the succeeding week, we made advances which would
hardly be credited. I do not believe that any
one would have thought of predicting, even at the
shortest period beforehand, the greatness of those
advances. It was not unnatural that in this state
of things a certain degree of alarm should have taken
possession of the public mind, and that those who
required accommodation from the Bank should have gone
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and requested the
Government to empower us to issue notes beyond the
statutory amount, if we should think that such a measure
was desirable. But we had to act before we could
receive any such power, and before the Chancellor of
the Exchequer was perhaps out of his bed we had advanced
one-half of our reserves, which were certainly thus
reduced to an amount which we could not witness without
regret. But we could not flinch from the duty
which we conceived was imposed upon us of supporting
the banking community, and I am not aware that any
legitimate application for assistance made to this
house was refused. Every gentleman who came here
with adequate security was liberally dealt with, and
if accommodation could not be afforded to the full
extent which was demanded, no one who offered proper
security failed to obtain relief from this house.
I have perhaps gone a little more into details than
is customary upon these occasions, but the times have
been unusually interesting, and I thought it desirable
to say this much in justification of the course adopted
by this house of running its balances down to a point
which some gentlemen may consider dangerous.
Looking back, however, upon recent events, I cannot
take any blame to this court for not having been prepared
for such a tornado as that which burst upon us on
the ith of May; and I hope the court of proprietors
will feel that their directors acted properly upon
that occasion, and that they did their best to meet
a very extraordinary state of circumstances.
I have now only to move that a dividend be declared
at the rate of 6 L. 10s. per cent for the past half-year.
Mr. Hyam said that before the question was put he
wished to offer a few observations to the court.
He believed that the statement of accounts which had
just been laid before them was perfectly satisfactory.
He also thought that the directors had done their best
to assist the commercial classes throughout the late
monetary crisis; but it appeared to him at the same
time that they were in fault in not having applied
at an earlier period to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
for a suspension of the Bank Act. It was well
known that the demand on the Bank was materially lessened
in the earlier part of the day, in consequence of
a rumour which had been extensively circulated that
permission to overstep the limits laid down in the
Act had been granted. That concession, however,
had only been made after the most urgent representations
had been addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
at a late hour in the night, and if it had then been