre  of  business,  there  are  320  who  might  re- 
ceive their  pensions,  in  person,  at  Buffalo.  Instead  of  enjoying  that  fa- 
cility, the  present  arrangement  forces  them  to  go  or  to  send  nearly  three 
hundred  miles  to  Albany,  and  to  employ,  and  perhaps  pay,  agents  to  re- 
ceive it.  The  second  reason  assigned  is,  <*that  Albany,  being  the  seat  of 
government,  where  the  members  of  the  Legislature  attend  each  year,  great- 
er facilities  will  be  afforded  the  pensioners  to  receive  their  dues." 

But  the  value  of  the  facilities  would  probably  be  much  diminished  by 
the  fact,  that  the  payments  to  pensioners  are  semi-annual — that  the  most 
important  payment,  that  which  enables  them  to  prepare  for  the  approach 
o!  winter,  takes  place  on  the  4th  of  September^  and  that  these  members  of 
of  the  Legislature  do  not  assemble,  at  Albany,  until  four  months  after 
that  period.  For  one  half  of  the  business,  therefore,  they  afford  no  faci- 
Uty  whatever;  and,  in  regard  to  the  payment  of  the  other  half,  the  con- 
stant change  in  the  members  of  the  Legislature  would  require  a  continual 
enewal  of  powers  of  attorney — so  that  a  stationary  attorney  would  be  ne- 

ssary  for  the  September  pension,  and  a  changeable  attorney  for  the 
March  pension. 

All  these  inconveniences  could  be  remedied  by  employing  as  pension 
agents  the  officers  designated  by  Congress,  who  perform  the  duty  without 
expense  or  risk,  or  trouble  to  the  Government,  and  with  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage to  the  pensioner,  by  paying  him,  at  his  own  door,  in  the  best  cur- 
rency of  the  country. 

Having  thus  frankly  explained  the  views  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  it 
is  proper  to  add  that,  if  there  be  any  act  of  Congress  authorizing  the 
ti'ansfer,  which  they  may  have  overlooked,  and  of  which  the  Secretary  of 


(   Rep.  No.  460.  ]  485 

War,  from  liis  greater  familiarity  with  the  subject,  may  be  aware,  and  he 
will  have  the  goodness  to  communicate  it,  they  will  cheerfully  acquiesce 
in  the  proposed  arrangement,  and  give  every  facility  in  their  power  to 
the  execution  of  it.  The  payment  of  pensions  is  a  burdensome  and  gra- 
tuitous service,  not  required  by  the  charter.  But  it  has  been  devolved  by 
Congress  on  the  Bank;  and,  although  the  Directors  would  willingly  re- 
sign the  trust,  yet,  having  accepted  it,  they  deem  it  their  duty  to  perform 
it  rigidly  and  thoroughly.  With  their  present  convictions,  therefore, 
they  have  instructed  me  to  state,  very  respectfully,  that,  charged  as  they 
are  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  with  the  performance  of  certain 
duties,  and  the  distribution  of  certain  funds,  they  do  not  feel  themselves  at 
liberty  to  acknowledge  any  authority,  except  that  of  Congress,  to  relieve 
them  from  their  duties,  or  alter  the  distribution  of  those  funds;  and  that 
they  do  not  deem  themselves  Justified  in  surrendering  the  public  funds 
committed  to  their  charge,  and  for  which  they  are  responsible,  upon  a  re- 
quisition not  authorized  by  law. 

They  will  not,  however,  anticipate  any  further  diiRculty  on  the  subject, 
being  persuaded  that  the  Secretary  of  War  will  readily  either  find  ample 
authority  from  Congress  to  make  the  proposed  change,  or  else  restore  the 
pension  agencies  to  their  accustomed  and  legal  channel.  ( 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  Fresident 

The  Ming  Secretary  of  War, 

WashingtOTif  D,  C* 


Doc.  4. — No.  4. 

War  Department, 

Pension  Office f  July  2Sf  1S5 1 , 

Sir:  Your  communication  of  the  15th  inst,  has  been  received.  In  reply 
thereto,  1  am  directed  by  the  Acting  Secretary  of  War  to  say,  that  the 
arrangement  for  paying  the  pensioners  in  the  northern  section  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  at  the  Mechanics'  and  Farmers'  Bank  at  Albany,  was  made 
by  the  late  Secretary  of  War,  with  a  view  to  accommodate  the  pensioners, 
and  upon  a  full  conviction  of  the  propriety  and  legality  of  the  measure; 
and  the  Acting  Secretary  of  War  will  feel  it  to  be  his  duty  to  adhere  to  it  in 
the  semi-annual  payment  which  falls  due  on  the  4th  of  September  next.  It 
would  be  impossible,  at  this  time,  to  change  the  place  of  payment  in  the 
manner  proposed  in  your  letter,  without  subjecting  the  parties  entitled  to 
the  money  to  serious  inconvenience.  Many  of  them  have,  no  doubt, 
already  made  their  arrangements  to  receive  their  payments  at  Albany; 
and  if  the  alteration  contemplated  by  you  should  now  be  made,  all 
the  persons  interested  could  not  receive  notice  in  time  to  conform  to  the 
new  regulation;  and  some  of  them,  therefore,  would,  most  probably,  be  sub- 
jected to  painful  disappointments.  Nothing  but  a  char  and  deliberate 
conviction  that  the  construction  heretofore  given  to  the  laws  by  the  Head 
of  this  Department,  is  an  erroneous  one,  could  justify  the  Acting  Secre- 
tary of  War  in  subjecting  creditors  so  meritorious  as  tlie  pensioners,  to  the 
inconvenience  and  suffering  which  a  sudden  and  unexpected  change  of  tiie 


486  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

place  of  payment  would  invariably  produce.  I  am  instructed,  however,  to 
inform  you,  that  the  decision  heretofore  made  on  this  subject  will  be  re- 
viewed, and  the  objections  stated  by  you  carefully  considered;  and  if  it 
shall  be  found  that  this  Department  has  erred  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
acts  of  Congress,  the  error  will  be  corrected.  But  until  this  shall  be 
done,  the  construction  already  given  by  the  Department  will  necessarily 
govern  its  conduct. 

I  am  instructed  further  by  the  Acting  Secretary  of  War  to  say,  that,  if 
he  does  not  misunderstand  the  terms  of  your  letter,  the  Bank  design  to  re- 
fuse payment  of  the  draft  which  will  be  made  by  the  Government,  in  order 
to  transfer  the  funds  to  Albany.  If  this  be  the  present  intention  of  the 
Bank,  he  is  persuaded  that  further  consideration  will  induce  the  President 
and  Directors  to  abandon  it:  for,  according  to  your  view  of  the  subject, 
the  payment  at  x\lbany  will  not  deprive  the  Bank  of  a  privilege  granted 
for  its  benefit,  but  will  relieve  it  from  a  burthen,  from  which  it  w  ould  be 
willingly  discharged.  And  the  measure  is  objected  to  on  the  part  of  the 
Bank,  and  the  money  proposed  to  be  withheld,  because  the  President  and 
Directors  think  that  the  Government  are  about  to  apply  it  in  a  manner  not 
warranted  by  law.  This  Department  cannot  acquiesce  in  the  right  thus 
claimed  on  behalf  of  the  Bank.  It  cannot  be  admitted,  that  the  President 
and  Directors  of  that  institution  may  rightfully  check  and  control  the  oper- 
ations of  the  Government  by  refusing  to  pay  its  drafts,  whenever,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  President  and  Directors  of  the  Bank,  the  application 
of  the  money  contemplated  by  the  Government  is  not  warranted  by  law. 
Such  a  power  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  be  conferred  on  such  an  institu- 
tion; and  yet  it  is  only  by  the  adoption  of  a  principle  that  would  necessa- 
rily lead  to  that  result,  that  the  Bank  can  assume  the  right  to  inquire  how 
the  Government  means  to  apply  the  money  it  is  about  to  draw  for,  and 
take  upon  itself  to  refuse  payment,  on  the  ground  that  the  application  in- 
tended by  the  Government  is,  either  in  its  manner,  or  its  object,  not  autho- 
rized by  law.  It  is,  therefore,  confidently  believed,  that  the  Bank  will  not 
embarrass  the  operations  of  the  Government  in  the  matter  in  question,  and 
that  the  drafts  about  to  be  given  will  be  duly  honored. 

I  am,  with  very  great  respect,  your  obedient  servant, 

J.  L.  EDWARDS. 

N.  BiDDLE,  Esq.  President  U,  S,  Bank, 

and  Pension  Jgent,  Philadelphia, 


Doc.  4.--N0.  5. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Mgust  10,  1851. 

Sir:  I  have  received,  and  submitted  to  the  Board  of  Directors,  a  letter 
ffom  Mr.  J.  L.  Edwards,  of  the  Pension  Office,  dated  July  28,  1831,  pur- 
porting to  be  written  by  directions  of  the  Acting  Secretary  of  War,  in  an- 
swer  to  the  communication  which  I  had  the  honor  to  address  to  him  on  tlie 
15th  ult.  Mr.  PMwards  states,  that  the  objections  made  to  the  transfer 
of  the  Pension  Agency  from  the  Branch  of  this  Bank  in  New  York,  to  a 
bank  in  Albany,  will  be  carefully  considered,  and  the  error,  if  any  shall 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  487 

appear  to  have  been  committed,  shall  be  corrected;  but  that,  as  it  would  be 
impossible,  at  this  time,  to  change  the  place  of  payment,  without  subject- 
ing the  pensioners  to  serious  inconvenience,  it  is  proposed  to  make  the 
approaching  payment,  on  the  4th  of  the  next  month,  at  Albany,  and  it  is 
confidently  believed,  tliat  the  drafts  about  to  be  issued  for  that  purpose, 
will  be  duly  honored  by  the  Bank. 

It  is  quite  sufficient,  on  this  occasion,  as  it  has  been  sufficient  on  any  for- 
mer occasion,  that  the  Department  of  War  should  suggest  any  advantage 
to  be  gained,  or  any  inconvenience  to  be  obviated,  in  the  public  service,  by 
the  aid  of  the  Bank,  to  ensure  its  immediate  and  cheerful  concurrence;  and 
the  Board  of  Directors  will  accordingly  interpose  no  obstacle  whatever  to 
the  payment  of  pensions  proposed  on  the  4th  of  September.  In  doing  this, 
however,  they  deem  it  their  duty,  equally  to  the  Bank  and  to  Congress,  to 
explain,  that  they  are  influenced  exclusively  by  a  desire  to  avoid,  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  case,  any  disadvantage  to  the  public  service.  They 
regard  the  transfer  as  not  justified  by  the  act  of  Congress;  they  acquiesce 
in  it,  because  the  Department  of  War  desires  it,  for  the  present,  until  the 
question  can  be  fully  considered;  and  because,  in  any  event,  they  prefer 
the  hazard  of  making  an  advance,  which  might  not  be  reimbursed,  to  wit- 
nessing any  inconvenience  which  they  could  remedy.  As  it  is,  however, 
intimated,  that  they  are  bound  to  yield  to  the  transfer  in  question,  without 
inquiring  whether  it  is,  or  is  not,  warranted  by  law,  it  will  be  most  re- 
spectful to  tlie  Department,  and  may,  perhaps,  prevent  future  misapprehen- 
sion, to  state  briefly  their  understanding  of  the  duties  of  the  Bank  in  that 
particular. 

The  Board  of  Directors  have  not  the  slightest  wish  to  control,  or  even 
to  know,  the  destination  of  the  funds  withdrawn  from  the  Bank.  On  the 
contrary,  they  would  desire  no  safer  rule  of  conduct,  than  to  pay  imme- 
diately, without  question,  and  without  future  responsibility,  on  the  order 
of  the  proper  Department.  This,  however,  they  are  not  permitted  to  do. 
According  to  the  regulations  prescribed  by  Congress,  the  payments  made 
by  the  Bank,  under  the  orders  of  the  War  Department,  are  subjected  to 
the  revision  of  another  Department;  and  if  the  revising  officer  finds  that 
the  public  funds  have  been  paid  in  a  manner  not  allowed  by  Congress,  the 
Bank  is  not  held  justified  because  it  has  obeyed  the  orders  of  the  War 
Department  For  instance,  it  has  happened  to  the  Bank  to  receive  an  ex- 
press order  from  the  War  Department  to  pay  a  pensioner,  without  requir- 
ing a  certain  formality,  on  the  natural  presumption,  that  the  directions  of 
the  Department,  on  a  case  within  its  appropriate  sphere,  were  regular; 
the  Bank  paid  the  pension.  The  Auditor  of  the  Treasury,  however,  dis- 
allowed it.  The  Bank  in  vain  exhibited  the  positive  order  of  the  War 
Department.  The  Auditor  of  the  Treasury  disregarded  that  order,  and 
refused  to  give  to  the  Bank  credit  for  its  payment,  because  the  order  was 
not  in  conformity  to  the  act  of  Congress.  The  Bank  is  thus  placed  in  a 
situation  where,  if  it  refuses  obedience  to  the  War  Department,  it  may  be 
reproached  with  embarrassing  the  operations  of  the  Government;  and  if  it 
obeys  the  War  Department,  its  payments  are  disallowed  by  anotiicr  De- 
partment, as  not  being  in  conformity  to  the  act  of  Congress.  Now,  it 
cannot  be,  that  an  authority  from  the  War  Department,  which  is  insuffi- 
cient for  the  payment  of  the  most  trifling  sums,  is  yet  available,  as  in  the 
transfer  ordered  in  the  year  1829,  for  the  payment  of  large  amounts,  in 
far  more  obvious  derogation  of  the  act  of  Congress.     It  seems,  therefore, 


48 S  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

necessary  to  admit,  that  there  must  be  some  inherent  and  ultimate  right  of 
self-defence  to  protect  the  Bank  from  the  consequences  of  implicit  obedi- 
ence to  every  order  of  the  War  Department. 

These  considerations,  applicable  to  -the  general  disbursements  of  public 
funds,  in  the  keeping  of  the  Bank,  become  far  more  important  when  the 
transfer  ordered,  as  in  the  present  instance,  is  in  direct  interference  with 
special  duties  enjoined  on  the  Bank  itself  by  Congress,  In  such  a  colli- 
sion, vhere  it  is  necessary  to  decide  to  whom  obedience  is  due,  the  Bank 
cannot  fail  to  perceive  that  the  officers  of  the  Executive  Department,  like 
the  officers  of  the  Bank,  derive  their  whole  authority  from  that  common 
superior,  the  Congress,  which  prescribes  to  each  a  sphere  of  duty,  which 
neither  can  transgress,  each  being  independent  of  the  other,  and  the  Bank 
being  responsible  to  Congress,  and  to  Congress  alone. 

When,  therefore,  any  officer  directs  the  Bank  to  do  that  which  an  act 
of  Congress  declares  shall  not  be  done  by  the  Bank,  or  when  any  officer 
directs  the  Bank  not  to  do  that  which  an  act  of  Congress  declares  the  Bank 
shall  do,  the  Bank  conforms  to  the  act  of  Congress,  where  alone  it  can 
look  for  the  expressed  will  of  the  Government.  To  suppose  the  Bank 
bound  implicitly  to  obey  the  instructions  of  any  officer  assuming  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  the  Government,  is  to  admit  a  dispensing  power  over  the 
acts  of  Congress,  by  which  the  whole  legislation  of  the  country  may  be 
made  to  devolve  on  the  Executive  officers,  with  no  control  except  their 
own  construction  of  their  own  powers. 

If,  for  example,  the  Secretary  of  War  can  mak6  one  pension  agent,  at 
Albany,  he  may  make  as  many  pension  agents  as  there  are  Presidents  of 
the  Branches  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  thus  transfer  to  them 
•all  tlie  functions,  and  all  the  public  funds,  which  Congress  has  expressly 
assigned  to  the  Bank.  It  seems,  therefore,  to  be. an  imperative  obligation 
on  those  whose  duties  are  invaded,  to  inquire  by  what  authority  the  acts 
of  Congress  are  superseded,  and  not  to  surrender  what  is  confided  to  them 
by  the  highest  power  known  to  the  laws.  This  would,  of  course,  be  done 
with  great  deliberation,  under  a  very  grave  responsibility,  and  with  perfect 
respect  to  officers,  who  must  be  presumed  to  act  under  a  misapprehension 
of  the  extent  of  their  power;  but  in  tlie  last  resort,  the  right  to  decline  obe- 
dience to  an  order,  in  obvious  contradiction  to  an  act  of  Congress,  seems 
essential  to  any  system  of  delegated  and  responsible  power. 

It  was  upon  this  principle  that  the  Bank  acted  on  the  only  occasion 
where  it  became  necessary  to  apply  it,  in  the  year  1829,  when  it  declined 
a  compliance  with  fhe  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War.  Congress  had  de- 
clared that  tlie  Presidents  of  the  Branch  Banks  should  pay  the  pensions 
granted  by  Congress.  For  twelve  years  they  had  been  in  the  undisturb- 
ed performance  of  that  duty;  when  the  Secretary  of  War  declared  that 
the  President  of  the  Branch  Bank,  at  Portsmouth,  should  no  longer  pay 
the  pensions,  but  that  he  should  surrender  the  public  funds,  and  the  pub- 
lic papers  in  his  possession,  to  another  person,  wiio  was  thenceforvvard  to 
pay  the  pensions. 

In  this  conflict,  between  a  solemn  act  of  Congress,  and  an  order  from 
the  War  Department,  in  regard  to  the  duties  of  the  Bank,  the  Board  of 
Directors,  on  much  deliberation,  and  after  consulting  eminent  counsel,  de- 
clined surrendering  the  papers  and  the  funds.  The  present  case  differs 
from  that  of  1829,  in  degree  only,  not  in  substance;  in  one  case  all  the 
p«blic  papers,  and  all  the  public  funds,  were  to  be  transferred;  in  the 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  J  489 

other,  part  of  the  public  papers,  and  part  of  the  public  funds,  are  to  be 
transferred;  but  both  should  abide  the  operation  of  the  same  principle. 

In  thus  explaining  what  they  deem  the  nature  of  that  principle,  they 
are  satisfied  that  their  views  cannot  be  misinterpreted  by  the  War  De- 
partment. Of  their  anxiety  to  promote  the  public  service,  by  every  effort, 
and  every  sacrifice,  the  records  of  the  Department  furnish  ample  evidence; 
and  Pif,  on  the  present  occasion,  they  are  not  so  fortunate  as  to  be  able  to 
acquiesce  in  the  construction  of  the  Department,  it  is  because  the  question 
relates  not  to  the  powers,  nor  to  the  interests,  but  to  what  they  deem  far 
more  important,  the  duties  of  the  institution. 

While,  therefore,  the  Board  of  Directors  willingly  acquiesce  in  any 
delay  which  may  be  thought  essential  to  a  full  consideration  of  the  subject, 
tliey  respectfully  repeat  their  request  for  an  early  communication  of  the 
views  of  the  Department,  in  order  that,  if  necessary,  Congress  may  have 
an  opportunity  of  giving  a  more  decided  expression  of  its  will. 

In  the  mean  time,  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  PresidenL 

Hon.  Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  War, 
Washington,  D.  C. 


Doc.  4. — No.  6. 

War  Department,  J^arch  1,  1832. 

Sir:  I  am  satisfied,  from  a  careful  examination  of  the.laws  of  Congress, 
that  this  Department  is  not  warranted  in  appointing  a  pension  agent,  ia 
any  State  or  Territory,  where  the  United  States  Bank  has  established  one 
of  its  Branches.  Hence,  the  agent  at  Albany  has  been  notified  that  his 
appointment,  by  this  Department,  has  this  day  ceased.  But,  as  great  in- 
convenience would  unquestionably  result  from  a  removal  of  the  agency, 
at  a  period  so  near  that  for  making  the  usual  semi-annual  payments,  I  have 
deemed  it  advisable  to  request  the  United  States  Bank,  through  you,  to 
make  the  necessary  remittance  to  the  late  agent,  B.  Knower,  Esq.,  and 
ask  of  him  to  make  the  necessary  disbursement  as  agent  for  your  institu- 
tion. 

I  herewith  enclose  the  semi-annual  statements,  to  be  sent  by  you  to 
Mr.  Knower. 

Twenty  thousand  dollars  for  the  payment  of  invalid  pensioners,  and 
sixty-nine  thousand  dollars  for  paying  Revolutionary  pensioners,  will  be 
remitted  to  you  by  drafts  from  the  Treasury  Department,    to    meet  the 
demands  which  may  be  made  for  the  ensuing  half  year,  at  Albany. 
I  am,  very  respectfully. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

LEWIS  CASS. 

N.  BiDDLE,  Esq. 

President  U,  S,  Bank,  Philadelphia 


62 


490  [  Rep,  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  5. — ^No.  1. 

Msxver  of  JV.  Biddle  to  questions  concerning  building  of  Houses  by  ih 

Bank, 

*i  This  subject  forms  part  of  the  general  system  of  managing  the  real 
estate  of  the  Bank,  which  I  will  endeavor  to  explain. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  182S,  the  Bank  found  itself  with  a  large 

mass  of  debt  at  Cincinnati,  amounting  to ,  on  which  the  loss, 

estimated  by  the  Cashier  of  the  Bank,  who  visited  Cincinnati  for  the  pur- 
pose of  examining  the  condition  of  its  affairs,  was  g85 1,000. 

An  effort  was  then  made  to  reach  a  final  settlement  of  these  debts,  and 
a  system  was  adopted  for  that  purpose,  the  details  of  which  will  appear 
from  the  letters  to  tfee  agents,  copies  and  extracts  of  which  are  annexed. 
The  general  plan  of  it  was, 

That  when  a  debt  was  well  secured  by  mortgage,  and  the  interest  paid 
regularly,  the  debtor  should  not  be  disturbed. 

That  where  the  mortgage  was  insufficient  to  secure  the  debt,  it  should 
be  foreclosed. 

That  where  there  were  judgments,  and  the  interest  was  not  paid  regular- 
ly, the  property  should  be  sold;  and,  finally. 

When  the  debt  still  remained  on  personal  security,  and  the  debtor 
would  not  voluntarily  confess  judgment,  suit  should  be  brought.  But  in 
regard  to  the  receipt  of  real  estate  in  payment  of  debts,  the  plan  was 
generally  discouraged,  from  an  extreme  unwillingness  to  acquire  that 
species  of  property.  Thus,  in  the  letter  to  the  agent  on  the  3d  of  May, 
1823,  he  was  informed  that  <<the  Board  do  not  wish  to  announce,  nor  do 
they  intend  to  adopt,  any  general  determination  to  accept  real  estate  in 
payment.'*  So  in  the  letter  to  the  Cashier,  dated  August  8,  1823— <<  You 
are  aware  that  the  general  j)lan  of  administering  the  affairs  of  that  ^Agency, 
is  to  accept  real  estate,  only  when  nothing  else,  or  rioihing  better f  can  be  ob- 
tained from  desperate  debtors,^' 

Whatever  was  thus  acquired  reluctantly,  was  always  for  sale,  and  al- 
ways sold,  whenever  it  could  be  done  without  too  great  a  sacrifice.  Thus, 
in  the  instructions  to  Messrs.  Cadwalader  and  Cope,  under  date  of  the 
23d  of  September,  1825,  it  is  said,  «<  For  obvious  reasons,  the  Board  are 
desirous  of  this  property,  and  converting  the  funds  into  a  more  productive 
shape,  whenever  this  can  be  done  without  sacrifice." 

And  again,  in  the  letter  to  Herman  Cope,  Esq.  the  new  Agent,  dated 
February  4,  1829,  he  is  informed  that  *^the  Bank,  you  are  aware,  is  will- 
ing to  sell  whenever  it  can  do  so  without  sacrifice;"  and  he  is  directed 
« to  give  special  attention  to  the  inquiry,  whether  the  time  has  arrived 
when  we  can  advantageously  dispose  of  the  real  estate,  more  rapidly  than 
we  are  now  doing,  and  if  so,  what  would  be  the  best  mode  of  accomplish- 
ing it." 

The  general  theory  then  of  the  Bank  has  been,  never  to  take  real  es- 
ti.te  when  it  could  be  avoided,  and  never  to  keep  it  when  it  could  be  sold 
w  ithout  sacrifice. 

in  doing  this,  however,  the  Bank  has  to  consider  not  merely  its  own  in- 
terest by  not  forcing  the  sales,  but  also  the  benefit  of  the  city  of  Cincin- 
nati, which  might  be  oppressed,  and  permanently  injured,  if  the  Bank 
were  to  throw  into  the  market  large  masses  of  real  estate.     In  order  to 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  491 

understand  perfectly  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  Bank  in  regard  to  its  real 
estate,  the  Board  consulted  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Binney,  whose  opinions, 
with  the  proceedings  of  the  Board,  founded  on  them,  will  be  seen  in  the 
annexed  papers. 

In  consequence  of  these  opinions,  the  Board  have  since  deemed  them 
selves  as  standing  precisely  on  the  same  footing  as  any  individual  pro» 
prietor,  and  have  accordingly  directed  their  exertions  to  improve  their  pro. 
perty  for  the  purpose  of  selling  it.  Believing  the  possession  of  real  estate 
to  be  entirely  contrary  to  the  interests  of  the  institution,  and  anxious  to  dis- 
pose of  it  as  rapidly  as  possible,  all  the  improvements  of  opening  streets, 
or  alleys,  or  contributing  to  the  making  of  roads,  have  had  but  one  object 
— to  prepare  their  property  for  sale.  When  some  of  the  debtors  had  no 
means  of  paying,  except  in  labor  and  materials,  these  were  accepted,  and 
employed  in  the  repairs  or  erection  of  buildings.  W^hen  the  canal  came 
into  the  ground  owned  by  the  Bank,  a  basin  was  excavated,  and  six  ware- 
houses built,  with  a  view  to  attract  purchasers  for  the  adjoining  property, 
as  well  as  the  w^arehouses. 

A  number  of  stores,  perhaps  twelve  or  fifteen,  were  in  like  manner  erected 
in  other  parts  of  the  town,  as  auxiliary  to  the  improvement  of  the  adjacent 
ground;  but  no  original  building,  no  building,  in  itself,  and  for  itself,  an 
object  of  income,  has,  I  believe,  ever  been  erected.  The  Board  was  much 
urged,  as  well  by  the  agent  himself  as  by  many  citizens  of  Cincinnati,  to 
erect  a  hotel — a  building  greatly  needed,  it  was  §aid,  for  the  public  accora- 
modation,  and  promising  to  be  very  profitable;  but  they  found  a  distinc- 
tion between  this  case  and  the  other  buildings  of  which  they  had  permitted 
tlie  erection.  They  refused  to  authorize  such  a  building,  but  offered  the 
ground  on  which  it  was  desired  to  erect  it,  at  an  abatement  of  twenty  per 
cent,  on  the  price,  in  case  the  applicant  would  build  the  hotel  himself. 

The  result  of  this  system  has  thus  far  been  beneficial  alike  to  the  Bank 
and  to  the  community.  To  the  Bank,  because  it  has  been  enabled  to  dis- 
pose gradually  of  its  property,  so  as  probably  to  escape  any  ultimate  loss; 
and  to  the  community,  because  the  sales  and  improvements  of  the  Bank 
have  kept  pace  with  those  of  individual  citizens,  so  as  not  to  injure  thera 
by  competition." 

Extract  of  a  Letter  to  George  TV,  Jones,  Jigent  at  Cindnnatiy  dated  May  3, 

1823. 

<^The  debts  in  Ohio  seem  naturally  to  divide  themselves  into  foui 
classes — 

1st.  Those  fully  secured  by  mortgage. 

2d.   Those  in  which  the  mortgages  are  insufficient. 

Sd.   Those  in  which  the  Bank  has  judgment. 

4th.  Those  in  which  there  is  only  a  personal  security. 

With  regard  to  all  these,  the  general  view  of  the  Bank  is  to  secure  lis 
debts,  and  have  the  interest  punctually  paid  on  them,  with  such  portions  ot 
the  principal  as  will  gradually  extinguish  the  whole.  It  is  neither  iU 
wish  nor  its  interest  to  urge  payments  beyond  reasonable  limits,  nor  ca« 
it  possibly  desire  to  oppress  or  disable  its  debtors.  On  the  contrary,  the 
interest  of  both  parties  conspire  to  recommend  a  system  of  security,  ac- 
companied by  gentle  and  easy  reductions.    In  applying  this  general  system 


492  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

to  the  classes  of  debts  just  enumerated,  you  will  pursue  the  following 
course. 

1st.  Whenever  a  debt  is  completely  secured  by  mortgage,  and  the  debtor 
pays  his  interest  punctually,  you  will  forbear  at  present  to  press  him.  You 
will  require  a  continuance  of  the  same  punctuality,  and  see  that  the  pro- 
perty is  not  permitted  to  deteriorate  by  the  neglect  or  mismanagement  of 
the  owner. 

2d.  Whenever  the  mortgage  will  not  secure  the  debt,  you  will  proceed 
to  foreclose  it.  There  seems  to  be  no  adequate  reason  why  the  debt  should 
he  permitted  to  increase,  whilst  the  income  of  the  property  pledged  to  se- 
cure  it  is  diverted  from  its  proper  purpose;  you  will,  therefore,  in  such 
cases,  foreclose  the  mortgage,  possess  yourself  of  the  rents,  and  then  look 
to  the  personal  liability  whenever  or  wherever  he  may  be  found. 

Sd.  Whenever  you  have  a  judgment,  and  the  interest  is  not  regularly 
paid,  you  will  issue  an  execution,  and  sell  the  property.  There  is  no  mo- 
tive for  suffering  it  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  persons  who  may  waste  or 
misuse  it;  and  there  is  an  evident  propriety  in  securing  the  control  over 
property  which  is  our  only  reliance  for  the  payment  of  the  debt. 

4th.  When  the  debts  still  remain  on  mere  personal,  and  voluntary  judg- 
ments will  not  be  confessed  to  the  Bank,  you  will  proceed  to  bring  suits  to 
the  term  immediately  following  the  time  when  the  debt  is  unpaid;  and 
when  judgments  are  obtained,  issue  execution  upon  property  or  persons,  in 
any  manner  which  may  ba  deemed  most  effectual  for  the  recovery  of  the 
debt.  Such  are  the  general  outlines  of  the  system,  in  the  execution  of  which, 
it  will  receive  the  following  modifications  and  additions. 

5th.  If  a  debtor  is  willing  to  make  a  full,  fair,  and  unconditional  sur- 
render of  all  his  property,  if  it  is  clear  that  he  has  acted  in  entire  good 
faith,  and  that  he  has  no  resources  beyond  what  he  offers,  there  may  be  a 
motive  for  granting  him  an  entire  release  from  his  debt.  Should  such  a 
case  occur,  you  will  receive  his  proposition,  communicate  it,  with  all  its 
circumstances,  to  the  Board,  state  your  own  opinion  fully,  and  the  Board 
can  then  decide,  finally,  on  the  propriety  of  granting  the  release. 

6th.  You  will  understand  tliese  instructions  as  not  affecting  the  ord'er 
under  which  you  now  act,  as  to  the  receipt  of  real  estate  in  payment.  The 
Board  are  disposed  to  receive  propositions  for  that  purpose,  whenever  the 
debtors  and  yourself  have  matured  any  thing  which  you  think  may  be  ac- 
ceptable to  the  Board.  But  they  do  not  wish  to  announce,  nor-  do  they 
Intend  to  adopt,  any  general  determination  to  receive  real  estate  in  pay- 
ment. 

They  wish  every  individual  application  to  stand,  as  heretoCare,  on  its 
own  peculiai"  circumstances,  and  they  reserve  to  tliemselves  the  right  of 
deciding  on  each  particular  case.  It  is,  indeed,  as  much  for  your  own  sat- 
isfaction, as  for  the  interest  of  the  Bank  itself,  and  with  a  view  to  relieve 
you  from  the  importunity  and  discontent  of  the  debtors,  that  I  wish  to  put 
you  in  possession  of  this  distinct  declaration,  that  you  are  not  authorized 
to  take  real  estate.  You  will  receive  propositions  to  that  effect;  you  will 
recommend  them  when  they  appear  expedient,  and  every  case  thus  pre- 
pared by  yourself  will  receive  the  most  respectful  and  prompt  considera- 
tion. But,  it  is  for  the  Board,  and  the  Board  alone,  to  decide.  At  the 
moment  that  we  are  giving  you  new  proofs  of  our  entire  confidence,  you 
cannot,  I  am  sure,  misapprehend  or  misinterpret  these  observations.     It 


[  Eep.  No.  460.  ]  493 

is,  in  every  point  of  view,  better  for  you,  as  well  as  for  the  Bank,  that 
while,  within  the  very  ample  range  of  your  powers,  so  much  is  left  to  your 
discretion,  the  exact  boundary  of  your  authority  should  be  distinctly 
marked. 

The  subject  is  recalled  to  my  attention,  by  the  circumstance  that  your 
arrangemer^jt  with  Riddle,  Becktle,  &  Co.  which  the  Board  have  since  ap- 
proved, was  announced  here  long  before  we  had  official  information  of  it, 
as  evidence  of  your  being  authorized  to  accept,  in  payment,  real  estate — 
an  impression  which  is  at  once  incorrect  and  injurious." 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  JV.  Biddle  to  Thomas  Wilson ,  Cashier^  dated  Jlu- 

gust  M9  1 823. 

