The one pound note in the history of banking in Great Britain ...

Front matter

Darnell Hmucrattg ffiihratg

JItttara, New Inrh

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE

Preface To The Second Edition

A SECOND EDITION of this work is issued in response to many requests, the original edition of 1886 having been long out of print. Several chapters have been partially rewritten, and the historical portions are continued to date. As formerly, the book consists of two sections, relating respectively to Scotland and England. In the first, the leading events of Scottish banking history are noticed so far as they were connected with ONE Pound Notes. These events are not always given chronologically, the author desiring to follow the course of certain movements to their issue, rather than present a mere chronicle of facts. Thus the period 1727- 1770 occupies three chapters, which, though parallel in date, each deal with separate characteristic banking movements of the time. This section ends with chapters on the Scottish law of bank notes, and their manufacture. In the second division, an attempt is made to prove, by an historical examination of English banking, that the reasons for the southern antipathy to such a currency are no longer cogent, and that its introduction to England would strengthen the banking system and benefit national interests. Some photo-lithographs of old notes are inserted to illustrate the Scottish section, which by the simplicity of their workmanship strengthen the argument on forgery in the English chapter.

a PREFACE

The writer has pleasure in again thanking those Banks which have permitted the reproduction of their notes, and also of tendering his acknov/ledgments to those who have furnished information or otherwise aided the completion of the work.

WILLIAM GRAHAM.

7 Bruntsfield Crescent, Edinburgh, March 191 1.

Chapter I

Introduction— Condition of Scotland— Rise of the Bank of Scotland, and Issue of One Pound Notes— The Troubles of 1704 and 17x5— The Equivalent Company— 1695-1727

CHAPTER n

The Royal Bank— The Contest between the Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank, and its Result — Inauguration of Note Exchanges — Rise of Banking in Glasgow and Aberdeen— 1727-1760 . 36

CHAPTER ni

New Methods of Banking — Cash Credits, Deposits, Till-money, Private Bankers: Their Support by the Joint-Stock Banks— 1728-1760 . . .61

CHAPTER IV

A Comedy of Errors— The Option Clauses— Note-issuing Mania— Restriction Act of 1765-1730-1765 . 78

CHAPTER V

The Rebellion of 1745 — The British Linen Company- New Banks— Branches— 1745-1770 . . .96 xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

Condition op the Country— Agriculture— Progress— t"*"* Douglas, Heron, & Co.— The Note Exchanges, and Results of the Act of 1765 — 1765-1772 . . .105

CHAPTER VII

Expansion of Senior Banks— New Joint-Stock Banks — Effects in Glasgow of the Peace of 1782 — Banking Company in Aberdeen— Sir William Forbes & Co.— Dundee Bank— Crime— 1773- 1793 • • .120

CHAPTER VIII

The French Revolution and War Crises — Cash Payments Stopped — Enquiry as to Depreciation of Scottish Notes during the Restriction period — 1793-1820 . . . . . ■. .141

CHAPTER IX

Joint Stock versus Private Banking — The Commercial Bank and National Bank — Banking Record— 1800- 1826 ........ 152

CHAPTER X

Joint-Stock Speculation— The Crisis of 1825, and the

Legislation of 1826 . . . . .178

CHAPTER XI

Last Efforts of Local Banking, and its Gradual Absorption by National Banks— Extinction of Private Banking— Increase of Branches— Panic OF 1837— The End of the Free Note Issue— 1826-

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER XII

a retrosp.ect of the place and power of the one ^'■"^ Pound Note during the Free Issue — The Act 8 AND 9 Vict., c. 38, and its Effects— 1844-1845 , .'^ 205

CHAPTER XIII

The Western Bank— The City of Glasgow Bank— The Invasion of England — Banking Enquiry of 1875 — The Act of 1879 — Bank Notes excluded from Limited Liability — 1845-1882 . . . -234

CHAPTER XIV

Effect on Finance of Political Engagements in Africa — The Conversion of Consols — The Baring and Australian Crises — General Speculation- Resulting Depreciation of Investments — Absorption of Caledonian and Town & County Banks— The Value of the Note Issue — Concluding Remarks— 1883-igio . . . . .264

