those where the shares are numerous, and are held in small proportions, many of them by persons of landed estates, whose fortunes, however large, and however small their share of stock, must all be liable to the engagements of the Bank.  In England, as I believe, the number of the partners engaged in a banking concern cannot exceed five; and though of late years their landed property has been declared subject to be attacked by their commercial creditors, yet no one can learn, without incalculable trouble, the real value of that land, or with what mortgages it is burthened.  Thus, caeteris paribus, the English banker cannot make his solvency manifest to the public, therefore cannot expect, or receive, the same unlimited trust, which is willingly and securely reposed in those of the same profession in Scotland.

Secondly, the circulation of the Scottish bank-notes is free and unlimited; an advantage arising from their superior degree of credit.  They pass without a shadow of objection through the whole limits of Scotland, and, though they cannot be legally tendered, are current nearly as far as York in England.  Those of English Banking Companies seldom extend beyond a very limited horizon:  in two or three stages from the place where they are issued, many of them are objected to, and give perpetual trouble to any traveller who has happened to take them in change on the road.  Even the most creditable provincial notes never approach London in a free tide—­never circulate like blood to the heart, and from thence to the extremities, but are current within a limited circle; often, indeed, so very limited, that the notes issued in the morning, to use an old simile, fly out like pigeons from the dovecot, and are sure to return in the evening to the spot which they have left at break of day.

Owing to these causes, and others which I forbear mentioning, the profession of provincial Bankers in England is limited in its regular profits, and uncertain in its returns, to a degree unknown in Scotland; and is, therefore, more apt to be adopted in the South by men of sanguine hopes and bold adventure (both frequently disproportioned to the extent of their capital), who sink in mines or other hazardous speculations the funds which their banking credit enables them to command, and deluge the country with notes, which, on some unhappy morning, are found not worth a penny—­as those to whom the foul fiend has given apparent treasures are said in due time to discover they are only pieces of slate.

I am aware it may be urged that the restrictions imposed on those English provincial Banks are necessary to secure the supremacy of the Bank of England; on the same principle on which dogs, kept near the purlieus of a royal forest, were anciently lamed by the cutting off of one of the claws, to prevent their interfering with the royal sport.  This is a very good regulation for England, for what I know; but why should the Scottish institutions, which do not, and cannot interfere with