"  1st.  Cincinnati. 

«  You  are  aware  that  the  general  plan  of  administering  the  affairs  of 
that  agency,  is  to  accept  real  estate  only  when  nothing  else,  or  nothing 
better,  can  be  obtained  from  desperate  debtors:  to  prefer,  in  these  arrange- 
ments, real  estate  in  the  city  of  Cincinnati." 

Extract  of  a  letter  to  Thomas  Cadwalader  and  T.  P.  Cope,  Esqs,    dated 

September  23,  1825. 

<<  The  documents  annexed  will  explain  very  particularly  the  amount 
of  the  real  estate,  the  parties  from  whom  taken,  the  estimated  value, 
and  the  present  rent  of  it.  For  obvious  reasons  the  Board  are  desi- 
rous of  disposing  of  this  property,  and  converting  the  funds  into  a  more 
productive  shape,  whenever  this  can  be  done  without  sacrifice.  And  the 
interesting  question  is  this:  considering,  on  the  one  hand,  the  present  pri- 
ces, and  the  probable  rise  of  property,  and,  on  the  other,  the  more  pro- 
ductive use  we  could  make  of  the  proceeds,  the  large  amount  of  property 
which  we  have,  and  must  hereafter  have,  in  Cincinnati,  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  waiting  for  minute  subdivisions  of  it — *  the  question  is,  at  what 
prices,  and  in  what  manner  should  we  open  the  sales  of  our  property.'  " 

Extract  of  a  letter  to  Herman  Cope,  Esq.  dated  February  4,  1829. 

<<  3d.  You  will  give  special  attention  to  the  inquiry,  whether  the  time 
has  arrived  when  we  can  advantageously  dispose  of  the  real  estate  more 
rapidly  than  we  are  now  doing,  and  if  so,  what  would  be  the  best  mode  of" 
accomplishing  it.    The  Bank,  you  are  aware,  is  willing  to  sell,  whenever 
it  can  do  so  without  a  sacrifice;  but  the  difficulty  is  to  ascertain  the  real 
value  of  the  property,  and  then  to  sell  it  in  such  portions,  and  at  such 
times,  as  may  not  affect,  injuriously,  the  market  value  of  the  remainder. 
One  branch  of  the  subject  which  you  will  particularly  consider  is,  whether 
sales  might  not  be  made,   like  those  of  the  United   States,  publicly,  at 
stated  times,  with  sufficiently  long  intervals,  so  as  not  to  press  on  tha 
market.     This  might  have  the  advantage  of  exciting  competition,  remov- 
ing at  once  the  impression  that  the  Bank  is  unwilling  to  sell,  and  enabling 
us  to  part  with  considerable  amounts;  and  unless  these  benefits  would  be 
counteracted  by  inconveniences,  they  seem  to  recommend  the  plan.     Of 
this  you  will  judge  after  reflection  and  inquiry.     In  such  an  examination 
you  will  naturally  ascertain  the  expenses  of  a  public  sale,  the  State  or  city 
tax  which  it  might  be  necessary  to  pay,  and,  particularly,  the  credits,  or 
the  proportion  of  cash  and  credits,  which  ought  to  be  allowed." 


494  C  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  George  TV,  Jones,  Agent,  to  the  President  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  dated 

Agency  Office,  Bank  United  States, 

Cincinnati,  February  14,  1827. 

«  Another  point  of  great  moment  is,  to  have  instructions  whether  or 
not  the  Bank  caii  safely,  and  legally,  erect  buildings,  and  make  additions 
and  improvements  to  buildings,  upon  lands  or  lots,  beyond  what  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  preserve  tlie  property  in  the  order  received;  natural 
decay,  wear  and  tear,  excepted.  In  making  additions,  materials  must  be 
purchased,  and,  how  far  the  disability  of  the  Bank  to  acquire,  and  the 
penalties  imposed  in  the  12th  section  of  the  charter,  may  reach,  becomes 
a  serious  question." 

Extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Board  of  Directors, 

♦  <*Bank  United  States,  March  9.7,  ISSr. 

<*  The  Committee  on  tho  Offices,  to  whom  was  referred,  on  the  27th 
ultimo,  a  letter  from  the  Agent  at  Cincinnati,  of  14th  ultimo,  report,  in 
part,  thereon: 

«  That  the  letter  of  the  Agent,  among  other  points,  requested  instruc- 
tions as  to  the  right  of  the  Bank  to  improve  its  property  in  Cincinnati,  by 
repairing  houses  already  built,  or  erecting  new  houses — a  question  so  in- 
teresting that  the  Committee  deemed  it  their  duty  to  submit  it  to  distin- 
guished counsel.  They  accordingly  applied  to  Mr,  Binney  and  to  Mr. 
Webster,  whose  separate  opinions  are  now  submitted  to  the  Board.  These 
opinions  recognise,  in  the  amplest  manner,  the  right  of  the  Bank  to  im- 
prove its  property  in  any  manner  it  may  deem  advantageous,  and  they 
suggest  very  important  views  in  regard  to  the  future  management  of  the 
large  interests  of  the  Bank  in  Cincinnati.  On  this  subject  the  Commit- 
tee propose  to  submit  their  views  on  some  future  occasion.  In  the  mean 
time  they  recommend  that  the  opinions  of  the  counsel  should  be  adopted  by 
the  Board,  and  acted  upon  by  the  Agent,  so  far  as  his  present  instruc- 
tions authorize  the  improvement  of  the  property  of  the  Bank. 

<*  For  this  purpose  they  submit  the  following  resolution: 

«  Resolved,  That  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Binney  and  Mr.  Webster  be 
ransmitted  to  the  Agent  at  Cincinnati,  with  instructions  to  conform  to 
hem  until  otherwise  directed.'* 


Doc.  5.— No.  2. 

Philadelphia,  March  1st,  1827. 

Of  the  points  suggested  in  the  letter,  from  the  agent  at  Cincinati,  under 
date  of  the  14th  February,  1827,  the  first,  which  regards  the  right  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  to  remove,  into  the  Federal  Court,  a  suit 
brought  against  the  corporation  in  a  State  Court,  has  been  decided  in  Ohio, 
in  conformity  with  the  opinion  which  has  hitherto  prevailed  in  this  City. 
The  seventh  section  of  the  Charter  of  the  Bank  does  not  deprive  individu- 
als of  the  right  to  sue  the  Bank  in  a  State  Court,  nor  does  it  deprive  the 
State  Courts  of  the  right  to  entertain  suits  by  or  against  the  institution.  It 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  V    495 

merely  imparts,  to  the  Circuit  Courts  of  the  United  States,  jurisdiction  of 
such  suits  by  giving  to  the  Bank  the  right  to  sue  there,  and  to  other  per- 
sons the  right  of  suing  the  Bank  there.  If  a  suit  then  is  duly  instituted 
against  the  corporation  in  a  State  Court,  it  must  remain  t-o  be  decided 
there,  unless  there  is  some  mode  pointed  out  by  Congress,  to  divest  the 
State  jurisdiction  and  to  transfer  the  suit  to  the  Federal  Court.  But  I  am 
not  aware  of  any  mode  of  effecting  such  a  transfer,  in  any  case,  except  that 
pointed  out  by  the  12th  section  of  the  Act  of  the  24th  September,  1789.,  to 
establish  the  Judicial  Courts  of  the  United  States,  which  is  not  applicable  to 
tlie  case  of  the  Bank. 

As  it  regards  the  rules  necessary  to  give  effect  to  the  equity  jurisdiction 
of  the  Federal  Courts,  in  cases  in  which  the  Bank  claims  to  proceed  against 
the  interest  of  resident  debtors,  legally  vested  in  non-residents,  the  difficul- 
ties suggested  may  exist,  and  possibly  an  occasion  may  occur  in  which 
they  can,  with  propriety,  be  brought  to  the  notice  of  those  who  are  compe- 
tent to  apply  a  remedy. 

Of  the  authority  of  the  Bank  to  use  the  lands,  which  it  is  entitled  to  hold, 
as  fully  and  extensively  as  any  natural  person  whatever,  I  see  no  reason 
to  doubt. 

The  restraint  in  the  7th  fundamental  article,  is  upon  the  right  to  hold 
lands,  &c.  and  not  upon  the  right  to  improve  and  use  what  it  lawfully  holds; 
and  whether  the  improvements  be  by  repairing  the  buildings,  already  on 
the  land,  or  by  the  erection  of  new  ones,  seems  to  me  to  be  of  no  moment. 
What  the  Bank  lawfully  holds,  by  having  acquired  in  the  permitted  mode, 
it  cannot  cease  to  hold  lawfully  by  reason  of  subsequently  augmenting  its 
value.  The  statement  of  an  extreme  case  will  not  disprove  the  right.  The 
question  is  upon  the  existence  of  a  restraint  upon  the  right  and  amount  of 
such  improvements  in  the  Charter;  and  if  none  can  be  found,  it  is  obvious 
that  no  case,  however  extreme,  was  apprehended  by  Congress.  If  it  be 
supported,  that  by  the  words  ^<lands,  tenements,  and  hereditaments,  are 
meant  lands,  houses,  and  buildings,"  I  apprehend  the  legal  import  of  these 
words  are  mistaken.  They,  doubtless,  include  houses  and  buildings,  as 
being  upon  the  land,  and  embraced  by  that  word;  but  they  do  not  embrace 
houses  and  buildings  specifically  as  things,  which,  like  lands,  tenements, 
and  hereditaments,  are  only  permitted  to  be  acquired  by  purchase  under 
judgment  or  mortgages.  The  words  in  the  7th  Fundamental  Article,  which 
are  found  with  the  additional  and  unnecessary  word  rents,  in  the  7th  Section 
of  the  Charter,  are  nothing  more  than  the  common  and  comprehensive  de- 
scription of  real  estate  of  every  species.  The  lands  after  they  are  built  up- 
on are  the  same  "lands,  tenements,  and  hereditaments,"  which  the  Bank 
previously  acquired  and  lawfully  held,  and  none  other;  and  the  augmenta- 
tion in  value,  unless  it  exceed  the  limit  before  mentioned,  is  the  same  in  its 
legal  consequences,  whether  it  be  a  dollar  or  a  thousand  dollars.  The  pro- 
hibition of  the  12th  section  does  not,  I  apprehend,  prevent  the  pur- 
chase of  materials  for  such  improvements.  The  distinction  between  deal- 
ing or  trading  in  these  articles,  and  the  purchase  of  them  for  such  a  pur- 
pose, is,  I  think,  an  ©bvious  one. 

H.  BINNEY. 


496  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

March  22rf,  183£. 

Sir:  I  am  requested  to  ask  your  opinion  on  the  following  point : 

The  Bank  has  been  obliged,-  in  the  course  of  its  business,  to  receive  from 
its  debtors  sundry  lots  in  the  city  of  Cincinnati,  which  have  thus  come  into 
its  possession,  in  the  manner  indicated  by  the  7th  Section  of  the  Charter, 
by  being  <<  bona  fide  mortgaged  to  it  by  way  of  security,  or  conveyed  to  it 
in  satismction  of  debts,  previously  contracted  in  the  course  of  its  dealings, 
or  purchased  at  the  sales  upon  judgments  obtained  for  such  debts."  Many 
of  these  have  buildings  on  them — others  are  vacant.  In  this  situation  the 
Bank  is  not  able  to  dispose  of  its  real  estate,  which  thus  remains  useless 
to  the  institution,  and  interferes  with  the  progress  of  the  City.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  the  improvement  of  this  property,  by  repairing  and  enlarg- 
ing the  buildings  now  erected,  or  by  constructing  new  buildings,  would 
enable  the  Bank  to  dispose  of  it  advantageously  to  itself,  so  as  to  secure 
the  debts  for  which  it  was  taken,  and  beneficially  to  the  city  of  Cincinnati. 

I  have,  therefore,  to  request  your  opinion,  whether  there  is  any  thing  in 
the  provisions  of  the  Charter,  which  the  Board  are  equally  inclined  and 
bound  scrupulously  to  respect,  which  should  prevent  the  Bank  from  thus 
improving  its  real  estate. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President 

Daniel  Webster,  Esq.  Fhiladelphia, 


March  23,  1827. 
Sir: 

Enclosed  I  return  the  case  submitted  for  my  opinion,  and  my  opinion 
thereon. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  great  regard, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

DANIEL  WEBSTER. 
N.  BiDDiE,  Esqr. 

President  of  the  Bank  U.  /S. 


OPINION. 

The  provisions  of  the  Charter  which  have^  or  may  be  supposed  to  have, 
more  or  less  bearing  on  this  question,  are  the  7th  and  12th  sections  and  the 
7th  Fundamental  Rule. 

By  the  7th  Section  the  corporation  is  made  capable  of  purchasing,  hav- 
ing, enjoying,  and  retaining,  lands,  tenements,  and  hereditaments,  to  an 
amount  not  exceeding  fifty-five  millions  of  dollars,  including  the  capital. 
But  this  power  to  purchase  and  hold  lands,  which  would  thus  be  general, 
(within  the  limited  amount)  were  there  no  further  provision  in  the  Charter, 
is  qualified,  or  restrained,  by  the  7th  Fundamental  Rule,  which  confines 
tlie  exercise  of  the  power  to  the  holding  of  such  lands  and  tenements 
only  as  shall  be  requisite  for  immediate  accommodatiou  of  the  Bank,  in 
relation  to  the  convenient  transaction  of  its  business,  and  such  as  shall  have 
ieen  bona  fide  mortgaged  to  it  hij  waij  of  security,  or  conveyed  to  it  in 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  '         40T 

satisjadion  of  debts  previously  contracted,  in  the  course  of  Us  dealings^  or 
purchased  at  sales  upon  judgments^  which  shall  have  heen  obtained  for  such 
debts. 

In  the  case  now  under  consideration,  the  lands  are  stated  to  be  such  as 
fall  within  the  latter  clause  of  the  section;  and  the  question  is,  whether  the 
Bank  may  improve  the  lands  and  tenements,  which  have  thus  fallen  into  its 
possession,  by  repairing  and  enlarging  the  buildings,  or  by  constructing  new 
buildings  on  the  premises. 

I  see  nolhing  in  this  section  to  prevent  its  doing  so.     The  section  iiw 
poses  no  limitation  on  the  use  of  the  property.     It  looks  only  to  the  origin. 
and  cause  of  the  title  or  conveyance  under  which  the  corporation  holds. 

It  was  not  intended  to  allow  the  Bank  to  become  a  great  landed  j)roprl 
etor,  but  it  was  foreseen,  first,  that  it  must  hold  banking  houses;  and  se- 
cond, that,  in  a  country  where  land  is  almost  universally  subject  to  be  taken 
for  debts,  it  must,  like  all  other  creditors,  occasionally  take  lands  for  that 
purpose,  as  well  as  receive  it  for  security,  by  way  of  mortgage.  The  Bank 
is,  therefore,  authorized  to  hold  lands  and  tenements,  tiic  title  to  which  is, 
hona  fide,  derived  in  cither  of  these  ways;  and  being  thus  authorized  t6 
hold,  it  is  wholly  unrestrained  in  the  manner  of  holding,  and  in.  the  use  and 
improvement  of  the  property.  It  may  erect  new  lixtures  or  destroy  old 
ones;  ccnslruct  houses,  or  demolish  houses  already  constructed,  keeping 
always  within  the  general  limit,  as  to  amount  of  property  [55  millions)  and 
possessing  no  lands  not  hona  fide  coming  to  its  possession  as  security,  or 
in  payment.  It  has  as  free  and  full  a  discretion  in  the  use  of  what  it  does 
thus  hold  |is  an  individual  proprietor  would  have. 

The  12th  section  restrains  the  corporation  from  trading  in,  buying,  or 
(probably  means  and)  selling  goods,  wares,  and  merchandise.  The  Bank 
is  not  permitted  to  become  a  trader.  But  the  purchase  of  building  materials 
no  more  makes  it  a  trader,  or  brings  it  within  the  prohibition  of  this  sec- 
tion, than  similar  purchases  by  an  individual  would  make  him  a  trader 
within  the  statutes  of  bankruptcy. 

On  the  whole,  I  entertain  no  doubt  that  the  Bank  may  improve  this  pro- 
perty, by  enlarging  and  r^.pairing  existing  buildings,  or  constructing  new 
ones,  as  its  own  sense  of  iiiterest  and  convenience  may  prescribe. 

DAi^IEL  WEBSTER. 

May  2S,  1827. 


63 


498 


[  Rep.  No.  461).  3 


No.S. 

Statement  of  the  number  and  description  of  new  buildings  erected,  and  of 
old  ones  enlarged^  at  the  Jgency,  Bank  United  States,  Cincinnati. 


1824") 
1825  J 


1824. 


1825. 


1827. 


1828") 
1829  J 


1828. 


14 


Fourteen  small  two  story  brick  shops  and  dwell- 
ings, at  the  south-cast  corner  of  Lower  Market 
and  Sycamore  streets,  Cincinnati.  Ten  of 
these  buildings  were  erected  to  replace  a  num- 
ber of  old  frame  shops  which  stood  partly 
upon  the  ])ublic  street  The  former  owner, 
(John  H.  Piatt)  I  am  informed,  had  agreed 
to  remove  them,  and  supply  their  place  with 
brick  buildings.  The  other  four  buildings 
were  commenced,  and  the  fronts  put  up,  be- 
fore the  Bank  acquired  the  property, 
Two  of  the  above  houses  have  since  been  sold. 

Six  small  two  story  brick  dwelling  houses,  on 
the  south  west  corner  of  Broadway  and  Se- 
cond streets,  Cincinnati.  The  walls  of  these 
buildings  were  put  up  by  the  former  owner, 
John  H,  Piatt.  They  came  into  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Bank  in  an  unfinished  state,  and 
were  completed  afterwards,  by  the  Bank,  at 
its  own  cost,  the  principal  part  of  the  w^ork 
having  been  done  by  persons  indebted  to  this 
agency,  in  part  payment  of  their  debts  to  the 
institution,  -  -  -     ,       - 

Those  six  buildings  have  since  been  sold. 

Two  small  frame  houses  on  the  north  side  of 
Second  street,  west  of  Broadway,  Cincinnati, 
Since  sold. 

One  large  brick  stable,  on  the  south  side  of  Se- 
cond street,  between  Vine  and  Race  streets, 
Cincinnati,  -  -  - 

Since  sold. 

Eight  two  story  brick  warejiouscs  on  the  canal, 
between  Walnut  and  Vine  streets,  Cincinnati, 
Erected  to  accommodate  the  canal  business, 
just  then  commenced,  and  to  facilitate  the 
sale  of  the  Bank  lots  in  the  vicinity,  where 
the  Bank  holds  several  entire  unimproved 
squares  of  ground.  The  sale  of  which  has 
alone  been  prevented  by  an  adverse  claim, 
since  set  up,  and  wluch  is  now  pending  in 
court,  -  - 

Improving  and  enlarging  the   <<Pugh  Build- 
ings," on  the  west  side  of  Main  street,  be- 
tween Third  and  Fourth  streets,  Cincinnati, 
Since  sold. 


gl3,387  or 


4,742  18 


1,000  00 


2,800  00 


16,795  00 


3,500  00 


[  Rep,  No.  460.  ] 
Statement — Continued. 


499 


1826, 
'9,  '30, 
&'31. 


1830/ 


1829. 


1829. 


18291 
18S0J 


18297 
1830  3 


Two  brick  buildings,  connected  with  the  im- 
provement, enlargement,  and  repairs,,  of  the 
<<  Broadway  Hotel/'  on  the  corner  of  Broad- 
way and  Second  streets,  Cincinnati.  The 
principal  part  of  the  new  buildings  is  on  the 
Second  street,  front,  on  the  ground  formerly 
covered  by  six  old  dilapidated  two  story  brick 
buildings.  The  other  is  a  back  building,  in 
the  rear  of  the  main  building.  A  large  brick 
stable  has  also  been  erected  for  the  hotel, 
on  Second  street,  about  fifty  feet  east  of  the 
hotel,  on  a  lot  of  ground  before  covered  by 
an  old  decayed  frame  stable,  which  we  had 
to  remove,  as  a  nuisance,  by  order  of  the 
street  commissioners.  The  enlargement  of 
the  hotel  was  called  for  by  the  increased 
business  of  the  city,  and  was  made,  partly 
with  that  view,  and  partly  with  the  view  of 
promoting  the  speedy  sale  of  the  bank  pro- 
perty in  the  neighborhood. 
1826,  Improvements  and  repairs,  cost  gl,  500  00 
1829,  Ditto,  2,000  00 

1830  & 'SI,  Ditto,  16,356  00 

1831,  New  Stable,         -  -  2,417   14 


One  brick  building  to  enlarge  a  house  in  the 
town  of  Franklin,  Warren  county,  Ohio,  (on 
the  Miami  canal)  to  make  it  suitable  for  a 
tavern,         -  -  -  -  - 

A  three  story  brick  building,  forming  three 
dwellings,  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Broad- 
way and  Second  streets,  Cincinnati,  erected 
in  the  place  of  old  decayed  buildings, 

An  enlargement  of  the  back  buildings,  and  other 
improvements,  made  to  the  « White  Hall" 
hotel,  on  the  east  side  of  Main  street,  be- 
tween Fourth  and  Fifth  streets,  Cincinnati, 
Since  sold. 

One  brick  back  building,  and  an  enlargement 
of  an  old  brick  building  in  the  front,  making 
both  three  stories  high,  on  the  northwest  cor- 
ner of  Vine  and  Fourth  streets,  Cincinnati, 
Since  sold. 

A  two  story  brick  warehouse,  an  enlargement 
of  the  Main  street  hotel,  near  the  canal,  and 
a  brick  stable  for  the  hotel,  at  the  south- 
west corner  of  the  canal  and  Main  street. 
The  canal,  at  this  point,  crossed  Main  street, 


g22,2rS  14 


1,444  37 


4,500  00 


!,500  00 


6,500  00 


MO 


[  Rep.  Na  400.  ] 
Statement — Continued. 


years. 

No. 

DESCRIPTION  OF   BUILDINGS. 

Cost. 

and  the  old   buildings  were  necessarily  re- 

moved.     The  warehouse  was  then  built  on 

the  line  of  New  Canal  and  Main  street.  The 

athlitions  to  the  tavern  were  made  to  accom- 

modate the  increased  business  of  the  place, 

S14,000  00 

Warehouse  since  sold  for  Si 0,000. 

1831. 

1 

One  tliree  story  brick  dwelling  house, on  the  east 

side  of  Broadway^  between   Congress    and 
Third  streetSjCincinnati, erected  on  partof  the 

sile  of  theohl  "Receiver's  office/'  removed, 

the  residue  of  the  lot  having  been  sold, 

6,032  01 

?.8S1. 

1 

A  back  building  of  brick,  and  other  improve- 
ments, to  a  warehouse  and  dwelling,  on  the 

s 

southwest  corner  of  Produce  alley  and  Low- 

er Market  street,  Cincinnati, 

1,500  00 

45 

Since  sold. 
Buildin.e:s.         Total  cost  of  the  whole. 

§99.971   71 

Agency  Office,  Bank  U.  States, 

Cincinnati,  March  26th ^  1832. 
HERMAN  COPE,  ^genU 


No.  4. 

Extract  from  the  minutes,  J^ovemher  7,  1828- 

«A  letter  to  the  Third  Assistant  Cashier,  from  D.  Kilgour,  dated 
Cinciimati,  the  27th  of  October,  requesting  to  know  on  what  terms  the 
Bank  will  se!l  to  him  three  lots  on  Broadway,  in  that  city,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  building  thereon  a  large  hotel,  and,  in  case  this  should  be  erect- 
ed, what  facilities,  in  the  shape  of  loans,  he  may  derive  from  the  Bank, 
as  the  building  progresses,  was  read,  and,  on  motion, 
Referred  to  the  Commtttee  on  the  Offices." 

Extrari  from  the  Minutes,  December  12,  1828. 


*•  A  letter  to  the  Third  Assistant  Cashier,  from  George  W.  Jone.^ 
Aj;fnt,  Cincinnati,  dated  the  3d  instant,  in  relation,  among  other  things, 
to  the  proposal  of  D.  Kilgour,  for  the  purchase  of  a  lot,  on  which  to 
cieci  an  hotel;  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Offices  on  the  7th  of  No- 
vember Ikst;  and  to  the  application  of  Wm.  McKinney,  referred  to  the 
same  committee  on  the  18th  of  July  last,  was  readj  and,  on  motion, 
Referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Offices." 


[  Rep.  No,  4()0-  ]  501 

Extract  from  the  Minutes^  Dectinher  19,  1828, 

"  The  Committee  on  the  OfBces,  to  whom  was  referred,  on  the  7t!i  ult, 
a  letter  to  the  Third  Assistant  Cashier,  from  D.  Kilgour,  dated  Cincin- 
nati, tlie  ^7th  of  October,  requesting  to  know  on  what  terms  the  Bank 
would  sell  him  three  lots  on  Broadway,  in  that  city,  for  the  purpose  of 
building  thereon  a  large  hotel;  and,  in  case  tins  should  be  erected,  what 
facilities,  in  the  shape  of  loans,  he  mny  derive  from  the  Bank  as  the  build- 
ing progresses;  and  to  whom  was  also  referred,  on  the  12th  instant,  a  let- 
ter to  the  Third  Assistant  Cashier,  from  George  W.  Jones,  Agent,  dated 
Cin<:innati,  December  2,  on  the  same  subject,  recommend  the  adoption  of 
the  following  resolution: 

Hesohed,  That  the  Tliird  Assistant  Cashier  be  instructed  to  inform 
Mr.  Kilgour  that  the  price  of  the  three  lots.  No.  10,  11,  find  12,  fronting 
300  feet  on  Broadway,  and  extending  200  feet  deep,  parallel  with  Sd 
etrcet,  is  S24,000,  payable  one-fourth  in  hand,  and  the  residue  in  three 
equal  annual  payments,  secured  by  a  mortgage  on  the  property;  or  S20,000, 
as  above,  if  the  said  Kilgour  gives  satisfactory  security  to  build  on  the 
three  lots  an  hotel;  the  plan  and  dimensions  of  which  shall  bo  first  ap- 
proveU  by  this  Board." 


No.  5, 


Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  tlie 
United  States^  June  3,  1828, 

"Mr.  Cadwalader,  from  the  Committee  on  tho  Offices,  submitted  the 
following  report;  which  was  read,  and,  on  motion,  adopted. 

The  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was  this  day  referred  a  letter  to 
the  President,  from  Geo.  W.  Jones,  Agent,  dated  May  23,  recommending 
to  the  Bank  the  construction  of  the  two  canal  basins,  and  the  erection  of 
warehouses  around  one  of  them,  according  to  the  plan  submitted  by  him, 
recommend  to  the  Board  the  adoption  of  the  following  resolution: 

Besolvcd,  That  this  Board  approve  of  the  formation  of  two  canal  basins 
at  Cincinnati,  proposed  by  Mr.  Jones;  one  of  them  to  be  on  square  No. 
fifty-five,  (55)  and  the  other  one  to  be  on  the  square  of  ground  between 
Walnut  and  Vine  streets,  and  Canal  and  St.  Clair,  or  Court  streets:  and 
that  he  be  authorized,  forthwith,  to  erect  warehouses  on  the  margin  of  this 
last  mentioned  basin,  not  exceeding  six  in  number,  cither  in  one  block  or 
separately,  as  he  may  deem  most  for  the  interest  of  the  Bank." 


No.  6. 

Extract  from  the  Minnies  of  the  Board  of  Virectorsy  Jan,  4,  1828. 

♦<  A  letter  to  the  Third  Assistant  Cashier,  from  J.  Correy,  Cashier  of 
the  office  at  Pittsburg,  dated  27th  ultimo,  enclosing  a  copy  of  a  report  and 
resolution  of  the  Board  of  that  office,  adopted  on  the  26th  of  December, 
in  relation  to  the  purchase  of  a  lot  of  ground,  and  the  erection  thereon  of 


502  [  Rep.  No.  4ea.  ] 

suitable  buildings,  for  the  accommodation  of  the  Cashiei'  and  tiie  business 
of  the  office,  was  read;  and,  on  motion, 

Keferred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Offices." 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  the  Board,  January  15,   1828. 

«  The  Committee  on  the  Offices,  to  whom  was  referred  on  the  4th  inst. 
a  letter  from  the  Cashier  of  the  office  at  Pittsburgh,  dated  27th  ultimo, 
covering  a  report  adopted  on  the  26th  same  montl*,  in  relation  to  the 
banliing  house  at  that  ])lace,  and  the  expediency  of  a  removal,  for  the  bet- 
ter accommodation  of  tlie  Cashier  and  the  business  of  the  office,  recom- 
naend  the  adoption  of  the  followisig  resolution: 

Resolved f  Tiiat  the  purchase  of  a  lot  of  ground,  at  that  place,  and  the 
erection  of  a  new  building  there,  for  the  accommodation  of  the  office,  are 
deemed  inexpedient  by  this  Board." 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  Jipril  1,  1828. 

<<  The  Committee  on  the  Offices  having,  since  their  report  of  the  15th  of 
January  last,  upon  the  resolution  of  the  Board  of  the  office  at  Pittsburg, 
passed  on  the  27'th  of  December  last,  recommending  the  purchase  of  a  lot 
of  ground,  and  the  erection  thereon  of  suitable  buildings,  had  their  atten- 
tion recalled  to  the  subject  by  several  of  the  Directors  of  the  office  there, 
from  whom  they  have  received  much  additional  information,  beg  leave  te 
offi?r,  for  the  consideration  of  the  Board,  the  following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  Board  of  the  office  at  Pittsburg  be  auhorized  to 
purchase,  on  the  best  terms  in  it<j  power,  not  exceeding  the  price  of  six 
thousand  dollars,  the  lot  of  Robert  Peebles,  heretofore  in  its  view,  and  to 
erect  thereon,  for  the  accommodation  of  the  Cashier's  family,  and  the  busi- 
ness of  the  office,  suitable  buildings,  at  a  cost  not  exceeding  ten  thousand 
dollars." 


OrFicE  Bajtk  United  States, 
Sir: 


Fittsburgf  Mg.  28,  1826. 


} 


The  Board  of  this  office  has  sold  the  following  described  property, 
subject  to  the  decision  of  the  Directors  of  the  parent  Bank. 

A  ground  rent,  of  S42  per  annum,  on  31  feet  of  ground,  in  Wood  street, 
to  John  Roseburgh,  for  seven  hundred  dollars. 

A  house  and  lot  on  the  DiamonI,'  18  feet  front  by  26  feet  deep,  subject 
to  a  ground  rent  of  g46  90  per  annum,  sold  to  Alexander  Brackenridge, 
Esq.,  for  three  hundred  dollars. 

A  lot  of  ground  on  Wood  street,  S3  feet  front  by  60  feet  deep,  on  which 
is  built  a  modern  three  story  brick  house.  This  property  was  received 
from  W.  Robinson,  Jr.,  in  part  jayment  of  his  debts,  at  g5,000,  and  is 
now  sold  to  Dr.  Peter  Shoenberger  for  four  thousand  dollars. 

You  will  perceive,  by  referring  to  the  estimate  of  real  estate,  transmit- 
ted in  June  last,  that  the  above  described  property  was  valued  at  the  sums 
lor  which  it  is  now  sold. 

I  enclose  deeds  for  the  purcl  aser  made  by  Roseburgh  and  Brackenridge, 
for  the  purpose  of  having  them  ex-^cuted,  should  the  sales  be  confirmed. 
I  am,  &c. 

J,  CORREY,  Cashier. 

W.  McIlvaine,  Esq.  Cashier  Bank  U.  S. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  503 

No.  r. 

Extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States f  March  1.',  11526. 

**  A  letter  from  J.  Correy,  Cashier  of  tie  oface  at  Pittsburgh,  dated  lOtli 
instant,  accompanied  by  an  extract  of  tw)  resolutions  from  the  minutes  of 

the  Board  of  that  oflSce,  in  relation  to  tha  purchase  of  a  lot  of  ground  in 
that  city,  in  the  rear  of  a  building  belong  ing  to  the  Bank,  and  considered 
suitable  for  a  banking  house,  together  witf  a  d  'aught  of  the  whole  property, 
wsre  submitted  to  the  Board,  and,  on  mot.on,  referred  to  the  Committee  oii 
the  Offices. '■• 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  of  the  Board,  March  SI,  1826. 

"A  letter  from  J.  Correy,  Cashier  of  he  Office  at  Pittsburg,  dated  the 
25th  instant,  fiirnisiiing  additional  inform  atioi  on  the  wsubjectof  the  proper- 
ty to  which  ii  has  been  proposed  to  remov^e  the  Bank,  was  read,  and,  on 
motion,  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Offices." 

Bank  or  the  United  States, 

Jpril  10,  1826. 

Sir:  I  enclose  a  resolution  passed  at  the  last  meeting  of  the  Board,  in 
relation  to  the  application  of  W.  B.  Foste*,  and  a  duplicate  (open  for  your 
perusal)  of  a  letter  just  addressed  to  him  st  Harrisburg,  explaining  the  de- 
lay which  has  occurred  in  coming  to  a  decision.  Tlie  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature closing  to-m6rrow>  as  1  learn,  I  fear  he  may  not  receive  the  origi- 
nal, and  if  so,  imagine  that  the  Bank  has  been  entirely  inattentive  to  his 
proposal. 

