Middlemen in English Business 383 



partner to some provincial town to open a bank in connection with 

 the metropolitan one;^ but the greater part of the country banks were 

 instituted by merchants and tradesmen to facihtate their business.^ 



Country tradesmen who had frequent correspondence with London 

 found it to their advantage to establish special accounts current with 

 some London firm, for the adjustment of their bills drawn with 

 respect to Londoners. They soon began to accept country bills from 

 their friends and sent them up to London with their own, against their 

 current account. With the multiplication of such services it became 

 profitable for the merchants to deal in internal exchange, paying money 

 for bills and bills for money, and charge for the accommodation. 

 To draw trade to their doors they posted the signboard "Bank:" 

 banking and merchandizing were done together. They had vaults 

 and accepted funds belonging to their customers, for safekeeping. 

 They soon began to employ such funds in their own business and 

 allow interest, as well as lend it out to other parties at better rates. 

 They thus came to buy and sell domestic exchange, receive deposits 

 and make loans, discount bills and notes, and deal in general in 

 commercial paper. As business increased they dropped merchandis- 

 ing. 



Meanwhile banking was done in a meager way by other agents. 

 The tax collectors had difficulties in transmitting their moneys to 

 London and held them on hand a while, till they could buy bills from 

 the merchants if possible. Manufacturers paid their employees in 

 scrip or "promises to pay," i. e., a kind of banknote, which became 

 current locally.' Some of these merchant bankers were employed as 

 agents of the Scottish banks to distribute their notes, e.g., the Couttses 

 and Campbell and Carr. The traveling merchants gave credits to 

 and took money from their rural customers and charged and allowed 

 interest on such funds. The "Mine Adventurers of England" and 



1 Bisschop, Rise, 149. 



- See discussion of this feature in Bisschop, Rise, 146-8, PhiUips, Banks, 9-10, 

 22-23; Thornton, Paper Cr., 237-8, 241 ; Lawson, II, 148 et seq. The gist of these 

 references is given in the following paragraph. See also Cunningham, Growth, 

 III, 824; 7 Geo. IV, Cap. 46. 



^ During the seventeenth century "tradesmen's tokens" were frequently issued 

 either by towns or by private tradesmen. Between 1650 and 1700 the Hants 

 towns and villages — at least forty-five — issufed them freely; there are over two hun- 

 dred known kinds. They bore the name and occupation of the issuer. A large 

 majority bear the arms of grocers; others were issued by tallow-chandlers, mercers, 

 vinters, bakers, drapers, brewers, etc. V. C. H., Hants, V, 428. Similar fomis of 

 credit tokens were very common in other counties. Nash, Worcester, XC. 



