﻿ESAREY: STATE BANKING IN INDIANA 23o 



specie deposit of $10,000 intended for the Jeffersonville Canal, 

 and, in place of this, the Bank had returned to the state bank 

 notes in an equal amount, but of very doubtful value. And this, 

 it is said, was done at a time when there was not enough cash in 

 the state treasury to pay the state officers. At the fourth session 

 of the state legislature, a resolution was offered by General Samuel 

 Milroy, a ginseng merchant, calling for a thorough investigation 

 of the Bank, but the resolution was voted down.^' Those who 

 opposed this bill were charged with being agents of the Bank. One 

 of the representatives so charged, Thomas H. Blake, representing 

 Knox county, gave as his reasons for not supporting the measure 

 that this was the duty of the governor under the law; that the state 

 had lived off the Bank and then owed it $30,000; and that the 

 legislators had to depend on the Bank for their own pay.''^ He 

 had voted against Representative John H. Thompson's bill re- 

 quiring the Bank to pay specie or forfeit its charter, because no 

 other western banks were paying specie. However true these rea- 

 sons may have been, the people coritinued to complain that the 

 banks made hard times, and they refused to re-elect Mr. Blake to 

 the legislature. The murmuring against banks was heard through- 

 out the West, as well as in the South and East. Moreover, worse 

 charges than these were appearing against the Vincennes Bank. 

 Its integrity was being questioned. Nearly all its loans were 

 said to be to its chrectors and political supporters. Many of these 

 loans were from a financial standpoint more than questionable. 

 The Bank would not issue many of its own notes but dealt almost 

 entirely in those of its irresponsible branches. Some of these notes 

 were said to be unsigned; some were time notes to be paid only 

 after two years from issue; some were issued outright by the ''Steam 

 Mill." These notes were not redeemable anywhere. The best that 

 the holder could do was to exchange them for notes of other branches." 

 Agents of the Vincennes Bank were said to be stationed in the towns 

 along the eastern line of the state, to exchange these branch bank 

 notes for eastern paper money, or specie. Then, to get money 

 receivable at the land offices, this depreciated paper had to be dis- 

 counted heavily. The Vincennes Bank was one of the worst of 

 these note shavers. 



^' West'irn Sun, July 1, 1820. 



« Centind, July 15, 1820. 



" Western Sun, August 19 and July 22, 1820. 



** The sl^atement of July 1, 1820, made to the national treasury shows: Capital paid in, $128,469; 

 U. S. deposits, $219,313; notes in circulation, $68,000; total liabilities, $551,000. Resources— Notes 

 dis3Cuntod, $177,770; loans to State, $29,000; specie, $24,000; U. S. Bank notes, $3,300; State Bank 

 notes, $245,000. Am. Sia. Pa., Fin., HI, 817. 



<5 Western Sun, August 26, 1820. 