Your  letter  which  furnished  additional  information  on  the  subject  of  the 
lot  you  desire  to  purchase,  was  handed  ':o  tlie  Committee  on  the  Offices, 
and  I  had  hoped  to  conmiunicate  either  tiieirs,  or  tlie  Board's  determina- 
tion, by  this  tim<^.  This  Committee  is  much  disposed  to  recommend  the 
transfer  of  the  banking  business  to  the  ur.w  house,  and  to  acquire  the  ad- 
joining lot.  The  only  difficulty  regards  tie  power  of  the  Bank  to  make  a 
purchase — a  power  which  they  are  disposed  to  construe  strictly,  as  both 
the  inclination  and  the  interest  of  the  Board  arc  opposed  to  the  acquisition 
of  an  inch  of  real  estate  beyond  what  is  necessary.  In  order  to  render  the 
purchase  advisable  or  proper,  it  will  be  necessary  to  bring  it  strictly  with- 
in the  provisions  of  the  charter.  For  th  s  purpose,  I  suggest  to  you  this 
course.  If  your  Board  are  convinced  of  the  fact,  let  them  by  a  resolution 
say,  that  it  Avould  be  expedient  for  the  interest  of  the  office  to  remove  its 
business  to  a  more  central  or  frequented  part  of  the  city,  and  recommend 
the  house  in  question  for  that  object,  provided  the  lot  can  bo  added,  which 
they  deem  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  office,  as  well  as  the  convenient 
transaction  of  its  business.  Such  an  expression  of  opinion  Nvould  be  the 
basis  of  the  report  of  the  committee. 
I  am,  &c. 

W.  M'lLVAINE,  Cashier. 

J.  CoRREY,  Esq.  Cashier  of  the  O^ce  at  Tittshurgh* 


504  [  Rep.  No.  4t60.  ] 

OiTicB  Bank  op  the  United  States, 

Pittsburgh,  December  27,   1827. 
Dear  Sir:  I  enclose  an  extract  from  the  minutes  of  tlic  Board  of  this 
Office,  recommending  tlie  removal  of  our  Banking  house  to  a  more  eligible 
situation,  which  you  will  please  submit  for  consideration  to  the  Board  at 
Philadelphia. 

,  I  concur  entirely  with  the  views  of  the  directors,  as  expressed  by  their 
Committee,  and  hope  to  receive  early  advice  of  the  decision  of  your  Board. 
1  am,  &c. 

J.  CORREY,  Cashier. 
Herman  Cope,  Esq. 

Third  Assistant  Cashier  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 


Na.  8. 

Agency  Office,  Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Chillicothe,  25th  January ^  1832. 

Sir:  I  have  contracted  with  James  Hampson  for  the  sale  of  real  estate^ 
No.  224,  at  the  price  of  SI 36  66,  being  its  cost,  which  will  be  paid  on  the 
confirmation  of  sale,  i  have  also  contracted  with  John  Watson  for  the 
Kale  of  real  estate,  No.  217  and  221,  at  the  price  of  Sll,691  10,  which  it 
cost.  A  part  of  that  sum,  say  S2, 191  10,  may  be  discharged 'by  convey- 
ance with  general  warranty  of  a  lot  in  Chillicothe,  witli  a  commodious 
brick  dwelling  house  tlicreon^  the  residue,  S9,500  is  payable  in  light 
equal  annual  instalments  from  the  29th  of  December  last,  all  bearing  in- 
terest from  that  date,  the  title  to  be  retained  until  final  payment,  and  then 
to  be  conveyed  by  deed  with  special  wai'ranty. 

Mr.  Watson  is  to  pay  all  taxes,  and  the  Bank  is  to  perfect  and  continue 
an  insurance  against  loss  by  fire,  to  the  amount  of  7,000  dollars  on  the 
property  sold.     This  can  be  done  here  on  very  moderate  terms. 

This  is  the  best  sale  that  can  be  made  of  that  property,  and  is  consider- 
ed by  all  very  advantageous  for  the  Bank.  The  lot,  which  Mr.  Watson 
conveys,  is  well  worth  the  sum  allowed  for  it,  and  although  his  other  pay- 
ments are  deferred,  they  will  be  punctually  met,  and  do  not  go  beyond 
those  of  Mr.  Madeira,  wlio  purchased  No.  1.  Believing  that  tiiis  sale  is 
not  only  favorable,  but  that  a  purchaser  would  be  rarely  met  witli,  I  hope 
it  may  be  approved. 

Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

WM.  KEY  BOND,  JgenU 

W.  McIlvaine,  Esq.  Cashier 

Bank  United  States,  Philadelphia, 

Bank  of  tub  United  States^ 

March  Wh  1832. 
At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  held  this  day,  the  following 
resolutions  were,  on  motioii,  adopted: 

Jlesolvedy  That  the  sale  of  real  estate.  No.  224,  provisionally  made  by 
the  agent  at  Chillicothe,  to  James  Hampson,  for  the  sum  of  S1S6  66,  be 
approved  and  confirmed  by  this  Board. 

Resolved,  That  tlie  price  provisionally  agreed  upon,  between  the  agent 
at  Cliillicotho  and  John  Watson,  for  real  estate,  No.  217  and  No.  221,  be 


L  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  505 

approved  by  this  Board,  and  tliat  authority  be  given  to  the  said  agent  to 
accept  the  same,  provided  that,  in  lieu  of  the  real  estate  in  Chillicothe,  va- 
lued at  S2,191  10,  proposed  to  be  conveyed  to  this  Bank  in  part  pay- 
ment for  the  same,  but  which  this  Bank  cannot  receive,  an  equivalent  in 
motley,  or  in  perfectly  satisfactory  obligations  for  the  same  amount,  with 
interest  thereon,  be  given  by  the  purchaser. 
Extract  from  the  minutes. 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

Doc.  6. 
Question  by  Mr.  Clayton  to  Mr.  Biddlef  respecting  proxies. 

Question.  The  undue  accumulation  of  proxies  in  the  hands  of  a  fe\v» 
to  control  the  elections? 

Answer.  The  stockholders  send  their  proxies  to  whomsoever  they 
choose:  the  Bank  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

So  far  from  being  desirous  of  monopolizing  proxies,  I  succeeded  with 
great  difficulty,  and  after  great  exertions,  I  persuaded  many  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania stockholders  to  nominate  three  gentlemen  to  hold  their  proxies, 
in  order  to  decide  with  the  other  holder  of  proxies  the  responsibility  of 
choosing  Directors.  But,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  proxies  must 
be  held  by  a  few  persons.  The  Pennsylvania  stockholders  will  rarely  give 
themselves  the  trouble  of  voting,  so  that  the  permanent  representation  of 
the  distant  stockholders  naturally  and  necessarily  outnumber  in  votes  the 
resident  stockholders.  It  is,  however,  the  right  of  the  stockholders  who 
reside  at  a  distance  to  choose  their  own  representatives.  It  is  their  own 
fault,  and  their  own  loss,  if  they  make  a  bad  selection,  but  no  one  has  a 
right  to  dictate  to  them  on  that  subject. 


Doc.  7. 
Extract  from  the  Minutes,  July  9,  1830. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Henry, 
Resolved,  That  the  Committee  of  Exchange  be  authorized  to  loan,  on 
the  collateral  security  of  approved  public  stock,  large  §ums  of  money,  at 
a  rate  of  discount  not  lower  than  5  per  cent. 

Doc.   8. 
Extradtfrom  the  Minutes^  September  17,  1830. 

The  President  submitted  to  the  Board  a  statement  of  the  diminished 
line  of  discounts  at  the  northern  and  eastern  offices,  generally;  and  sug- 
gested the  expediency  of  taking  timely  measures  for  reinveating  gradually 
the  amount  of  funded  5  per  cent,  debt  that  will,  ere  long,  be  paid  off  by 
the  Government  to  this  Bank,  in  other  good  securities,  yielding  even  a 
less  rate  of  interest  than  5  per  cent. 

"Whereupon,  it  was,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Fisher, 

Resolved,  That  a  resolution  adopted  by  the  Board,  on  the  9th  day  of 
July  last,  authorizing  the  Committee  of  Exchange  to  loan  on  the  pledge, 
of  public  stock,  be  so  modified  as  to  permit  such  loans  to  be  made  on  the 
same  or  other  approved  securities,  at  a  rate  of  interest  not  less  tlian  4^^ 
per  cent,  per  annum. 
64 


506 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


Doc 

9. 

Dr.                                         Bills  Receivable.                                         Cr. 

1822 

1822 

May  24 

To  T.&  J. G.Biddle's  ac- 
ceptance of  Prime,  W., 

MavSO 
1824 

By  cash 

50,000 

R.,&Co.'sdft.at6days' 

June  2 

Do    T.&J.G.Biddle  - 

18,000 

date,  in  payt.  for  specie 

4 

Do               do 

27.000 

at  N.York 

50,000 

5 

Do               do 

18,000 

1824 

7 

Do               do 

24,000 

May  25 

Cash  paid  T.&.  J.G  .Biddle- 

45,000 

12 

Do               do 

12,000 

27 

Do                    do 

24,000 

14 

Do               do 

20,000 

28 

Do                    do 

30,000 

Aug.  4 

Do    Perit  £t  Cabot 

1,600 

31 

Do                    do 

20,000 

Sep  30 

Do    Nevins  &  Co. 

50,000 

June  7 

Perit  and  Cabot 

1,600 

1825 

Sept. 9 

Cash  paid  Nevins 

50,000 

April  1 

Do               do 

20,060 

1825 

1 

Do    T.&J.G.Biddle     - 

68,833  96 

Feb.21 

Do         T.&J.G.Biddle 

62,310 

July  1 

Do               do 

40,500 

Mar.  5 

Do                  do 

6,523  96 

Do               do 

525 

14 

Do          Nevins 

20,0-60 

1826 

April  2 

Do          T.&J.G.Biddle 

40,500 

Jan. 16 

Do    J.  Cope  &  Co.      - 

2,600 

25 

Do                 do 

525 

26 

Do    R.  Ashurst 

2,500 

May  16 

Roper,  Reed  &  Co.,    st'g 

19,555  52 

June21 

Do    Goodhue&Co,  N.Y. 

9,777  76 

June  8 

Cope  &  Ashurst             do 

5,100 

24 

Do    Roper,  Reed  &  Co. 

9 

J.  C.&VV.  H.Smith       do 

29,333  S2. 

Boston 

9,777  76 

July  11 

Thomas  R.  Wharton    dc 

4,888  88 

July  11 

Do    J.C.&  W.H.Smith 

29,333  33 

12 

Joseph  Gratz                  do 

*r     cirio     o  .-V 

Aug.U 

Do    J.  Gratz 

12,222  21 

Sep.  10 

T.H.Smith  &  Co.  ,      do 

146,666  66 

Sep.27 

By  st'g  arrangements,  La- 

Oct.  19 

J.  Latimer  and  others  do 

19,554 

timer&othersjcancelled 

19,554 

Nov.29 

Israel  Thorndike           do 

17,600 

Oct.  14 

By  cash,  Smith&Co.,N.Y. 

146,666  66 

Dec.26 

Stephen  White             do 

24,444  45 

Dec.27 

no    Israel  Thorndike, 

1826 

Boston 

17,60Q 

Jan;  9 

Bryan  and  Sturges        do 

10,266  67 

1827 

Mar.  11 

Stephen  White              do 

24,444  45 

Jan. 29 

Do    J.  White ,             do 

24,444  45 

May  17 

Jones,  Oakford&Co.  dc 

39,111  11 

Feb.  7 

Do    Bryant  &  S.          do 

10,266  67 

July  20 

N    Silsbee                    do 

9,777  77 

Mar.  1 

Do    J.  White              do 

24,444  45 

1827 

Junel4 

By  bil^s  on- London 

39,111  11 

May   5 

F.  R.  Wharton              do 

10,000 

Aug.20 

By  cash,  SiIsbee&Co,Bos. 

9,777  77 

July  13 

M.  C.  Ralston                 do 

11,000 

1828 

1828 

May    8 

Do    F.  R.  Wharton 

10,000 

Dec.22 

Comprom'ige  st'g  debt. 

July  15 

Do    M.C. Ralston 

11,000 

1829 

M  alone 

1,064  52 

1829 

Jan. 16 

Do      do        A.Low&Co. 

3,743  25 

Sept.  7 

Do    pay't  on  acc't  com- 

aiay 2 

S.  v.  Anderson  Sc  Son,  st'g 

5,000 

promise,  Malone  - 

532  26 

6 

Eyre  &  Massey               dc 

25,000 

Nov.25 

Do    Boormaa&J. 

25,000 

14 

J.  B.  Mcllvaine              dc 

10,000 

1830 

21 

Stephen  Wiiitney      '    d( 

60,000 

Feb.  2 

Do    1st  paym't  on  acc't 

Juneie 

Boorman  &  Johnston    dc 

25,000 

A.  Low  &  Co.     - 

1,871  62 

1830 

May  3 

Do    S.V.Anderson&Son 

5,000 

Apr.21 

J.J.Borie                       dc 

10,000 

8 

Do    Eyre  &  Massey 

25,000 

21 

Eyre  8c  Massey              dc 

5,000 

15 

Do    J. B. Mcllvaine 

10,000 

June  4 

J.J.Borie                       dc 

15,000 

June  3 

Do    S.Whitney,  N.Y.  - 

60,000 

Sep.  17 

M.E.  Israel                     dc 

5,000 

July  12 

Do    balance  of  compro- 

2C 

Montg-omery  &  Son       dc 

25,000 

mise  with  A.Low&Co. 

1,871  63 

25 

A.    AVhite,    for  propert} 

sold  him  in  CincinnaU- 

28,800 

Oct.    5 

Wisner  &,  Gule            st'g 

6,000 

15 

E.U.  Berry  man             do 

25,000 

Nov.  8 

William  Foster               do 

30,000 

8 

C.W.&  J.R.Sraith      do 

15,000 

8 

Jones  &  Smith               do 

10,000 

24 

Eyre  &  Massey               d( 

10,000 

Dec.l3 

F. Spies,  N.York         dc 

5,000 

Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


5©7 


Dr. 


Bills  Receivable — Continued. 


Cr. 


1831 
Jan. 14 

Feb.  16 

Mar.  9 

10 

26 

28 

28 

28 

28 

31 

April  2 

2 

■  6 

8 

14 

20 

25 

25 

2? 

27 

27 

27 

27 

28 

20 

Mav  17 

'  21 

23 

June  1 

3 

10 

11 

17 

23 

July  30 

Aug.  4 

4 

6 

6 

11 

12 

13 

Sept. 5 

6 

7 

7 

15 

21 

5 
5 


To  J.  A.  Brown  &  Co.  - 
J.  Beylardjjr., French  bills 

Do  do 

Bevan&H.  ScR.Alsop,  st*g 
R.  F.  Allen&Co.&S.Coml) 
Hollingshead,  Piatt  8c  Co 
P.  Reeves 
J.  Cryder 

Bait.  &  O.  R.  R.  Co.  - 
J. Beylardjjr.,  French  bills- 
B.  Stille  sl'g 

Bait,  and  O.  R.R.  Co.  - 
Gary  and  Hone  st'g 

J.  Bey  lard,  jr.,  French  bills 
George  Douglass         st'g 
Joshua  Moses 
Flenry  White 
P.F.Fontanges 
Be  van  and  Humphreys  - 

Lex  and  Bro. 
Copes 

Chapron  and  N. 
Irvine  and  Harper 
Lippincott  and  R.        st'g 
B'ult.  andO.  R.R. Co.     - 
G.F.&  E.  Randolph,  st'g 


Oct. 


Jones  and  Smith 
Eyre  and  Massey 
Bait,  and  O. R.R. Co, 
B.T.Read 
./.  Solomon 
Eyre  and  Massey 
nioodgood  and  Peck 


.  6 

8 

15 

Nov.  7 
26 


do 
do 

st'g 

do 

do 

do 

Bevan  and  Humphreys  do 

Gill,  Ford  and  Co.^        do 

T.  Sharp,  jun.  do 

Jas.  Schott  do 

J.  Goddard  do 

Boiler  and  Baker  do 

HollingsheadjPlatt&Codo 

S.V.Anderson  &  Son  do 

S.  C.  Bunting  do 

Bevan  and  Humphreys  do 

VV. Lynch  &  J.  Savage  do 

John  Goddard  do 

Charles  A.  Harper         do 

Ciiarles  Rugan  do 

John  Hemphill,  Eldridge 

&  Breck,  and  others   - 

Thomas  Reeves 

W.T .  Barry,  note  payable 

\vithint.5yrs.f'r.l4June 

last,  ends.  W.B.Lewis, 

J.H.Eaton,S.Governeur 

Sundry  persons,    sL'gac't 

G.F.  Sc  E.Randolph      do 

William  Foster  do 

E.W.  Berry  man  do 

Eyre  &  Massey's  note,  in 

renewal  of  one  due  this 

day,  with  interest 

Dud.  Selden's  note,  pble 

in  90  days  in  N.  Y.  on 

pledge  of  Nat^Bk.  stk 


1831 

168,000 

Feb.25 

10,526  32 

Mar.  16 

15,000 

43,999  99 

18 

70,000 

21 

10,000 

5,000 

April  2 

10,000 

8 

1,375 

15 

9,686 

16 

5,000 

22 

1,37.5 

25 

250,000 

23 

30,065  33 

28 

25,000 

xMay  2 

10,000 

3 

12,500 

17 

40,000 

July  17 

9,000 

Aug.30 

5,500 

Sep.l3 

5,500 

5,000 

20 

15,000 

23 

10,000 

1,375 

27 

10,000 

13,500 

12,500 

30 

1.375 

Oct.  6 

45,000 

12 

5,000 

17 

15,000 

Nov.  7 

4,000 

11 

25,000 

.  26 

7,500 

2,500 

Dec.  2 

5,000 

7,500 

7 

10,000 

13 

15,000 

14 

5,000 

2,500 

21 

10,000 

26 

7,500 

1832 

2,757  09 

Jan.  10 

25,000 

Feb.  9 

13,250 

Mar.  9 

10,000 

10 

5,000 

17 

28 

31 

6,000 

31 

10,000 

31 

10,000 

April  5 

25,000 

9 

25,000 

10,322  88 

8,000 

By  cash,  J.Beylard,  jr.  - 
Do    B.  F.Wheelright, 
N.York 
J.A.Brown  &  Co.  - 
B .  F.  Wheelright, 

N.York 
J.A.  Brown  &,  Co.  - 
J.Beylard 
Do    J.Beylard,  jr. 
Do    J.A.Brown&Co.  - 
J.  Beylard,  jr. 
J.  J .  Brice 
Eyre  and  Massey  - 
J.  Beylard,  jr. 
J.A.  Brown  &  Co.  - 
J.  Beylard,  jr. 
Brown  &  Co. 
J.J.  Borie 
Amb.  White 
Bevan  &  H.  and  R. 
Alsop 
W.  Lynch 
HoUmgshead,  PTatt 
8c  Co. 
By  Jones 8c  Smith's  notes, 
cancelled  by  return  of 
bills 
By  cash,  Balt.ScO.R.R.Co 
Do  do 

Do    Wisner  8c  Gale      - 
Do    E.W.Berryman 
Bait. 8cO. R.R. Co.  - 
W.  Foster 
By  EyreScM.  8c  R.Alsop's 

note  ret'ed 

By  cash,  final  payment  of 

Malone's  compromise  - 

By  cush,  Balt.ScO.R.R.Co. 

Do    J.  Solomon 

Do    EyreScM.ScJ.R.ScC. 

P.  Massey 

E.  H.  AveriU 

Bevan&Humphreys 


Do 
Do 

Do 
Do 


Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 
Do 

Do 
Do 


Do 
Do 


Do 
Do 


Do  John  Goddard 

Do  Paymt.  on  acct.   of 
Dud.  Selden,  .N.Y 

Do  W.LynchScJSavage 

Do  C.  A.  Harper 

Do  C.  Rugan 

Do  Sarpuel  Comly 

Do  HoHingshead,  Piatt 
a  Co. 

Do  J.  Cryder 

Do  T.  Reeves,  jr. 

Do  B.  Stiile 

Do  Crafy8cHone,N.Y. 


10,526    2 

7,000 
33,600 

8,000 
33,000 

3,000 

9,686 
33,600 
10,000 
10.000 

5,000 
10,035 
33,600 

7,030  33 
33,600 
15,000 

6,720 

43,999  99 
5,000      " 

25,000 


25,000 

1,375 

1,375 

6,000 
25.000 

1,375 
30,000 

10,000 

532  26 
1,375 
5,000 

\5,Q0O 

5,000 

25,000 

2,757  09 

3,500 

7  ,500 
25,000 
13,250 
70,000, 

10,000 
10,000 

5,000 

5,000 
250,000 


$08 


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2 


[  Hep.  No.  460.  ] 


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1818, 
1819, 
1820, 
1821, 
1622, 
1823, 
1824, 
1825, 
1826, 
1827, 
1828, 
1829, 
1830, 
1831, 
1832, 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


509 


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510  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  11. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

March  £6,  1832. 

Sir:  In  corapliaiice  with  the  wish  of  the  Committee,  communicated  to 
me  at  their  meeting,  on  the  24th  instant,  I  have  now  the  honor  to  submit 
the  foHowing  statements,  and  to  answer  the  questions  of  the  Committee  m 
the  order  in  wiiich  they  were  presented. 

1st.  <<A  tabular  statement  of  the  Directors  of  parent  Bank  from  1817." 

The  statement  is  annexed,  marked  A. 

2d.  <*  A  tabular  statement  to  show  the  amount  of  public  money  (Trea- 
surer and  public  officers)  in  the  Bank  at  the  end  of  each  month  for  each 
year  since  1817." 

The  statement  marked  B,  exhibits  these  facts,  since  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1818,  the  period  when  the  accounts  of  the  Bank  first  assumed  their 
present  form. 

Sd.  **  The  extent  of  the  late  Orders  for  curtailing  or  increasing  dis- 
counts." 

No  general  orders  for  curtailment  have  been  issued,  but  instructions 
adapted  to  the  situation  of  each  branch  have  been  given.  They  will  be 
seen  in  the  papers  marked  C,  comprising  the  correspondence  which  has 
taken  place  with  the  officers  on  that  subject. 

4th.  *•  What  has  been  the' extent  of  its  business  for  the  last  three  years, 
compared  \yith  former  periods  of  the  same  time,  in  any  other  preceding 
three  years,  and  under  this  head  the  following  queries  to  be  made.  1st.  In- 
crease of  issues.  2d.  increase  of  debts  since  that  time.  3d.  Increase  of 
branches  since  that  time.  4th.  Number  of  branches  promised,  or  favora- 
bly answered,  where  (applied  for  since  that  time.  5th.  Banking  houses 
built  since  that  time." 

The  statement,  marked  D,  will  exhibit  all  these  particulars,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  three  last  inquiries,  in  regard  to  which  I  answer — 

That,  within  the  last  three  years,  that  is,  since  Marcli,  1829,  four  new- 
branches  have  been  established,  to  %vit:  those  of  Buffalo,  Utica,  Burling- 
ton, and  Natchez.  That  there  are  upwards  of  thirty  applications  for 
branches  in  various  parts  of  the  United  States.  To  the  applicants  no  pro- 
mises of  any  kind  have  been  made,  nor  any  favorable  answers  given;  the 
general  tenor  of  the  replies  being,  that,  in  the  present  situation  of  the 
Bank,  it  was  not  thought  expedient  to  increase  the  number  of  its  branches. 
Within  the  same  period  of  three  years,  three  new  Banking  liouses  have  been 
built,  one  at  Burlington,  one  at  Buffalo,  and  a  third  at  Pittsburgh,  which 
was  authorized  in  1828,  but  has  been  completed  within  three  years  past. 

5th.  <<  A  weekly  statement  of  the  affairs  of  the  Bank,  under  the  heads  of 
the  15th  fundamental  article,  since  the  1st  of  January  last." 

This  statement,  marked  E,  is  annexed. 

6th.  <<The  importation  and  exportation  of  specie,  within  the  last  year." 

This  will  be  seen  in  the  statement  marked  F. 

7th.  <*The  misconduct  of  the  President  and  Cashier  of  the  Norfolk 
branch,  in  relation  to  overdrawing  in  favor  of  the  Navy  agent,  and  pur- 
chasing his  checks  at  a  discount;  also  an  improper  interference  in  elections 
for  political  purposes;  also  ciiarging  Government  a  premium  for  specie." 

Various  allegations  and  charges,  in  regard  to  all  these  subjects  except 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  511 

the  last,  have  been  made  to  the  Board.  They  wer^ carefully  examined  by 
the  Board,  who  decided  that  none  of  tlie  charges  were  substantiated.  The 
whole  of  the  documents  connected  with  the  case  will  be  furnished  to  the 
Committee.  In  regard  to  charging  the  Government  a  premium  for  spe- 
cie, I  am  not  aware  of  the  particular  circumstance  alluded  to,  but  presume 
it  must  have  occurred  thus.  The  Bank  is  authorized  to  deal  -in  bullioTi. 
It  buys  and  sells  bullion.  AU  foreign  coins  are  bullion.  Their  being 
a  legal  tender,  does  not  make  them  the  less  bullion,  and  the  Bank  hav- 
ing bought  them  at  a  premium,  sells  them  at  a  premium.  The  obli- 
gation of  the  Bank  is  to  pay  the  claims  on  it  in  coin — American  coin, 
or  legalised  coin:  and  if  the  foreign  coin  is  worth,  intrinsically  or  com- 
mercially, more  than  the  American  coin,  the  difference  in  value  must 
be  worth  the  difference  in  price;  and  there  seems  no  reason  why  the 
Bank  should  sell  its  bullion,  any  more  than  its  bills  of  exchange,  at  less 
than  their  value.  The  only  remaining  consideration  is,  whether  it 
would  be  just  to  sell  them  to  private  citizens  at  one  rate,  and  to  officers  of 
the  Government  at  another  rate.  If  a  distinction  between  them  be  not  in 
itself  proper,  it  is  the  less  recommended,  because  these  officers  of  the  Go- 
vernment have  sold  specie  to  the  Bank,  as  w^ell  as  bought  it  from  the 
Bank;  and  in  all  these  transactions  have  been  placed  on  at  least  fts  good  a 
footing  as  individuals.  In  illustration  of  this,  the  following  cases  occur 
to  me. 

1st.  That  of  a  purser  at  Norfolk.  It  is  explained  in  the  following  ex- 
tract of  a  letter  from  the  second  assistant  Cashier,  to  Joseph  L.  Roberts, 
Cashier  at  Norfolk,  dated  January  6,  1830. 

^*  I  have  just  received  your  favor  of  the  2d  instant,  stating  that  Mr.  Si- 
las Butler,  the  Purser  of  the  ship  Delaware,  to  whom,  in  February  last, 
you  sold  g7,000  Spanish  dollars,  at  a  premium  of  one  per  cent,  has  depo- 
sited upwards  of  g  12, 000,  similar  coin,  for  which  he  wishes  to  be  allowed 
a  premium.  Upon  submitting  this  subject  to  the  President,  he  instructs 
me  to  say,  that  you  are  authorized  to  purchase  these  dollars  from  Mr. 
Butler,  at  a  premium  of  five-eighths  of  one  per  cent.,  a  rate  which  is  rather 
higher  than  the  northern  rates,  butwiiich  is  equivalent  to  the  premium  he 
paid  the  office  for  the  amount  he  took  out  Nyith  him." 

The  second  case  is  tlie  allowance  of  a  premium  on  gold  to  the  Treasury 
Department;   the  nature  of  it  will  be  seen  in  the  following  letters. 

8th.  <«  Has  the  Bank  made  any  difference  in  receiving  notes  from  the 
Federal  Government,  and  from  the  citizens  of  the  States?  and,  if  such  dif- 
ference has  been  made,  state  to  what  extent,  and  upon  what  principle,*' 

The  difference  made  by  the  Bank  is  the  difference  prescribed  by  the 
charter.  The  notes  of  the  Bank  are  not  legally  payable  at  any  other 
place  than  that  where  they  are  made  payaljle,  except  on  account  of  the 
Government.  The  notes  are  therefore  always  received  on  account  of  the 
Government,  at  the  Bank  and  all  its  Branches;  they  are  not  always  re- 
ceived in  the  same  manner  from  individuals.  But,  although  not  neces- 
sarily received,  they  are  often  received  from  individuals. 

The  total  amount  received  during  the  year  1831,  at  New 

York,  was    ------    gl3,219,6S5 

And  at  Philadelphia,    -----        5,S9S,800 

9th.  **  In  answering  this  question,  what  is  the  average  per  cent,  charged 
for  receiving  bills  from  the  citizens  at  Banks  where  they  are  not  payable/ 


512  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

0 

and  the  different  rates  at  different  places,  and  the  aggregate  profits  to  the 
institution  from  this  branch  of  business?" 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  cliarge  has  ever  been  made  on  the  receipt  of 
tlie  notes  of  the  Bank  at  any  of  the  Branches  where  they  were  not  pay- 
able. 

10.  <<ilave  any  cases  of  usury,  in  the  transactions  of  the  Branches, 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  parent  Board?     State  fully." 

The  statement,  marked  G,  will  explain  the  only  cases  to  which  this  de- 
scription might  be  considered  applicable,  two  of  them  being  cases  in  which 
the  Board  repaid  the  amount  considered  as  overcharged;  and,  in  regard 
to  the  third,  no  application  has  ever  been  made  for  any  change  in  the  form 
of  the  original  loan. 

I I  th.  <»  Has  there  been  any  difference  made  by  the  Bank  or  its  Branches, 
between  members  of  Congress,  and  other  citiiens,  in  granting  loans,  and 
selling  bills  of  exchange,  or  between  one  merchant  and  another?" 

I  am  not  aware  of  any. 

12th.  "Have  any  cases  of  disguised  loans,  on  domestic  bills  of  ex- 
change, come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  parent  Bank,  in  which  the  Branches 
have  received  usurious  interest?" 

I  have  never  heard  of  any. 

1 3th.  **  Has  the  Bank  had  any  secret  understanding  with  brokers  to 
job  in  stocks;  for  example,  to  buy  up  the  three  per  cent,  stock,  and  force 
the  Government  to  pay  for  it  at  par?" 

The  Bank  is  not  authorized  to  purchase  stock  on  its  own  account,  and 
tlierefore  cannot  buy  it  except  for  others.  I  mention  now,  confidentially, 
to  the  committee,  the  circumstance  wliich  has  probably  occasioned  the  in- 
quiry. It  is,  that  the  Bank  has,  for  some  time  past,  been  engaged  as  the 
agent  of  tlie  Treasury  for  the  purchase  of  three  per  cents  on  account  of 
the  Government;  and,  as  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  was  necessaj'ily  con- 
fined to  the  chief  officers  of  tlic  Bank,  who  were  the  immediate  agents  of 
purchase,  what  they  have  done  for  the  Government  has  been  presumed  to  be 
done  for  the  Bank. 

When  this  reproach  was  first  made  in  Congress,  I  forebore  to  make  this 
explanation  public,  lest  it  might  interfere  with  the  operations  then  in  pro- 
gress; preferring  to  postpone  the  vindication  of  the  Bank,  rather  than  in- 
jure tiic  public  service  by  any  premature  disclosure  of  the  views  of  the 
Government.  I  make  now  this  communication  to  the  committee,  trusting 
that  it  will  be  received  in  the  same  confidence  in  which  it  is  given.  I  an- 
nex a  copy  of  a  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  of  the  29th  of 
September,  1831,  and  also  another  of  the  9th  of  February,  1832. 

14th.  "  Have  foreigners,  or  the  trustees  of  foreigners,  in  any  case,  voted 
for  Directors?" 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  have  ever  so  voted. 

15th.  "  A  full  statement  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Bank,  in  relation  to 
the  issue  of  Branch  Bank  orders,  and  the,  amount  issued  at  each  Branch; 
the  manner  they  were  received  by  each  Branch;  and,  if  they  are  reissued 
by  the  parentBank,  as  a  currency,  after  being  paid  off  by  said  Bank?" 

The  annexed  statement,  marked  H,  will  present  all  these  particulars. 
In  regard  to  the  reissue  of  these  drafts  by  the  parent  Bank,  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Bank  is  not  to  reissue  them;  but  when,  as  occasionally,  though 
rarelyi  happens,  the  Bank  has  no  small  notes  of  its  own,  it  reissues  the 


[  Rep.  No-  460.  ]  513 

Branch  drafts,  until  a  supply  of  its  own  notes  can  be  prepared.     These 
drafts  are  received  and  treated,  I  believe,   as  the  notes  of  the  Bank  and 
Branches,  of  similar  denominations,  are  at  the  respective  Branches. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfullv,  yours, 

N,  BIDDLE,  FresidenU 
Honorable  A.  S.  CiiiiYTON, 

Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Investigation. 


Doe.  12.— No.  1. 