CHAPTER XV

Epitome of Law affecting the Issue and Circulation

of Bank Notes — Rules of the Note Exchange . 288

CHAPTER XVI

The Material and Manufacture of Bank Notes . 316

CHAPTER XVII

The Adaptability of the One Pound Note to England 334

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Portrait of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo Frontispiece

2. Bank of Scotland Note, ^12 Scots, 1716 . To face p. 16

3. Glasgow Ship Bank Option Note, ^i, 1759 . „ 58

4. Mason Barrowman Co. Note, is. Scots, 1764 „ 80

5. Dundee Bank Option Note, £1, 1763 . . „ 82

6. Royal Bank Option Note, ;£i2 Scots, 1762 . „ 85

7. Prince Charles Stewart's Notes, 1745 . . „ 100

8. British Linen Bank, £1, for Goods, 1754 . „ 103

9. Douglas, Heron, & Co. Note, £1, 1769 . . „ log

10. Sir William Forbes, J. Hunter, & Co.,

Guinea Note, 1789 „ 135

11. British Linen Bank Note, 5s., 1797 . . „ 145

12. Bank of Scotland Option Note, £1, 1752 . „ 205 13 Colonel Allan Cameron's Draft . . . „ 218

14. Royal Bank Note, ^12 Scots, £\ sterling,

1750 319

15. Cruikshanks' Bank Restriction Note . . „ 360

(^Several of the above have been slightly reduced from facsi7nile size)

Page 267, fourth line from foot, for " above " read " alone." „ 268, footnote should read :—

' Under the Trusts (Scotland) Act, 1898, and the Colonial Stocks Act of 1900.

Ifiro' vale ancrmeaa vcnn ever-riHing suuim As rill and runlet swell its deep'ning bound, Until in great dame Nature's plan it plays Its part ordained ; and regulated still, It drives the flying wheel or busy mill. So Commerce springs in tiny rills at best, But onward flowing grows apace, until There float upon its free and ample breast. With fruits of distant climes abundant drest. The merchant ships of many a foreign State, Outpouring on the wharves their world-collected freight.''

Saint Mennan's Chronicle.

A HISTORY of the Scottish banking system, in its widest extension, is an evidence of the power of the one pound note. By its means the Scottish banks have so adapted themselves to the wants of the country, and so essential an element has it been of their banking system, that in depicting its career it is impossible to dissociate it from

A

THE ONE POUND NOTE

INTRODUCTION— CONDITION OF SCOTLAND— RISE OF THE BANK OF SCOTLAND, AND ISSUE OF ONE POUND NOTES— THE TROUBLES OF 1704 AND 1715— THE EQUIVA- LENT COMPANY.

" Far in the distant hills of bygone days — Like some small spring amid the silence round Which wakens into green the barren ground, Ere stumbling down the vale it takes its ways. Then side to side its errant current sways Thro' vale and mead with ever-rising sound As rill and runlet swell its deep'ning bound, Until in great dame Nature's plan it plays Its part ordained ; and regulated still. It drives the flying wheel or busy mill. So Commerce springs in tiny rills at best. But onward flowing grows apace, until There float upon its free and ample breast, With fruits of distant climes abundant drest, The merchant ships of many a foreign State, Outpouring on the wharves their world-collected freight."

Saint Mennan's Chronicle.

A HISTORY of the Scottish banking system, in its widest extension, is an evidence of the power of the one pound note. By its means the Scottish banks have so adapted themselves to the wants of the country, and so essential an element has it been of their banking system, that in depicting its career it is impossible to dissociate it from

A

2 WILLIAM PATEESON

the history of the system of which it forms a part. What its place in the future of Scotland may be, whether its usefulness will extend further with the nation's growth, or whether it will be superseded by other agencies, time will shew, but it is not without a due appreciation of its past service that our ancestors have written so much on this national instrument of credit.

Unfortunately much of what has been written has little historic value. There is no work which pretends to give the history of the one pound note : a modern student has to grope his way through the fragments of the past, picking up a fact here and there, and arranging them in order as he may. When done, such a history must necessarily be insufficient, since, in the scattered references to notes during a long period, it is sometimes impossible to distinguish between " large " and " small," or ascertain to which denomination certain effects have to be traced.

The adaptability of such notes to England is a subject for which there is abundant data. Banking in that country has undergone such material changes since Lord Liverpool abolished the one pound note in 1826, that the time seems not far distant when they may come within the range of "practical politics," and again resume their place as a factor in English currency.

