their notes, or inconvenience to poor or rich, who happened to have them in possession.  The Union Bank of Falkirk also became insolvent within these fifteen years, but paid up its engagements without much loss to the creditors.  Other cases there may have occurred, not coming within my recollection; but I think none which made any great sensation, or could at all affect the general confidence of the country in the stability of the system.  None of these bankruptcies excited much attention, or, as we have seen, caused any considerable loss.

In the present unhappy commercial distress, I have always heard and understood that the Scottish Banks have done all in their power to alleviate the evils which came thickening on the country; and far from acting illiberally, that they have come forward to support the tottering credit of the commercial world with a frankness which augured the most perfect confidence in their own resources.  We have heard of only one provincial Bank being even for a moment in the predicament of suspicion; and of that copartnery the funds and credit were so well understood, that their correspondents in Edinburgh, as in the case of the East Lothian Bank formerly mentioned, at once guaranteed the payment of their notes, and saved the public even from momentary agitation, and individuals from the possibility of distress.  I ask what must be the stability of a system of credit of which such an universal earthquake could not displace or shake even the slightest individual portion?

Thus stands the case in Scotland; and it is clear any restrictive enactment affecting the Banking system, or their mode of issuing notes, must be adopted in consequence of evils, operating elsewhere perhaps, but certainly unknown in this country.

In England, unfortunately, things have been very different, and the insolvency of many provincial Banking Companies, of the most established reputation for stability, has greatly distressed the country, and alarmed London itself, from the necessary reaction of their misfortunes upon their correspondents in the capital.

I do not think, sir, that the advocate of Scotland is called upon to go further, in order to plead an exemption from any experiment which England may think proper to try to cure her own malady, than to say such malady does not exist in her jurisdiction.  It is surely enough to plead, ’We are well, our pulse and complexion prove it—­let those who are sick take physic.’  But the opinion of the English Ministers is widely different; for, granting our premisses, they deny our conclusion.

The peculiar humour of a friend, whom I lost some years ago, is the only one I recollect, which jumps precisely with the reasoning of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  My friend was an old Scottish laird, a bachelor and a humorist—­wealthy, convivial, and hospitable, and of course having always plenty of company about him.  He had a regular custom of swallowing every night in the world one of Dr. Anderson’s