Treasury  Department,") 
September  17,  1830.     J 

Sir:  In  the  month  of  November  last,  750  doubloons  were  sent  by  the 
Collector  at  Key  West  to  Charleston,  to  be  deposited  to  the  credit  of  the 
Treasurer;  but,  as  the  Office  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  at  that 
place,  would  not  take  them  at  the  rate  that  the  Collector  expected,  they 
were  deposited  specially  to  the  credit  of  the  Treasurer.  The  Collector, 
having  now  consented  that  they  shall  be  taken  at  their  intrinsic  value,  I 
have  to  request  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  give  the  necessary  instructions 
to  that  office,  to  have  the  amount  placed  to  the  Treasurei^'s  account  accord- 
ingly. 

I  am,  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM, 
Secretary  of  the   Treasury^. 
N.  BiDDLE,  Esq. 

President  Bank  V,  S,  Philadelphia. 


Doc.   12. — No.  2. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

September  21,  1830. 

Sir:  I  had  yesterday  the  honor  of  receiving  your  letter  of  the  17th 
instant,  requesting  that  the  office  at  Charleston  should  be  instructed  to  re- 
ceive, at  their  intrinsic  value,  seven  hundred  and  fifty  doubloons,  deposited 
there  specially  by  the  Collector  at  Key  West.  It  will,  accordingly,  be 
instructed  to  receive  them.  These  doubloons,  however,  possess  a  value 
in  commerpe  above  their  intrinsic  or  merit  value;  and,  if  they  are  of 
full  weight  and  value,  I  should  think  it  just  to  the  Government,  or  the 
Collector,  to  allow  a  premium  of  two  per  cent,  that  being  the  highest 
price  which  the  Bank,  at  present,  gives  to  other  depositors  of  gold.  Such 
an  authority  would  be  given  by  this  mail,  but,  lest  there  might  possibly 
be  some  reason,  unknown  to  me,  for  mentioning  the  rate  of  their  intrinsic 
value,  I  shall  defer  it  until  I  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  whether  it 
would  be  acceptable  to  you. 

In  the  mean  time,  I  have  the  honor  to  be. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 
Honorable  Samuel  D.  Ingham, 

Secretary  of  the   Treasuryj   Washington,  D.  C 
65 


514  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

^  Doc.  12.— No.  S. 

Tkeasurt  Department, 

September  £3,  1830. 

Sir:  In  answer  to  your  letter  of  the  21st  instant,  1  have  to  state  that, 
as  doubloons  possess  a  value  in  commerce  higher  than  their  instrinsic  or 
merit  value,  it  will  be  satisfactory  that  they  may  be  credited  by  the  Bank 
at  such  higher  value.  In  authorizing  them  to  be  credited  at  their  "intrinsic 
value,"  the  Collector,  no  doubt,  meant  to  indicate  that  they  ought  not  to 
be  taken  at  less. 

I  am,  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  D.  INGHAM, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
N.  BiDDLE,  Esq. 

Fresident  Bank  U.  S.,  FhiladelpJda, 


Doc.  13 No.  1. 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  JV".  Biddle  to  W,  B.  Rochester,  Fresident  of  Office, 
Biiffalo,  October  26,  1831. 

**  At  the  time  when  the  office  was  established,  it  was  deemed  best  not  to 
fix  definitively  its  capital,  but  to  wait  the  gradual  development  of  its  busi- 
ness and  resources.  Two  years'  experience  has  enabled  us  to  judge  of  these, 
and  I  propose,  at  an  early  period,  to  ask  the  attention  of  the  Board  to  the 
subject  of  a  definite  assignment  of  your  capital.  In  the  mean  time,  it  is' 
very  desirable,  particularly  in  reference  to  the  present  condition  of  the  mo- 
ney concerns  of  the  country,  and  the  large  demands  on  the  Bank  in  conse- 
quence of  the  payment  of  the  public  debt,  that  you  should  shape  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Office  in  such  a  manner  as, 

ist.  Not  to  increase  the  aggregate  amount  of  your  present  loans; 

2d.  To  obtain  the  means  of  giving  facilities  to  your  dealers,  by  pay- 
ments of  the  discounted  notes  as  they  come  round,  and  thus  diffuse  the  great- 
est amount  of  accommodation  to  men  in  business;  and, 

3d.  To  prefer,  in  your  new  loans,  wlrere  other  circumstances  are  equal, 
loans  to  persons  near  you. 

The  execution  of  these  general  purposes  is  confidently  committed  to  the 
good  judgment  of  yourself,  and  the  gentlemen  associated  with  you  in  the 
management  of  the  concerns  of  the  Office." 


Doc.   13. —No.  2. 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  Wm.  M^Ilvaine,  Cashier,  to  W,  TV.  Fra%ier,  Cash- 
ier, dated  JVovember  o,  1831. 

"The  Office  at  New  York  requires,  at  this  moment,  all  the  relief  which 
can  be  conveniently  afforded  to  her,  whether  by  direct  claims  upon  the  local 


[  Eep.  No.  460.  ]  515 

Banks  put  into  her  hands,  or  by  the  restraint  of  your  own  issues,  Avhich  are 
calculated  to  bear  upon  her  resources  disadvantageously  in  her  relations 
with  those  Banks. 

We  hope  you  may  be  able  to  conGne  yourself  in  your  discounts  nearly  to 
your  income,  and,  if  at  all  practicable,  to  keep  within  that  limit." 


Doc.   13.— No.  3. 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  Tfm,  M^Mvaine,  Cashier,  to  S»  Jaudon,  dated  JVb- 

vember  £4,  1831. 

<<I  Sim  much  pleased  to  find  you  have  justly  interpreted  my  instructions 
of  the  7th  ultimo,  and  intend  taking  the  very  course  we  should  have  de- 
sired for  gently  effecting  our  objects.  At  some  of  our  Western  «flices, 
these  were  unfortunately  misunderstood.  At  some  of  them,  our  Cashiers 
ceased  checking  altogether  upon  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  and  at 
Nashville  the  Board  refused  very  large  amounts  of  prime  bills  upon  your 
city,  and  have  thus  dried  up  a  few  of  the  rills  by  which  the  stream  of  ex- 
change would  liave  been  swelled  in  its  course  towards  you  and  thence  to 
lis.  I  have  endeavored,  by  subsequent  instructions,  to  set  both  these  matters 
nglit,  and  to  prevent,  for  the  rest  of  the  season,  any  material  disturbance 
of  tlie  general  current  of  the  Bank's  operations.  All  we  desire,  during  the 
pressure  of  the  Government's  demands  upon  us,  is,  not  to  be  checked  on 
heavily,  and  that  the  receipt  of  funds  by  us  may  be  quickened  as  far  as 
possible  by  the  Offices,  without  their  incurring  actual  sacrifices  in  their 
owu  business.  This  may,  we  think,  be  accomplished  by  the  plan  you  have 
adopted,  of  diminishing  your  discounts,  and  by  shortening  gradually  the 
term  of  your  accommodations  generally. 


Doc.  13.— No.  4. 

Bank    or  the  United  States, 

December  3,  1831. 

Sir:  We  observe  on  your  last  state  of  the  office,  a  list  of  domestic  bills 
exceeding  g40,000  in  amount,  the  greater  part  of  which  consists  of  paper 
having  an  unusually  long  terra  to  run,  done  for  houses  already  accom- 
modated ^at  Boston,  where,  as  we  understand,  the  money  market  continues 
easy.  Not  doubting  the  solidity  of  the  paper,  we  nevertheless  think  pro- 
per to  apprise  you,  with  reference  to  future  offerings,  that  the  Bank,  com- 
pelled as  it  is  to  accumulate,  at  certain  points,  resources  to  meet  the  exist- 
ing heavy  demands  of  the  Government,  is  not  desirous  to  extend  the  line 
of  discounts  at  any  one  office  in  the  North,  nor  to  do  any  where,  paper  ex- 
ceeding four  months.  It  would  prefer,  if  possible,  not  to  go  beyond  ninety 
days  in  the  term  of  bills  or  promissory  notes,  at  this  moment. 

I  am,  &c. 

W.  MclLVAINE,  CasJner. 

E.  Wentworth,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  of  Bank  of  United  States,  Fortsmouth, 


516  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  13.— No.  5. 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  W.  Mcllvaine,  Cashier,  dated  December  24,  1831, 
to  Samiicl  Jaudon,  Cashier  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  at  JVew  Or- 
leans, 

"On or  before  the  1st  of  April,  v/e  shall  no  doubt  be  called  upon  for 
above  Si, 700,000  of  redeemable  four  and  a  half  per  cents.,  and  such  ap- 
pears to  be  the  anxiety  of  the  Government  for  the  early  extinguishment  of 
the  public  debt,  that  we  are  not  likely  to  have  the  use  of  any  considerable 
amount  of  Treasury  balances  during  the  coming  year.  The  demands  of 
foreign  creditors,  except  so  far  as  they  can  be  satisfied  by  the  conversion 
of  their  funds  into  local  stocks,  will  run  into  the  shape  of  exchange,  and 
we  are  consequently  anxious  to  receive  large  amounts  of  bills  from  you. 
On  every  account,  we  should,  from  present  appearances,  desire  to  be  rein- 
forced by  all  the  means  which  you  can  throw  into  our  hands,  and  would, 
therefore,  recommend  that  your  local  discounts  should  be  prudently  and 
gradually  reduced— a  course  which  circumstances  with  you  evidently  favor, 
and  that  you  should  extend  your  operations  in  a  corresponding  degree  in 
exchange,  and  afford  us  large  supplies  of  specie  to  meet  your  circulation, 
as  it  comes  in  at  the  North." 


Doc.   13.— -No.  6. 

Bank  or  the  United  States, 

January  19,   1832. 

«• 

Sir:  I  am  in  receipt  of  your  favor  of  the  4th  instant.  The  President 
lias  one  from  the  President  of  your  office,  suggesting  the  expediency  of 
your  being  permitted  to  check  more  freely  than  you  have  of  late,  in  conse- 
quence of  my  instructions  done  upon  the  North.  To  this  we  see  no  objec- 
tion, provided  n>casures  are  at  the  same  time  taken  for  soon  covering  the 
amounts  which  njay  be  paid  for  you  at  the  points  to  which  your  circulation 
tends.  We  should  be  glad  if  you  could  gently  reduce  your  discount  line, 
which  appears  to  be  too  much  extended,  and  thereby  throw  a  larger  amount 
of  available  resources  into  our  hands,  and  into  those  of  the  office  at  New 
York.  The  pressure  upon  our  resources  at  both  points,  arising  from  the 
state  of  the  money  market,  combined  with  the  heavy  payments  we  have 
been  making  to  public  creditors,  and  are  still  to  make  on  the  1st  of  April, 
to  the  extent  of  one  and  three-quarter  millions,  renders  it  desirable  that 
you  should  give  your  business,  if  possible,  such  a  direction  as  to  afford  us 
all  the  assistance  in  your  power. 

I  am,  &c. 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

P.  Bacot,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  of  Bank  of  Z7.  States,  Charleston, 


Doc.   13.— No.  r. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

January  \9th,  1832. 
Sir:  Your  line  of  bills  discounted  is,  we  think,  sufficiently  extended, 
and  we  hope  it  will  be  kept  within  its  present  bounds.     To  tlie  New  York 


I 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  517 

office  you  are  considerably  indebted,  and  we  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  not 
only  reducing  that  debt,  but  so  shaping  your  business  as  to  give  additional 
reinforcements  to  that  point  of  the  establishment,  where  the  state  of  the 
money  market,  combined  with  the  demands  of  the  public  creditors,  to 
whom  a  further  payment  of  one  and  three  quarter  millions  is  to  be  made 
on  the  1st  day  of  April,  occasions  more  pressure  upon  our  resources  than 
is  comfortable.  We  do  not  know  that  it  is  necessary  to  restrict  yourself 
so  rigidly  as  heretofore  in  the  amount  of  your  checks  upon  the  North,  but 
would  suggest  the  expediency  of  governing  yourself  in  tliat  particular  by 
the  means  you  have  of  soon  being  able  to  replace  the  amounts  for  which 
you  may  check,  or  which  may  be  likely  to  be  paid  for  you,  in  the  redemp- 
tion of  your  circulation. 

Bills  of  exchange,  whether  foreign  or  domestic,  the  latter  at  as  short 
terms  as  practicable,  will  be  acceptable  to  us  and  to  New  York,  and  we 
hope  you  will  be  able  to  give  a  good  share  of  your  business  that  direction — 
at  present  we  should  regard  stg.  bills,  at  8^  per  cent,  a  good  acquisition, 
as  we  could  readily  strengthen  by  means  of  them  our  next  neighbors. 
I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

James  Hunter,  Esq.  Cashier  Office  Bank  U,  S» 
Sa-oannah, 


Doc.   18.— No.  8. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

January  19,  1832, 

Sir:  Since  writing  to  you  on  the  l6th  instant,  I  have  received  your 
letters  of  the  6th  and  7th  instant.  In  regard  to  your  request  to  be  per- 
mitted to  check,  as  usual,  in  favor  of  your  customers,  upon  us  and  the 
otlier  eastern  offices,  I  am  directed  to  say  that  we  see  nothing,  in  the 
present  state  of  your  accounts  and  dependencies  with  the  other  offices, 
which  renders  it  necessary  for  your  office  to  withhold  that  accommodation 
from  your  mercliants;  at  the  same  time,  it  is  proper  to  apprise  you,  that, 
having  to  meet,  principally  at  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  on  the  1st  day 
of  April  next,  demands  of  public  creditors  to  the  amount  of  nearly  one 
and  three-fourth  millions,  with  smaller  remittances  than  we  have  been  ac- 
customed to  receive  from  the  southern  offices,  owing  to  the  nature  of  tlie 
season,  we  shall  be  glad  if  you  can  moderate  the  extent  of  your  drafts 
upon  us  by  meeting,  in  part,  the  wishes  of  the  different  applicants  for  them, 
and  by  distributing  your  issues  of  them  over  as  wide  a  period  as  you  may 
find  practicable.  In  this  matter  we  rely  upon  the  exercise  of  your  best 
discretion.  Without  desiring  to  restrict  the  office,  in  its  exchange  transac- 
tions, we  only  suggest  the  expediency  of  your  so  shaping  that  business  »s 
to  place  funds,  as  soon  as  practicable,  at  those  points  on  which  you  hav« 
occasion  to  draw,  or  towards  which  your  circulation  tends;  and  for  the 
purpose  of  not  interfering  with  the  accomplishment  of  that  important  ob- 
ject, that  you  should  keep  your  local  discounts,  if  possible,  within  their 
present  bounds.     We  consider  investments  in  bills  of  exchangf^  not  only 


51 S  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

the  safest  and  most  profitable  business  of  the  Bank,  but  also  the  most  cer- 
tain means  of  having  its  resources  within  reach  and  at  command. 
I  am,  respectfully, 

your  obedient  servant, 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
Joseph  Fowler,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  of  the  Bank  U,  S.  Lexington, 


Doc.   13.— No.  9. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Januarij  I9thf  1832. 
Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  27th  ultimo  was  duly  received.  We  had  noticed 
with  satisfaction  the  extension  of  your  domestic  exchange  transactions,  m 
2;eneral  the  safest  and  most  profitable  business  of  the  Bank,  but,  owing  to 
the  peculiar  state  of  things,  and  more  especially  to  the  lateness  of  the  bill 
season  in  the  South,  where  we  have  been  accustomed  to  derive,  at  this 
period  of  the  year,  very  large  resources,  your  operations  in  that  way  have 
occasioned  a  rather  heavier  pressure  upon  the  New  York  office  than  could 
have  been  foreseen — your  assurance  tliat  the  paper  lately  taken  is  of  such 
a  character  as  will  not  require  to  be  renewed,  is  gratifying.  The  new  or- 
ders of  the  treasury  to  pay  about  one  and  three  quarter  millions  to  the 
public  creditors  on  the  1st  day  of  April,  renders  it  desirable  that  New 
York  and  Philadelphia,  where  nine-tenths  of  that  amount  is  to  be  redeem- 
ed, should  continue  to  be  reinforced.  Be  pleased,  therefore,  to  accomplish, 
as  soon  as  possible,  your  intention  of  liquidating  your  debt  to  New  York, 
now  amountng,  according  to  their  statement,  just  received,  to  §376,000. 
This,  we  have  no  doubt,  can  be  effected  without  difficulty  by  calling  in 
your  resources,  and  by  gently  turning  over  to  the  State  banks  some  })or- 
tion  of  the.  local  accommodations  which  you  arc  now  affording.  Without 
desiring  to  impose  upon  you  restrictions  such  as  might  interfere  with  the 
general  current  of  your  business,  we  merely  suggest  the  expediency  of  your 
so  shaping  it  as  to  place  funds,  within  as  short  periods  as  may  be  practi- 
cable, at  those  points  upon  which  you  may  have  occasion  to  check  most 
largely,  or  towards  which  your  circulation  naturally  tends.  Relying  fully 
upon  your  discretion,  as  to  the  best  mode  of  meeting  our  wishes,  we  do  not 
think  it  necessary  to  enter  into  further  particulars,  or  to  give  you  any  moi-c 
specific  instructions. 

I  am,- respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

J  AS.  JloBERTSON,  Esquire, 

Cashier  Office  B.  TJ,  S.  Richmond. 


Doc.   13.— No.  10. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Jaimary  20,  1832. 
Sib:  Your  letter  of  the  14th  November  was  duly  received,  and  we  have 
perceived  with  satisfaction,  that,  without  withholding  altogether  the  faci- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  519 

lity  of  checks,  you  have  ever  since  been  drawing  upon  us  moderately.  At 
this  season  of  tlie  year,  however,  when  many  of  the  best  customers  of  the 
Bank  stand  particularly  in  need  of  cliecks  upon  the  northern  and  eastern 
offices,  it  may  not,  perhaps,  be  found  expedient  to  restrict  yourself  so  close- 
ly; but  in  order  to  enable  you  the  better  to  judge  how  far  that  accommoda- 
tion may  now  he  extended,  so  as  to 'combine  the  interests  of  the  Bank  with 
those  of  the  offices,  I  have  been  directed  to  address  you  on  the  highly  im- 
portant subject  of  your  discount  line,  the  growth  of  which,  and  of  the  cor- 
responding balances  against  you  with  the  Bank  and  offices,  has  lately 
claimed  our  particular  notice,  and  to  communicate  to  you  the  views  of  the 
Bank  in  regard  to  tlie  necessity  of  keeping  it  within  narrower  bounds. 

The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt  will  probably  deprive  the  Atlan- 
tic offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  benefit  of  Government  deposites  during 
the  whole  of  the  present  year.  In  addition  to  tlie  six  millions  which  we 
have  been,  and  are  now,  reimbursing,  a  further  payment  of  about  If  mil- 
lions has  been  advertised  by  the  Treasury  Department  for  tlie  1st  of  April 
next,  and  this  circumstance,  concurring  with  the  continuance  of  a  pressing, 
demand  from  individuals  for  money  at  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  renders 
us  very  anxious  tliat  you  should  turn  your  special  attention  towards  the 
discharge  of  a  portion  of  your  heavy  debt  to  us.  This  object,  we  believe, 
may  be  accomplished  in  a  manner  most  consistent  with  the  good  of  the  in- 
stitution, by  gradually  reducing  the  very  great  amount  of  your  <<  bills  dis- 
counted," and  by  converting  your  funds  into  bills  of  exchange,  (which  con- 
stitute, for  the  most  part,  the  safest,  most  profitable,  and  most  manageable 
investments  of  the  Bank)  preferring  such  as  may,  in  the  most  direct  chan- 
nel, and  in  the  shortest  time,  provide  means  for  the  redemption  of  your 
circulation  at  the  points  to  which  it  naturally  tends,  and  for  the  payment 
of  the  checks  which  you  have  occasion  to  draw.  The  recent  establish- 
ment of  a  bank,  in  your  city,  may,  we  presume,  materially  favor  the  exe- 
cution of  such  a  plan,  and  we  count  upon  your  zealous  effi)rts  to  shape 
your  business  in  conformity  with  our  wishes. 

The  policy  «f  reinforcing  ourselves  by  whatever  resources  can  be  gently 
withdrawn  from  you,  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  institution,  is  further 
recommended  by  the  slowness  of  our  remittances  from  the  South,  and  by 
the  unusually  active  demand  we  have  experienced  for  foreign  exchange. 

We  deem  it  most  advisable  to  leave  you  at  liberty  to  exercise  your  best 
discretion  as  to  the  extent  of  your  checks  upon  the  eastern  cities,  suggest- 
ing, merely,  that  it  may  be  well  for  you  to  divide  whatever  amounts  you 
may  think  proper  to  draw,  fairly  among  the  diffi3rent  applicants,  and  to 
issue  the  checks,  if  practicable,  at  various  times. 

I  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAlISE. 
P.  Bensow,  Esq.  Cashier 

Office  Bank  of  the  U,  States,  Cincinnati. 


Doc.   IS.^No.  11. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Januanj  20,  1832. 
Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  7th  inst.  having  been  this  day  submitted  to 
the  Board,  the  allowance  made  to  Edmund  T.  Bainbridge  was  approved, 


b20  r  Sep-  No.  460.  j 

and  your  charge  of  the  amount,  S220  47,  to  losses  chargeable  to  contingent 
fund. 

The  growth  of  your  discount  line,  and  the  corresponding  increase  of  the 
aggregate  balances  against  you  with  the  Bank  and  offices,has  lately  claimed 
our  particular  attention;  and  I  haie  been  instructed  to  address  you  on  the 
subject.  The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt  will  probably  deprive 
the  Atlantic  offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  tlie  benefit  of  Government  depo- 
sites  during  the  present  year.  In  addition  to  the  six  millions  which  we 
have  been,  and  are  now,  reimbursing,  a  further  payment  »t  i|  millions 
has  been  advertised  by  the  Treasury  Department  for  the  1st  of  April  next, 
and  this  circumstance  concurring  with  the  continuance  of  a  pressing  de- 
mand from  individuals  for  money  at  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  renders 
us  desirous  that  you  should  turn  your  special  attention  to  the  discharge  of 
your  heavy  debt  to  us.  This,  we  believe,  may  be  accomplished  in  a  man- 
ner most  consistent  with  the  interests  of  the  institution,  by  gradually  re- 
ducing the  very  great  amount  of  your  bills  discounted,  and  by  converting 
your  funds  into  hills  of  exchange,  (which  constitute,  for  the  most  part,  the 
safest,  most  profitable,  and  most  manageable  investments  of  the  Bank) 
preferring  such  as  may,  in  the  most  direct  channel,  and  in  the  shortest 
time,  provide  means  for  the  redemption  of  your  circulation,  at  those  points 
to  which  it  naturally  tends,  or  for  the  payment  of  the  checks  which  you 
may  have  occasion  to  draw. 

At  this  season  of  the  year,  when  many  of  the  best  customers  of  the  Bank 
stand  particularly  in  need  of  the  facility  of  checks  upon  the  northern  and 
eastern  offices,  it  may,  perhaps,  not  be  found  expedient  to  restrict  your- 
self so  rigidly  as  you  have  been  lately  doing  in  the  amounts  which  you 
draw;  but,  as  you  will  yourself  be  best  able  to  judge  how  far  tliat  accom- 
modation to  the  public  may  be  affi)rded,  consistently  with  the  accomplish- 
ment bf  our  object,  and  with  the  good  of  the  office,  we  think  it  most  ad- 
visable to  leave  you  at  liberty  to  exercise  your  best  discretion  in  the  mat- 
ter, suggesting,  merely,  that  it  may  be  well  for  you  to  divide  whatever 
amount  you  may  think  proper  to  draw,  fairly  among  the  different  appli- 
cants, and  to  issue  the  checks,  if  practicable,  at  various  times. 

The  lateness  of  the  bill  season  at  the  South,  and  the  active  demand  we 
have  experienced  for  foreign  exchange,  contribute  torecomnjiend  the  policy 
of  reinforcing  ourselves  by  such  resources  as  can  be  derived  from  you  for 
the  general  benefit  of  the  institution. 

I  am,  ^-c. 

WM.  McILVAlNE,  Cashier. 
Ed.  Shippen,  Esq.  Cashier 

Office  Bank  of  the  United  States,  Louisville. 


Doc.   13 — No.  12. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

January  Qlst,  18S2. 

Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  27th  ultimo  was,  on  the  Sd  instant,  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  the  Offices,  who  have  not  yet  reported  on  the  subject.  In 
the  course  of  next  week,  however,  I  hope  to  be  able  to  communicate  a 
favorable  answer  to  the  application  of  your  Board.  In  the  mean  time,  I  am 
directed  to  mention  to  you,  a  few  considerations  which  induced  the  Bank 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  521 

to  desire  that  your  line  of  <<  bills  discounted'*  may  not  be  extended  a 
present,  but,  if  possible,  gently  reduced. 

The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt  which  is  now  taking  place, 
will  probably  deprive  the  Atlantic  offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  benefit 
of  Government  deposites  during  the  whole  of  the  present  year.  In  addition 
to  the  six  millions  of  dollars  in  progress  of  reimbursement,  a  further  pay- 
ment of  one  and  three  quarter  millions  has  been  advertised  by  the  Treasury 
Department,  for  the  first  of  April  next,  and  may  possibly  be  followed  by 
other  calls  upon  us,  quarterly,  to  the  extent  of  all  the  stock;s  within  the 
reach  of  tlie  Commissioners  of  the  Sinking  Fjjnd.  This  state  of  things 
concurring  with  the  continuance  of  a  pressing  demand  from  individuals 
for  money,  at  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  makes  us  anxious  to  reinforce 
ourselves  by  whatever  resources  can  be  conveniently  derived  from  your 
office,  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  institution — an  object  which  we  think 
may  be  attained  without  interrupting  the  regular  current  of  your  exchange 
business,  in  the  way  suggested.  Regarding  bills  of  exchange  as  the  safest, 
most  productive,  and  manageable  investments  of  the  Bank,  we  shall  be 
glad  if  you  can  turn  your  chief  attention  to  their  purchase,  with  a  view  to 
provide  for  the  regular  redemption  of  your  circulation,  and  for  the  pay- 
ment of  the  checks  you  may  have  occasion  to  draw. 

At  this  season  of  the  year,  when  many  of  the  best  customers  of  the  Bank 
stand  particularly  in  need  of  checks,  it  may  not,  perhaps,  be  expedient 
to  restrict  yourself  so  closely  as  you  have  been  lately  doing  in  the  a- 
mounts  which  you  furnish;  but  as  you  can  best  judge  how  far  that  accommo- 
dation may  be  afforded,  consistently  with  the  fulfilment  of  our  purpose 
and  with  the  good  of  the  office,  we  deem  it  advisable  to  leave  this  matter 
to  your  discretion,  suggesting  merely  that,  if  considerable  sums  should  be 
wanted,  it  may  be  well  to  divide  the  amount  among  the  different  applicants^ 
and  to  issue  the  checks,  if  practicable,  at  various  times. 

The  active  demand  for  foreign  exchange  which  we  have  experienced  fop 
some  time  past,  contributes  to  recommend  additionally  the  policy  which  I 
have  endeavored  to  indicate  to  you. 

I  am,  very  respectfully, 

your  obedient  servant, 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

J.  CoRRBT',  Esq.  Cashier 

Office  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  8tates,  Pittsburgh 


No.  13. 
Bank  op  the  Ujtited  States, 

January  21,  1832. 

Sik:  I  have  communicated  to  you  in  a  separate  letter  of  this  day*s  date, 
the  decision  of  the  Parent  Board  on  the  subject  of  the  proposed  extension 
of  the  term  of  your  loans,  and  now  offer  you  a  few  considerations,  for 
which  you  will  have  been  prepared  by  the  last  paragraph  in  my  letter  of 
the  7th  instant,  that  appear  to  recommend  an  adherence  at  this  time  to  our 
usual  policy  of  avoiding  long  and  permanent  credits,  and  of  keeping  our 
line  of  bills  discounted,  throughout  the  establishment,  within  moderate 
bounds. 


62^  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt,  now  taking  place,  is  calculated 
to  deprive  the  Atlantic  offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  benefit  of  Govern- 
ment deposites,  during  the  whole  of  the  present  year.  In  addition  to  the 
six  millions  which  we  have  been  and  are  reimbursing,  under  the  orders  of 
the  Treasury  Department,  issued  in  October  last,  a  payment  to  the  public 
creditors  of  about  one  and  three  quarter  millions  has  been  advertised  for 
the  1st  of  April  next,  to  be  succeeded  possibly  by  further  reimbursements 
of  any  other  stocks  which  may  be  within  the  reach  of  the  Commissioners 
of  the  Sinking  Fund.  This  state  of  things  concurring  with  the  continuance 
of  a  pressing  demand  from  individuals  for  money,  at  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia, renders  us  naturally  anxious  to  reinforce  ourselves  by  whatever 
resources  may  be  gently  derived  from  other  points,  for  the  general  benefit 
of  the  institution;  and  that  all  the  offices  may  so  shape  their  business,  as 
to  lock  up  as  small  a  portion  of  their  funds]  as  possible,  and  turn  their 
special  attention  towards  purchases  of  exchange,  for  the  purpose  of  provid- 
ing available  means  wherewith  to  meet,  after  intercepting  a  handsome 
profit,  the  redemption  of  their  circulation,  and  the  payment  of  the  checks 
they  may  have  occasion  to  draw.  The  recent  formation  of  a  new  Bank 
at  your  city  with  a  large  capital,  the  greater  part  of  which  is  probably 
destined  to  be  employed  in  local  discounts,  appears  to  favor  particularly 
the  adoption,  by  your  office,  of  that  course  of  policy,  which,  even  under 
different  circumstances,  we  should  deem  most  desirable  for  the  Bank,  as 
affi)rding  at  once  very  extensive  and  important  facilities  to  the  public,  and 
investments  the  most  safe,  productive,  and  manageable,  for  the  institution. 
We  rely  upon  your  zealous  efforts  to  carry  into  effect  these  views  of  the 
Parent  Board,  and  to  combine  them  as  far  as  possible  with  the  good  of  the 
office,  and  the  satisfaction  of  the  community  which  surrounds  you. 

I  am,  &c. 

W.  McILVAINE. 
L.  R.  Marshaii.,  Esq.  Cashier 

Office  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  •Yatchez. 


No.  14. 

Bank  United  States, 

January  21,  1832, 

Sir:  In  reviewing  lately  the  state  of  your  office,  with  reference  to  the 
general  policy  and  interest  of  the  Bank,  some  considerations  presented 
themselves  which  recommend  the  expediency  of  confining,  for  the  present, 
your  local  discounts  within  their  present  bounds,  and  of  reducing  them,  if 
practicable,  by  gradual  curtailments,  to  a  lower  point. 

The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt,  now  taking  place,  will  proba- 
bly derive  the  Atlantic  offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  benefit  of  Go- 
vernment deposites  during  the  whole  of  the  present  year.  In  addition  to 
the  six  millions  of  dollars  in  progress  of  reimbursement,  a  payment  of  If 
millions  has  been  advertised  by  the  Treasury  Department  for  1st  April 
next,  to  be  succeeded,  possibly,  by  further  quarterly  calls  upon  us,  to  the 
extent  of  whatever  stock  is  within  the  reach  of  the  Commissioners  of  the 
Sinking  Fund.  This  state  of  things  concurring  with  the  continuance  of  a 
pressing  demand  from  individuals  for  money  at  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia, renders  us  naturally  anxious  to  reinforce  ourselves  by  whatever  re- 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  523 

sources  can  be  most  conveniently,  and  with  the  least  disturbance  to  their 
ordinary  business,  derived  from  the  other  offices,  for  the  promotion  of  the 
general  benefit  of  the  institution.  We  shall  be  glad  if  you  can  so  shape 
your  business,  as  to  be  enabled  to  furnish  us  with  large  amounts  of  ex- 
change, both  foreign  and  domestic,  and  thereby  to  provide,  with  a  profit, 
means  for  the  redemption  of  your  large  circulation,  and  for  the  payment  of 
your  checks.  The  purchase  of  bills  we  have  hitherto  found  to  be  the  safest, 
most  productive,  and  manageable  transactions  of  the  Bank,  and  would  ra- 
ther, therefore,  assign  limits  to  any  other  part  of  your  business  than  to 
them.  At  your  present  moderate  rates  of  exchange  on  the  north,  the  State 
banks  can  scarcely  compete  with  you,  and  may  therefore  be  better  disposed 
to  favor  our  purposes,  by  extending  their  local  accommodations  while  you , 
are  restraining  yours. 

Should  it  be  necessary  to  the  fulfilment  of  our  wishes,  that  you  should 
check  more  freely  than  you  have  lately  done  upon  the  north,  we  leave  you 
to  the  exercise  of  your  own  discretion  in  that  respect. 

I  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

Geo,  Pok,  Jun.  Esquire, 

Cashier  Office  B,  U,  S.  Mobile* 


No.   15. 
Bank  United  States,  ^ 

January  21,  1832. 