As the seventeenth century merges into the eighteenth, many eminent names appear in the financial history of Britain. Setting aside several, such as Newton and Locke, whose economic writings are now only known from the fame attending their researches into other branches of knowledge, two men, both Scotsmen, stand opposed to each other, prominent — -facile princeps — as leaders in the financial movements of the time. Both were men of splendid ability and untiring energy; and being gifted with an agreeable exterior, they were readily recognised as authorities on all things economic. They equally possessed high imaginative powers, and their use or misuse of these faculties well illustrate the fundamental

LAW OF LAURISTON 3

difference in their characters. William Paterson's prescience became a guiding star through all his misfortunes, yet never led to questionable means for attainment of the great ends in view. John Law's vision could equally bridge the years of labour and effort, and view the triumphant success which might crown his ideas, but he lacked the patience of true greatness, and sought to reap his harvest before the soil was broken for the seed. The essential difference between Law and Paterson has in other times accounted for many financial disasters since their day, and has for bankers a peculiar interest. Law's business career was marked, notwithstanding much that was admirable, by the same lack of morality which clouded his reputation as a man, and though he cannot be accused of enriching himself at the public expense, he was unscrupulous in his adoption of means or method. He and his great rival were fair examples of their parties and age ; and their life-history might be summed up in the determination of Paterson to pay gold on demand for all obligations, and in the wild optimism of Law, coining into notes the profits of the Mississippi Valley for a century in perspective. The energy of the promoter merely increased the magnitude of the ruin.

Paterson possessed a nobility and integrity to which Law was a stranger, and throughout the troublous times of the Darien disaster none could point to any act of its far-sighted originator which was not actuated by right motives, and based on the sound sense which characterised his ideas.

In various pamphlets, and in his " Wednesday Club Dialogues," he advocated a gold standard as the only safe basis for a paper currency ; denouncing the land nostrums of Dr Hugh Chamberlain and other writers. The Bank of England was founded upon his proposals in 1694. " His admittance as a bank director has the same significancy to his honour, inasmuch as the wealthier men of London, his colleagues, were at that time by no means of a temper to be guided by a native of Scotland,

4 GOLDSMITHS' NOTES

unless his intellectual superiority was well attested." ^ He did not long remain a director, but he had scarcely left when the bank's troubles began, and partly through neglect of Paterson's caution it was compelled to stop payment.

Much has been said against him on account of the disasters of his Darien scheme, disasters for which he was not responsible. But for England's mistake in 1696, Britain might now be owner of the Panama Canal. It is to this man that England chiefly owes the modern " Bank Note." For thirty years prior to 1692, goldsmiths' promissory deposit notes or tickets — written, not printed — circulated in and around London, transferable by endorsation where payable " to order," or by delivery when drawn " to bearer." The common law of England had considered " choses-in-action " (in which bills of exchange and promissory notes were embraced) to be transferable, until Lord Coke threw some doubt on the matter, and finally maintained that no " thing-in-action could be assigned to strangers " — a statement of law which apparently did not include Bills of Exchange, these being excluded by special custom of merchants. After the Restoration, this dictum of Lord Coke had been ignored, but it is evident that there was a feeling of insecurity, for one writer, so early as 1677, advocated the adoption of the continental practice, " making bills (payable to bearer) transferable without a slow and expensive assignation, or even any endorsement." Three years after the date of this discourse, a decision was obtained, declaring promissory notes legally transferable where the granter had drawn them payable to "Bearer." Eleven years passed, and the trade in deposit notes went on, until a goldsmith's note came before Lord Holt and the Court of Queen's Bench, when it was decided that all such writs, being promissory notes and not bills, were illegal, and could not

1 "A Discourse of the Use and Power of Parliaments, Laws, Courts, etc.," printer and author unknown. See Bannister's "Life of William Paterson."

NEGOTIABILITY OF NOTES 5

be assigned or transferred. His lordship declaimed against the obstinacy of merchants who were setting the law of Lombard Street above that of Westminster Hall ! This decision was a severe blow to the London bankers and merchants, and a remonstrance was addressed to Parliament, into which Paterson threw himself with characteristic vigour. He appeared before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1693, and offered to raise money for Government use, by means of his influence with city financiers, on condition that Government should sanction their " Bills payable in Coin on demand " being made transferable to bearer without endorsement, contrary to Lord Holt's decision.

