Chronicles and characters of the stock exchange

by of the Bank of England John Francis

I now, that I may not be said to speak without a precedent, I humbly refer to those moneyed gentlemen to a case recent in memory, and even in their own, which, though indeed they may think fit to have forgotten for a time, they will all call to mind when they hear of it again; and this was the case of two goldsmiths (knights also, and one of them member of Parliament, too) in Fleet Street, who pushed at the Bank of England at the time that the Pretender’s invasion from France was in its preparation. One of them, it was said, had gathered a quantity of Bank-bills, to the value of near £100,000, and the other a great sum, though not so many, and, it was said, resolved to demand them all at once.

Let the gentlemen I point at look back to the printed papers that year; let them inquire what construction was put upon it; let them inquire how the government resented it; how my Lord Treasurer Godolphin looked upon it as a mine formed to blow up the queen’s affairs, and how, in a word, all the friends of the government took it to be such a step in favor of the Pretender, as was impossible to consist with duty to the queen.

Let them inquire farther, with what difficulty Sir R—— Ho—— wiped off the imputation of being a favorer of the rebellion, and how often, in vain, he protested he did it with no such view, and how hard the Whigs were to believe him. Sir F—— C——d, indeed, carried it with a higher hand, and afterwards pretended to refuse the bills of the Bank; but still declared he did it as a goldsmith, and as a piece of justice to himself in some points in which the Bank had, as he alleged, used him ill. But, in general, it was looked upon as an open affront to the government, and an abetting and countenancing the invasion of the Pretender from abroad, and the rebellion intended at home. Nor was the government, much less were the authors of private papers and prints, wanting in letting them know it; nay, if I am not misinformed, they were threatened with being treated as enemies to the government; and if things had gone on to extremities, they had doubtless been marked out as persons the government were to take care of.

Now I only speak in plainer words; it was said then, that such men as endeavoured to run down the public credit were enemies to the government. I know no distinction in the case, that should require so much tenderness. Every subject of King George, who is at the same time an enemy to King George, is a traitor; and every overt act of that enmity, it being his duty to his utmost to favor, aid, and support the government, is an overt act of treason, let it be gilded over with what fine words the persons please, ’tis the same thing, if it is not literal treason, and within reach of the statute, yet the crime is in itself of the same nature.

And let any one tell me what is the difference between two dealers in Paris credit in the time of a French invasion, and three dealers in paper credit in the time of a Spanish invasion, or what sanctity in Birchin Lane more than in Fleet Street, that one should be a protection for the same practice that was resented so justly in another.

Were those stock-jobbers sincerely and heartily in the interest of King George and his government, as they pretend loudly, what run could there be upon the Bank, what ebb of credit, what sinking of stock? The honest Whigs, who were friends to the government at that time, mentioned above, who not only knew their duty, but how to make it seasonable and useful, acted after another manner. When others ran upon the Bank with all the fury possible, they carried all the money thither they could gather up; nay, I could name a man in this city, who, having but £500 in the world, carried it all into the Bank to support the credit of the public; and the story being told to her Majesty by the late Lord Treasurer Godolphin, the sense of such fidelity so moved the queen, that she sent him a hundred pounds as a gift, a royal token of her accepting such an act of loyalty; and caused my Lord to give him an obligation from the Treasury to repay him the whole £500 if any disaster to the Bank should have made it doubtful.

Where ’s the like courage and conduct to be found now? Is it in being? Are the gentlemen less able? Or is it that they have not the same zeal for King George as that honest citizen had for the queen? Or do they doubt the king being as sensible of the service? Or what is the matter that the public credit had rather met with injurious juggling and jobbing upon it, than real support, either from Exchange Alley, Birchin Lane, or some other places less noted?

Let those men reflect a little upon the circumstances the public credit must have been in by such mismanagement, if the Spanish attempt had been made, and if these easterly Protestant winds had not chopped in, by which Providence has given the government time to put itself in a posture of defence, so as now not to be afraid of them; and if the capital stock of the persons interested in the funds is now sunk a million in the real value of them as they stood before even at the market, which is nothing but what the matter of fact will justify, to what degree would the same current, if it had gone on, have sunk the estates of all the moneyed men in England?

In what manner would money have been raised upon a new credit for any immediate exigencies that might have happened? And should the government have been supported,—nay, though the Parliament had granted funds,—while these men had made all credit ebb, perhaps, to twenty-five or thirty per cent. discount? And is not this, then, a species of treason and rebellion?

It was very remarkable, that, in the juncture of those things, the Jacobites could not refrain taking notice how easy it was to set the citizens plundering the Bank, and even the Exchequer, too; for, had this gone on, the funds, which are, in effect, the Exchequer itself, would have gone down hill hand in hand with the Bank; credit would have borne equal pace in one as well as in the other; and the government would no more have been able to borrow, than the Bank would have been able to pay.