Sir:  I  was  pleased  to  learn,  from  your  letter  of  the  24th  ult.,  that  you 
had  so  soon  succeeded  in  finding  a  suitable  person  to  perform  the  duties  of 
the  new  clerkship,  and  I  trust  that  the  appointment  will  afford  you  ade- 
quate relief  from  the  weight  imposed  upon  you  by  a  large  and  growing 
business.  We  perceive,  with  peculiar  satisfaction,  the  development  of  your 
exchange  transactions,  which,  conducted  as  they  are  by  your  office,  con- 
stitute the  safest,  most  profitable,  and  manageably  investments  of  the  Bank. 
We  observe  that  your  «<  bills  discounted"  have  been  going  down,  by  the 
usual  process,  we  presume,  of  the  conversion  of  a  part  of  them  into  bills 
of  exchange  at  this  season.  There  are  reasons  for  our  wishing  them  to  be, 
if  possible,  further  reduced,  which  I  am  directed  to  explain  to  you. 

The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt  will  probably  deprive  the  At- 
lantic  offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  benefit  of  Government  deposites 
during  the  whole  of  the  present  year.  In  addition  to  the  six  millions  which 
we  have  been,  and  are  now  reimbursing,  a  payment  of  about  one  and  three- 
fourth  millions  has  been  advertised  by  the  Treasury  Department  to  be 
made  on  1st  April  next. 

This  circumstance,  concurring  with  a  continuance  of  a  pressing  demand 
from  individuals  for  money,  at  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  renders  us 
very  desirous  that  you  should  keep  steadily  in  view  the  expediency  of  dis- 
charging a  portion  of  your  heavy  debt  to  us.  The  object,  we  believe,  may 
be  accomplished,  in  a  manner  most  consistent  with  the  interests  of  the  in- 
stitution, by  gradually  reilucing  the  amount  of  your  local  discounts,  and 
by  using  the  funds  called  in  in  purchases  of  bills  of  exchange,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  providing,  directly;or  indirectly,  within  a  reasonable  time,  for  the 


524  [  Bep.  No.  460.  ] 

redemption  of  your  circulation  at  those  points  to  which  it  naturally  tends, 
or  on  which  you  have  occasion  to  value. 

At  this  season  of  the  year,  when  many  of  the  hest  customers  of  the  Bank 
stand  in  need  of  checks  on  the  northern  and  eastern  offices,  it  may  not, 
perhaps,  be  expedient  to  restrict  yourself  so  rigidly  as  you  have  been  lately 
doing,  in  the  amounts  which  you  draw;  but,  as  you  will  yourself  be  best 
able  to  judge  how  far  that  facility  to  the  public  may  comport  at  once  with 
our  views,  and  wdth  the  good  of  the  office,  we  deem  it  advisable  to  leave 
this  matter  to  your  discretion,  suggesting,  merely,  that  it  may  be  well  for 
you  to  divide  whatever  amounts  you  may  think  proper  to  draw,  fairly 
among  the  different  applicants,  and  to  issue  the  checks,  so  far  as  may  be 
practicable,  at  various  times. 

The  policy  of  reinforcing  ourselves,  at  this  time,  by  such  resources  as 
may  be  gently,  and  without  materially  disturbing  the  current  of  your  busi- 
ness, derived  from  your  office,  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  institution,  is 
additionally  recommended  by  the  state  of  the  foreign  exchanges,  the  high 
rate  of  which  tends  to  diminish  our  effective  means. 

I  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

J.  SoMERVJXLE,  Esq.  Cashier,  Nashville, 


No.  16. 


Bank  or  the  United  States, 

January  23,  1832. 

Sib:  The  committee  to  whom  your  letter  of  the  23d  November  last  was 
referred,  has  not  yet  reported,  nor  is  it  probable  that,  until  the  result  of 
the  proceedings  in  Congress,  relative  to  the  renewal  of  the  charter,  is 
known,  they  will  be  disposed  to  recommend  to  the  Board  the  reinstate- 
ment of  your  capital,  with  a  view  to  the  extension  of  the  business  of  the 
office.  Pending  their  decision,  however,  upon  this  subject,  I  am  directed 
to  state  to  you  certain  reasons  which  induce  the  Bank,  at  this  time,  ra- 
ther to  limit  than  increase  your  line  of  bills  discounted. 

The  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt,  now  in  progress,  will  proba- 
bly deprive  the  Atlantic  offices  in  a  great  degree  of  the  benefit  of  Govern- 
ment deposites  during  the  whole  of  the  present  year.  In  addition  to  the 
six  millions  of  dollars  which  we  have  beep,  and  are  now,  reimbursing,  in 
consequence  of  the  October  orders  of  the  Treasury  Department,  a  pay- 
ment of  about  11  millions  has  lately  been  advertised  for  the  1st  of  April 
next,  to  be  succeeded  possibly  by  further  calls  (quarterly,  and  not  half 
yearly,  as  formerly)  of  the  same  kind,  to  the  extent  of  the  stock  that  may 
be  within  the  reach  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Sinking  Fund.  This  state 
of  things  concurring  with  the  continuance  of  a  pressing  demand  from  in- 
dividuals for  money,  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  renders  us  naturally 
desirous  to  lock  up  as  few  of  our  aggregate  resources  as  possible,  and  to 
confine  the  attention  of  your  office,  among  others,  chiefly  to  the  active  and 
flexible  business  of  exchange,  so  as  to  provide  readily,  and  within  short 
periods,  for  the  redemption  of  your  circulation,  at  those  points  to  which  it 
most  generally  tends,  or  on  which  you  may  have  occasion  to  draw. 


L  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  525 

The  gentle  restraint  of  your  local  accommodations,  with  a  view  to  the 
general  interests  of  the  institution,  is  additionally  recommended  by  the 
present  state  of  the  foreign  exchanges,  and  the  influence  which  their  high 
rates  naturally  have  to  reduce  the  specie  means  of  those  offices  at  which 
the  claims  of  the  public  creditors  are  to  be  met. 

I  am,  &c. 

WILLIAM  McILVAINE. 
Rich'd  Smith,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  U,  S.  Washington. 


No.  ir. 


Bank  of  the  United  States, 

February  4,  1832. 

Sir:  Perceiving  from  your  state  of  the  office,  received  since  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  addressing  you  on  the  20th  ultimo,  that  your  line  of  bills  dis- 
counted is  still  going  up  a  little,  I  take  occasion  to  revert  to  what  I  then 
said  to  you;  and  further  to  explain  that  it  is  not  the  wish  of  the  Bank  that 
you  should  at  all  extend  your  exchange  operations  in  a  greater  degree  than 
you  can  reduce  your  local  loans,  but  rather  that  the  amount  of  your  busi- 
ness in  the  aggregate  may  be  diminished,  as  I  doubt  not  it  will  he,  as  soon 
as  the  suggestions  I  have  already  given  shall  have  reached  you. 

lam,  &;c. 

WILLIAM  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
Ed.  Shippen,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  U,  S.  Louisville, 


No.  18. 


Bank  of  the  United  States, 

February  4,  1832. 

Sib:  The  propriety  of  the  suggestions  made  to  you  in  my  letter  of  the 
£lst  ultimo,  is  confirmed  by  subsequent  consideration.  The  Bank  is  very 
desirous  that  you  should  not  extend  your  line  of  bills  discounted,  and  that 
€ven  your  operations  in  domestic  exchange  should,  for  the  present,  be  con- 
fined within  moderate  limits,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  be  restricted  to  bills 
at  short  terms— say  sixty  and  ninety  days;  which,  as  respects  your  busi- 
ness with  New  Orleans,  will  furnish  our  office  there  with  the  means  of  giv- 
ing us  larger  reinforcements  in  the  course  of  the  present  half  year. 

I  am,  &c. 

WILLIAM  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
L.  R.  Marshall,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  U.  S.  JSTatdie^* 


526  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  19. 
Bank  of  the  United  States, 

Februury  4,  1832. 
Sir:  Perceiving  from  your  weekly  statements,  received  since  I  wrote 
you  on  the  20th  ultimo,  that  your  line  of  bills  discounted,  as  well  as  that 
of  domestic  bills,  has  been  going  up  rapidly,  I  think  proper  to  repeat  the 
suggestions  then  given,  and  to  add,  that  it  is  deemed  advisable  by  the 
Bank,  that  you  should  not  at  this  time  increase  the  aggregate  amount  of 
your  loans,  but  rather  make  every  effort  in  your  power  to  reduce  it.  With- 
out this  explanation,  you  might  possibly  suppose  that  you  would  be  con- 
forming to  the  wishes  of  the  Bank,  in  extending  your  exchange  transac- 
tions in  a  greater  degree  than  you  might  be  able  to  reduce  your  bills  dis- 
counted. Your  business  is  larger,  by  about  ajmillion  of  dollars,  than  it 
was  last  year  at  this  season,  and  the  circulation  connected  with  it  must 
press  uncomfortably  upon  the  institution  in  this  quarter,  unless  you  take* 
early  means  for  restricting  your  loans,  which  I  doubt  not  you  will  do  as 
soon  as  our  washes  are  made  known  to  you, 

I  am,  &c. 

W.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
Peter  Benson,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  of  the  United  States,  Cincinnati. 


No.  20. 

Bank  of  the  United  States, 

February  4,   1832. 

Sir:  I  perceive  with  satisfaction,  from  your  state  of  the  office  last  re- 
ceived, that  your  line  of  bills  discounted,  although  still  )S200,000  above 
what  it  was  at  the  same  period  last  year,  is  going  down,  and  I  doubt  not 
will  do  so  more  rapidly,  after  you  shall  have  received  my  letter  of  the  21st 
ultimo.  Your  bills  of  exchange  have  now  risen  about  g350,000  above 
their  amount  at  the.  same  period,  and  we  think  they  are  sufficiently  high 
under  existing  circumstances.  Be  pleased  not  to  increase  the  aggregate 
amount  of  your  loans  for  the  present;  but,  if  you  can,  reduce  them  gently, 
in  the  way  I  have  indicated  to  you.  I  take  it  for  granted  that,  as  the  sea- 
son advances,  you  will  have  shortened  the  terms  of  your  bills  on  New  Or- 
leans, so  as  to  throw  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Jaudon,  the  means  of  giving 
us,  in  the  course  of  the  present  half  year,  those  large  reinforcements  which 
we  shall  certainly  require  from  him. 

I  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

J.   SoMERVILIE,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  of  United  States,  J^ashville* 


No.  21. 
Bank  or  the  United  States 

February  4,   1832. 
Sir:  Although  my  letter  of  the  21st  ultimo  can  barely  have  reached 
you  by  this  time,  I  revert  to  the  subject  of  it,  for  the  purpose  of  express- 


[  Rep,  No.  4e0-  ]  257 

ing  the  satisfaction  of  the  Bank  at  perceiving,  from  your  last  weekly  state- 
ments, that  your  local  discounts  are  diminishing,  in  conformity  with  our 
wishes,  and  of  recommending  your  perseverance  in  that  course.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  state  of  things  here,  that  renders  the  suggestions  given  to 
you  of  less  importance  than  they  appeared  two  weeks  ago.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  deemed  advisable  tiiat  I  should  inform  you,  that  the  propriety 
of  their  adoption  by  you  is  confirmed  by  subsequent  reflection. 

1  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
George  Poe,  Jr.  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  of  United  States,  Mobile. 


No.  22. 
Bank  United  States,  February  4y  1832. 

Sir:  I  perceive,  with  satisfaction,  that,  for  the  last  three  months,  the 
aggregate  amount  of  your  loans  has  not  been  increased,  and  the  object  of 
tlie  present  is  to  recommend  your  perseverance  in  the  same  policy,  and,  if 
possible,  even  a  gentle  reduction  of  your  line  of  bills  discounted,  and  an 
abstinence  from  accommodations  to  all  persons  in  the  neighboring  large 
cities,  who  may  be  possibly  resorting  to  your  office  for  them,  during  the 
present  pressure  in  the  money  market,  particularly  at  New  York. 

I  am,  &c, 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
J.  P.  BuENHAM,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  United  States,  Hartford. 


No.  23. 
Bank  United  States,  March  3d,  1832. 

Sir:  Your  favors  of  the  4th  and  17th  ultimo  reached  me  about  a  week 
apart,  and,  in  reply  to  the  latter,  just  received,  1  hasten  to  apprise  you 
that,  under  the  circumstances  so  distressing  to  your  city,  and  the  business 
community,  as  those  which  you  detail,  the  Bank  would  be  very  loath  to 
insist  upon  the  contemplated  reduction  of  your  aggregate  loans,  in  dimi- 
nishing which,  according  to  your  former  letter,  you  had  very  little  ex- 
pectation of  succeeding,  for  the  present,  in  any  important  degree.  It 
seems  advisable  now  to  proceed,  in  the  most  gentle  manner,  towards  the 
accomplishment  of  our  object,  and  you  are,  accordingly,  authorized  to 
continue,  for  the  present,  should  you  deem  it  expedient,  your  loans,  at 
or  about  the  amount  last  reported,  taking  care  to  afford  the  desired  relief 
to  those  who  may  stand  most  in  need  of  it,  but  who  can,  at  the  same  time, 
offer  you  satisfactory  security  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  respective  engage- 
ments, whether  promissory  notes  or  bills  of  exchange,  and  keeping  in 
view,  whenever  practicable,  the  conversion  of  the  former  into  the  latter, 
in  the  way  you  have  commenced. 

I  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 

Edward  Shippen,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  United  States,  Louisville. 


528  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

IjTo.  24. 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  March  3d,  1832. 
Sib:  In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  22d  ultimo,  I  lose  no  time  in  appris- 
ing you  that,  under  circcumstances  so  distressing  to  your  city  as  those 
which  you  detail,  the  Bank  would  be  very  loath  to  insist  upon  the  proposed 
reduction  of  your  aggregate  loans,  and  you  are,  accordingly,  authorized 
to  use  your  best  discretion  in  continuing  them  for  the  present,  at  the 
amount  last  reported,  taking  care  to  afford  the  desired  relief  to  those  who 
may  stand  most  in  need  of  it,  but  who  can,  at  the  same  time,  offer  you 
satisfactory  security  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  engagements, 

I  am,  &c. 

WM.  McILVAINE,  Cashier. 
P.  Benson,  Esq. 

Cashier  Office  Bank  United  States,  Cincinnati. 


Doc.  14--No.  1. 
Question  to  Mr.  BiddlCy  President  of  the  Bank. 

Question.  Was  not  a  portion  of  the  public  debt  to  have  been  paid  off  on 
the  1st  of  October  last?  and  did  not  the  Bank  apply  for  and  obtain  an  ex- 
tension of  the  time  to  the]  1st  of  January  following?  What  was  the  arrange- 
ment made  with  the  Government  on  that  occasion  ? 

Answer.  No  such  application  was  made,  nor  was  any  arrangement 
made  on  the  occasion. 

Question.  Was  there  not  an  order  issued  afterwards,  to  such  holders 
of  stock  as  chose  to  apply,  to  receive,  at  the  several  loan  offices,  the  amount 
of  their  stock,  and  the  interest  that  should  accrue  between  the  said  1st  of 
October,  when  it  was  to  have  been  paid,  and  the  time  of  their  application 
after  that  date? 

Answer.  The  Treasury  issued  an  order  on  the  1st  October,  directing 
the  payment  of  certain  stocks  on  the  1st  of  January,  1832.  In  a  fewdays 
afterwards,  another  order  was  issued,  authorizing  those  who  are  thus  to 
be  paid  on  the  1st  of  January,  to  receive  payment  at  any  time  before  that  day. 


l|F. 


Doc.  14— -No.  2. 
Question  to  Mr.  Biddle. 

Q.  What  was  the  nature  of  the  indulgence  sought  and  obtained  of  the  Go- 
vernment, in  relation  to  the  payments  of  the  public  debt,  intended  to  have 
been  made  on  the  1st  of  October  last? 

A.  I  am  not  aware  that  the  Bank,  on  the  1st  of  October  last,  or  at  any 
other  period  during  more  than  nine  years,  in  which  I  have  been  connected 
with  it  as  its  presiding  officer,  has  sought  or  obtained  any  indulgence  from 
the  Government,  of  any  kind,  in  reference  to  the  payment  of  the  public 
debt,  or  in  reference  to  any  other  matter. 


L  Hep.  No.  460.  ]  529 

The  only  circumstance  which  characterized  the  payments  of  October, 
183 1,  was  this: 

Tije  Bank  owned  S3,S5  I,fi64.91  of  funded  debt,  of  which  it  was  not 
obliged  to  receive  reimbursensejit  until  the  1st  of  January,  1832.  The 
Government,  however,  requested  the  Bardv  to  receive  payment  of  it,  on 
the  1st  of  October,  1831,  and  t|ie  Bank,  in  order  to  accommodate  the  Go- 
vernment, consented  to  receive  it  at  that  time.  The  saving  of  interest  to 
the  Government,  and  the  loss  of  interest  to  the  Bank  by  this  ac- 
commodation, amounted  to  S37,704.63. 

The  indulgence,  if  there  was  any,  was  to  the  Government,  not  to  the 
Bank.  I  annex  a  copy  of  the  cori'espondence  on  the  subject,  consisting  of 
my  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  t!ie  Treasury,  of  the  29th  of  September,  1831, 
and  his  answer  of  the  same  date. 


Doc.   14.— -No.  3. 

Bank  OF  THE  U.  S.  September  ^9^  1831. 


Dear  Sir:  Having  communicated  to  the  Board  of  Directors  your  wish 
to  apply  the  surpltis  means  of  the  Treasury  to  the  payment  of  tlie  public 
debt,  in   anticipation  of  the  period  stipulated  for  Its  reimbursemejits,   I 


am  instructed  to  inform  you  that  they  will  cheerfully  co-o])erate,  as  far  as 
lies  within  their  power,  in  the  accomplishment  of  that  object.  For  tliis 
purj)ose  they  arc  now  ready  to  receive,  whenever  it  may  suit  the  conveni- 
ence of  the  Treasury,  immediate  reimbursement,  at  ]rar,  and  without  pre- 
vious notice,  of  the  following  stocks  ow-ned  by  tiic  Bank,  and  amounting 
to  three  miilions  three  imndred  and  fifry-onc  thousand  six  hnnd£iid  and 
sixty-four  dollars  and  ninety-one  cents. 

S91, 188.92,         -         4-1  per  cent,  of  May  26,  1814. 
3,260,475.99,  do.  May  24,  1824. 

S3,3  5 1,664.91. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  von rs, 

N.  bIdDLE,  President. 
Ho5iorable  Louis  McLane,   Sccretanj  of  the  Treasury, 

Was'iin^Ao7i 


Doc.    14.  — No.  4. 

TiiEAsuiiY  Department, 

Srvtemhcr  29,  18:31. 

»  Sfii:  The  offer  made  by  you,  this  day,  on  beiialf  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  for  the  immediate  reimbursement,  at  par,  of  the  following 
stocks  held  by  that  institution,  is  accepted,  viz. 

S9l, 188,92,  or4i  percent,  of  26th  May,  1814. 

S3, 260. 475. 99,  of  do.  of  24th  May,  1824. 

The  Trea.surer  will  accoriiingly  be  instructed  forth Nvith  to  transn.it 
funds  to  the  Coi^amissioner  of  Loans  at  Philadelphia  for  their  red  Mnption. 

The  Department  fully  aj)preciates  t!je  disposition  which  the  B)ari  of 
Directors  have  manifested  by  this  arrangement  to  co-operate  in  the  accom- 
67 


530  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

plisliment  of  its  desire  for  the  discharge  of  the  puhlic  debt  as  early  as  the 
iiieaiis  of  the  Treasury  will  ])crniit. 
I  am,  respectfully, 

your  obedient  servant, 

LOUIS  McLANE,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
N.  BiDDTiE,  Esq.  President  of  the  Bank  U.  S. 

Philadelphia, 


Doc.  15.— No.  1. 
Question  to  the  President  of  the  Bank, 

Question.  Will  ymi  please  give  a  copy  of  the  correspondence  connected 
with  your  application,  in  March  last,  requesting  a  suspension  by  the  Go- 
vernment of  the  payment  of  a  portion  of  its  debt  intended  to  have  been 
made  on  the  1st  of  July  next,  or  a  statement  of  the  arrangement  made  in 
jeJation  to  that  subject?  , 

Answer.  I  have  made  no  application  to  the  Government,  nor  have  I 
requested  any  suspension  of  the  payment  of  any  portion  of  the  public  debt. 

The  inquiry,  I  presume,  relates  to  this  circumstance:  I  received  a  let- 
ter from  the  acting  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  dated  the  24tii  of  March, 
1832,  informing  nie  that  the  Government  was  about  to  issue  a  notice  on 
the  1st  of  April,  of  their  intention  to  pay,  on  the  1st  of  July  next,  one- 
half  of  the  three  per  cent,  stock,  and  to  do  it  by  paying  to  each  stockholder 
one-half  the  amount  of  his  certificate.  He  added,  **  If  any  objection  oc- 
curs to  you,  either  as  to  the  amount,  or  as  to  the  mode  of  payment,  I  will 
thank  you  to  suggest  it." 

Thus  invited  by  the  Government,  in  a  communication  marked  '<  confi- 
dential," to  give  my  opinion  on  a  measure  contemplated  by  the  Govern- 
ment, I  felt  it  my  duty  to  express  my  views  of  its  probable  operation.  In 
my  reply,  therefore,  dated  tlie  29th  of  March,  I  stated  '<that,  so  far  as 
the  Bank  is  concerned,  no  objection  occurs  to  me,  it  being  sufficient  that 
the  Government  has  the  necessary  amount  of  funds  in  the  Bank  to  make 
the  contemplated  payment."  I  then  proceeded  to  observe,  that,  in  the  j)re- 
sent  situation  of  the  mercantile  community,  and  with  a  very  large  amount 
of  revenue,  [amounting  to  nine  millions]  to  be  pard  before  the  1st  of  July, 
he  debtors  of  the  Government  would  require  all  the  forbearance  and  all 
the  aid  which  could  be  given  to  them;  and  th^t  the  payment  proposed, 
by  creating  a  demand  for  the  remittance  of  several  millions  of  dollars  to 
the  European  stockholders,  would  tend  to  diminish  the  usual  facilities  af- 
fordc-d  to  the  debtors  of  the  Government,  and  might  endanger  the  punctual 
payment.  For  this  reason,  I  thought  it  for  the  interest  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  postpone  the  payment  till  the  next  quarter.  I  further  stated,  that 
the  plan  of  paying  to  eacii  stockholder  only  one-half  of  his  loan,  would  not 
he  so  acceptable  as  if  his  whole  loan  were  repaid  at  oiire. 

Having  thus  performed  my  duty,  in  giving  the  opinion  asked,  I  left  it,  of 
course,  to  the  Government  to  decide.  "On  the  part  of  tiie  Bank  1  sought 
nothing,  and  requested  nothing.  After  weighing  the  circumstances,  the 
Oovernment  were  desirous  of  adopting  the  measure;  but  the  difficulty  I 
understood  to  be  this,  that  the  sinking  fund  would  lose  the  quarter's  intc* 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  531 

rest,  from  July  to  October,  of  tlie  sum  intended  to  be  paid  in  July,  and 
that  Ibe  Government  did  not  (eel  itself  justified  in  making  the  jmstponc- 
raent,  unless  tl»at  interest  could  be  saved:  but  that  it  would  be  made,  pro- 
vided the  Bank  would  mj^ke  IIih  sinking  fund  whole  on  the  1st  of  October. 
To  this  I  said,  that,  as  tiie  Bank  would  have  the  use  of  the  fund  during 
the  three  montiss,  it  would  consent  to  save  the  sinking  fund  harmless,  by 
paying  the  three  months'  interest  itself.     And  so  the  matter  stands. 

Now,  it  will  be  seen  that,  in  all  this,  the  Bank  has  had  not  the  least 
agency,  except  to  offer  itn  opinion,  when  it  was  J»sked,  in  regard  to  a  mea- 
sure proposed  by  the  Government,  aud  then  to  offer  its  aid  ia  carrying  that 
measure  into  operation. 


Doc.   15.— No.   2.    , 
[confidential.] 

Treasury  Department, 

March  24,   1832. 

Dear  SiR:»It  is  believed  that  the  means  of  the  Treasury  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  discharge  one-half  of  the  three  per  cents,  on  the  1st  of  July  next, 
and  it  is  pr()j)osed  to  give  notice  accordingly  on  the  1st  of  April.  It  is  not 
intended  to  determine  by  lot  the  certificates  that  are  to  be  paid,  but  simply 
to  pay  one-half  of  each  certificate,  on  presentation  at  the  proper  loan  of- 
fice. 

If  any  objection  occurs  toyou,  eitiier  as  to  the  amount,  or  as  to  the  mode 
of  paynient,  1  will  thank  you  to  snggest  it. 

1  shall  be  glad  to  be  informed  of  the  amount  purchased  under  your  direc- 
tion, though  1  am  not  aware  that  it  can  have  any  influence  upon  the  pro- 
posed measure.  As  the  purchases  will  cease  on  the  appearance  of  the 
iH)tice,  it  may  be  as  well  for  you  to  direct  the  account  to  be  closed  with  the 
termination  of  the  present  month,  and  rendered  to  the  Treasury  for  settle- 
ment. 

1  am,  dear  sir,  \cvy  sincerely  and  respectfullv,  vours, 

asblry'dickins, 

»^cting  Secretary, 
N.   BiDDLi:,   Esq. 
[Enclosed  in  an  envelope,  addressed  ta  "Nicholas  Biddle,  Esq.,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  Philadelphia." 


Doc.  16. 
Question  to  the  President  of  the  Bank, 

Question.  Has  the  Bank  any  interest  in  slaves,  other  than  that  merr- 
tioned  on  the  j)lantation  near  New  Orleans,  and  how  this  interest  is 
inanaged  ? 

Atkssver.  I  am  not  aware  that  tiie  Bank  has  any  interest  in  slave* 
<»xre{)t  so  far  as  they  »nay  be  included  in  mortgages  for  debts  in  the  Southerif 
States.  The  only  direct  interest  in  slaves  which  I  know,  is  that  once  held 
in  the  slaves  on  a  cotton  plantation  in  Louisiana,  which  was  taken  for  a 


5*32  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

debt,  in  the  year  1S26,  and  sold  in  1827,  as  appears  In  the  printed  state- 
ment made  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  by  tlie  Bank,  on  the  29th  of 
February  last. 


Doc.  17. 

Question  to  the  President  of  the  Bankf  and  answer. 

Question.     Making  a  difference  in  receiving  notes  from  the  Federal  Go- 
vernment, and  citizens  of  the  States? 

Answer.     This  is  precisely  the  difference  enjoined  by  the  charter. 


Doc.    18. 
Question  to  the  President  of  the  Bank,  and  his  ansxver. 

Question.  Making  a  difference  between  Members  of  Congress  and 
other  citizens,  in  granting  loans  and  selling  bills  of  exchange  ? 

Answer.  I  know  nothing  of  tiiis;  and  yet  I  could  injagine  good  reasons 
for  the  difference.  Members  of  Congress  are  entitled  to  receive  tlieir  pay 
wherever  the  Treasury  chaoses  to  give  it  to  them.  If  a  Member  of  Con- 
gress, at  the  close  of  a  session,  receives  a  draft  on  the  Branch  at  N^  ash- 
ington,  for  Si, 800,  and,  after  paying  his  bills  in  Washington,  vvislies  to 
take  the  remainder  home  with  liirn,  in  a  draft  on  the  Branch  at  Savannah, 
as  he  might  originally  have  ha]  this  draft  from  the  Treasury  without  any 
premium,  there  is  nothing  unnatui-al  in  his  receiving  a  draft  from  the 
Branch  at  Washington,  on  the  Branch  at  Savannah,  although  a  merchant, 
in  the  course  of  his  business,  might  be  obliged  to  pay  a  quaiter  per  cent, 
for  such  a  draft.  So,  too,  to  be  a  Member  of  Congress,  iuiplies  some  de- 
gree of  credit  at  home;  and  when  a  Member,  absent  from  his  funds  and 
his  friends,  wishes  to  draw  on  his  agent  at  home,  it  is  conceivable,  tliat, 
without  much  wrong,  his  draft  miglit  be  taken  without  obliging  him  to  give 
tlie  same  security  as  a  merchant  in  ti»e  course  of  his  business,  tlms  com- 
pelling jjim  to  incur  obligations  to  residents  of  Wasliington  to  endorse  for 
him.  1  do  not  know  that  this  is  so,  but  I  think  it  might  be  so  without 
injustice  to  any  one. 


Doc.   19. 
question  to  the  President  of  the  Bank,  and  his  answer. 

Question.  Non  user  of  the  Charter— in  this,  that,  from  1819  to  1826, 
the  southern  and  western  Branches  issued  no  currency  of  any  kind? 

Answer.  I  believe  there  never  was  a  period  during  which  the  Branches 
did  not  issue  notes.  But,  if  they  did  not  issue  notes,  they  must  have  issued 
specie;  and  if  the  Bank  and  all  its  Branches  choose  never  to  issue  notes  at 
all,  but  to  issue  nothing  but  silver  and  gold,  there  is  nothing  in  the  Char- 
ter to  prevent  it. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


533 


Doc.  20. 
Question  to  the  President  of  the  Bank,  and  his  answer. 
Question.     Foreigners  voting  for  Directors  through  their  Trustees? 
Answer.     I   never  iicard  of  this  before,  and  I  should  doubt  it,  for  this 
reason:     There  has  never  been  a  period   in  the  history  of  the  Bank,  cer- 
tainly not  for  th«  last  nine  ycais,  during  which  the  power  of  voting  was 
of  any  consequence,  or  tlie  right  to  give  a  thousand  votes  was  wortli   hav- 
ing.    The  deception,  therefore,  would  be  superfluous  as  well  as  criminal. 


Doc.  21 No.   1. 

((uestion  to  the  President  of  the  Bank, ,  and  liis  answer. 
Question.    Will  you  please  inform  the  Committee  whether  tlie  Bank  has 
any  interest,  either  by  pledges  or  otherwise,  in  tlic   Commercial  Bank  of 
Cincinnati?     And  please  state  ihe  interest  of  the  Bank  in  all  other  local 
Banks  in  the  United  States? 

Answer.     I  annex  a  'statement  of  the  First  Assistant  Cashier,  sliowing 
these  particulars. 


Doc.  21. —No.  2. 
Loans  on  pledge  of  stock  of  State  Banks,  April  4,  1832. 


Amount  of 

on    50 

shares  Trenton  bank,      .            -            - 

loans. 

Wm.  Halsted, 

$1,500 

Thos.  Mellon, 

156 

"       Louisiana  bank,   -             -             - 

- 

13,000 

Wm.  Richardson,   - 

69 

"       Mechanics'  bank,  Philadelphia,     •■ 

- 

2,000 

Wm.  B.  Sheppard, 

91 

"       Newbern,  N.  C,  bank,     - 

- 

5,000 

Stephen  Duncan,     - 

137 

"       Mississippi  bank,  Natchez, 

- 

12,500 

do 

200 

"do 

- 

18,700 

Carey  &  Lea, 

100 

"      Miners'  bank,  Pottsville,  - 

- 

4,000 

do 

100 

do 

- 

4,000 

R.  McMullin, 

100 

"       Southwark  bank, 

- 

5,000 

J.  A.  Elkinton, 

15 

«       Manhattan  Co., 

- 

750 

C.  Iddmg, 

74 

"       Farmers'  bank,  Bucks  county, 

- 

1,100 

Arist.  Monges, 

21 

"       Commercial  bank,  Pa., 

- 

1,050 

Macalester&Yorkc,   j 

488 
200 

"       Commercial  bank,  Cincinnati, 

"                         do                         $50  paid, 

" 

1       58,750 

Robt.  Patterson, 

100 

"       Philadelphia  bank, 

- 

9,000 

Ed.  Toland, 

20G 

"       Commercial  bank,  Cincinnati, 

- 

20,600 

John  Parker, 

100 

"       Schuyllcill  bank,    - 

- 

600 

J.  C.  Stocton, 

80 

"       Commercial  bank,  Cincinnati, 

- 

8,000 

Thos.  Clark, 

20 

"       Farmers'  and  Mechanics'  bank,     - 

- 

1,Q00 

Henry  Toland, 

103 

"       Commercial  bank,  Cincinnati, 

- 

10,300 

W.  E.  Horner, 

14 

"       Philadelphia  bank, 

- 

1,300 

Geo.  Thomson, 

154 

"       Commercial  bank,  Pennsylvania;  pledged 

together  with  other  stock. 

- 

7,700 

T.  Biddle  &  Co.,    - 

785 

"       Miners'  bank,  Pottsville;  pledged  togeth 

er 

with  other  stock, 

- 

36,000 

do 

15 

"      Pennsylvania  bank, 

6,000 

$227,850 

534 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

Doc.  22, 
Receipt  of  Branch  Paper, 


Boston. 

New  York. 

1828. 

1829. 

1830. 

1831.. 

1828. 

1829. 

1830. 

1831. 

Jan. 

55,820 

97,320 

118,800 

157,150 

880,200 

944,540 

544,130 

384,620 

Feb. 

15,830 

101,240 

57,900 

122,700 

855,930 

914,400 

488,680 

456.550 

Mar. 

