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a clause empowering the Bank to resume their operations during the continuance of the act, on giving five days notice to the speaker of the House of Commons.

On the 17th November, 1797, Mr. Pitt moved for leave to bring in a bill to continue the restrictions, which on the 30th of the same month received the royal assent: by this bill the aforesaid restrictions were continued until "The conclusion of the war by a definitive treaty of peace."

This was an important era in the annals of the Bank of ENGLAND; but it was an era of proud exultation, when it appeared, that, after paying every demand upon them, the corporation possessed, upon the national faith, a clear balance in their favour of FIFTEEN MILLIONS, FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN THOUSAND, SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY POUNDS STERLING!

Thus was confirmed the following grand datum of Dr. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations:

"The stability of the Bank of England IS EQUAL TO THAT OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. All that it has advanced to the public must be lost before its creditors can sus tain any loss. No other banking company in England can be established by act of parliament, or can consist of more than six members. It acts not only as an ordinary bank, but as a great engine of state; receiving and paying the greater part of the annuities which are due to the creditors of the public; circulating Exchequer bills; and advancing to government the annual amount of the land and malt taxes, which are frequently not paid up till some years afterwards. It likewise has, upon several different occasions, supported the credit of the principal houses, not only in England, but of Hamburgh and Holland. Upon one occasion it is said to have advanced for this purpose, in one week, 1,600,000l. a great part of it in bullion."

We conclude this article with the prophetic words of Mr. Rolt, in his Dictionary of Trade and Commerce:

"Thus firmly established is this glorious superstructure of the national credit of Great Britain, having the legislative power of the kingdom for its foundation; a security suf

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ficient for so noble, so extensive a fund; a security coeval with the liberties of the people, that cannot perish without the extincion of freedom, and which has so closely rivetted the constitution of the Bank with the common interest of the country, that they should now co-operate for their mutual preservation against the extended arm of ambition, the designing eye of avarice, the envy of surrounding enemies, and the force of future invasions."

BANK OF ENGLAND.

THIS fabric may be esteemed one of the most magnificent in the world. It consists of a grand front about eighty feet in length, of the Ionic order, raised on a rustic basement.* Through

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*Mr. Gwynn projected some improvements in the Bank, that certainly would have been much to its advantage with respect to prospect. The Bank of England he formed into a regular square, with four entrances, by which means the buildings would have been enlightened and detached, so as to prevent any accident from fire which might happen in the neighbourhood. He propofed that the narrow end of Threadneedle Street might be widened, that the front building of the Bank and all the buildings thence to Bartholomew Lane taken down; so that a grand front was formed, the centre of which was to come opposite to an opening that he had proposed in Castle Alley. But," says he, "the above design was entirely defeated by the method pursued opposite the Bank, which by universal consent is allowed to be a piece of deformity. The Bank only wanted one convenient spacious opening into Cornhill, for the purpose of giving room for carriages to pass and repass to and from their public office, and consequently there was no occasion for that pitiful blind alley which is now made between their buildings and the Exchange; had the opening been made as in the plan, the oblique line the Bank makes with the Exchange would hardly have been perceived; but as the affair is now managed, the Exchange is spoiled, the Bank is spoiled, and Cornhill is spoiled; the truth is, that if the spirit of building, which seems to have possessed the directors of the Bank, had been rightly dis rected, they should have done more, they ought to have purchased the whole pile between them and Cornhill, from the Mansion House to the Exchange, and have pulled them down, and left the whole space open This would have been a desirable and a noble work, and possibly in time the General Post Office would have been removed to a more convenient building, which might have been erected opposite to and correspondent with the Bank; in that case the Exchange being finished as before mentioned,

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