Tables indicating the banks which suspended during the panic: In 1814, 90; in 1830, 165; in 1837, 618; in 1839, 959. The last panic, from 1837 to 1839, produced, according to some pretty accurate reports of 1841, 33,000 failures, involving a loss of $440,000,000.
PANIC OF 1848.—The entire discounts, which had risen to $525,000,000 in 1837, fell to $485,000,000 in 1838, only to rise again to $492,000,000 in 1839, and the real liquidation of the panic occurred only then. Discounts fell at once to $462,000,000, then $386,000,000; the abundance of capital, and the low price at which it was offered, cleared out bank paper until it was reduced from $525,000,000 to $254,000,000 in 1843. [Footnote: We have not the outside figures, the maximum or minimum.]
The metallic reserve increased from $37,000,000 to $49,000,000 (1844); the circulation was reduced from $149,000,000 to $58,000,000.
The number of banks in 1840, from 901 fell to 691 in 1843, and the capital itself from $350,000,000 in 1840 was reduced to $200,000,000 in 1845 and to even $196,000,000 in 1846.
All these figures clearly indicate liquidation. The market, freed from its exchange, was enabled to permit affairs to resume their ordinary course.
In fact an upward movement was taking place. Discounts rose from $264,000,000 to $344,000,006 in 1848.
Banks increased from 691 in 1843 to 751 in 1848, and their capital grew from $196,000,000 in 1846 to $207,000,000. The paper circulation rose from $58,000,000 to $128,000,000 in 1848. Deposits from $62,000,000 reached $103,000,000 in 1848. The metallic reserve alone fell from $49,000,000 in 1844 to $35,000,000 in 1848.
The consequences of the European panic were felt in America, but without causing much trouble. The liquidation of the panic of 1839 was barely over, and was still too recent to have permitted sufficient extension of business.
Embarrassments were slight and brief; discounts, nevertheless, fell from $344,000,000 to $332,000,000.
The store of bullion, in spite of the surplus and the favorable balance produced by the export of grain to Europe, fell from $49,000,000 to $35,000,000; with the following year the forward movement recommenced.