Some curiosity will naturally be felt to know the aggregate expenses of the Commission,[[531]] and the balance of results which these left out of the eighty-four thousand pounds. There is a mixture of the ludicrous and sad in the problem, which may be expressed thus: money from the destruction (for public objects) of about fifty of the good old families of Scotland, £84,043; charges for the expense of the destruction, £82,936 = £1107! Walpole would find it hardly a decent purchase-money for a vote in the House of Commons.
Dec.
By statute passed in 1718,[[532]] arrangements had been made |1719.| regarding the sum of £16,575, 14s. 0½d., which had been left over of the Equivalent money at the Union, after paying sundry claims out of it, and for a further debt of £230,308, 9s. 10d., due by England to Scotland since in equalisation of duties, together with a small sum of interest—the whole amounting to £248,550—also for enabling the king to constitute the bond-holders of this debt into a corporation, which, after St John’s Day, 1719, should receive £10,000 annually as interest, until the debt should be redeemed.
Now, the Bank of Scotland had been going on very quietly for some years, with its ten thousand pounds of paid-up capital, realising, as we can infer from some particulars, about a thousand a year of profit from its business. A prosperity so great could not then exist in Scotland without exciting some degree of envy, and also raising up thoughts of rivalry in a certain ardent class of minds. It began to be alleged that the Bank, as it was commonly called, was stinted in its means and frigid in its dealings; that it lacked enterprise; that it would be the better of an infusion of fresh blood, and so forth. It had many positive enemies, who tried to detract from its merits, and were constantly raising evil reports about it.[[533]] Most deadly of all, there was now this Equivalent Company, with about a quarter of a million of debentures wherewith to engage in further mercantile enterprise, so as to make their ten thousand a year a little better. The boy, with his first shilling burning a hole in his pocket, was but a type of it.
In December 1719, a proposal came from a proprietor of Equivalent stock, to the effect that that stock should be added to the £100,000 stock of the Bank, but with nine-tenths of it returned by the Bank in notes, so that only £25,000 of it should in reality remain active in the new concern. It was proposed that, of the £10,000 of annual interest upon the Equivalent, the proprietors of Bank stock should thenceforward draw two-sevenths, being the proportion of £100,000 to £250,000; and of the £600 a year allowed for management of the Equivalent, the Bank was also to be allowed a proportion. In such a way might the Bank and Equivalent be brought into a union presumed to be beneficial to both parties.
1719.
The directors of the Bank received the proposition as an insidious attempt by a number of outsiders to get into the enjoyment of a portion of their time-bought advantages. They pointed out, in their answer, that the Equivalent stock being only in the receipt of 4 per cent. interest, while the profits of the Bank stock might be reckoned at not lower than 10, the proposal was inequitable towards the Bank. Besides, they did not want this additional stock, finding their present working capital quite sufficient. The proposer was thus repelled for the meantime; but he very quickly returned to the attack.
Under the guidance of this person, there was now formed what was called ‘The Edinburgh Society for insuring of Houses against Loss by Fire’—an arrangement of social life heretofore unknown in Scotland. But, as often happens, no sooner was this design broached than another set of people projected one of the same kind, with only this slight difference, that, instead of being a company trading for profits, it was a mutual insurance society reserving all profits for the insured. Such was the origin, in 1720, of what afterwards, under the name of ‘the Friendly Society,’[[534]] became a noted institution of the Scottish capital, and is still in a certain sense existing amongst us. The Edinburgh Society consequently got no insurance business.
It nevertheless kept together, under the care of a committee of secrecy, who gave out that they contemplated a still better project. For some time, they talked loudly of great, though unripe plans, by which they expected to ‘make Scotland flourish beyond what it ever did before.’ Then there arose a repetition of the old clamours about the Bank—it was too narrow, both in its capital and in its ideas; the directors were too nice about securities; the public required enlarged accommodation. At last, the Society plainly avowed that they were determined either to run down the Bank, or force a coalition with it. It was precisely one of the last century heiress-abductions, adapted to the new circumstances of the country and the advanced ideas of the age.
The opportunity seemed to be afforded by the share which Scotland took in the South-Sea scheme, large sums of specie being sent southward to purchase stock in that notable bubble. In such circumstances, it was assumed that the stock of coin in the Bank must have sunk to rather a low ebb. Having then gradually and |1719.| unperceivedly gathered up the monstrous sum of £8400 in notes of the Bank, our Edinburgh Society came in upon it one morning demanding immediate payment. To their surprise, the money was at once paid, for in reality the kind of coin sent by speculators to London was different from that usually kept by the Bank, so that there had been hardly any abatement of its usual resources in coin. The Society tried to induce the cashiers of all the public establishments to follow their example, and draw out their money, but without success in any instance but that of the trustees of the Equivalent, who came very ostentatiously, and taking out their money, stored it up in the Castle. The public preserved a mortifying tranquillity under all these excitements, and the Bank remained unaffected.