"Sums were also placed to the names of Mrs. Pelham, Lady Aboyne, W. R. and H. Fauntleroy, and Elizabeth Fauntleroy; and the learned gentleman observed, that all the sums were added together, and the sum total, 120,000l., appeared at the foot of this list, in the prisoner's hand-writing. The statement was followed by this declaration: "'In order to keep up the credit of our house, I have forged powers of attorney for the above sums and parties, and sold out to the amount here stated, and without the knowledge of my partners. I kept up the payment of the dividends, but made no entries of such payments in our books.

" '(Signed) Henry Fauntleiioy.

" 'Berners-street, May 7, 1816.

"'P. S. - The Bank began first to refuse to discount our acceptances, and to destroy the credit of our house; the Bank shall smart for it.' "

The loss sustained by the delinquency of this extraordinary individual, by all the forgeries he committed up to the time of his apprehension, ultimately fell upon the Bank of England, and they amounted to 360,000l. Marsh, Sibbald, and Co. immediately became bankrupts, and there was a reduction in the annual dividend upon Bank of England stock.

I had prepared a summary of the losses occasioned by the different failures amongst the private and joint-stock Banks during the last two years, but the amount appears so formidably large on the one side and so small on the other, that it would be invidious to publish it. I feel, moreover, that in every such estimate many inaccuracies are likely to be embodied in consequence of the difficulty there must always be in getting information that can be depended upon in complicated matters of detail, spread over all parts of the country, and extending through so long a period of time. The subject is too serious to admit of mistake or misrepresentation,. however unintentional; I am content to leave it therefore as it stands.

The course of my narrative, and the particulars I have recapitulated to illustrate it, ought by this time to enable my readers to form a judgment of their own upon the comparative merits and defects of the two systems of Banking under consideration, private and joint-stock. The objections to be urged against private Banking are obvious enough: they present themselves in a heap, and are too plain to be mistaken. They are summed up in the great number of failures that take place whenever there is heavy run upon such establishments, and the enormous losses entailed upon the community, whenever many of them become bankrupt. I have repeatedly heard it said, that there are no means of proving the wealth of a private Bank until after it has been broken. There is some truth in the remark, but it is in the nature of things that the case should stand as it does. Private Banking necessarily is private: you cannot with any propriety or fairness invade such a business, and apply to it the tests and trials which it is reasonable and just to subject a public one to. You cannot demand proofs from, and force examinations upon an individual, who has forfeited no engagement and done no wrong. The public must judge for itself, and draw its own inferences from what appears before it. In short, there is no medium in private Banking; confidence in that pursuit is every thing, and to be effective it must be complete. Whenever it is well deserved and freely given, the system will be found to work excellently for all parties concerned; whenever it is given and not deserved, ruin follows.

The objections raised against joint-stock Banking are more numerous: many of them, moreover, are of a specific nature which admits of distinct notice. It is said that secrecy is not sufficiently honoured in them, and that they are deficient in unity of purpose and action. There is no direct refutation to be given to this charge; it is an inherent quality in the constitution of the body, which must always suffer more or less from it. Twelve or twenty-four directors will rarely be found to act with the promptitude or decision of one or two men. Nor will communications of a confidential character always be respected by many as by a few persons. All I shall say, supposing myself umpire upon this point, is that cases are sure to occur in which a discreet man will deem it, and find it, more to his advantage to seek assistance from a private than a joint-stock Bank; on the other hand he who has no particular cause to be reserved, and wishes to know something of the state of the Bank in which he places his money, will prefer the latter. Upon these and other similar complaints of a theoretical description, I do not feel myself required to enlarge. But fault has been found with the practices of the joint-stock Banks; and as that is serious matter, I must not pass it over in silence. It has been alleged that many companies have been formed for the express purpose of aiding the commercial operations of the directors, and that, while they and their friends, a favoured few, have received undue assistance, the community at large has been denied its proper accommodation. I am by no means prepared to say that there are no grounds for this accusation, but I feel confident that no mal-practices of the kind could be persevered in for any length of time, if all joint-stock Banks had been bound by law from the period of their first establishment to the observance of a few simple rules, for the proper audit and frequent publication of their accounts. The same remark applies to another reproach cast upon some joint-stock Banks; namely, that they have encouraged persons, either of no property, or at least of no sufficient property, to take shares upon a promise that money would be lent to them upon the Bank being set up, and that money has been lent accordingly. There can be no defence of conduct like this; as an argument against joint-stock Banking, it defeats itself; because its very impropriety seems enough to show that it cannot have been general. The directors and managers must be worse than knaves, they must have been sheer simpletons, to indulge in a licence as certain to bring destruction down upon their heads, as if they had fired the bank building with lighted torches. In offering this opinion, I would by no means be understood to say that the abuse has not prevailed. I only mean to point to its destructive nature as a proof that it cannot have been practised generally; for if it had, the havoc amongst the joint-stock Banks must have been greater than it has proved.