The bank is governed under the inspection of the Burgomasters, by six commissaries, chosen and named by the Burgomasters from among the magistrates and principal merchants, under the care of whom is the deposited treasure. They furnish every year in the month of February, a balance of the bank to the Burgomasters, the youngest of whom goes down with them into the vaults, to verify and take account of the number of sacks, and of the specie contained in said balance, and forming the real and effective fund that each one has in the bank; and whatever may have been said or suspected upon this subject, it is very certain, that the fund rolling through the bank, is really there deposited in specie, ingots, and bars of gold and silver. This treasure is not, moreover, so immense as many people imagine. Some authors have written, (without doubt by estimation) that it went as far as three hundred millions of florins, which is not credible, when we consider the returns of the bills (revirements de parties) which are continually made, between those who have reciprocal payments to make among themselves. We know very nearly, that there are scarcely more than two thousand accounts open upon the books of this bank; so that in order to make three hundred millions of florins, it is necessary that these two thousand persons should have, one with another, one hundred and fifty thousand florins each in bank, which is beyond all probability, especially, if we consider that A and B having there each one, ten thousand florins, might reciprocally pay themselves sixty thousand florins per week, and thus make a circulation of transposition of one hundred and twenty thousand per week, with twenty thousand of sign effective. So that reducing the year to forty weeks of payment, with regard to the intervals which take place in the times of the shuttings, which is too large an allowance, it would result, that with fifty millions, there might be made twelve thousand millions of florins of payments per annum. According to this, and considering that the money in bank brings in no benefit, it is easy to imagine, that there is not much more than is necessary for the circulation of payments in bank, and that its treasure cannot be so considerable as many people imagine.
The bank never lends upon any species of merchandise, nor discounts any paper, nor makes any other profit than the half or quarter of a florin upon the gold and silver there deposited, and which, added to the ten florins for the opening of accounts, and two stivers for each draft of which I have spoken, serves to pay all the expenses of clerks and others, which is occasioned by the bank. The overplus, which is not very considerable, goes to the profit of the city.
No arrest or attachment can be made of any moneys which are in bank, under any pretext; the commissaries, book keepers, and others, who are in the service of the bank, are bound by oath to say nothing of what passes there. No man has a right to require of the bank, the reimbursement in specie of the sum with which he is credited; (a) each one having his account only in the receipts of the commissaries, which are in the term of six months. It is certain, that the primitive fund, the receipts for which they have suffered to be extinguished, is no longer demandable, and that one cannot force the commissioners to give specie, but it is not, therefore, the less true, that this fund exists really, and one ought not, and cannot doubt, that if the city was threatened with an inevitable invasion, and if the merchants should require their money, to place it elsewhere in safety, that the Burgomasters would cause it to be paid, by giving so many florins in current money, or value in bars or ingots, with which one should be credited.
(a) The author is here mistaken. All those who have an account in bank, may demand to be paid in ready money, but they cannot require the agio. By consequence, while the bank shall have credit, and there shall be commerce at Amsterdam, which cannot be carried on without the money of the bank, and while there shall be, consequently, an agio, no man will go and demand in ready money, a sum which is worth five per cent more. The author has not well distinguished between the sum of money, or rather the specie, which one may redemand in the term of six months, by means of a receipt, and the money for which one is credited in bank. Behold the difference.
When they have received at the bank a certain quality of gold or silver, whether in money or in bars, for the value of which the bank has credited upon its books the proprietor, (not according to the value which this money has in commerce, but according to its weight and denomination,) in this case, the depositor, or he who holds the receipt, has the right, by means of this receipt, and in restoring to the bank the sum for which the first depositor had been credited, to withdraw this gold or silver, paying one half per cent for the keeping. But, the six months elapsed, the receipt becomes useless, the gold or silver remains in propriety to the bank, and the depositor must content himself to have received in its place, the sum which this gold or silver has been valued at, by which sum he has been credited upon the books, and whereof he might have disposed as he saw good. It is this sum that he has the faculty of redemanding in ready money, when, and as often as he judges proper, and as he is acknowledged upon the books to be a creditor for that sum; but they are not bound to restore him more than the net sum without agio.
No man will be, by consequence, mad enough to cause himself to be paid four or five per cent less than the money of the bank is worth in commerce. But if the money of the bank should be so discredited, that there should be no longer an agio, in that case, all the world would have a right to come and demand at the bank, the amount of the sums for which they are credited; and the bank, whose credit would be ruined, would be obliged, without controversy to make this payment, or to commit bankruptcy. It can never acquire a right of propriety in the capitals for which it has credit upon its books; but in case of restitution, it is not obliged to restore the same matters, or the same money for which it originally gave these credits. Over these the right is lost, with the expiration of the time established for the duration of the receipts, but it is held to the restitution of the amounts of the credits, such as they appear upon the books.
September 26th, 1782.
For the use of Congress, from
JOHN ADAMS.