658 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1805. 



loan was contracted for conjointly 

 hy the same parties who were con- 

 cerned in the preceding loan ; all 

 houses at that time of unsuspected 

 credit ; each house being generally 

 considtred, subsequent to the pay- 

 ment of the deposit for which they 

 were all jointly liable, responsible 

 only far the amount of the shares 

 then hrld by them respectively. Of 

 the latter loan, in the beginning of 

 September 179G, two instalments, 

 of 15 per cent, were due. In the 

 beginning of the year 1796, from 

 the embarrassment of public credit, 

 and the decreasing state of t'i,c 

 specie at the bank, the governor 

 and directors thought it prudent to 

 restrain their engagements, and 

 upon that account had refused ad- 

 vancing the progressive payments 

 upon the loan of December 1793 ; 

 l>ut in consideration of the purposes 

 lor which the loan of April 179G 

 had been 7nadc, as well as of its being 

 comparatively small, they consented 

 to advance to the contractors, and 

 did advance, the third, fourth, fifth, 

 and sixth payments ; requiring them 

 to make the seventh, being the last 

 payment, which was to become due 

 on the 26th ofOctober in that year. 

 It is stated, in the evidence given to 

 your committee, that the autumn of 



1796 was a period of peculiar em- 

 barrassment, both of public and pri- 

 vate credit, which led to the restric- 

 tions of payments in specie at the 

 bank, that took place in February 



1797 ; that there was a very great 

 run on private commercial houses, 

 a great scarcity of money, and a 

 very heavy pressure on the bank 

 for discounts, which they had been 

 obliged materially to narrow, and 

 had thought it necessary to contract 

 their accommodatio'ns both to go- 

 Tcrnment and the commercial world. 



not liovvever making any distinction 

 between the house of Boyd and co. 

 and houses of the first mercantile 

 credit in the city of London. — Un- 

 der these circumstances, at some 

 time before the 9th of September 

 1796, Mr. Boyd appears to have re- 

 presented to lord Melville and Mr. 

 Pitt the great pecuniary ditliculty 

 and embarrassment of his house ; 

 that the bank had refused to dis- 

 count their bills, and that, with am- 

 ple securities in their hands, they 

 were not enabled to raise money to 

 p:iy the next instalment on the loan, 

 which was nearly due, and request- 

 ed immediate pecuniary assistance, 

 for the purpose of completing their 

 engagements to government. It ap- 

 pears to your committee, that in ad- 

 dition to these engagements to go- 

 vernment, Messrs. Boyd and co. 

 had large payments to make on ac- 

 count of the emperor of Germany ; 

 that they paid, on the 31st of Oc- 

 tober 1796, a sum of 186,3401. 13s. 

 Id. on account of the director of the 

 emperor's finances at Vienna ; and 

 that, in the whole of the same year, 

 they remitted, on the same account, 

 sums amounting to 4,609,5061. 9s. 

 It appears also in evidence, that it 

 would have been difficult, and per- 

 haps impossible, for Messrs. Boyd 

 and CO. to have procured advances 

 ujion the securities in their posses, 

 sion (which we shall hereafter men- 

 tion), or to have converted them 

 into cash ; that a payment of 15 per 

 cent, on the loan of 18,000,0001. 

 was due on the 9th of September ; 

 and that, had they brought to mar- 

 ket such a proportion of their script 

 as was necessary to raise the said sum 



of 40,0001. in order to make good 

 their engagement, the probable con- 

 sequence would have been, to in- 

 crease the discount oa script, which. 



at 



