1694.  The Bank went into operation.

1696.  Bank suspended specie payments.  Panic and failures.

1707.  Threatened invasion of the Pretender.  Run upon the Bank,—­panic.  Government helped it through, by guarantying its bills at six per cent.

1714.  The Pretender proclaimed in Scotland.  Run upon the Bank,—­panic.

1718-20.  Time of the South-Sea Bubble.  Reaction,—­demand for money,—­Bank of England nearly swept away,—­trade suspended,—­nation involved in suffering.

1744.  Charles Edward sails for Scotland, and marches upon Derby.  Panic.  Run upon the Bank,—­is obliged to pay in sixpences, and to block its doors, in order to gain time.

1772.  Extensive failures and a monetary panic.  The Bank maintains the convertibility of its notes for several years, at an annual expense of L850,000.

1793.  War with France,—­drain of gold,—­Bank contracts,—­panic,—­failures throughout the country,—­universal hoarding,—­one hundred country banks stop,—­notes as low as five pounds first issued,—­general fall of prices.

1796.  An Order in Council suspends specie payment by the Bank.

1799.  Numerous failures,—­chiefly on the Continent.  The pressure in England relieved by an issue of Exchequer bills.

1807-9.  Great speculations in flax, hemp, silk, wool, etc.

1810.  Recoil of speculation,—­extensive failures, and great demand for money.

1811.  Parliament adopts a resolution declaring a one-pound note and a shilling legal tender for a guinea.

1814-16.  Heavy losses and bankruptcies,—­failure of two hundred and forty country banks,—­the distress and suffering of the people compared to that in France after the bursting of the Mississippi Scheme.

1819.  Law passed for the resumption of specie payments in 1823,—­after a suspension of twenty-seven years.

1822.  Great commercial depression throughout Europe,—­agricultural distress,—­famine in Ireland.

1824.  Speculations in scrips and shares of foreign loans and new companies, to a fabulous amount.

1825.  Recoil of the speculations,—­run upon the banks,—­seventy banks stop,—­a drain of gold exhausts the bullion of the Bank.

1826.  Depression of trade,—­government advances Exchequer bills to the Bank.

1832.  A run for gold,—­bullion in the Bank again alarmingly reduced.

1834-7.  Jackson vs.  Biddle in America produces considerable derangements in England,—­drain of gold,—­great alternate contractions and expansions,—­severe mercantile distress.

1844.  Renewal of the Bank Charter, limiting its issues,—­great speculations in railroad shares, to the amount of L500,000,000.

1845.  Recoil of the speculations,—­immense sacrifice of property.

1846.  Drain of gold,—­large importations of corn,—­alarm.

1847.  Drain of gold continues,—­panic and universal mercantile depression,—­Bank refuses discounts,—­forced sales of all kinds of property,—­the Bank Charter suspended.