ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

The city of London petitioned that a parliamentary provision should be made for the orphans, whose fortunes they had scandalously squandered away. Such an application had been made in the preceding session, and rejected with disdain, as an imposition on the public; but now those scruples were removed, and the house passed a bill for this purpose, consisting of many clauses, extending to different charges on the city lands, aqueducts, and personal estates; imposing duties on binding apprentices, constituting freemen, as also upon wines and coals imported into London. On the twenty-third day of March these bills received the royal assent; and the king took that opportunity of recommending despatch, as the season of the year was far advanced, and the enemy diligently employed in making preparations for an early campaign. The scheme of a national bank, like those of Amsterdam and Genoa, had been recommended to the ministry as an excellent institution, as well for the credit and security of the government, as the increase of trade and circulation. One project was invented by Dr. Hugh Chamberlain, proposing the circulation of tickets on land security; but William Paterson was author of that which was carried into execution, by the interest of Michael Godfrey and other active projectors. The scheme was founded on the motion of a transferable fund, and a circulation by bill on the credit of a large capital. Forty merchants subscribed to the amount of five hundred thousand pounds, as a fund of ready money, to circulate one million at eight per cent, to be lent to the government; and even this fund of ready money bore the same interest. When it was properly digested in the cabinet, and a majority in parliament secured for its reception, the undertakers for the court introduced it into the house of commons, and expatiated upon the national advantages that would accrue from such a measure. They said it would rescue the nation out of the hands of extortioners and usurers, lower interest, raise the value of land, revive and establish public credit, extend circulation, consequently improve commerce, facilitate the annual supplies, and connect the people the more closely with the government. The project was violently opposed by a strong party, who affirmed that it would become a monopoly, and engross the whole money of the kingdom; that, as it must infallibly be subservient to government views, it might be employed to the worst purposes of arbitrary power; that instead of assisting it would weaken commerce, by tempting people to withdraw their money from trade and employ it in stock-jobbing; that it would produce a swarm of brokers and jobbers to prey upon their fellow-creatures, encourage fraud and gaming, and further corrupt the morals of the nation. Notwithstanding these objections, the bill made its way through the two houses, establishing the funds for the security and advantage of the subscribers; empowering their majesties to incorporate them by the name of the governor and company of the bank of England, under a proviso, that at any time after the first day of August, in the year one thousand seven hundred and five, upon a year’s notice, and the repayment of the twelve hundred thousand pounds, the said corporation should cease and determine. The bill likewise contained clauses of appropriation for the services of the public. The whole subscription was filled in ten clays after its being opened; and the court of directors completed the payment before the expiration of the time prescribed by the act, although they did not call in more than seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds of the money subscribed. All these funds proving inadequate to the estimates, the commons brought in a bill to impose stamp duties upon all vellum, parchment, and paper, used in almost every kind of intercourse between man and man; and they crowned the oppression of the year with another grievous tax upon carriages, under the name of a bill for licensing and regulating hackney and stage coaches.