74,240 

82,770 

72,380 

162,800 

943,770 

841,420 

279,040 

719,480 

April 

56,730 

109,800 

200,280 

120.770 

1,076,210 

1,116,530 

905,920 

1,015,370 

May 

106,350 

152,710 

116,420 

149,010 

1,128,820 

1,134,400 

793,490 

1,112.710 

J  line 

27,300 

106,180 

107,720 

239,580 

1,180  110 

1,009,380 

943,550 

811,590 

July 

90,470 

lj64,030 

170,960 

155,330 

964,430 

1,023,150 

909,560 

942,000 

Aug. 

53,100 

164,890 

169,740 

131,380 

1,064,960 

910,200 

948,350 

1,206,070 

Sep. 

92,680 

194,290 

169,260 

175,770 

960,670 

968,350 1,032,290 

1,481,750 

Oct. 

83,130 

266,970 

122,210 

128.200 

1,131,280 

936,450 

921,080 

1.715,450 

Nov. 

147,950 

205,990 

290,400 

149,100 

882,320 

826,490 

825,520 

1,383.020 

Dec. 

207,130 

197,980 

198,680 

124,640 

869,650 

669,650 

616,760 

1,055,710 

1,010,730 

1,844,170 

1,794,750 

1,816,430 

11,938,350 

11,294,960 

9,168,370 

12,284,320 

Receipt — Continued. 


January 

February 

March     - 

April 

May 

June 

July       - 

August  - 

Sfpiem'r 

October 

Novem'r 

Decem'r 


Philadelphia. 


1828.         1829. 


198,640 
478,850 
565.765 
418,985 
462,725 
310,060 
429.230 
347.880 
415,080 
359  345 
212,160 
254,430 


4.453,150 


270,915 
376,960 
713,730 
364,310 
263,130 
279,920 
309,855 
406.350 
419,690 
329,965 
202,220 
169,940 


4.106,985 


1830.    1831 


233,845 
450,490 
711,505 
524,315 
326,905 
294  585 

493,215 
465,995 
297,675 
195,720 
208,920 


4,679,725 


279.640 
368,910 
816,525 
613,995 
386,190 
293,515 
461,175 
575,76() 
586,235 
349,890 
350,250 
316.715 


5,398,800 


Baltimore. 


1828. 


93,150 

86,790 

90,790 

143,130 

147,820 

134,300 

129,230 

145,650 

117,590 

171,610 

145,880 

91.160 


1,497,100 


1829. 


136,430 

90,260 

162,730 

172,520 

140,660 

108,630 

77,570 

126,240 

107,590 

125.830 

90,160 

81,740 


1830. 


92,650 

74,540 

119,740 

165.510 

129,420 

149,140 

92,500 

108,380 

115,200 

150,530 

86,510 

92,200 


1,420,360  1,376,320 


1831. 


73,490 
96,410 
119,380 
194,740 
151,770 
109,900 
92,340 
128,530 
132,290 
162,220 
160,970 
166.640 


1,588,680 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  535 


Doc.  23.— No.  1. 

Nett  circulation  when  at  its  minimum, 

1623, 

Dec.     4.  Bank  United  States  -  -  -  -  706,530 

Nov.  27.  Office,  Boston  -  -  -  .  .  165,180 

Dec.     3.       "      New  York  ..  -  -  .  325,518 

«         1.       "      Baltimore  ....  478,570 


g 1,675,798 


Doc.  23.— No.  2. 
Nett  circulation  when  at  its  minimum. 

1823. 

Nov.   17.   Portsmouth  ....             -  94,435 

«     27.   Providence  -----  50,675 

"     24.  Middletown  -             -             -             -             -  90,787 

"     29,   Washington  -----  484,160 

<«     25.  Richmond  -----  166,915 

*«     22.   Norfolk  -             -                           -             -  186,615 

"     25.  Fayetteville  -----  97,305 

"     18.  Charleston  -----  255,975 

«     17.   Savannah  .             .             -             -             .  59,270 

"     14.  Lexington  -----  6,815 

«     11.   Louisville  -----  6,400 

«     22.   Chillicothe  -             ...             -  849,320 

"       3.  New  Orleans  -----  849,320 

«     26.   Pittsburg  -             .             .             -             .  53,157 

"     22.   Cincinnati  -----  3,570 


iS  2,406,044 
Philadelphia,  Boston,  New  York,  and  Baltimore         -  -      1,675,798 

4,081,842 


Doc.  24.— No.  1. 

Nett  circulation,  January  1st,  1632. 

Bank  of  the  United  States      -----  2,952,143 

Office,  Boston 263,275 

<«     New  York       -             -             -             -             -             -  837,943 

"     Baltimore         -                          -             -             -             -  547,198 

ig  4,600,559 


536 


[  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  24. — No.  2. 
Nett  circulation,  January  \st^  1832. 


Office,  Portland 

108,805 

Office,  Nashville 

1,815,140 

Portsmouth 

87,570 

Louisville 

1,005,720 

Providence 

95,195 

Lexington 

1,188,505 

Hartford 

186,742 

Cincinnati 

1,043,990 

Washington     - 

501,972 

Pittsburg 

801,277 

Richmond 

464,780 

Buffiilo 

350,525 

Norfolk 

662,910 

Utica    - 

365,100 

Fayetteville    - 

873,750 

Burlington 

218,475 

Charlpston         • 

85  ^>  O'i'i 

Savannah 

1,044,600 

16,657,931 

Mobile 

91.S,275 

Philadelphia,  Boston,  N. 

New  Orleans  - 

3,263,320 

York,  and  Baltimore 

4,600,559 

NatfhpT'         *   » 

404,550 
391,675 

St.  Louis 

$ 

21,258,490 

Doc.  25. 


STATEMENT  of  the  profit  and  loss  on  the  business  of  the  Bank 
United  States,  and  of  each  branch,  for  the  years  ending  with  the  1st  of 
January,  1828,  1829,  1830,  1831,  and  1832. 


Year  ending 

Year  ending 

Year  en'g  1st 

Year  en'g  Is' 

Year  en'g  1st 

1st  Jan.  1828. 

1st  Jan.  1829. 

Jan.  1830. 

Jan. 1831. 

Jan.  1832. 

Bank  UnUed  States   - 

1,106,568  69 

1,044,646  57 

885,466  43 

819,585  05 

616,452  14 

Office,  Portland 

- 

5,658  96 

10,454  57 

11,196  61 

11,220  23 

Portsmouth     - 

25,903  80 

■9,697  04 

12,092  12 

5,164  16 

12,377  93 

Boston 

138,634  39 

184,973  75 

173,535  94 

42,726  74 

68,358  10 

Providence 

45,225  52 

64,569  75 

55,329  72 

43,661  84 

48,126  67 

Hartford 

24,878  40 

28,709  78 

27,092  :!>7 

21,677  56 

20,375  24 

New  York 

265,888  09 

263.407  01 

275,415  61 

217,197  10 

297,942  31 

B  ill  ti  more 

136.926  54 

120,893  55 

128.360  22 

90,835  48 

102,592  05 

Washington     - 

77,402  17 

55,991  90 

68,337  42 

63,231  28 

79,195  20 

Bichmoiid 

67,311  s:. 

59,539  85 

55,248  04 

48,064  12 

49,957  14 

Norfolk 

19,885  ^S 

29,637  25 

27,708  60 

34,249  24 

40,100  90 

Fayetteville     - 

65,313  40 

77,016  88 

65,639  86 

47,301  08 

36,914  48 

Charleston 

151,475  89 

151,156  55 

133,950  13 

134,307  29 

168,404  31 

Savannah 

33,324  48 

38.148  96 

34,231  29 

^5,^Z5  55 

56,930  78 

Mobile 

7.803  79 

34,916  17 

44,686  92 

62,845  93 

95,140  99 

New  Orleans  - 

185,129  21 

225,434  77 

346,419  50 

468,432  86 

552,812  55 

Natchez 

« 

_ 

_ 

- 

78,542  96 

St.  Louis 

_ 

_ 

595.93 

19,949  11 

30,464  25 

Nashville 

8,830  19 

86.870  87 

154,691  12 

214,015  13 

262,954  42 

Louisville 

52,632  32 

66,772  92 

107,518  5^2, 

136,264  22 

198,556  12 

Lexington 

60,178  42 

71.561  25 

87,044  10 

106,2-14  34 

113,251  25 

Cincinnati 

40,866  47 

81.035  &7 

125,742  43 

143,080  86 

204,784  94 

Pittsburg 

45,037  58 

57,349  12 

65,972  45 

73,140  97 

103,713 

Buff'alo 

- 

_ 

3,167  57 

31,890  12 

52,652  70 

Utica   - 

_ 

_ 

2,660  70 

30,396  7Z 

Burlington 

- 

_ 

. 

5,971  65 

19,629  58 

Agency,  Cincinnati    - 

26,404  78 

28,301  56 

15,417  50 

105,655  15 

96,955  86 

Chillicothe  - 

618  98 

17,674  58 

12,513  52 

6,816  75 

6,585  59 

[  Eep.  No.  460.  J 


537 


Doc.  26, 
Public  moneys  deposited  at  Bank  United  States  and  branches,  January  1st,  1S32. 


Bank  United  Slates 
Office,  Portland   - 
Portsmouth 
Boston 
Providence 
Hariford    - 
New  York 
Baltimore 
Washington 
Richmond 
Norfolk     - 
Fayettevllle 
Charleston 
Savannah  - 
Mobile 
New  Orleans 
Natchez 
St.  Louis   - 
Nashville   - 
Louisville 
Lexington 
Cincinnati  - 
Piitsburg-  - 
Buffalo       - 
Utica 
Burlington 


Treasurer  United 

States. 


483,158  17 

90,989  89 

304  49 

975,391  03 

46,495  22 

31,592  64 

3,472,734  29 

77,144  56 

175,958  37 
34,770  69 
44,004  37 
33,096  32 

273,178  36 
12,861  72 

439,157  97 

965,763  70 

115,701  86 

352,127  38 
85,923  65 

161,582  51 
2,159  60 

202,874  39 
66,209  57 

250,663  08 

2  SO 

9,280  64 


^8,403,127  47 


Public  officers 


2,898,215  92 

49,978  92 

33,404  25 

294,317  97 

14,719  74 

11,908  47 

259,735  56 

171,930  54 

237,265  21 

37,224  86 

26,357  02 

19,213  56 

16,852  18 

40,014  64 

63,437  55 

109,963  61 

2,455  38 

19,290  48 

30,505  47 

32,532  71 

16,981  58 

54,466  92 

15,834  94 

6,977  26 

25  41 

20,518  82 


4,494,128  97 


Totals. 


3,381,374  09 
140,968  81 

33,708  74 
1,269,709  00 

61,214  96 

43,501  11 

3,732,469  85 

249,075  10 

413,223  78 

71,995  55 

80,361  39 

52,309  88. 
290,030  54 

52,876  36 
502,595  52 
1,075,727  31 
118,157  24 
371,417  86 
116,429  12 
194,115  22 

19,141  18 
257,341  31 

82,044  51 

257,640  34 

28  21 

29,799  46 


12,897,256  44 


Doc.  27. 
Investments  made  on  account  of  foreigners,  since  January,    1S13. 


Date. 

In  whose  name. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

In  three  per  cents. 

1831,    Jan.    7 

Bland  &  Smithson 

698  37 

93  i  per  cenf. 

T.  Cotterill,  in  trust 

965  48 

William  Giles 

205  23 

John  Martin      .     - 

408  15 

Towgood  &  Hitchcock    - 

234  78 

J'  hn  Walter 

481   12 

David  Bevan         -             -             - 

323  89 

Jan.   15 

T.  Cotterill.  in  trust          - 

2,100 

W    Giles 

192  50 

April   7 

Same  names  as  ahove 

3,173  82 

93h  percent. 

July     2 

- 

3,203  42 

94.        ' 

15 

Cotterill  &  Giles 

2,152  50 

94i       ♦ 

Oct.     « 

Same  names  as  above 

5,245  95 

94 

1632,    Jan.     2 

Cotterill,  in  trust 

6,807  60 

96|       ' 

2 

Same  as  above 

5,144  27 

96|       « 

Feb.     6 

Catherine  Birkley  et  al 

4,300     • 

96i       « 

6 

John  Birkley 

6,700 

96i       ' 

24 

H.  Collins,  jr.  and  P.  Collins 

14,950 

96-^       '< 

March  5 

John  Wright  &  H.  Robinson,  jr.  - 

64,213  13 

99 

119.500  21 

68 


538 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

INVESTMENTS— Continued. 


Date. 

In  whose  name. 

Amount. 

Rate. 

In  four  and  a  half  per  cents. 

1831,    Jan.     7 

Thomas  &  James  Ferry 

709  41 

101^  per  cent. 

15 

Do                        .            . 

350 

lOli      ' • 

April   7 

Do 

531  40 

102 

July     7 

Do 

537  25 

102 

15 

Do 

350 

102        *• 

Oct.     7 

Do 

551  94 

lOli       " 

1832,    Jan.      2 

Do 

908  04 

Par    1831 

Feb.     3 

John  Brewen       -           -            - 

7,626 

102^  1833 

11,564  04 

In  jive  per  cents* 

• 

1832,    Feb.  23 

Thomas  8c  James  Perry 

7,204  40 

105i  per  cent. 

1831,    June  28 

James  Houlard     -            -            - 
In  United  States'  Bank  Stock. 

1,701  44 

106^      ' ' 

8,905  84 

Jan.    15 

G.  Stevenson       -            -            - 

1,898  49 

126i  per  cent. 

15 

SirW.  Keppell 

2,025  05 

126i  ' ' 

June  28 

J.  &  A.  Squire                 -             - 

999  50 

128     " 

Charlotte  Cacid 

999  50 

128     " 

July   15 

Sir  W.  Keppel,  &  G.  Sterenson  - 

4,136  33 

129|  '• 

1632,    Jan.   15 

Do 

2,269  87 

124i  '* 

16 

Baring",  Brothers,  &  Co. 

12,456  06 

124^  " 

16 

Dr.  Thomas  Horsfield 

5,978  91 

124^  •• 

16 

Do 

1,245  68 

124i  ♦« 

Feb.    3 

John  A.  Hawkins 

4,728  55 

124^  " 

$40,637  86 

RECAPITULATION. 

Amount  of  three  per  cents.         ... 
Amdunt  of  four  J^nd  a  half  per  cents.     • 
Amount  of  five  per  cents.  .  -  - 

Amount  of  Bank  stock 


119,500  21 

11,564  04 

8,905  84 

40,637  86 


Total  amount  of  investments  for  foreigners  since  Jan.  1831    -    $180,607  95 
On  all  of  which  a  brokerage  of  one-quarter  percent,  was  paid. 


Doc.  28. 
ANSWER  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  BANK  TO  QUESTION  OF  THE  COMMITTEE. 

Statement  of  the  fees  paid  to  counsel  for  their  opinions  in  regard  to  the 

the  issue  of  bra^ich  drafts. 
To  Horace  Binney,  Esq.     -  •  -  -  -  -         50 

To  Daniel  Webster  ..*.--       100 

To  William  Wirt  -  -  -  .  •  -      100 


$250 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


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540  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  30. 

Bank  op  the  United  States, 

Jipril  18,  1832. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  enclose  my  letter  to  you  of  the  16th  in- 
stant, and  also- further  answers  to  the  inquiries  of  the  committee.  Should 
there  be  any  thing  not  answered  fully  before  your  departure,!  shall  endea- 
vor to  forward  the  information  to  Washington,  without  delay.  In  the 
meantime, 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully  your's, 
Honorable  A.  S.  Clayton,  N.  BIDDLE,  President, 

Chairman  of  the  Com.  of  Investigation, 

Philadelphia, 


Doc.  31. 

•  Bank  op  the  United  States, 

.6tpril2%  1832. 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  enclose  answers  to  those  inquiries  which  I  was 
unable  to  investigate  before  you  left  Philadelphia. 

In  the  correspondence  with  the  Department  of  War,  on  the  subject  of  the 
pension  agency  at  Albany,  frequent  allusion  is  made  to  the  removal  of  the 
pension  agency  from  Portsmoutli  to  Concord.  In  order  to  present  the 
whole  subject  fully  to  the  committee,  1  have  tiiought  it  proper  to  add  the 
correspondence  in  regard  to  this  latter  case,  as  necessary  to  elucidate  the 
former. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  your's, 

N.  BIDDLE,  President. 
Honorable  A.  S.  Clayton, 

Chairman  of  the  Com.  of  Investigation, 

Washington,  D.  C. 


Doc.  32. — [Copy  withdrawn.] 


Doc.   33.-— No.   1. 

Philadelphia,  *j^pril  25,   1832. 
Dear  Sir:  I  received,  to-day,  a  note  from  Mr.  Reed,  who  is  attending  a 
court  in  Butler  county,  enclosing  your  note  to  him  of  the  22d  instant,  and 
requesting  me  to  attend  to  it. 

I  have  accordingly  caused  the  rules  to  which  your  questions  refer,  to  be 
copied,  and  now  enclose  them. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

N.  BIDDLE. 
Hon.  C.  C    Cambreleng,  Washington,  D.  C, 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  541 

Doc.  33.— No.  2. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  the  following  bye-laws  and  regulations 
of  tlie  bank  still  in  force? 

Bye-laws  for  the  government  of  the  offices. 
Article  12.  There  shall  be  at  least  one  discount  day  in  each  week,  when 
the  directors  shall  be  assembled;  a  majority  of  the  members  shall  be  required 
to  form  a,  quorum,  except  for  the  purpose  of  settling  discounts,  for  which 
five  shall  constitute  a  quorum;  and  no  bill  or  note  shall  be  discounted,  the  un- 
expired term  of  which  exceeds  sixty  days. 

Article  16.  On  each  application  for  discount,  every  director  who  may  be 
present  shall  be  held  to  give  his  opinion  for  or  against  the  same.  And  no 
discount  shall  be  made  without  the  consent  of  three-fourths  of  the  directors 
present;  and  all  notes  and  bills  discounted  shall  be  entered  in  a  book,  to  be 
called  the  credit  book,  in  such  manner. as  to  discover  to  the  board,  at  one 
view,  on  each  discount  day,  the  amount  which  any  person  is  discounter,  or 
is  indebted  to  the  office,  either  as  payer  or  as  endorser. 

Plan  No.  1,  relating  to  exchange  business  in  the  Bank  of  the  U.  States, 
Article  2.  All  the  exchange  business  of  the  bank  and  of  its  offices  shall 
pass  through  the  exchange  department,  and  once  a  week  at  least  a  statement 
of  the  affairs  of  the  department  shall  be  laid  before  the  board  of  directors. 
This  statement  shall  embrace  the  operations  both  of  the  paren'  bank  and  of 
its  offices,  and  shall  present  such  a  view  of  them  as  will  exhibit  the  -course 
of  trade  between  all  the  cities  of  the  United  States  where  offices  are  or  may 
be  established. 

Article  4.  No  bill  shall  be  purchased  if  objected  to  by  a  single  member  of 
the  de|)artment. 

Article  5.  Bills  of  exchange  purchased  by  the  exchange  department  shall 
have  at  least  two  responsible  names  as  drawers  or  endorsers,  one  of  which 
shall  be  a  resident  of  Philadelphia.  They  shall  be  made  payable  at  some  place 
where  an  office  or  connexion  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  is  established, 
and  shall  not  have  more  than  ninety  days  to  run  over  and  above  the  usual  time 
of  conveyance  by  mail. 

Plan  No.  2 — relating  to  exchange  business  in  the  offices. 

Article  4.  Bills  of  exchange  purchased  by  the  exchange  department  shall 
have  at  least  two  responsible  names,  one  of  which  shall  be  a  resident  of  the 
place.  They  shall  not  have  more  than  ninety  days  to  run  over  and  above  the 
usual  time  of  conveyance  by  mail,  and  shall  be  made  payable  at  Philadelphia, 
or  some  place  where  the  bank  has  an  office  or  connexion  established. 

Article  6.  Bills  drawn  or  endorsed  by  a  member  of  the  department  shall 
not  be  passed  upon  until  all  other  bills  are  disposed  of,  and  the  member  so  in- 
terested shall  have  retired,  when  his  place  shall  be  filled  by  any  other  mem- 
ber of  the  board  of  directors  whom  the  president  may  call  for  that  purpose. 


Doc.  33.— No.  3. 
Jinswer  of  the  President  of  the  Bank  to  question  respecting  the  bye-laws. 
The  inquiry  is,  whether  articles  12  and  16  of  the  bye  laws  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  offices,  articles  Nos.  2,  4,  and  5  of  the  plan  No.  1  for  conducting 
the  exchange  business  of  the  bank,  and  also  articles  Nos.  4  and  6  of  the  plan 


542  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

No.  2,  for  conducting  the  exchange  business  of  the  offices,  are  yet  in  force. 
And,  also,  do  the  board  of  directors  consider  the  rules  and  regulations  which 
they  have  prescribed  to  themselves,  as  absolutely  binding,  or  do  they  feel 
authorized  to  dispense  with  them,  under  special  circumstances? 

1st.  The  12th  article  of  the  bye-laws  for  the  government  of  the  offices,  re- 
stricting their  discounts  to  notes  having  not  more  than  sixty  days  to  run,"  was 
passed  on  the  3d  of  January,  1817,  and  was  doubtless  adapted  to  the  state  of 
the  bank  at  that  time.  It  has  not  yet  been  formally  repealed;  but,  being 
found  impracticable,  and  not  calculated  for  the  business  of  the  country,  or 
the  convenience  of  the  bank,  all  the  branches  I  believe,  without  exception, 
have,  from  time  to  time,  been,  by  special  resolutions  and  instructions,  ex- 
empted from  its  operation.  It  is,  therefore,  in  fact  repealed,  though  not  in 
form.  In  the  revision  of  the  bye-laws  ordered  by  the  board,  and  now  in 
progress,  the  rule  is  modified, 

2d.   Article  16  is  in  force. 

Sd.  Articles  2,  4,  and  5,  of  the  plan  No.  1,  for  conducting  the  exchange 
business  of  the  bank,  are  not  in  force  This  plan  was  adopted  in  the  year 
1817,  when  the  bank  was  first  going  Into  operation,  but  I  believe  it  was  never 
carried  into  effect.  There  has  never  been  an  exchange  department  organized 
agreeably  to  this  plan. 

Articles  No.  4  and  6,  of  the  plan  No.  2,  are  in  force,  exceptso  far  as  they 
may  have  undergone  modifications,  by  instructions  to  particular  offices, 
growing  out  of  the  exchange  operations  adapted  to  their  respective  localities. 

In  regard  to  the  power  of  the  board  to  dispense,  under  particular  circum- 
stances, with  the  rules  which  they  have  themselves  prescribed  for  the  gene- 
ral course  of  their  own  business,  that  power  has  been  very  frequently  exer- 
cised, and  seems  indispensible. 

This  dispensation  becomes  the  more  necessary  when  large  powers  are  del- 
egated by  the  board  to  one  of  its  committees,  for  the  purpose  of  making  in* 
vestments  or  other  operations,  where  the  very  grant  of  the  powers  implies, 
that,  under  the  ordinary  rules,  the  operations  cannot  be  accomplished;  and 
the  very  object  of  conferring  the  enlarged  powers  is  to  release  the  committee 
from  a  rigid  compliance  with  these  rules.  This  observation  applies  specially 
to  the  loans  made  by  the  exchange  committee,  who  were  expressly  invested 
with  an  authority  which,  from  its  very  nature,  exempted  them  from  many  of 
the  ordinary  rules  of  discounting. 


Doc.  34. — r[Copy  withdrawn.] 


Doc.   35. 

[confidential.] 

Treasury  Department, 

September  29 y  1S31. 

Dear  Sir:  The  commissioners  of  the  sinking  fund  having  decided  to 
purchase  the  three  per  cents.  I  avail  myself  of  your  obliging  ofier  of  the  aid 
of  the  officers  of  your  institution  in  effecting  the   purchase.     You  will  be 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  543 

pleased  to  adopt  such  precautions  as  will  enable  them  to  ^o  so  without  excit- 
ing suspicion  that  the  purchasers  are  for  the  Government,  as  such  an  im- 
pression could  not  fail  to  enhance  the  price  in  the  market. 

It  is  perceived  that  the  present  price  of  that  stock  ranges  between  $  93 
and  $  9M  for  $  100,  and  that  some  sales  have  very  recently  been  made  at 
the  lowest  of  those  rates.  The  activity  which  the  purchases  for  the  Go- 
vernment will  produce  in  the  market,  may  perhaps  increase  the  price. 

The  utmost  confidence,  however,  is  entertained,  that  the  purchases  made 

through  your  agency,  will  be  on  the  best  terms  that  are  attainable.    But  you 

will  not  go  beyond  $  95,  without  further  instructions  from  the  department. 

I  will  thank  you  to  report,  from  time  to  time,  the  purchases  which  may  be 

made  under  this  authority.    . 

1  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  great  respect. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

LOUIS  M'LANE, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
Nicholas  Biddle,  Esq. 

President  qf  the  Bank  U.  States, 


544 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 


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«                       r?^          .            ^'                               5 

[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  545 

Doc.   37. 
Examination  of  Joseph  Cowperthwaite, 

Question.  Did  you  examine  the  books  and  officers  of  the  branch  at  Nor- 
forlk,  touching  the  accounts  of  Samuel  Grice,  and  what  was  the  result  of  that 
examination? 

Answer.  I  did,  and  found  the  accounts  to  correspond  with  the  evidence 
of  Francis  gnd  Samuel  Grice,  the  teller,  and  the  statement  of  the  cashier. 

Question.  Are  the  papers  now  shown  to  you,  purporting  to  be,  1st,  the 
deposition  of  Francis  Grice,  dated  5lh  October,  1831;  2d,  the  letterof  Sam- 
uel Grice  to  yourself,  dated  15th  September,  1831;  and,  3d,  the  certificate  of 
Thomas  L.  Robertson,  teller  of  the  Norfolk  branch,  the  true  originals?  Pa- 
pers referred  to  marked 

Answer.     They  are  so. 

Question.  Have  you  examined  the  books  of  the  branch  at  Norfolk,  so  as 
to  ascertain  whether  the  discount  on  the  check  drawn  by  the  navy  agent  at 
Norfolk,  in  favor  of  Alexander  Wilson,  was  regularly  passed  to  the  credit 
of  the  bank? 

Answer.  I  examined  the  particular  case  referred  to  in  the  certificate  of  A, 
Wilson,  now  before  the  committee,  and  found  the  amount  of  discount  regu- 
larly credited. .   (Marked         .) 

Mr.  McDuifie  read  the  deposition  of  Miles  King.     (Marked         .) 

Question.  Is  the  affidavit  of  Miles  King,  now  shown  to  you,  the  original 
document? 

Answer.  It  is  the  paper  handed  to  me  as  the  original  document  in  the 
course  of  my  examinations  at  Norfolk. 

Question.  W^ere  the  papers  returned  by  you  to  Mr.  Mcintosh  understood 
to  be  definitely  returned?  ' ' 

Answer.     They  were. 

Question.  Have  you  the  letter  of  Mr.  Mcintosh  requesting  the  return  of 
those  papers? 

■  Answer.  I  believe  the  documents  now  laid  before  the  committee,  pur- 
porting to  be  copies  of  the  above  letter,  and  my  reply,  to  be  substantially  cor- 
rect.    (Marked         .) 

Question.  What  were  the  particular  papers  returned  by  you  to  Mr.  Mc- 
intosh, upon  the  request  contained  in  his  letter,  dated  10th  March,  1832? 

Answer.  The  documents  referred  tn,  as  having  been  returned  to  Mr.  Mc- 
intosh, were  returned  to  him  definitively,  and  were,  to  the  best  of  my  recol- 
lection, copies  of  nine  accounts  filed  in  the  office  of  the  Fourth  Auditor,  each 
attested  by  him,  the  deposition  of  Alexander  Wilson,  and  a  newspaper  pub- 
lished at  Norfolk,  (I  believe  the  Norfolk  Beacon,)  containing  some  remarks 
respecting  the  accounts  of  Mr.  King,  the  late  navy  agent. 

Mr.  McDuffie  read  the  affidavit  of  David  Seabury. 

Question.  Is  the  paper  now  handed  to  you,  (marked  )  purporting  to 
be  David  Seabury's  deposition,,  the  paper  which  was  exhibited  to  you  dur- 
ing your  investigation  of  the  charges  brought  by  Mr.  Mcintosh  against  the 
cashier  of  the  Norfolk  branch? 

Answer.     It  is. 

Question.  Did  you  find,  on  examining  the  books  at  Norfolk,  that  they 
confirmed  the  deposition  of  Mr.  Seabury? 

Answer.     They  did  confirm  it 
69 


546  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Mr.  McDuffie  read  the  deposition  of  John  Wickham. 

Question.  Is  the  paper  (marked  ,)  now  shown  to  you,  the  original  de- 
posilion  of  John  Wickham,  which  was  exhibited  to  you  at  Norfolk? 

Answer.     It  is. 

Question.  Did  you  find  on  examining  the  books  of  the  branch  that  they 
confirmed  the  statement  in  the  deposition  of  the  said  Wickham? 

Answer.     I  did. 

Mr.  IMcDuffie  read  the  deposition  of  Stephen  Harris. 

Question.  Is  the  paper  (marked  ,)  now  shown  to  you,  the  original  de- 
position of  Stephen  Harris,  which  was  exhibited  to  you  at  Norfolk,  and  did 
you  find  the  statement  in  it  confirmed  by  the  books  of  the  branch? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Mr.  McDuffie  read  the  statement  of  Mordecai  Cooke,  and  the  deposition 
of  Peter  Herron. 

Question.  Are  the  papers  now  shown  to  you  (marked  ,)  purporting 
to  be  the  statements  of  Mr.  Cooke,  and  the  deposition  of  Mr.  Herron,  the 
documents  exhibited  by  you  at  Norfolk,  and  did  you  find  them  verified  by 
the  books  of  the  branch? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question.  Is  the  letter  (marked  ,)  the  letter  of  the  president  of  the 
branch  at  Norfolk,  and  was  the  paper  (marked  )  enclo3ed  in  it  as  a  co- 
py of  a  letter  from  the  cashier? 

Answer.  They  are  so,  and  were  given  in  evidence  before  the  Committee 
on  the  Offices. 

Question.  Did  the  books  of  the  branch  bank  at  Norfolk,  when  examin- 
ed by  you,  corroborate  the  explanations  given  by  the  cashier,  in  his  letter, 
(marked,^  ,)  relative  to  the  erasures  on  the  checks  in  favor  of  Joseph 
Grice  and  Maximilian  Herbert? 

Answer.     They  did. 

Question.  What  do  you  mean  in  the  technical  language  of  banking,  by 
discounting  a  draft  payable  at  sight? 

Answer.  I  mean  that  it  is  an  abatement  or  deduction  from  the  principal 
sum.  ,  .:  ^ .      ...         ,..■.■,.;.-■ 

Question,  is  the  paper  (marked  ,)  purporting  to  be  a  letter  from  the 
cashier  of  the  Norfolk  office  to  Mr.  Biddle,  d^ted  6th  August,  1831,  the 
original  document? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Mr.  McDuffie  read  the  deposition  of  Peter  Herron,  included  in  the  depo- 
sition (marked         )  already  read. 

Question.  Did  you,  while  at  Norfolk  engaged  in  the  investigation  of  the 
charges  against  the  cashier  at  that  place,  inquire  whether  the  words  "pay  to  the 
cashier  United  States'  branch  bank"  were  stricken  out  from  the  endorsement 
of  the  United  States'  navy  agent's  check  in  favor  of  Maximilian  Herbert 
for  §1,065  19,  with  a  view  of  enabling  him,  the  said  cashier,  to  realize  a 
profit  to  himself? 

Answer.  The  examination  I  made  at  Norfolk,  and  I  found  that  the  cashier, 
during  an  interregnum  in  the  navy  agent's  business,  occuring  between  the 
appointment  of  the  present  and  the  retirement  of  the  late  navy  agent,  had 
paid  in  advance,  at  the  request  of  the  pavy  agent,  sundry  checks  to  difierent 
mdividuals;  that,  in  afterwards  receiving  from  the  navy  agent  these  amounts, 
he  receipted  some  of  them  in  his  individual  capacity.  The  one  alluded  to  is  a 
C|se  in  point,  but  nothing  was  disclosed  during  my  examination  tending,  in 


[  Bep.  No.  460.  ]  547 

any  degree,  to  induce  a  belief  that  the  cashier  had  a  view  to  realize  a  profit 
to  himself. 

Question.     Are  not  all  drafts  considered  upon  sight  where  no  day  of  pay- 
ment is  mentioned?  ^f 
Answer.     They  are  generally. 

Question.  Has  not  the  branch  at  Norfolk  suffered  Miles  King,  late  nayy 
agent,  to  overdraw  the  amount  of  his  funds  $40,144?  If  yea,  state  to  whom 
the  bank  looks  for  that  debt. 

Answer.  The  late  navy  agent  has  so  been  permitted  to  overdraw,  and  the- 
bank  looks  to  the  security  taken  from  him,  individually,  for  the  payment 
of  this  debt. 

Question.  Did  not  the  president  of  that  branch  endeavor  to  make  the  loss 
fall  first  on  the  Government,  and  then  upon  the  stockholders? 

Answer.     I  am  not  acquainted  with  this  matter. 

