| | ISSUE DEPARTMENT. | BANKING DEPARTMENT. | | | | | | | | Date. | Notes | Gold and | Notes in | Gold and | | | Issued. | Silver | Reserve. | Silver | | | | Bullion. | | Coin. | +--------+ | | | | | Oct. 2 | £22,121,000 | £8,121,000 | £3,409,000 | £443,000 | | -- 9 | 21,961,000 | 7,961,000 | 3,321,000 | 447,000 | | -- 16 | 21,989,000 | 7,989,000 | 2,630,000 | 441,000 | | -- 23 | 21,865,000 | 7,865,000 | 1,547,000 | 447,000 | | -- 30 | 22,009,000 | 8,009,000 | 1,176,000 | 429,000 |
_Commercial Crisis_, 2d edition, 132-133.
Thus, such was the severity of the panic, and the contraction of the currency, consequent on the monetary laws and the operation of free trade in grain, that the nation was all but rendered bankrupt, and half its traders unquestionably were so, when there were still eight millions of sovereigns in the issue department of the bank which could not be touched, while the reserve of notes in the banking department had sunk from nearly £10,000,000, in 1845, to £1,100,000!
So portentous a state of things, fraught as it necessarily was with utter ruin to a great part of the best interests in the empire, was certainly not contemplated by the commercial classes, when they embarked in the crusade of free trade against the productive interests. It might have been long of coming on, and certainly would never have set in with half the severity which actually occurred, had it not been that, not content with the project of forcing down prices by means of the unrestricted admission of foreign produce, they at the same time sought to augment their own fortunes by restricting the currency. It was the _double project_, beyond all question, which proved their ruin. They began and flattered themselves they would play out successfully the game of "_beggar my neighbour_," but by pushing their measures too far, it turned into one of "_beggar ourselves_." It was the double strain of free trade and a fettered currency which brought such embarrassment on the commercial classes, as it was the double strain of the Spanish and Russian wars which proved the destruction of Napoleon. It would appear to be a general law of nature, that great measures of injustice cannot be carried into execution, either by communities or single men, without vindicating the justice of the Divine administration, by bringing down upon themselves the very ruin which they have designed for others.