for a certain time in the baronial pillory, called the jougs, being a collar and chain, one of which contrivances was attached to each side of the portal of the great avenue which led to the castle.  The thief was turned over accordingly to the gardener, as ground-officer, to see the punishment duly inflicted.  When the Thane of Glammis returned from his morning ride, he was surprised to find both sides of the gateway accommodated each with a prisoner, like a pair of heraldic supporters, chained and collared proper.  He asked the gardener, whom he found watching the place of punishment, as his duty required, whether another delinquent had been detected?  “No, my Lord,” said the gardener, in the tone of a man excellently well satisfied with himself,—­“but I thought the single fellow looked very awkward standing on one side of the gateway, so I gave half a crown to one of the labourers to stand on the other side for uniformity’s sake.”  This is exactly a case in point, and probably the only one which can be found—­with this sole difference, that I do not hear that the members of the Scottish Revenue Board got any boon for standing in the pillory with those of Ireland—­for uniformity’s sake.

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

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

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