562 A. D. 1672. 



* by the laft breach with the bankers; for credit is gained by cuftom, 

 ' and feldom recovers a ftrain. I have heard a great example given of 



* this, that happened upon the late King Charles I's feizing L 2 00, 000 

 ' in the mint in 1 638 *, which had then the credit of a bank, and for 

 ' feveral years had been the treafury of all the vafi: payments tranfmit- 

 '' ted from Spain to Flanders : but after this invafion of it, although the 

 ' king paid back the money in a few months, the mint has never fmce 

 ' recovered its credit among foreign merchants.' 



Even fo late as this time, according to the anonymous author, who 

 has fo judicioufly tranfmitted the curious hiftory of our London bank- 

 ers, the receiving and paying of money from morning till night in an 

 open fhop was fo new, that our author himfelf feemed to think it a 

 flrange fort of a thing ; and was by no means a friend to that kind of 

 trade. 



Sir Jofiah Child alfo feems to be equally prepofrefTed againfl: it ; and 

 freely attacks the bankers in feveral parts of his Difcourfes on trade. He 

 accufes the bankers of his time, of being the main caufe of keeping the 

 interell of money at leafl 2 per cent higher than otherwife it would be ; 

 for (fays he) they give 6 per cent to private perfons for the money, 

 which they lend the king at 10 and 12 per cent, and fometimes more. 

 He inveighs againfl: what he calls this innovated practice of bankers, or 

 this new invention of cafhiering, as produdive of many evils, which has 

 made us fufped, that he himfelf might have been the author of the fmall 

 tra<5t on the Myftery of the new-fafhioned goldfmiths, of vi'hich we have 

 made good ufe under the year 1645, &c. : ' for, by allowing their cre- 

 ' ditors, at this time, fo high an interefl as 6 per cent, (whereas, till the 

 ' king's wants increafed his demands on them, they allowed but 4 per 

 ' cent) they make monied men fit down lazily with fo high an intereft, 

 ' and not pufh into commerce with their money, as they certainly would 

 ' do were it at 4 or 3 per cent, as in Holland. This high iiiterefl alfo 

 ' keeps the price of land fo low as 1 5 years purchafe, which would 

 ' otherwife be at 20 years purchafe. It alfo makes money fcarce in the 

 ' country ; feeing the trade of banking being only in London, it very 

 ' much drains the ready money from all other parts of the kingdom.' 



Upon the whole, whatever might in thofe days be faid, with truth, of 

 the practices of bankers, the cafe is at prefent quite otherwife ; and the 

 difpatch given by our modern London bankers to merchants, and other 

 dealers, is found fo convenient, that they are glad to lodge their main 

 cafh with them, to be drawn out from time to time as they want it, 

 without receiving or expecting any intereft; whatever ; and the bankers 

 generally get great fortunes, by prudently inverting a certain proportion 

 of their cafh in our national funds, and lending it on private pledges, 



• This compulfory loan we have placed in the year 1640. //. 



