who estimate that liability best, the only persons indeed who can estimate it exceedingly well, are the bill-brokers.  And these dealers, taking advantage of their peculiar knowledge, borrow immense sums from bankers and others; they generally deposit the bills as a security; and they generally give their own guarantee of the goodness of the bill:  but neither of such practices indeed is essential, though both are the ordinary rule.  When Overends failed, as I have said before, they had borrowed in this way very largely.  There are others now in the trade who have borrowed quite as much.

As is usually the case, this kind of business has grown up only gradually.  In the year 1810 there was no such business precisely answering to what we now call bill-broking in London.  Mr. Richardson, the principal ‘bill-broker’ of the time, as the term was then understood, thus described his business to the ’Bullion Committee:’ 

’What is the nature of the agency for country banks’It is twofold:  in the first place to procure money for country bankers on bills when they have occasion to borrow on discount, which is not often the case; and in the next place, to lend the money for the country bankers on bills on discount.  The sums of money which I lend for country bankers on discount are fifty times more than the sums borrowed for country bankers.

’Do you send London bills into the country for discount?—­Yes.

’Do you receive bills from the country upon London in return, at a date, to be discounted?—­Yes, to a very considerable amount, from particular parts of the country.

’Are not both sets of bills by this means under discount?—­No, the bills received from one part of the country are sent down to another part for discount.

’And they are not discounted in London?—­No.  In some parts of the country there is but little circulation of bills drawn upon London, as in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, &c.; but there is there a considerable circulation in country bank-notes, principally optional notes.  In Lancashire there is little or no circulation of country bank-notes; but there is a great circulation of bills drawn upon London at two or three months’ date.  I receive bills to a considerable amount from Lancashire in particular, and remit them to Norfolk, Suffolk, &c., where the bankers have large lodgments, and much surplus money to advance on bills for discount.’

Mr. Richardson was only a broker who found money for bills and bills for money.  He is further asked: 

’Do you guarantee the bills you discount, and what is your charge per cent?—­No, we do not guarantee them; our charge is one-eighth per cent brokerage upon the bill discounted, but we make no charge to the lender of the money.

’Do you consider that brokerage as a compensation for the skill which you exercise in selecting the bills which you thus get discounted?—­Yes, for selecting of the bills, writing letters, and other trouble.