A History of American Currency, with Chapters on the English Bank Restriction and Austrian Paper Money |
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Common terms and phrases
advances amount appears balance of trade bank notes Bank of England Bank of Ireland bank paper bank-notes bankers began bills Bullion Report capital cash payments cause cent charter circulating medium circumstances coinage colony commercial Committee commodities Congress continued contraction convertible country banks crisis debt demand deposits depreciation Directors discount doctrine dollar effect excess exchange expense exports fall favorable fixed fluctuations foreign gold bullion gold coin Hamburgh high price imports increased land legal tender limit loans London market price Massachusetts measure ment merchants millions nation operation opinion ounce paper currency paper issues paper money Parliament passed period pound sterling precious metals premium present price of gold produce quantity question reduced rency Restriction resume resumption Rhode Island seigniorage silver small notes Spanish dollars specie specie circular speculation standard sterling tariff taxes tion United States Bank York banks
Popular passages
Page 93 - Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's field by the sweat of the poor man's brow.
Page 333 - ... that the high price of gold is ascribed, by most of the witnesses, entirely to an alleged scarcity of that article, arising out of an unusual demand for it upon the continent of Europe. This unusual demand for gold upon the continent is described by some of them as being chiefly for the use of the French armies, though increased also by that state of alarm, and failure of confidence, which leads to the practice of hoarding.
Page 257 - Horner stands out," says Cockburn in his Memorials of this eminent Scotchman, " the light in which his history is calculated to inspire every right-minded youth, is this : he died at the age of thirty-eight, possessed of greater public influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless or the base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. Now, let every young man ask, How was this attained ? By rank 1 He was the...
Page 196 - ... men of all descriptions stood trembling before this monster of force, without daring to lift a hand against it, during all this period, yet its unrestrained energy proved ever ineffectual to its purposes, but in every instance increased the evils it was designed to remedy, and destroyed the benefits it was intended to promote. At best its utmost effect was like that of water sprinkled on a blacksmith's forge, which, indeed, deadens the flame for a moment but never fails to increase the heat and...
Page 357 - ... exchange, on the days on which we make our advances. 'Do you advert to these two circumstances with a view to regulate the general amount of your advances ?' 'I do not advert to it with a view to our general advances, conceiving it not to bear upon the question.
Page 43 - We have suffered more from this cause" he says, " than from every other cause of calamity : it has killed more men, pervaded and corrupted the choicest interests of our country more, and done more injustice than even the arms and artifices of our enemies...
Page 331 - House, considered the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following Report:—.
Page 371 - While the rate of commercial profit is very considerably higher than five percent., as it has lately been in many branches of our foreign trade, there is in fact no limit to the demands which merchants of perfectly good capital, and of the most prudent spirit of enterprise, may be tempted to make upon the Bank for accommodation and facilities by discount.
Page 369 - To watch the operation of so new a law, and to provide against the injury which might result from it to the public interests, was the province, not so much of the Bank as of the Legislature : and, in the opinion of your Committee, there is room to regret that this House has not taken earlier notice of all the consequences of that law. By far the most important of those consequences is, that while the convertibility into specie no longer exists as a check to an overissue of paper, the Bank Directors...
Page 356 - Mr. Pearse, now Governor of the Bank, agreed with Mr. Whitmore in this account of the practice of the Bank, and expressed his full concurrence in the same opinion. Mr. Pearse. — " In considering this subject, with reference to the manner in which Bank notes are issued...