THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION 43 
well, the knave who kept the cash became an alderman: if it 
turned up ill, the dupe who furnished the cash became a bank- 
rupt. On the other side the conveniences of the modern practice 
were set forth in animated language. The new system, it was 
said, saved both labor and money. ‘Two clerks, seated in one 
counting house, did what, under the old system, must have been 
done by twenty clerks in twenty different establishments. <A 
goldsmith’s note might be transferred ten times in a morning; 
and thus a hundred guineas, locked in his safe close to the Ex- 
change, did what would formerly have required a thousand 
guineas, dispersed through many tills, some on Ludgate Hill, some 
in Austin Friars, and some in Tower street. 
Gradually even those who had been loudest in murmuring 
against the innovation gave way and conformed to the prevailing 
usage. The last person who held out, strange to say, was Sir 
Dudley North. When, in 1680, after residing many years abroad, 
he returned to London, nothing astonished or displeased him more 
than the practice of making payments by drawing bills on bank- 
ers. He found that he could not go on Change without being fol- 
lowed round the piazza by goldsmiths, who, with low bows, beg- 
ged to have the honor of serving him. He lost his temper when 
his friends asked him where he kept his cash. ‘‘Where should 
I keep it,’’ he asked, ‘‘but in my own house?’’ With difficulty 
he was induced to put his money into the hands of one of the 
Lombard Street men, as they were called. Unhappily, the Lom- 
bard Street man broke, and some of his customers suffered severe- 
ly. Dudley North lost only fifty pounds; but his loss confirmed him 
in his dislike of the whole mystery of banking. It was in vain, 
however, that he exhorted his fellow citizens to return to the good 
old practice, and not to expose themselves to utter ruin in order 
to spare themselves a little trouble. He stood alone against the 
whole community. The advantages of the modern system were 
felt every hour of every day in every part of London; and people 
were no more disposed to relinquish those advantages for fear 
of calamities which occurred at long intervals than to refrain 
from building houses for fear of fires, or from building ships for 
fear of hurricanes. It is a curious circumstance that a man who, 
