THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES. 303 



to the foreign commerce of the States, and as the statement was known 

 to exercise a powerful influence upon the question of the renewal of the 

 charter, and has never yet been controverted, we proceed to examine 

 this most singular assertion. 



First, then^ we deny that bills or money of any kind ever can be 

 remitted from Canton to England. It is well known that the balance of 

 trade is regularly against this country with the Celestial Empire ; and 

 Lord Ellenborough, the late President of the Board of Controul, has 

 proved that in the last eighteen years the sum of 45,000,000/. sterling 

 has been sent in gold alone from England to China. It is, therefore, a 

 gross misstatement that bills of the Bank of the United States, or of any 

 bank whatever, can be wanted for regular transmission to England, 

 when it is proved that a sum exceeding 2,500,000/. goes annually in the 

 other direction. It is certainly probable that a few such instances may 

 have occurred, as the East India Company has recently imported half a 

 million of dollars from Bengal, which is universally believed to be a 

 juggle resorted to by the Company to enable it to be said that no mis- 

 management of the trade exists, the return of the money being intended 

 to prove that cargoes cannot be already obtained, and no extension of 

 the trade is in consequence required. Moreover, if bills of any de- 

 scription were required for remittance from Canton to England, there is 

 no reason why bills of the Bank of the United States should be preferred 

 to bills upon the Bank of England, or upon the thousand other banks 

 in London and other parts of England itself. The bills of the Bank of 

 the United States being those of a strange bank, are useless in England 

 until accepted by the Barings ; and unless it be allowed that bills 

 accepted by these Barings are better than bills accepted by any other 

 English banker, we must continue to suppose that Mr. Josuah Bates has 

 made a most stupid and impudent assertion. 



Still this absurd evidence had an extraordinary effect in the United 

 States. It was triumphantly quoted in every newspaper from Phila- 

 delphia to the Gulf of Mexico ; in steam-boats, at taverns, and on the 

 road, the traveller was told of the acknowledged superiority of the Bank 

 of the United States, as proved by the assertion of " a partner in the 

 great house of Baring." The chances were previously most adverse to 

 the renewal of the charter, but this circumstance reconciled all parties 

 to the measure. A very powerful speech, which had been recently de- 

 livered by that first of financiers, Mr. Benton, Senator from the State of 

 Missouri, was entirely nullified by the evidence of Mr. Bates ; and we, 

 with our knowledge of the true operations of the banking system in 

 both countries, saw with regret the workings of this mischievous folly. 



It did not occur to our transatlantic brethren that the Barings are the 

 sole agents in England for the Bank of the United States ; the commis- 

 sion for this agency far exceeding a profit of 100,OOOZ. per annum ; that 

 Mr. Gallatin has proved that a sum of two millions and a half of dollars 

 is obliged to be regularly kept in advance with these Barings ; that, in 

 consequence, without trusting the Bank a single dollar, they yet de-- 

 rived a most princely revenue from the commission upon its immense 

 tranactions ; and that the Bank of the United States, an institution so 

 opposite to the spirit of a democratic government, appears to have been 

 founded, in the admirable words of General Jackson, " to make the 

 rich, richer :" the only persons who derive any profit from it being the 

 Directors and their friends at home, and the Barings in England, one 