Question.  Did  not  the  cashier  suffer  this  overdrawing  to  continue  after 
King  himself  had  sta^^^ed  that  he  expected  to  leave  his  office?  If  yea,  state 
the  period  of  time  when  it  took  place.  ^ 

Answer.     I  am  not  acquainted  with  this  circumstance. 

Question.  Were  the  papers  you  returned  to  Mr.  Mcintosh,  before  the- 
Committee  on  the  Offices  which  investigated  the  charges  against  the  cashier 
at  Norfolk? 

Answer.     They  were. 

Question  by  Me.  Clayton.  Were  the  charges  made  by  Mr.  McIntoA 
against  the  president  of  the  Norfolk  branch  investigated? 

Answer.  Not  by  me,  but  they  were  laboriously  examined  by  a  commit- 
tee of  the  directors  here.  •  , 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.     Have  you  the  proceedings  of  that  committee? 

Answer.     They  are  on  the  books  of  the  bank. 

Mr.  Cowperthwaite  was  then  requested  to  produce  them. 


Doc,   38. 
Examination  of  Joshua  Lippincott. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  you  a  Government  director  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States? 

Answer.     lam. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  What  is  the  usual  limit  for  the  term  of 
credit  on  notes  and  bills  discounted  by  the  bank? 

Answer.  The  credit  has  varied  at  different  times.  Sometimes  the'lDank 
has  discounted  at  longer  credits  than  at  others,  according  to  its  funds.  It 
has  sometimes  discounted  at  eight  months,  but  not  often.  "'"' 

'^,',  Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Stale  "'whether  the  board  of  directors 
iiave  ever  discounted  notes  of  hand  without  any  collateral  security,  drawn 
by  one  partner,  and  endorsed  by  another? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  that  they  have  ever  done  so  knowingly. 
It  has  always  been  objected  to. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  variou» 
loans  made  to  James  Watson  Webb  &  M.  M.  Noah,  on  9th  August  and 
16th  December,  1831,  and  2d  January,  1832,  amounting  to  1^52,795? 

Answer.  I  recollect,  not  a  great  while  after  my  appointment,  there  waa 
an  application  from  Mr.  Webb,  of  New  York:     I  think  there  was  a  note 


548  X  ^^P-  N^-  ^^^'  ] 

;for  ^20,000  discounted  for  him — a  representation  in  his  favor  being  made  by- 
Mr.  Walter  Bowne,  of  New  York,  on  the  strength  of  which  I  think  the  board 
discounted  the  note,  believing  it  to  be  good.  At  that  lime,  the  bank  had 
plenty  of  money. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.     Had  you  any  knowledge,  at  the  time  of 
the  discount  of  9th  August,  1831,  of  the  existence  of  a  loan  of  &17,795, 
imade  directly  or  indirectly  to  any  person  upon  the  paper  of  M.  M.  Noah, 
endorsed  by  J.  W.  Webb  antecedent  to  that  date? 

Answer.     I  had  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Would  you  have  consented  to  discount  the 
note  of  Webb  and  Noah  for  ^20^000,  on  9th  August,  1831,  if  you  had 
known  by  the  advance  made  by  the  president  of  the  bank  to  the  amount 
of  $17,975  on  the  notes  of  the  same  parties? 

Answer.  My  recollection  does  not  serve  me  at  present,  so  as  to  enable 
^me  to  say  what  my  ideas  were,  at  that  time,  as  to  the  exact  standing  of  the 
parties,  but  I  can  answer  in  general  terms  that  I  have  never  known  a  dis- 
count sanctioned  by  the  board,  for  which  it  did  not  believe  the  parties  to 
be  perfectly  good. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  discounts 
•made  for  Silas  E.  Burrows,  on  2d  and  14th  of  March  last,  amounting' to 
upwards  of  ;g40,000? 

Answer.     I  do  not  recollect  them. 

Qjestion  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  the  letter  now  shown  to  you,  dated 
5th  August,  1831,  the  letter  of  Waller  Bowne,  to  which  you  have  referred? 
(marked       ) 

Answer.     I  have  no  recollection  of  this  letter. 
VitjQuestion  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.     Has  there  not  been  a  pressure  on  the 
money  market  since  October  last? 

Answer.  There  has  been  a  very  considerable  pressure,  which,  I  believe, 
'commenced  about  that  time. 


Doc.  39. 
Examination  of  Samuel  Nicholas — 29ih  March, 

Question  by  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.    Do  you  keep  the  leger  from  R  to  2? 

Answer.   I  do. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  credit  the  account  of  J.  W. 
Webb,  on  the  16th  December,  1831,  with  the  nett  proceeds  of  a  note  for 
1^15,000,  being  ^  14,540? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Why  were  the  notes  discounted  for  J. 
Walson  Webb,  on  the  2d  January,  1832,  not  passed  to  his  credit  in  the 
leger? 

Answer.  Because  they  were  marked  as  subject  to  a  check  immediately: 
discounts  so  marked  are  not  carried  to  the  leger. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.   How  long  have  you  kept  this  leger? 

Answer.   Since  November  last. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Where  an  account  is  open  with  an  individual 
.obtaining  a  discount,  is  it  not  customary  to  pass  the  discount  to  his  credit  in 
,|l)p  leger? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  549 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Do  you  recollect  any  case,  except  that  of  Mr. 
Webb,  in  which  this  rule  has  been  departed  from? 

Answer.   I  have  no  recollection  of  any  other. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDufBe.  When  a  person  having  an  account  in  the 
books  closed,  obtains  a  discount  which  he  means  to  draw  immediately  from 
the  bank,  is  it  entered  on  the  leger? 

Answer.     No,  I  think  notj  but  the  discount  clerks  can  answer  more  fully. 


Doc.  40. 
Examination  of  William  Gulager — 29/A  March, 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  *Do  you  keep  the  leger  from  A  to  D. 

Answer.   I  do. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  there  not  three  checks  drawn  by  Silas 
E.  Burrows,  on  2d  March,  1832,  for  gJ  17,975,  ^5,000,  and  ^10,000,  re- 
spectively, all  payable  to  himself,  charged  to  his  account  on  your  leger? 

Answer.   There  are. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  there  not  two  checks  drawn  by  Silas 
E.  Burrows,  one  dated  March  12,  1832,  for  ^5,000,  and  the  other  dated 
March  14th,  1832,  for  ^9,500,  charged  to  his  account? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  How  long  have  you  kept  this  leger? 

Answer.  I  shall  have  kept  it  four  years  next  month. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Has  Mr.  Burrows  ever  had  an  account  be- 
fore 2d  March  last? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Had  Mr.  Burrows  any  account  in  bank 
from  5th  October,  1831,  to  2d  March,  1832? 

Answer.  No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Had  Mr.  Burrows  ever  a  discount  before 
the  2d  March  last? 

Answer.     No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Has  Mr.  Burrows  ever  had  any  other  ac- 
count in  bank? 

Answer.  He  has  had  none  that  I  know  of,  previous  to  the  3 1st  January, 
1831. 

Doc.  41. 
Examination  of  John  Bohlen — 29/A  March, 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Have  you  any  recollection  of  a  note  discount- 
ed on  the  9th  August,  1831,  for  J.  Watson  Webb,  for  ;g2(),000? 

Answer.   I  recollect  that  it  was  before  the  board. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Have  5'^ou  any  recollection  of  a  letter  submit- 
ted to  the  board  from  Walter  Bowne,  of  New  York,  in  favor  of  Mr.  Webb's 
application? 

Answer.  I  have  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  you  a  director  of.r^ejbank,  an4  a 
member  of  the  Exchange  Committee? 


550  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Answer.  I  am  the  oldest  director,  and  have  been  in  the  Exchange  Com- 
mittee for  three  years. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  whether  there  wer«  any 
other  names  on  the  note  than  those  of  Webb  and  Noah? 

Answer.   I  do  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Is  your  impression  that  the  note  was  before  the 
board  derived  from  your  own  recollection,  or  from  its  appearing  on  the 
books? 

Answer.  From  its  appearance  on  the  books;  but  from  the  multiplicity  of 
business  that  comes  before  the  board,  I  cannot,  at  this  distance  of  time, 
«peak  with  entire  positiveness. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Are  all  the  cases  of  discounts  on  personal  se- 
curity passed  upon  by  the  Exchange  Committee,between  discount  days,  usu- 
ally laid  before  the  board  at  their  next  meeting? 

Answer.   Yes,  ihey  are,  generally. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  whether  there  was  any 
expression  of  opinion  at  the  board  with  regard  to  the  responsibility  of  J. 
Watson  Webb? 

Answer.   I  do  not.  « 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  it  usual  to  discount  a  note  for  so  large 
an  amount  as  ig20,000,  without  full  informsftion  with  regard  to  the  solvency 
of  the  parties? 

Answer.  A  note  presented  is  silently  passed  by  each  director,  unless  he 
knows  some  objectoin.    if  he  does,  it  is  slated. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  it  usual  for  the  bank  to  discount  the  notes 
of  citizens  of  other  States  made  payable  in  Philadelphia,  without  an  endorser 
in  the  latter  place? 

Answer.   It  is  sometimes  done,  but  not  very  generally. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Had  you  yoUrself  any  knowledge  of  the 
standing  of  J.  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah? 

Answer.  I  have  no  personal  knowledge  of  either:  but  may  have  been  in- 
formed of  their  standing  at  the  time  of  the  discount  of  their  notes:  I  cannot 
recollect  distinctly.     I  have  no  knowledge  of  their  standing  now. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  remember  whether  there  was  any 
other  than  the  personal  security  of  W^ebb  and  Noah? 

Answer.  I  do  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  it  not  very  unusual  for  the  bank  to  dis- 
count a  note  ol  hand  drawn  and  endorsed  by  persons  living  in  another  State, 
and  made  payable  in  Philadelphia? 

Answer.   It  is  not  usual,  but  sometimes  occurs. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  it  the  custom  of  the  bank  to  discount 
a  note  drawn  by  one  partner  of  a  firm  and  endorsed  by  another? 

Answer.   It  is  not,  when  they  are  known  to  be  partners. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  not  the  following — "  discounts  shall  not 
be  made  upon  personal  security  without  two  responsible  names,  (the  firm  of 
a  house  being  considered  as  one  name  only") — now  in  force  as  apart  of  the 
bye-laws  of  the  bank? 

/  nswer.  Iti:?  the  rule,  but  no  bank  can,  at  all  times,  adhere  to  it. 

M      Cambreleng.  You  are  the  chairman  of  the  Exchange 

•>  Answer. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  551 

Doc.  42. 
Examination  of  Mraham  Carlile,  jr.— -March  29. 

Question  by  Mr.  Watmough.  Who  are  the  discount  clerks  who  keep  the 
offering  books.'* 

Answer.   Mr.  Burtis,  Mr.  Lehman,  and  myself. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  make  up  the  discount  offering 
book  for  10th  February,  1832? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  How  far  did  you  progress  with  the  entries 
on  9th  February,  1832? 

Answer.  To  No.  309. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  know  when  you  put  the  tbree  fol 
lowing  notes  on  the  discount  book? 

Answer.  They  must  have  been  entered  after  that  day. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  the  note.  No.  311,  drawn  by  J.  W, 
Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah,  and  discounted  for  J.  Watson  Webb  &  Co.,  dated 
11th  February,  1832,  at  six  months,  for  ^18,000,  recorded  by  you  on  the 
offering  book,  dated  10th  February? 

Answer.  It  was. 

Question.   Was  not  that  note  recorded  after  the  discount  day? 

Answer.  I  should  say  from  the  date  that  it  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  erase,  on  the  credit  book,  any 
notes  discounted  for  J.  W.  Webb,  which  had  not  arrived  at  maturity? 

Answer.  I  think  not. 


Doc.  43— No.  1. 
Examination  of  John  Burtis.  '^^t 

Question' by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  not  James  Watson  Webb  offer  to  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  on  the  9th  August,  183J,  a  note  drawn  by  James 
Watson  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah,  for  ;g20,000,  at  six  months'  credit;  and 
was  not  the  same  discounted  for  the  credit  of  the  said  James  Watson  Webb? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Ca.-nbreleng.  Was  any  other  name  upon  tjiis  paper? 

Ailswer.  I  believe  there  was  no  other. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  not  record  that  note  in  the  offer- 
ing book  yourself? 

Answer.  Yes, 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  this  note  laid  before  the  president 
and  directors  at  their  regular  meeting? 

Answer.  To  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  the  books  indicate  that  it  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  The  entry  of  the  names  of  Webb  and  Noah 
is  in  a  different  handwriting  and  ink  from  those  names  just  before  and  after: 
explain  the  reason  of  it. 

Answer.  The  reason  is,  that  I  have  one  inkstand,  and  the  other  discount 
clerks  have  others.  I  made  this  entry,  and  the  other  entries  were  made  by 
the  other  discount  clerks. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng,  Have  you  more  than  one  offering  Lj^it? 

Answer.  We  have  three. 


S5-2  [  Rep.  No.  ^60.  ] 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Explain  the  use  of  them. 

Answer.  On  one  is  recorded  all  the  notes  payable  any  where  in  the  Uni- 
ted States  out  of  this  city,  and  is  called  the  domestic  exchange  book.  An- 
other is  called  an  extra  discount  book,  and  contains  all  the  loans  thai  are 
made  upon  stocks.  And  the  third  contains  the  record  of  all  promissory 
notes  between  individuals,  which  are  called  notes  on  personal  security,  and 
are  payable  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia.  All  three  are  regularly  submitted 
to  the  board  of  directors. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  On  which  of  these  three  books  was  the 
note  of  Webb  and  Noah  recorded? 

Answer.   On  the  book  of  personal  securities. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  not  notes  sometimes  discounted  by 
the  Exchange  Committee,  which  have  not  been  previously  submitted  to  the 
board? 

Answer.  They  are.  This  is  the  principal  object  of  having  the  Exchange 
Committee,  to  accommodate  the  public  on  other  than  the  regular  discount 
days. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  If  a  note  be  discounted  by  the  Exchange  Com- 
mittee on  any  day  between  the  days  of  offering,  does  it  uniformly  appear 
first  on  the  next  succeeding  offering  day? 

Answer.  No.  All  notes  handed  in  previous  to  the  closing  of  the  books, 
are  generally  included  in  the  work  of  the  last  discount  day. 


No.  2. 
Examination  of  John  Burtis  resumed — March  29. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Referring  to  the  discount  on  the  9th  Au- 
gust, 1831,  of  James  Watson  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah's  note,  for  ;ig  20,000, 
was  that  note  recorded  after  the  discount  book  had  been  submitted  to  the 
board  of  directors,  and  returned  to  the  clerks  who  keep  the  offering  book? 

Answer.   I  believe  it  was  put  on  after  the  board  adjourned. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  is  meant  by  the  No.  147,  set  down  op- 
posite to  the  record  of  this  note? 

Answer.  It  is  usual  to  set  down  the  number  only  in  cases  in  which  the 
notes  have  come  before  the  board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Is  not  the  entry  of  J.  Watson  Webb  and  M. 
M.  Noah's  note  for  ig  20,000,  made  on  the  offering  book  on  9th  August, 
1831,  in  ink  different  from  that  in  which  the  notes  preceding  and  succeed- 
ing are  entered? 

Answer.  Yes.  The  reason  is  that  that  note  was  entered  by  me,  and  the 
preceding  and  succeeding  entries  were  made  by  Mr.  Lehman. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Is  not  the  note  of  Thomas  Fitch,  which  is 
separated  from  that  of  Webb  by  ten  others,  in  your  handwriting  and  in  the 
same  ink? 

Answer.   Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Bo  you  recollect  why  the  entry  of  J.  Watson 
Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah's  note  was  made  by  you,  while  the  entries  of  the 
notes  ^receding  and  succeeding  are  made  in  the  handwriting  of  another? 

A'lsyv^er.  I  believe  it  was  done  in  the  absence  of  the  other  clerk,  as  is  of- 
ten\.\ie  case. 


[  feep.  No.  460.  3  553^ 

No.  3. 
Re-examination  of  John  Burtis  resumed — 29M  March, 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  keep  the  credit  book  from  L  to  Z? 

Answer.   Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  erase  the  following  notes,  viz. 
one  for  $  15,000,  payable  16th  June,  1832;  one  for  $  1,595,  due  23d  April, 
1832;  one  for  ^1,640,  due  23d  October,  1832;  one  for  ^  1,685,  due  23d 
April,  1833;  one  for  $  1,730,  due  23d  October,  1833;  one  for  $  1,775,  due 
33d  April,  1834;  one  for  $  1,820,  due  24th  October,  1834;  one  for  g  1,865, 
due  25th  April,  1835;  one  for  ^1,910,  due  23d  October,  1835;  one  for 
^  1,955,  due  23d  April,  1836,  and  one  for  jg  2,000,  due  25th  October,  18363^ 
all  purporting,  on  the  credit  book,  to  have  been  discounted  for  J.  Watsoa 
Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah? 

Answer.  No — I  did  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  the  name  of  J.  Watson  Webb  on  the 
index  of  the  credit  book? 

Answer.  It  is  not,  but  was  omitted  through  an  inadvertency,  which  oc- 
casionally happens. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Whose  business  was  it  to  make  out  the  index 
in  this  case? 

Answer.  It  was  mine.  I  am  ordered  to  index  all  accounts,  and  if  any 
omissions  take  place,  it  is  my  fault. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Did  you  heretofore  discover  that  J.  W. 
Webb's  name  had  been  omitted  in  the  index? 

Answer.  No  — I  did  not.  ^ 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  How  did  you  refer  to  this  account  without 
turning  to  the  index? 

Answer.  I  never  refer  to  the  index  in  any  case,  from  my  familiarity  with 
the  accounts,  they  being  opened  according  to  the  vowels. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Is  Webb's  account  opened  according  to  the 
vowels? 

Answer.  It  is  according  to  the  vowels,  but  not  the  consonants,  and  in' 
conformity  with  the  practice  of  the  bank. 

The  witness  desired  to  explain  why  the  inquiry  was  not  made  at  the 
board,  why  the  name  of  J.  W.  Webb  did  not  appear  on  the  index  of  the 
credit  book.  It  was  because  it  appears  alphabetically  on  the  pay  list;  it  was 
therefore  unnecessary  to  refer  to  the  leger. 


Doo.  44. 
Examination  of  John  T,  Sullivan. 

Question.     Are  you  a  Government  director  of  the  bank? 

Answer.     Yes.  I  took  my  scat  at  the  board  on  10th  January  last. 

Question.     State  the  usual  limit  of  credit  on  notes  and  bills  of  exchange 
discounted  by  the  bank? 

Answer.     The  usual  term  has  been  four  months  since  I  have  been  a 
director.     Occasionally,   the  board   has  gone  a  few  days  beyond.     Long 
paper  was  objected  to  as  a  matter  of  course. 
70 


5|i4  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Question.  State  whether  the  directors  have  ever  discounted  notes  of 
hand,  without  any  collateral  security,  drawn  by  one  partner  and  endorsed 
by  another? 

Answer.  Phave  seen  such  discounts  on  the  books,  but  none  such  have 
come  before  me  at  the  board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Do  you  know  whether  the  discounts  yo^ 
saw  on  the  books  were  made  by  the  board,  or  the  Exchange  Committee? 

Answer.  I  am  not  aware  of  any  such  notes  having  been  done  by  the 
board;  and,  if  any,  I  do  not  know  by  whom  they  were  done. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  been  regular  in  your  attendance 
at  the  board? 

Answer.  I  believe  I  have  not  missed  a  day  since  I  first  took  my  seat  at 
the  board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  ever  seen  a.  note  oflfered  at  the 
board,  drawn  by  one  partner  and  endorsed  by  another? 

Answer.     No. 

Question.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  various  loans  made  to  J.  W. 
Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah,  on  9th  August,  1831,  and  16th  December,  1831, 
and  2d  January,  1832,  amounting  to  $52,195} 

Answer.  Those  dates  are  anterior  to  my  coming  into  the  board.  I  have 
therefore  no  knowledge  of  them. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  a  discount 
df  4S  18,000  made  for  James  W.  Webb,  on  10th  February  last,  for  the  re- 
newal of  a  note  for  j^20,000?  / 

Answer.     It  was  not  before  the  board.     I  have  seen  it  on  the  books. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  discounts 
made  for  Silas  E.  Burrows,  on  2d  and  14th  of  last  month,  amounting  to 
upwards  of  ^40,000? 

Answer.  No  note  with  that  name  was  offered  on  either  of  those  days  at 
the  board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Has  there  not  been  a  pressure  on  the 
money  market  since  October  last? 

Answer.  I  have  understood  so,  but  since  I  came  into  the  bank,  there 
has  evidently  been  a  heavy  pressure. 

Question  by  Mr  Clayton.  In  consequence  of  this  heavy  pressure  since 
you  came  into  the  board,  has  not  the  board  been  compelled  to  reject  good 
paper,  and  for  small  amounts? 

Answer.     Yes.  For  small  and  large  amounts. 


Doc.  45— No.  1. 
Examination  of  Charles  Lehman. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  James  Watson  Webb  &  Co.  offer  a 
note  for  ^gl 5,000,  dated  13th  December,  at  six  months,  drawn  by  M.  M. 
Wall  and  J.  Watson  Webb? 

Answer.  The  name  of  M.  M.  Wall  was,  by  mistake,  put  in  the  place 
of  M.  M.  Noah;  in  all  other  respects,  I  answer  in  the  affirmative. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  this  note  discounted  for  J.  Watson 
Webb  &  Co.? 

Answer.  It  was. 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  555 

.Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.    Was  there  any  olher  name  upon  that 
note? 
Answer.  I  believe  note^ 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  record. ^this  note  in  the  offering 
book? 

Answer.   I  did. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Why  is  the  entry  of  these  names  in  different 
ink  from  the  rest  of  the  entries  in  the  book,  and  was  it  made  at  the  same 
time  with  the  other  entries? 

Answer.  I  believe  it  was,  and  presume  the  difference  in  the  ink  must 
have  arisen  from  dipping  the  pen  in  another  inkstand. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  not  every  note  that  is  submitted  to  the 
board  on  discount  days,  numbered  in  the  margin? 

Answer.  All  are  numbered  except  such  as  are  sent  into  the  board  during 
its  sitting. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  not  notes  sometimes  discounted  by 
the  Exchange  Committee  between  discount  days? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Are  the  offering  books  for  Tuesday  always 
closed  during  bank  hours  for  that  day? 

Answer.   No. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  they  not  sometimes  kept  open  until 
the  day  previous  to  the  next  offering  day? 

Answer.   They  are. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  What  do  you  understand  by  closing  the  offer* 
ing  books? 

Answer.  Adding  up  the  amount  of  all  the  notes  discounted. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Before  the  offering  hooks  are  closed^  are 
not  all  the  notes  discounted  by  the  Exchange  Committee  added  to  that  list? 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  the  note  of  James  Watson  Webb  in- 
cluded in  the  list,  when  you  made  it  out,  to  be  submitted  to  the  board  of 
directors  on  the  16th  December,  1831? 

Answer.   I  believe  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  enter,  on  the  17th  December^ 
1831,  the  names  of  James  Watson  Webb  &  Co.,  and  of  M.  M.  Wall,  and 
James  Watson  Webb,  on  the  domestic  exchange  book,  which  you  afterward* 
erased? 

Answer.  I  did. 

Question.  What  was  the  cocasion  of  the  erasure? 

Answer.  Because  the  note  was  entered  on  the  wrong  book,  or  rather  the 
entry  was  commenced  there. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  not  the  entry  of  the  note  of  J.  Watson 
Webb  &  Co.  on  the  discount  book,  made  a^ter  the  entry  on  the  domestic 
exchange  book  was  erased,  or  at  the  same  time? 

Answer.   I  presume  it  was  made  at  the  same  time. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  James  Watson  Webb  offer,  on  the  2d 
January,  1832,  the  following  notes,  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah  and  endorsed 
by  him,  dated  1st  April,  1831;  one  for  $1^595,  payable  20th  April,  1832; 
one  for  Si, 640,  payable  20th  October,  1832;  one  for  $1,685,  payable  20th 
April,  1833;  one  for  gl,730,  payable  20th  October,  1833;  one  for  $1,775, 
payable  20th  April,  1834}  one  for  ^1,820,  payable  20th  October,  1834j  oi\ft 


556  t  Rep.  No.  460.  J 

for  {^1,865,  payable  20th  April,  1835;  one  for  §1,910,  payable  20th  Octo- 
ber, 1835;  one  for  S  1,955,  payable  20th  April,  1836;  one  for  ^^2,000,  paya- 
ble 20th  October,  1836;  amounting,  together,  to  gl7,975. 

Answer.  Yes  he  did  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  there  any  other  name  upon  these 
notes? 

Answer  I  believe  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  not  record  tnese  notes  on  the  do- 
mestic exchange  book  yourself.'' 

Answer.  Yes. 

Question  by  Mr,  Cambreleng.  Were  they  recorded  on  a  discount  day? 

Answer.  No. 


No.  2. 
Examination  of  Charles  Lehman  resumed — March  29. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  record  the  last  name  on  the 
discount  book  on  the  10th  February,  1832? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  not  that  note  recorded,  after  you 
had  made  up  the  offering,  and  after  the  offering  book  had  been  returned  to 
the  discount  clerks  by  the  board  of  directors,  on  that  day? 

Answer.  It  appears  to  have  been  nut  on  after  the  book  vras  returned. 
1  did  not  make  up  the  offering  myself. 

Question  by  Mr.  Watmough.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  it  is  your  opinion 
that  the  note  alluded  to  had  not  been  submitted  to  the  board? 

Answer.     No.   I  do  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  When  notes  are  submitted  to  the  board 
of  directors  which  have  not  been  previously  entered  upon  the  offering 
book,  and  the  board  determines  to  discount  them,  are  they  not  usually  re- 
turned, with  the  offering  books,  to  the  discount  clerks,  for  the  purpose  of 
being  entered? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.     Are  they  always  so  returned? 

Answer.     I  cannot  5ay  that  they  are.     *' 


No.  3. 
Re-examinahon  of  Charles  Lehman  resumed — March  29. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  not  record  on  the  domestic  ex- 
<jhange  book,  of  the  2d  March,  1832,  sundry  notes,  twenty-three  in  num- 
ber, all  payable  in  the  State  of  New  York,  amounting  to  ^23,525  71, 
drawn  by  various  persons,  and  discounted  for  Silas  E.  Burrows? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Are  not  all  the  discounts  recorded  on 
that  day,  numbered,  with  the  exception  of  those  for  Silas  E.  Burrows? 

Answer.     Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Is  not  the  discount  for  Silas  E.  Bur- 
rows the  last  upon' the  list? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  557 

Answer.    Yes. 

Queiftion  by  Mr.  Watmough.     Why  are  not  the  discounts  for  Silas  E. 
Burrows  numbered? 

Answer.     Because  they  came  in  on  the  discount  day. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  the  discount  for  Silas  E.  Burrows, 
recorded  on  the  same  day  as  the  other  discounts? 

Answer.     It  was  recorded  on  the  following  day. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you  record  on  the  domestic  ex- 
change book  two  notes,  both  payable  in  New  York,  amounting  in  the  ag- 
gregate to  iSl4,150  50,  on  the  14th  March,  discounted  for  S.  E.  Burrows? 

Answer.    I  did. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  those  notes  recorded  on  discount  day? 

Answer.     No;  I  presume  they  were  discounted  on  the  14th. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  there  not  also  entered  by  you,  on 
the  day  previous  to  the  regular  discount  day,  eight  notes,  all  payable  in 
New  York,  for  Sl0,407  13,  discounted  for  S.  E.  Burrows? 

Answer.     Yes. 


Doc.  46. 

Examination  of  William  Rush,jun, — 29th  March, 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  How  long  have  you  kept  the  leger  R  to  Z? 
Answer.  About  eight  years. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Had  Mr.  Webb  any  account  previous  to 
the  lOlh  August,  1831? 
Answer.  No. 


Doc.  47. 
Examination  of  Thomas  P.  Cope — March  31. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  you,  throughout  the  year  1831,  a  di- 
rector of  the  bank,  and  a  member  of  the  Exchange  Committee? 

Answer.   I  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.   State  the  duties  of  that  committee? 

Answer.  Its  duties  are  various.  They  may  be  said,  in  some  measure,  to 
represent  the  board.  Their  duty  is  more  especially  confined  to  discounts 
and  matters  of  exchange.  They  act  for  the  board,  but  do  not  feel  them- 
selves authorized  in  the  same  general  manner  that  the  board  does.  It  fre* 
quently  happens  that  an  individual  is  called  on  suddenly  for  a  large  sum  of 
money:  if  a  case  of  this  kind  occurs  in  the  recess  of  the  board,  the  commit- 
tee are  authorized  to  discount.  Individuals  sometimes  miscalculate  the  date 
of  their  payments,  and  have,  on  this  account,  to  call  on  the  committee.  The 
greater  portion  of  the  discounts  of  the  committee  consists  of  paper  payable 
out  of  Philadelphia,  strictly  exchange  business,  such  as  drafts,  notes,  and 
acceptances,  payable  in  different  parts  of  the  United  States.  All  their  trans- 
cations  are  recorded,  and  are  subject  to  the  examination  of  the  board.  I 
may  mentiojj  as  a  fact  resulting  from  an  examination  made  by  myself  shortly 
before  1  left  the  bank,  that,  in  transactions  done  by  that  committee,  to  the 


t 


658  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

amount  of  forty  or  fifty  millions  of  dollars,  not  a  loss  of  J?}  1,000  has  ever 
occurred,  i  am  not  aware  of  the  loss  of  a  single  dollar.  Foreign  ejcchanges, 
such  as  bills  payable  abroad,  in  England,  France,  and  Holland,  conKiiute 
the  principal  part  of  the  committee's  duty.  They  also  lend  on  stock,  or  uny 
adeqfJate  security,  and  particubrly  stock  of  the  United  States.  It  is  iheir 
duty  to  take  the  best  security  they  can. 
Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  When  did  you  leave  the  board? 
Answer.   At  the  close  of  last  year. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  You  have  said  the  principal  portion  of  the 
business  of  the  Exchange  Committee  is  in  discounting  foreign  and  domestic 
exchange.  Have  you  not,  in  all  cases  of  discount,  a  drawer  and  endorser, 
besides  the  person  on  whom  the  bill  is  drawn? 

Answer.  We  always  take  care  to  have  what  we  deem  good  security,  but 
not  always  two  names.  We,  of  course,  generally  have  a  drawer  and  an  en- 
dorser; but  sometimes  bills  are  drawn  on  one  of  our  cashiers,  and  then  have 
but  one  responsible  name.  There  are,  however,  but  few  such  cases.  We 
have  done  it  with  Mr.  Girard's  name,  and  others. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  What  is  the  term  of  credit  usually  limited 
by  the  directors,  in  discounting  bills  and  notes  on  personal  security? 

Answer.  Periods  of  payments  are,  of  course,  very  various.  The  board 
has  usually  confined  itself  to  credits  of  four  months.  It  is  governed  in  this 
particular  by  its  own  convenience,  and  the  demand  for  money.  It  has  dis- 
counted at  6  months.  We  discounted  one  set  of  notes  at  one,  two,  and  three 
years,  at  a  time  when  Government  had  paid  off  a  portion  of  its  debt.  They 
were  notes  payable  at  New  Orleans,  and  were  secured  by  mortgage.  It  was 
at  a  time  when  money  was  plenty  with  the  bank,  in  consequence  of  the  Go- 
vernment paying  its  stock. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  any  such  loan  during  a 
general  pressure  on  the  money  market? 

Answer.  Even  when  there  has  been  a  pressure,  we  have  discounted  at 
longer  credits  than  four  months. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  any  instance  of  a  dis- 
count at  two,  three,  four,  and  five  years,  on  personal  security,  unless  it  was 
to  secure  a  doubtful  debt? 

Answer.  There  is  no  such  instance  within  my  recollection. 
Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  any  instance  of  the  dis- 
count of  a  note  drawn  by  one  partner  and  endorsed  by  another,  without  a 
third  name,  unless  through  ignorance  of  the  partnership? 
.  Answer.  I  should  think  it  would  not  be  done  I  have  no  recollection  of 
such  an  instance.  I  think  there  have  been  such  cases  where  there  has  been 
some  collateral  security  not  appearing  on  the  face  of  the  note.  There  have 
been  cases  where  letters  have  been  written,  on  the  strength  of  which  we 
have  given  the  credit.  This  is  what  I  mean  by  a  case  of  <*  collateral  secu- 
rity,^' which  is  general  and  technical.  When  I  speak  of  letters,  I  of  course 
distinguish  between  letters  of  introduction  and  letters  of  guarantee;  though 
a  letter  of  introduction  may  be  a  letter  of  guarantee,  I  should  not  think  it  a 
sufficient  security.  If  a  letter  writer  were  to  make  a  false  representation  in 
a  letter  of  introduction,  on  the  strength  of  which  a  credit  were  given,  I 
should  consider  him  liable  in  law,  in  honor,  and  by  the  custom  of  mer- 
chants. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.     Do  you  not  consider  it  the  duty  in  all 
Buch  cases  when  letters  of  recommendation  or  guarantee  have  been  given,  to 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  559 

notify  the  writer  of  any  and  every  loan  made  upon  such  recommendation 
or  guarantee?  \ 

Answer.  I  do  not  think  it  absolutely  necessary,  though  it  is  soipetimes 
done.   I  should,  I  think,  do  it  myself. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  it  usual  for  the  bank  to  discount 
notes  of  hiind  drawn  and  endorsed  by  persons  out  of  the  State  without  a  re- 
sponsible name  in  the  city  or  State? 

