160 ADAM SMITH. 



received his information from Mr. Hope; and it was the 

 first time that any intelligible account of that celebrated 

 establishment had ever been given to the world. Mr. 

 Hope estimated the amount of the deposits in 1750, 

 at about three and a quarter millions sterling; and 

 Dr. Smith, like the rest of mankind, believed that the 

 oath annually taken by the burgomasters was sacred 

 " among that sober and religious people," and that not a 

 florin was ever issued except to the depositors, the whole 

 profit of the bank being the commission of a quarter per 

 cent, on deposits of silver, and a half per cent, on those 

 of gold. But about the very time that Mr. Hope spoke 

 of, or immediately after, the faith which had remained 

 inviolate from 1609, the date of the Bank's foundation, 

 was broken by that body, large loans were secretly 

 made to the Government and the East India Company ; 

 the annual oath continued to be taken by that " sober 

 and religious people," and to be annually broken; in 

 1790, the bank announced that no deposits under 2501. 

 would be returned, and that ten per cent, would be 

 returned on all others; and all this was submitted to 

 without impairing the bank's credit so sturdy a plant is 

 confidence, grounded on long habit and long-sustained 

 good faith! At length, in 1796, it was discovered that 

 above a million sterling, lent covertly, could not now be 

 recovered from the State by the Company, whose claims 

 on the public were assigned over to its creditors. The 

 bank paper, before bearing a premium of 5 per cent., 

 now fell to 16 discount. 



2. Hitherto we have tried the merits of the Mercantile 

 System for increasing the precious metals, on the principles 

 of the system itself. But more rational views condemn the 