In course of time mercantile custom ignored the statutory requirement of endorsation, and in 1704, by Act 3 & 4 Anne, c. 8, English promissory notes were accorded the same rights as bills of exchange. In 1875, as the result of the researches of Mr Henry Dunning Macleod, the decisions of Lord Holt and his confreres were pronounced by the Lord Chief-Justice to be a "blot on our judicial history, and the Court unanimously reversed and annulled them." Paterson did his part in procuring that statutory relief which was supposed to be required. The institution he founded first issued printed notes or orders in Britain ; but it is to Scotland we have to look for the first adaptation of the banker's promissory note to the service of the common people. Unlike England, the right at common law to pass notes payable to the bearer on demand without assignation or endorsement had never been questioned ; the Scots Law being like that of France founded directly on the Roman Code, which permitted any Creditor to transfer or assign a debt without the Debtor's sanction, the transferee or Assignee having a right to sue in his own name.

Before entering upon the historical part of the subject, it may be well to glance back a few years, at the condition of the country at that time.

The accession of James VI. of Scotland to the throne

6 BARBAROUS CONDITION OF SCOTLAND

of England (1603) was an event of vital importance for both countries. For a time, however, it was difficult for Scotland to see anything in the good fortune of its king but misfortune for his ancient kingdom. The expenditure of the Court, with that of the nobles and gentry, was transferred from Edinburgh to London, where heavy expenses compelled mortgage of many estates in the far North ; disputes arose between the two countries as to customs regulations ; offices of state, which had supported numbers of the gentry for generations, were abolished ; and the very peace which ensued between nations^that had not known peace for 300 years, threw out of employment crowds of youthful spirits who had been trained to make war their trade. With such changes in a small and very poor country, trade languished, and many sought employment abroad, in commerce, or as soldiers of fortune under the powers of the Continent. In the wars that followed, it was not uncommon for Scot to meet Scot at the pike's point ; and the story is told of a brigade, storming up the steep side of a redoubt, being hailed in their mother-tongue from the walls above, " Come on, loons ; this is not like gallanting in the High Street of Edinburgh ! " As years went by, the wanderers returned with their pockets full of gold, and their minds enlarged by travel and intercourse with the merchants of the Continent. Much of the old antipathy died out in the Civil War, and at last the revolt against the folly of James VII. enabled both countries to make an unanimous choice of William of Orange as their king. A new generation arose that knew of the old warfare as a tradition only. For a time the Scottish spirit was furiously roused by the Massacre of Glencoe and the failure of the Darien scheme, but the effects were temporary ; the collapse of old Mr Melancholy in 17 15 and his gallant son's defeat in 1745 proving that the old hate had passed away, leaving a residuum of irritation which shows itself occasionally to the present time. Much credit has been given to the " Union," for the prosperous condition to which Scotland has since risen. Its chief and inestimable

EARLY BANKING PERIOD 7

benefit lay in the peace that ensued, and in this the North of England equally shared. The " debateable land " on both sides of the Border may date its prosperity from the Union. Middlesex, Wessex, and the South Midlands were the England of long ago ; the North was a region of insurrection and alarm. The treaty of 1707 changed this entirely, and by introducing a profound peace, gave alike provision for industry, and that security necessary for its continuance.

However, all this was yet to come, for the closing days of the seventeenth century were still hard and cruel. The idea of " Banking " arouses such feelings of security and modernity that it is not easy to conceive as possible within the " Banking Era " such a scene as Mr Chambers narrates in his " Domestic Annals of Scotland." It is the loth June 1697. On the Gallows Green of Paisley, surrounded by an expectant crowd, stands a gallows, with five women below it ; close by blazes a huge fire. A sixth victim had evaded their fate by suicide in his cell that morning. Those six, after long and careful trial, with my Lord Advocate Sir James Steuart as Crown Prosecutor, had been condemned to death for bewitching a young girl. Christian Shaw of Bargarran, and with many pious ejaculations the five women were hanged there in the face of the sun. Cut down in a few minutes, they were mercilessly burned in the great fire. Just seven months earlier, in December 1696, in cultured Edinburgh, a boy, Thomas Aikenhead, was executed for some idle blasphemies, withdrawn and abjured even before his trial ; inter alia, he referred to the Old Testament as " Ezra's Fables." Lord Anstruther approached the Privy Council for the lad, and was told mercy could not be granted unless the ministers would intercede, but, " The ministers out of a pious though I think ignorant zeal preached for cutting him off." Two ministers did intercede, nevertheless, but in vain, and the unfortunate lad, " assisted in his last moments " by several ministers, was led to the Gallowlea between Edinburgh and Leith and there hanged. Modern ideas of " Ezra's

