x PREFACE. 



Elizabeth, but the early days of such associations 

 are of feeble and interrupted efforts. The origin of 

 tlirse companies was the prerogative claimed by the 

 Crown of granting monopolies of trade, a prerogative 

 cautiously exercised by Elizabeth, and prudently 

 curtailed by her when it became unpopular, and 

 iwived by James with his customary recklessness and 

 obstinacy. In course of time the privilege of the 

 chartered company was conferred on those associations 

 only which dealt with such business as could not be 

 undertaken by private individuals, because it was too 

 great, too remote, and too risky for private action ; and 

 after the Revolution it was affirmed, with conclusive 

 authority, that Parliament alone could confer mono- 

 polies of such trade. It is unnecessary to refer in detail 

 to the remarkable institutions which have been de- 

 veloped from this Parliamentary doctrine. But among 

 them is that singular and successful institution, the 

 Bank of England, whose career has been so honourable 

 and useful, whose management, though it has not been 

 without errors, is the accumulated experience of com- 

 mercial honour and shrewdness, of good faith and 

 patriotism. No institution has ever triumphed more 

 completely over unprincipled and rancorous foes than 

 the Bank of England has, and the example which this 

 country has been able to afford the world of Parlia- 

 mentary Institutions would have been grievously im- 

 perfect, had not this great financial instrument given 

 steadiness to the machinery of Representative Govern- 

 ment. 