Answer.  It  was  not  usual,  but  it  has  been  done.  If  we  were  satisfied 
with  the  security,  we  should  do  it,  if  the  paper  were  payable  any  where 
within  the  reach  of  the  business  of  the  bank. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Has  there  not  been  a  pressure  on  the 
money  market  ever  since  October  last? 

Answer.  There  has  been  a  pr^'ssure  on  certain  parts  of  our  trading  peo- 
ple, and  great  abundance  of  money  with  others.  I  would  not  compare  this 
with  others  that  have  occured.  This  is  shown  by  the  price  of  certain  pub- 
lic stocks,  such  as  the  Pennsylvania  five  per  cent,  stocks,  which  command 
a  premium  of  fourteen  and  a  hftif  per  cent.  I  may  mention,  from  my  own 
experience,  that  at  the  time  when  this  pressure  was  believed  to  be  greatest, 
I  have  myself  had  great  difficulty  in  investing  money  at  six  per  cent.  The 
difficulties  which  have  occurred,  have  been  principally  among  good  merchants 
who  have  overtraded. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cimbreleng.  At  what  rate  have  the  notes  of  traders, 
fair  notes,  been  discounted  by  the  b;'okers  at  the  time  when  you  found  dif- 
ficulty in  investing  at  six  per  cent? 

Answer.  I  believe  any  good  notes  would  be  discounted  at  6  per  cent,  but, 
3t  times  of  distress,  notes,  at  other  times  considered  good,  would  be  looked 
on  as  doubtful. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  While  you  were  a  director  were  there 
not  letters  written  in  October,  November,  and  December,  to  the  several  of- 
fices, stating  the  pressure  on  the  offices  at  New  York  and  Philadelphia, 
gi'owing  out  of  the  redemption  of  the  public  debt,  and  recommending  to 
them  a  gradual  curtailment  of  their  loans? 

Answer.  Yes^  I  have  no  doubt  such  letters  were  written,  probably  by 
the  president  and  cashier,  without  express  ini>tructions  from  the  board.  In 
all  cases  where  the  bank  has  had  to  pay  a  considerable  sum  to  Government, 
it  has  had  to  shape  its  course  accordingly.  On  all  such  occasions,  though 
in  ordinary  cases  the  bank  would  discount  at  long  credits,  they  would  be 
diposed,  by  precautions  of  the  kind  referred  to,  to  have  their  funds  securely 
at  command. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  May  there  not  be  a  pressure  on  the  bank  of 
the  United  States  arising  from  liberal  accommodation  to  its  borrowers  while 
money  is  abundant  among  cautious  merchants  and  private  money  lenders? 

Answer.  It  is  a  possible  circumstance,  though  I  have  not  known  the  bank 
of  the  United  States  to  be  thus  situated.  When  I  speak  of  pressure,  I  mean 
difficulty  in  meeting  engagements,  and  I  mean  to  say  that  the  bank  has  been 
under  no  such  pressure.  There  may  be,  however,  from  the  circumstance  I 
have  already  mentioned,  a  necessity  for  the  bank  to  curtail  its  accommoda** 
tions. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  not  J.  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah's 
note  dated  9th  August,  1831,  at  six  months,  for  jS20,000,  discounted  for  the 
endorser  J,  W.  Webb?     If  so,  state  the  circumstances  relating  to  that  loan. 

Answer.  I  think  when  that  loan  was  made,  I  was  absent  from  the  city, 


560  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

though  the  loan  is  within  my  knowledge.  I  cannot  recollect  how  I  learned 
of  it;  probably  from  conversation  or  from  inspection  of  the  books,  I  may 
have  heard  it  from  the  president.  I  may  have  heard  of  the  application  be- 
fore it  ^vas  made,  or  it  may  not  have  been  till  afterwards. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  you,  at  the  time,  hear  of  any  collate- 
ral security? 

Answer.  I  have  heard,  I  cannot  say  when,  of  a  strong  letter  from  thfe 
Mayor  of  New  York,  on  the  credit  of  which  this  loan  was  made. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  not  the  note  of  J.  W.  Webb  and 
M.  M.  Noah,  for{gl5,000,  dated  13th  December,  1831,  at  six  months,  en- 
dorsed hy  J.  W.  Webb  &  Co.  discounted  for  the  endorser  on  the  16th  De- 
cember, 1S31?     If  so,  state  the  circumstances  relating  to  that  discount. 

Answer.  Letters  were  written  from  New  York  respecting  that  loan,  and 
from  Philadelphia,  I  think,  by  J.  W.  Webb,  whom  I  never  saw,  and  do  not 
know.  I  made  the  usual  inquiries  relative  to  the  safety  of  the  loan.  Do- 
cuments were  exhibited  to  the  committee,  I  do  not  know  whom  they  came 
from,  containing  a  statement  of  the  means  of  the  parties  to  the  note,  by 
which  they  appeared  to  be  worth  about  jg30,000,  with  a  prosperous  business^ 
and  a  large  subscription  list.  The  loan  was  made,  as  all  others  are  made, 
without  any  regard  to  the  politics  or  business  of  the  parties,  but  solely  be- 
cause it  was  the  business  of  the  bank  to  lend  on  adequate  security,  and  1 
can  add  that  I  must  never  any  instance  where  money  was  lent  on  any  other 
principle  than  security  to  the  bank.  I  was  well  aware  at  the  time  that  they 
were  partizan  printers,  and  I  knew  that  if  we  made  the  loan  it  might  be  ^ 
ascribed  to  improper  motives,  and  that  it  we  rejected  it,  it  might  be  said  we 
had  persecuted  the  individuals  on  account  of  their  politics,  so  that,  in  either 
event,  we  were  liable  to  censure.  We  deemed  the  loan  well  secured  at  the 
time,  or  they  would  not  have  obtained  the  money.  The  loan  was  made  by 
the  Exchange  Committee. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  there  any  collateral  security  requir- 
ed by  the  bank? 

Answer.  None  that  I  remember.     It  was  probably  on  that  occasion  that 
Walter  Bowne's  name  was  brought  into  view.     I  recollect  that  Mr.  Bowne    \ 
spoke  of  the  applicants  in  very  high  terms. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  know  whether  either  of  the  di- 
rectors of  the  parent  bank  residing  in  New  York,  or  the  president  or  either 
of  the  directors  of  the  branch  there,  was  consulted  as  to  the  standing  of 
Webb  or  Noah? 

Answer.  They  were  not  by  the  committee.  It  was  impossible  to  do  so 
without  postponing  the  loan.  It  is  not  usual  for  us  to  inquire.  We  do  not 
know  what  paper  is  rejected  by  the  branches;  our  pay  lists  show  what  is 
discounted. 

Re- examination  of  Mr.  Cope. 

In  addition  to^what  I  have  said  as  to  the  pressure  on  the  money  market, 
I  may  observe  that,  at  the  time  referred  to, since  October  last,  I  have  myself 
lent  5^20,000  at  5  per  cent.,   and  I  borrowed  for  a  public  institution  over  | 
which  I  preside  $100,000,  a  5  per  cent,  stock  payable  in  1850,  which  com- 
manded a  premium  of  10  per  cent. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  a  discount 
which  appears  by  the  books  to  have  been  made  on  2d  January  last,  of  ten 


1 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  3  561 

notes  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah,  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  y^l7,975,  pay- 
able in  April  and  October,  1832,  3,  4,  5,  6? 

Answer.  I  know  but  little  about  it  I  remember  being  asked  by  the 
president,  a  short  time  before  I  went  out  of  the  direction,  whether  I  recol- 
lected that,  some  months  before,  and  I  think  antecedently  to  the  9th  August, 
the  Exchange  Committee  had  agreed  to  make  such  a  loan,  which  was  to  be 
on  the  credit  of  Silas  E.  Burrows — he  said  to  me,  that,  supposing  such  an 
agreement  to  have  been  made,  he  had  advanced  his  own  money?  I  told 
him  that  I  recollected  the  committee  authorizing  such  a  loan.  My  impres- 
sion is  that  the  loan  had  been  made  to  Burrows  with  theae  notes  as  collateral 
security.  My  impression  was,  until  the  president  spoke  to  me,  that  in 
this  form  the  loan  had  been  consummated  at  the  time  the  committee  autho- 
rized it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  Was  the  discount  of  the  2d  January  made  by 
you  and  the  rest  of  the  committee,  and  marked  by  you  after  this  conversa- 
tion with  the  president? 

Answer.  Yes;  because  we  supposed}  we  had  previously  given  our  con- 
sent.    These,  (referring  to  the  domestic  exchange  book,)  are  my  marks. 

Question  b}^  Mr.  Thomas.  You  say  the  committee  had  consented  to  loan 
^Sl7,975  to  S.  E.  Burrows,  prior  to  9th  August,  1831,  he  giving  the  notes 
of  M.  M.  Noah  and  J.  Watson  Webb  as  collateral  security.  Can  you  state 
why  the  books  of  the  bank  contain  no  record  of  this  transaction,  and  why 
the  loan  was  made  on  2d  January  on  the  notes  of  M.  M.  Noah  and  J.  W. 
Webb  alone? 

Answer.  My  explanation  is  this. .  I  presume  the  president  nlust  have 
stated  to  the  committee  that  there  was  such  an  application  for  a  loan,  that 
he  must  have  given  his  views  of  the  security  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  com- 
mittee, and  that,  on  this  representation,  they  agreed  to  make  the  loan.  As 
the  president,  as  I  have  stated,  lent  his  own  money,  of  coarse  the  loan 
was  not  put  on  the  books  of  the  bank  at  the  time  it  was  authorized  by  the 
committee,  and  not  till  It  was  actually  made  by  the  bank. 

Question.  Have  you  any  recollection  of  having  seen  the.  note  or  notes  of 
Silas  E.  Burrows  for  a  corresponding  sum  or  sums,  or  of  having  seen  the 
record  of  such  note  or  notes  on  the  books  of  the  Exchange  Committee? 

Answer.  No.  We  frequently  make  loans  without  seeing  the  notes  at  the 
time.  We  often  receive  letters  asking  for  loans;  the  board  pass  on  them, 
or  refer  them  to  the  Exchange  Committee.  It  is  then  referred  to  the  officers 
of  the  bank  to  consummate  the  transaction,  frequently  ^yithout  our  sefjing 
the  security.  Loans  by  the  bank,  of  course,  are  always  afterwards  put  on 
the  books. 

Question.  Is  the  president  of  the  bank  authorized  to  endorse  a  note  of- 
fered for  discount?  ' 

Answer.  As  president  of  the  bank,  I  know  of  no  such  instance,  but  if 
his  note  as  an  individual  were  offered  for  discount,  I  know  no  reason  that 
would  prevent  our  doing  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Adams.  Has  it  come  to  your  knowledge  that  there  has 
been^y  concealment  or  disguise  in  the  transactions  of  the  directors  of  the 
bank  with  James  Watson  Webb,  M.  M.  Noah,  or  Silas  E.  Burrows,  or 
any  falsification  of  the  books  of  the  bank,  to  misrepresent  the  real  character 
of  those  transactions? 

Answer.  I  know  of  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  I  an  sure,  if  it  were  at- 
tempted by  any  oflBcer  of  the  board,  the  gentlemen  composing  that  board 
71 


562  r  I'ep.  No.  460.  ] 

have  too  high  a  sense  of  honorable  feeling;  to  countenance  any  such  trans- 
action, and  I  am  equally  sure  that  no  such  attempt  at.  concealment  would 
ever  be  made  by  Nicholas  Biddle,  president  of  the  bank. 


Doc.  4S. 
Examination  of  John  R.  Ncjf— March  31. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  Were  you  one  of  the  board  of  directors  in 
August  lafit? 

Answer.   I  was. 

Question  by  Mr.  IMcDuifie.  Have  you  any  recollection  of  a  note  dis- 
counted for  J.'  Watson  VV^ebb  for  $30,000,  on  9lh  August,  1S31? 

Answer.  I  have. 

Question  by  JNlr.  McDuffie.    Stale  vvliat  you  know  of  lljat  discount. 

Answer.  After  we  had  trone  through  the  discounts  on  the  books,  the  pre- 
sident read  a  letter  from  Mr.  Wel)b,  asking  for  this  discount.  Immediate- 
ly aftei-  reading  Mr.  Webb's  letter,  the  president  produced  one  or  two  let- 
ters, certainly  one,  from  a  highly  respectable  merchant  of  New  York,  on 
the  strength  of  which  letter,  (which  was  very  positive  as  to  ihe  safety  of  the 
loan,)  I  gave  my  vote  in  favor  of  the  discount.  Such  applications  from 
abroad,  made  by  letter,  are  frequent,  and  when  money  is  plenty,  n-e  embrace 
these  means  of  investing  our  funds;  when  it  is  scarce,  we  prefer  applying 
our  mean's  more  immediately  at  h.ome. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreieng.  Was  the  letter  which  vvas  read  at  the 
board,  n  letter  of  guarantee,  or  a  mere  letter  of  introduction? 

Answer.  It  was  not  a  letter  of  guarantee,  but  strongly  staled  lliC  safety 
of  the  loan. 

Question  by  Mr.  Tho-nas.  What  security  did  Webb  furnish  the  board  for 
the  payment  of  thi»  loan  of  S20,000? 

Answer.  The  pcrs^iial  security  of  liimself  and  M.  M.  Noah. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  You  have  said  that  the  board  generally  dis- 
counts notes  offered  by  citi'z.ens  of  Philadelphia,  in  preference  to  those  of- 
fered by  citizens  re^icient  elsewhere:  v/ere  not  several  notes  offered  by  re- 
sponsible citizens  of  Philadelphia  rejected  by  the  board,  on  the  game  day 
that  Webb's  note  was  discounted? 

j!i?.swer.  No.  From  the  time  I  fir«t  took  my  seat  at  the  board  till  the 
time  of  the  discount  for  Mr.  Webb,  I  have  never  known  a  note  on  personal 
security  rejected,  that  was  consitlered  good  by  the  hoard. 

Question.  Do  you  know  what  sum  is  due  to  the  bank  by  J.  W.  Wibb 
and  M.  M.  Noah? 

Answer.  I  do  not.  My  impression  is  tb.at  tiiey  owe  something  less  than 
^20,000,  but  I  cannot  tell  witiuxit  referring  to  the  books. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambrelerg.  Ha\e  you  a  usu/il  limit  as  to  the  time  of 
notes  discounted  at  the  Bank  of  the  United  States? 

Answer.  We  have  confined  ourselves  in  discounts  on  personal  seq»M*ity, 
to  four  months,  as  closoiy  as  we  can.  In  some  few  cases  where  undoubt- 
ed names  are  given,  we  afford  accommodations  for  a  son^cwhat  longer  time. 
Sometimes  we  have  discounted  at  five,  and,  last  spring,  at  nine  months. 

Question  by  Mr.  Q\njbreleng.  Did  you  ever  discount  at  one,  two,  three, 
and  four  years,  when  there  was  a  great  pressure  in  tlie  money  market? 


[  Kep.  No.  46U.  ]  563 

Answer.   No.     jExccpling  wlien  a  debt  due  1»  ilic  bank  Win'ln  icopardy. 

Question  by  Camlirelenp;.  Do  you  ever  discount  paper  for  persons  livinp; 
out  of  the  State,  and  reject  good  Philadelphia  pa{~<er  when  there  is  a  pressure 
ill  the  monti}'  nrjarkel,? 

Arj.-twer.  It  is  not  the  general  practice  of  the  bank  to  do  ?o.  It  has  been 
done  in  some  cases. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambrelcng.  Had  you  any  knowledge  of  the  partnership 
between  J.  W.  Webb  and  iNI.  M.  Noah? 

Answer.   I  had  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Did  3-ou  ever  discount  paper  drawn  by  one 
partner  and  endorsed  by  another.'' 

Answer.  It  is  never  done  knowingly,  being  contrary  to  the  practice  qf 
^he  bank. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuiUc.  Do  you  know  that  a  partncraliip  exists  be- 
tween .r.  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah? 

Answer.  I  do  not. 

Question  by  Mr.  Clayton.  You  have  said  that,  from  the  time  of  jour 
coming  into  the  bank  down  to  the  discounting  of  J.  W.  Webb's  note,  on 
J)th  August,  IS.Tl,  no  note  was  rejected  that,  in  your  opisiion,  was  consider- 
ed good  by  tlie  board,    lias  the  same  practice  continued  since? 

Answer.  It  has  not.  Since  the  1st  October,  which  was  the  commence- 
ment of  a  press  for  money,*  some  good  notes  have  been  refused:  very  little 
good  pnper  was  rejected  before  that  time.  \ 

Question  by  Mr.  CanJ)reIeng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  thcdi.'scount- 
ing  a  note  for  J,  W.  Webb  &  Co  ,  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah^ind  J.  W.  Webb, 
dated  13th  December,  ISSi^  at  six  months,  for  Si 5,00'.? 

Answer.  1  was  not  present  when  it  was  discounted.  It  sometimes  lia])- 
pens  tiiat  I  leave  the  board  before  the  discounts  are  finished. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambndeng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  discount- 
ing often  note*  of  J.  W.  V\^ebb  and  M.  M.  Noah,  amounting  in  t)i(*  aggre- 
gate, to  817,975,  pay<''b]e  at  various  dates  in  the  years  JS32,  ^3,  '4,  ^3,  *(j? 

Answer.   I  was  not  T)resent  when  those  notes  wcrt;  discounted. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  you  aware  that,  on  tiic  3d  January 
last,  M.M.  Noah  and  J.  W.  Webb  were  indebted  to  the  bank  f^52,.975? 

Answer.  The  pay-list  is  always  before  us,  and  shows  the  amount  of  each 
person's  debt.  Until  I  saw  the'amount  on  the  pay-list,  1  was  not  aware  to 
what  extent  they  were  borrowers,  having  never  been  present  at  any  discount 
except  the  first  one  of  ^20,000. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  discounts  to 
the  amount  of  §30  or  40,000,  made  for  Silas  E.  Durrows,  on  the  2d  and 
14th  of  the  present  month,  or  of  the  withdrawal  of  any  of  the  notes  of  J. 
W.  Webb  or  M.  M    Noah,  which  had  not  yet  reached  maturity? 

Answer.  I  was  not  present  at  any  of  those  transactions,  except  the  first 
for  ^20,000;  the  others,  I  presume,  have  been  done  by  the  Exchange  Com- 
mittee, who  are  authorized  to  transact  tlie  business  of  discounting  between 
the  meetings  of  the  board.  I  am  not  one  of  that  committee.  They  might, 
however,  have  been  done  by  tbe  board  in  my  absence. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Has  there  not  been  some  pressure  on  the 
money  market  since  the  1st  October  last? 

Answer.  There  has. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.   At  what  period  was  the  greatest  pressure? 

Answer.   From  loth  February  to  the  present  time. 


564  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  49. 

/ 
/    Examination  of  Matthew  L,  Bevan — March  31. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  How  long  have  you  been  in  the  Ex- 
change Committee? 

Answer.     Four  years. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.     What  are  the  duties  of  that  committee? 

Answer.  Its  duty  is  to  transact  exchange  business,  that  is,  to  discount 
bills  on  different  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  to  deal  in  foreign  exchange. 
It  meetsj  every  day  but  on  discount  days.  We  have  a  general  power  of. 
discounting,  but  exercise  it  cautiously,  only  when  money  is  plenty.  Un- 
der special  circumstances,  for  instance,  to  secure  a  doubtful  debt,  the  com| 
mittee  exercise  the  power  of  affording  still  greater  facilities  to  a  debtor. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  What  was  the  term  of  credit  usually 
limited  by  the  board,  in  discounting  notes  and  bills  of  exchange  on  per- 
sonal security? 

Answer.  It  is  generally  four  months  now;  when  money  is  abundant, 
it  is  extended  to  six  or  eight  months  when  the  security  is  deemed  undoubted. 
The  rule,  though  general,  is  not  arbitrary.  Peculiar  circumstances  will 
lead  us  to  depart  from  it,  for  instance,  to  secure  a  doubtful  debt. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  any  such  loan  during 
a  general  pressure  on  the  money  market? 

Answer.  There  is  one  I  recollect;  there  may  be.  others  that  I  do  not 
remember.  It  was  a  loan  to  Silas  E.  Burrows,  or  rather  a  draft  of  his,  on 
Goodhue  &  Co.,  discounted  at,  I  think,  seven  or  eight  months. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  any  instance  of  notes 
being  discounted  at  two,  three,  four,  and  five  years'  credit,  on  personal  se- 
curity, unless  to  secure  a  doubtful  debt? 

Answer.     I  do  not  at  present. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Do  you  recollect  any  instance  of  the  dis- 
count of  a  note  drawn  by  one  partner,  and  endorsed  by  another,  without  a 
third  name,  unless  through,  ignorance  of  the  partnership? 

Answer.     No.   I  recollect  no  such  case. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  it  usual  for  the  bank  to  discount 
notes  of  hand,  drawn  and  endorsed  by  persons  out  of  the  State,  without  a 
responsible  name  in-  the  city  or  State? 

Answer.     It  was  very  common. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Has  there  not  been  a  pressure  on  the 
money  market  since  October  last? 

Answer.  There  has  been  more  or  less,  not  altogether  with  the  same  se- 
verity. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  not  James  Watson  Webb  and  M.  M. 
Noah's  note,  of  9th  August,  1831,  at  6  months,  for  ^20,000,  discounted 
for  the  endorser,  J.  W.  Webb?  If  so,  state  the  circumstances  relating  to 
that  loan. 

Answer.  I  was  absent  at  the  time.  I  know  such  to  be  the  fact,  from  an 
examination  I  have  since  made  of  the  books. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  not  a  note  of  J.  W.  Webb  and 
M.  M.  Noah,  for  $15,000,  at  6  n-onths,  dated  13th  December,  1831,  en- 
dorsed by  J.  W.  Webb  and  Co.,  discounted  on  16th  December  for  the  en- 
dorser?  . 


[  Rep.  No.  4m.  ]  565 

Answer.  It  was  done,  I  think,  by  the  Exchange  Committee.  We  had 
various  letters  at  the  time,  before  us,  from  highly  respectable  sources,  which 
were  altogether  satisfactory. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Do  you  recollect  the  names  of  the  writers  of 
the  Ietters*of  which  you  speak? 

Answer.  I  recollect  the  name  of  Walter  Bowne  whom  I  have  known 
for  thirty  years.     His  letter  was  either  before  us,  or  was  referred  to. , 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Are  you  certain  there  were  any  other  let- 
ters before  the  committee  besides  those  of  Walter  Bowne,  M.  M.  Noah, 
and  J.  W.  Webb? 

Answer.     I  am  not  certain. 

Question  by  Mr.  Thomas.  Is  the  letter  now  produced,  dated  5th  August, 
IS31,  (marked       )  the  letter  ol  Walter  Bowne  to  which  you  allude? 

Answer.     It  is. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  there  any  collateral  security  required 
by  the  bank? 

Answer.     There  was  not.     The  security  was  deemed  sufficient. 

Question.  Do  you  know  whether  either  of  the  directors  of  the  parent 
bank  residing  in  New  York,  or  the  president  or  either  of  the  directors  of 
the  branch  there,  was  consulted  as  to  the  standing  of  J.  W.  Webb  and 
M.  M.  Noah? 

Answer.  No,  unless  Mr.  Bowne  may  be  considered  as  one.  We  are 
not  in  the  habit  of  doing  so. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  dis- 
counting of  ten  notes,  on  the  2d  January  last,  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah,  and 
endorsed  by  J.  W.  Webb,  amounting,  in  the  aggregate,  to  i5l7,975,  and 
payable  in  April  and  October,  in  the  years  1832,  ^3,  '4,  '5,  '6? 

Answer.  I  do  not  recollect  whether  I  was  present  when  they  were  dis- 
counted. I  think  I  wds  not,  though  I  may  have  been  present.  Although 
it  is  recent,  yet  there  are  so  many  transactions  of  the  kind  before  us,  that  I 
cannot  recollect  each  one.  I  have  no  recollection  of  the  dates.  That  they 
were  discounted,  I  have  nO  doubt.  The  president  of  the  bank  never  exer- 
cised the  power  of  discounting  notes.  Some  banks  give  the  power  to  the 
president  and  cashier.  In  this  bank,  the  president  has  no  such  power,  and 
has  never,  to  my  knowledge,  exercised  it. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  the  discounts  of  the  2d  and  14th 
March,  for  Silas  E.  Burrows,  made  by  the  Exchange  Committee? 

Answer.     Yes;  I  believe  all  the  committee  were  present. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Yoti  hav6  said  you  have  not  a  distinct 
recollection  of  the  discount  on  the  2d  January,  of  notes  to  the  amount  of 
■gl 7,975.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  any  collateral  secu- 
rity for  those  notes? 

Answer.     No. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuffie.  What  is  your  opinion  of  the  pecuniary  re- 
gponsibdity  of  Silas  E.  Burrows? 

Answer.  I  think  him  a  very  able  and  responsible  man.  My  house  has 
had  considerable  transactions  with  him;  and  the  inquiries  I  have  made  in 
New  York,  as  to  his  solidity,  have  been  highly  satisfactory. 

Question  by  Mr.  McDuifie.  Would  you  not  place  implicit  confidence 
in  the  recommendation  of  Walter  Bowno  as  to  the  responsibility  of  per- 
sons applying  for  loans? 

Answer.  Yes;  as  much  as  any  man  in  New  York.  1  have  known  him 
personally  for  nearly  thirty  years. 


566  I  Kep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  50. 
Exa^nination  of  John  Andrews — March  31. 

Question  by  Mr,  Cambreleng.     What  office  do  you  hold  in  th^  bank? 

Answer.    I  am  first  assistant  cashier. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  the  charge  of  the  discount  and 
exchange  book;  and  do  you  attend  on  the  board  when  in  session? 

Answer.    Yes. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  discount 
of  J.  W.  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noah's  note,  on  9th  August,  1831,  at  6  months, 
for  320,000? 

Answer.  I  have  no  particular  recollection  of  this  note;  but,  from  the 
8})pearance  of  the  book,  t  should  suppose  it  came  before  the  board. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  When  a  note  is  submitted  to  the  board 
and  discounted,  what  mark  do  they  affix  to  it? 

Answer.  All  notes  that  are  put  on  the  books  on  the  day  previous,  are 
regularly  passed  by  the  board,  and,  if  discounted,  are  marked  A.  Those 
that  come  in  on  the  morning  of  the  discount  day,  are  sent  in  to  the  board 
without  being  put  on  the  books,  and  arc  not,  of  course,  marked  on  the  books 
when  discounted. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  discount 
of  a  note  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah  and  J.  W.  Webb,  and  discounted  for  J. 
W^atson  Webb  &  Co.,  on  IGth  December,  1S31,  dated  13th  December,  at  6 
months,  for  i&  15,000? 

Answer.  I  have  not,  but  suppose,  from  the  style  of  the  entry  on  the  book, 
it  must  have  been  done  after  the  meeting  of  the  board. 

Question.  Have  you  any  knowledge  of  the  discounting,  on  the  2d  Janu- 
ary last,  often  notes  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah  and  J.  Watson  Webb,  amount- 
ing, altogether,  to  {Si 7, 975,  and  payable  in  April  and  October,  of  the  years 
1S32,  '3,  '4,  '5,  ^6? 

Answer.  They  appear  from  the  books  to  have  been  discounted  by  the 
Exchange  Committee. 

Question  b}^  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Were  those  notes  discounted  for  J.  Wat- 
son Webb? 

Answer.     It  would  appear  so  from  the  books. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  there  in  the  possession  of  the  bank 
any  other  than  the  personal  security  of  J.  VV^atson  Webb  and  M.  M.  Noali, 
for  the  notes  referred  to,  amounting,  allogetiier,  to  $52,975? 

Answer.     1  do  not  ncollect  an}'^  other. 

Question  by  Mr. "Cambreleng.  Is  it  your  duty  to  take  cliaige  of  all  the 
securities  !  ,ciii;ed  in  the  bank? 

Answer.     It  is. 

Rc-examinaiion  of  John  */hidrews. 

.  Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  State  to  the  committee  at  what  time,  and 
l»y  whom  the  following  notes  were  withdrawn  from  the  bank:  M.  M.  Noih 
and  .lames  Watson  Webb's  note,  payable  to,  and  endorsed  by  James  W.it- 
son  Webb  &  Cu.,  dated  13th  December,  1S31,  at  6  months,  for  ^515,000?  . 
Ten  notes  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah,  and  endorsed  by  James  Watson  Webb, 
amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  §17,975,  and  j)oyable  in  tlie  months  of  April 
and  October,  1832,^3,  '4,   '5.   '6? 


[  Rep.  No.  460.  ]  587 

Answer.  The  note  of  Si 5,000  was  paid  in  this  way:  6,000  were  paid 
on  the  ISth  instant,  and  the  balance  on  the  15th  instant.  These  payments 
were  made  by  a  draft  received  at  this  bank,  from  our  office  at  New  York, 
in  favor  of  James  Watson  Webb,  endorsed  to  Mr.  Biddle's  order,  for  $600: 
and  another  on  the  15th,  of  the  same  chafacter,  for  $8,800,  (a  deduction 
being  made  for  interest  on  the  unexpired  time.)  These  two  drafts  paid  the 
note. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  Was  either  of  the  notes  offered  by  J.  W. 
Webb,  on  the  9th  August,  and  16th  December,  1831,  and  the  2d  January, 
and  lOtb  February,  1832,  ever  regularly  entered  on  the  discount  book  of 
the  bank,  as  notes  are  usually  entered,  on  the  day  previous  to  the  meeting 
of  the  bourd? 

Answer.  No:  I  believe  they  v/ere  not.  They  were  not,  because  they 
were  brought  in  afterwards. 

Question  by  Mr.  Cambreleng.  What  is  the  usual  term  to  which  discounts 
are  limited? 

Answer.  There  is  no  general  rule  as  to  time.  It  depends  on  circum- 
stances.    At  this  time,  the  usual  limit  is  four  months. 


Doc.  5L 


Office  of  Bank  United  States, 

fVashinglon,  May  9,  1832. 

Sir:  In  answer  to  your  verbal  inquiry,  I  have  the  honor  to  state  that 
the  advances  made  during  the  present  session   of  Congress,  in  anticipation 
of  the  appropriations,  are  as  follows,  viz. 

For  the  pay  and  contingent  expenses  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress,      ------- 

ditto  of  the  State  Department, 
ditto  of  the  Treasury,       -  -  - 

ditto  of  the  W^ar  and  Indian  Departments 
ditto  of  the  Navy  Department,  and  for  the 

supplies  of  the  ships, 
ditto  of  the  Post  Oflice,    - 
ditto  of  the  Attorney  General's  office, 
ditto  of  the  United  States'  judges, 
ditto  of  Commissioner  of  Public  Buildings, 
and  repairs,  &c.  of  ditto, 

Tot&l, 


I  am,  sir,  respectfully. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

RD.   SMITH,  Cashier, 
Hon.  John  Q.  Adams, 

House  of  Representatives. 


?ov 

ditto 

a 

ditto 

11 

ditto 

li 

ditto 

n 

ditto 

(C 

ditto 

(( 

ditto 

t( 

ditto 

^155,885 
24,166 
74,579 

35 
57 
29 

82 

29,294 
8,682 
1,325 
2,812 

84 
50 

7,050 

J2'l92,148 

87 

568  [  Rep.  No.  460.  ] 

Doc.  52— No.  1. 

Office  Bank  United  States, 

Washington,  May  14,  1S32. 
Sir:  I  have  received  your  letter  of  this  date,  stating  that  the  committee 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  appointed  to  examine  the  books  and  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  had  adopted  resolutions,  calling 
on  the  branch  to  furnish  the  committee  with  the  names  and  amounts  of 
payments  to  members  of  Congress,  in  anticipation  of  their  pay  as  members, 
before  the  passage  of  the  general  appropriation  bill;  and  the  amount  of 
money  due  the  United  States,  and  on  deposite  in  the  bank,  after  deducting 
the  sums  thus  advanced  to  those  to  whom  the  United  States  are  indebted; 
and,  for  this  information,  the  president  of  the  bank  referred  the  committee 
to  the  Branch  Bank  at  Washington. 

I  have  now  the  honor  to  enclose  a  statement,  showing  the  advances  to 
the  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  regret  that  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  give  similar  information  with  respect  to  the  advances  made  to  the 
individual  members  of  the  Senate.  The  checks  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate 
have  been  given  up  to  him  on  the  settlement  of  his  bank  book,  and  I  have  no 
means  of  giving  the  information,  except  by  reference  to  the  book.  •The- 
aggregate  amoupt  paid  to  the  Senators,  is  ^^14,635  60. 

I  also  enclose  a  statement,  giving  the  information  required  under  the 
second  resolution. 

I  am,  sir,  with  much  respect. 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

RD.  SMITH,  Cashier. 
The  Hon.  John  Q.  Adams, 

House  of  Representatives. 


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