8 PAISLEY THREAD TRADE

Fables " might lead half a General Assembly to accompany a new Aikenhead as fellow-sufferers to the gallows. Christian Shaw's story had a sequel. She had a pair of clever hands, and about 1722 invented a method of spinning linen sewing-thread from flax of so fine a quality that the great ladies of Bath were captivated ; " Bargarran Sewing Threed," known far and wide, commanding a good price. The manufacture was carried on in Bargarran by Lady Bargarran, and in Johnstone by Christian herself, now Mrs Miller, wife of the minister of Kilmaurs. Newspaper advertisements told how the " Threed " could be got " in Edinburgh at John Seton, Merchant, his shop in the Parliament Close." The trade ultimately settled in Paisley, and was revolutionised when cotton displaced flax. Few who now look on the million whirling spindles of Paisley will connect the world-famous house of Coats with that grim scene on the Gallows Green, two centuries ago, in the beginning of the Banking Era !

The banking system of Scotland owes much to the neglect with which English statesmen treated it in its infancy. North Britain was deemed to be little improved from the days when the Romans " turned back with contempt from gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest." 1 The language of the great historian fairly indicates the opinion Englishmen had of Scotland, even so late as his day. Scottish pride and poverty were proverbial ; England cared not to stir up the one, and had nothing to gain from the other. Rebellion in Ireland, wars of the Spanish succession, and Jacobite plots at home gave Dutch William and his successors such ample employment as effectually prevented interference with Scottish commerce.

In Edinburgh's pre-banking days monetary facilities were granted by the Goldsmiths and Merchants. In Edinburgh the booths of the former clustered around St Giles Church, where the famous George Heriot had his shop, and the father of Law of Lauriston made the fortune 1 Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

EDINBURGH GOLDSMITHS 9

his son spent. The Goldsmiths' Hall at the north-west corner of Parliament Close (now Square) still survives in Sir David Wilkie's well-known painting. The Merchants had their habitat around the Cross, and declined to move to the better shelter of an Exchange built for them in the Square in the year 1685. In the same year there was erected, also in the Square, the statue to Charles II., whose horse still tramples on the grave of John Knox ! Possibly such vicinity to the man who robbed the London Merchants, was too much for the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. These two classes, the Goldsmiths and Merchants, took care of money or valuables deposited, granted loans, discounted bills, and dealt in inland and foreign exchange, i.e. granting or paying bills issued in payment of accounts for internal or foreign trade. Loans against heritable estate were then, as now, chiefly in the hands of the legal profession.

Notwithstanding the general depression caused by the period of scarcity (1693-1699) called "King William's seven years of famine," ^ a general feeling of activity and hopefulness sprang up towards the close of the seventeenth century, in singular contrast to the listless despair that settled down upon Edinburgh for nearly forty years after the collapse of the Darien Expedition and the completion of the Union. It was an age of new ideas. The long half-century of disaster and distress caused by the Civil War and the religious persecutions of the Stuarts, was over, and both nations seemed ready to renew the mighty youth of Queen Elizabeth's days. An ardent desire for liberty from the shackles which had so long fettered trade animated all parties, and not even in the days of Cobden and Bright was a "free trade" so exultantly spoken of and sung.

Bannister's " Life of William Paterson " (Edinburgh, 1858) contains the following piece of poetical economics written about 1697, in the enthusiasm of the Darien

' " The harvests were so bad that some parishes in Aberdeenshire became depopulated, through the people fleeing to Ireland." Mr Boase's " Century of Banking in Dundee,'' p. 9.

