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THE BANK CHARTER. 



IN the interval which must elapse before the assembling of the 

 reformed Parliament, there is no subject to which the attention of the 

 nation should be directed with more unceasing vigilance, than the 

 question of the renewal of the Charter of the Bank of England ; for 

 upon a judicious reform of our monetary system, more than all other 

 measures, must depend the restoration of prosperity, content, and poli- 

 tical tranquillity to the people of England. 



We think that it has now become apparent from the extorted con- 

 fessions of the directors themselves of the Bank of England, that out of 

 this huge and unmanageable monopoly of the trade in money, has arisen 

 the vast mountain of our national debt, and all the panics, vicissitudes, 

 and commercial convulsions, which for the last thirty years have left for 

 the middle orders of this country, no refuge from beggary and the jail, 

 but in emigration to a foreign land ; and to our virtuous peasantry, no 

 portion but hunger, the workhouse, and despair. That this condition of 

 things can continue to be tolerated that twenty-four insignificant and 

 narrow minded men, shall continue under our reformed system of 

 government, to direct in secret the happiness or misery of the twenty- 

 four millions of inhabitants of this great empire is no longer the ques- 

 tion, since the destruction of the boroughmongering power, which has 

 been accustomed for a century and a half, to sell at intervals to the 

 usurers of Thread-needle-street, the commercial liberties of the world. 

 Whatever may be said of the evil or the good intentions of the direc- 

 tors of the Bank of England at least no rational man can now deny, 

 that the enormous weight of the commercial power of the establishment, 

 has produced the most desolating consequences to the commerce of the 

 whole world ; and that the cessation of this monopoly, and the con- 

 sequent subdivision of the capital and power of the Bank of England is 

 indispensable to the future security, tranquillity, and political ascendancy 

 of the British empire. Indeed, it is not to be feared, that in these 

 enlightened .days, the directors of the Bank will presume to attempt a 

 full continuation of their power ; and it now becomes the question, 

 whether a modified renewal of the Charter be an expedient and prac- 

 ticable measure, or, whether an establishment, hitherto more fatal than 

 pestilence or famine, should be swept at once from the earth. 



We propose, then, to prove, in the following remarks, that the entire and 

 final abolition of the Bank of England, is not more required by the prin- 

 ciples of commercial liberty and expediency, than by the interests of the 

 shareholders themselves, whose future prospects will be materially altered 

 by the partial curtailment of the profits of the establishment, which is now 

 inevitable, even though the Charter be renewed at all. 



We do not, however, profess to convince the directors of the expe- 

 diency of breaking up the establishment, for it has distinctly appeared 

 in evidence, that not one of these men is possessed of one single shilling 

 of Bank stock beyond the mere sum of two thousand pounds, which is 

 required for the qualification of the office. This circumstance has, 

 indeed, been most curiously trumpeted forth by the advocates of the 

 Bank, as an instance of the disinterested spirit of the directors ; though 

 it has been proved in the recent disclosure of its affairs, that Bank stock 