10 FOUNDATION OF THE BANK

scheme, which endeavours to illustrate the superior freedom of the Scots law prior to the Union : —

" Scotland was like to thrive ; 'twas very plain They'd got a law, and could that law maintain, A law that set all sorts of trading free ; No land a wiser law did ever see ; No mighty power it needs, no fertile lands, No gold, no silver mines, it all commands ; All that our nature needs or can desire, All that for pride or pleasure we require, Free trade will give, or teach us how to use, Instruct us what to take and what refuse."

Thus safe in her poverty, Scotland began her first bank. It was the day of small things. The stamp duties which at a later date were remitted to London by John Coutts's house, amounted for the first year after the Union to ;£'8oo. The excise and customs for the year 1708 produced a net revenue of ;£'34,898 against England's ;^2,289,i6i — the " Mercantile System " and smuggling effectually combining to reduce trade and revenue alike. For a history of the early days of the Bank of Scotland, we are indebted to the author of a scarce work, published in February 1728, " An Historical Account of the Establishment, Progress, and State of the Bank of Scotland, and of several attempts that have been made against it, and the several Interruptions and Inconveniences the Company has encountered," supposed to have been written by a son of John Holland, j^the originator of the bank.^ The author speaks with familiarity of private meetings of the bank authorities, and states their views with vigour and frankness. The pamphlet was published in the first year of the Royal Bank's existence, with the view of proving the old bank's superior claims to public support. The Bank of Scotland was founded in 1695,^ under an "Act of Parlia-

' A copy is preserved in the Library of the Writers to the Signet, Edinburgh.

2 The bank's first accountant was George Watson, the founder of the Hospital in Edinburgh which long bore his name, now George Watson's College.

THE BANK ACT 11

ment for Erecting A Bank in Scotland," dated the 17th July of that year, whereby there was allowed " a joynt stock amounting to the sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds money" Scots, equal to ;^ioo,ooo sterling; the total number of shareholders was not to be less than sixty, nor more than twelve hundred ; two-thirds of the whale stock to be held by persons residing in Scotland. Contrasted with the English legislation of 1708, this may afford some idea of the numbers of partners the Scots Parliament deemed necessary for a joint-stock company. There are three clauses which have a bearing on our subject, and one of these is somewhat indirect. It is as follows: — "And for the better Encouragement of the said Company and Adventurers, It is hereby statute that the Joynt Stock of the said Bank continuing in Money shall be free from all publick burden to be imposed upon Money for the space of 21 years after the date hereof: and that during this space it shall not be leasom [lawful] to any other persons to enter into and set up a distinct Company of Bank within this Kingdom, besides these persons allenarly [alone] in whose Favours this Act is granted." In this clause may be traced the hand of John Holland, London merchant, who drafted the original Act, and whose name, with those of six merchants in London, all bearing Scottish names, and five in Edinburgh, appears on the list of adventurers.

Amongst the London promoters was Thomas Coutts, uncle of Provost John Coutts of Edinburgh, to be referred to hereafter. Imbued as these gentlemen would be with current protective theories, it was natural that they should seek to protect the new Scots bank, as had been done in the previous year for the Bank of England. Fortunately for Scotland, no renewal of the privilege was sought for at the termination of the period in 17 16; and, probably, little harm was done by the restriction, as the Royal Bank did not begin business until 1727, eleven years after the monopoly had expired. If, however, the Bank of Scotland had succeeded in maintaining a monopoly of banking.

12 SUMMARY DILIGENCE

similar to that enjoyed by the Bank of England, the same results would have been exhibited in the North as in the South ; an absence of national joint-stock banks powerful enough to withstand the shocks of financial crises ; and in their place a crowd of small private bankers, unknown beyond the locality in which they dwelt. To this extent, therefore, the lapse of restrictive legislation in 1716 aided in creating that confidence which is yet accorded to the note issue of Scotland. The dangers of no restriction will appear further on.

The only infringement of the bank's rights during the years of the monopoly was made by the Darien Company, then more commonly known as the African Company, which began banking as a means of recovering what it had lost in its colonisation scheme. National sympathy was with that company, or doubtless they would not have ventured on ground forbidden by a special Act of Parliament. Reckless trading, advancing notes on bonds and discounts, brought their career to a close in 1698, to the relief of the Bank of Scotland, who had not cared to " quarrel with that mighty company."