7. Two Varieties of the Roundsman System of Relief [Eden, The State of the Poor, 1797, Vol. II, p. 29 and p. 384], 1797.

(b) Kibworth Beauchamp (Leicestershire)[379].

In the winter, and at other times, when a man is out of work, he applies to the overseer, who sends him from house to house, to get employ: the housekeeper, who employs him, is obliged to give him victuals, and 6d. a day; and the parish adds 4d. (total, 10d. a day) for the support of his family; persons working in this manner are called rounds-men, from their going round the village or township for employ.

8. Another Example of the Roundsman System [Thomas Batchelor, The Agriculture of Bedfordshire (Agricultural Surveys), 1808, pp. 608-9], 1808.

The increase of population has caused a deficiency of employment, which is so remarkable in some seasons, that a great proportion of the labourers "go the rounds." This practice is not modern; but as it is not supposed to be sanctioned by law, it may be proper to describe the nature of it, and its general consequences. When a labourer can obtain no employment he applies to the acting overseer, from whom he passes on to the different farmers all round the parish, being employed by each of them after the rate of one day for every 20l. rent. The allowance to a labourer on the rounds, is commonly 2d. per day below the pay of other labourers, which is found to be a necessary check upon those who love liberty better than labour. Boys receive from 4d. to 6d. per day on the rounds, the whole of which is often repaid to the farmers by the overseers. About half the pay of the men is returned in the same manner, and the farmers often receive in this way the amount of from 2d. to 4d. in the pound rent, which consequently causes the apparent expense of the poor to exceed the truth. The practice in question has a very bad effect on the industry of the poor: they are often employed in trivial business; the boys in particular are of little use in the winter season. The men are careful not to earn more than they receive, and seem to think it the safer extreme to perform too little rather than too much.

9. Report of the Poor Law Commission [Report from Commission on the Poor Laws, 1834 (XXVII), pp. 297, 228, 47, 261-262, 306-307], 1834.

It may be assumed that in the administration of relief, the public is warranted in imposing such conditions on the individual relieved, as are conducive to the benefit either of the individual himself, or of the country at large, at whose expense he is to be relieved.[380]

The first and most essential of all conditions, a principle which we find universally admitted, even by those whose practice is at variance with it, is that his situation on the whole shall not be made really or apparently so eligible as the situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class. Throughout the evidence it is shown, that in proportion as the condition of any pauper is elevated above the condition of independent labourers, the condition of the independent class is depressed; their industry is impaired, their employment becomes unsteady, and its remuneration in wages is diminished. Such persons, therefore, are under the strongest inducements to quit the less eligible class of labourers and enter the more eligible class of paupers. The converse is the effect when the pauper class is placed in its proper position, below the condition of the independent labourer. Every penny bestowed, that tends to render the condition of the paupers more eligible than that of the independent labourer, is a bounty on indolence and vice. We have found, that as the poor's rates are at present administered, they operate as bounties of this description to the amount of several millions annually.

Another evil connected with out-door relief, and arising from its undefined character, is the natural tendency to award to the deserving more than is necessary, or where more than necessary relief is afforded to all, to distinguish the deserving by extra allowances.[381] ... The whole evidence shows the danger of such an attempt. It appears that such endeavours to constitute the distributors of relief into a tribunal for the reward of merit, out of the property of others, have not only failed in effecting the benevolent intentions of their promoters, but have become sources of fraud on the part of the distributors, and of discontent and violence on the part of the claimants.

The chief specific measures which we recommend are:[382]—

First, that except as to medical attendance, and subject to the exception respecting apprenticeship hereinafter stated, all relief whatever to able-bodied persons or to their families, otherwise than in well-regulated workhouses (i.e., places where they may be set to work according to the spirit and intention of the 43rd of Elizabeth), shall be declared unlawful, and shall cease, in manner and at periods hereafter specified; and that all relief afforded in respect of children under the age of 16, shall be considered as afforded to their parents.

At least four classes are necessary:[383]—(1) The aged and really impotent; (2) The children; (3) The able-bodied females; (4) The able-bodied males. Of whom we trust that the two latter will be the least numerous classes. It appears to us that both the requisite classification and the requisite superintendence may be better obtained in separate buildings than under a single roof.... Each class might thus receive an appropriate treatment; the old might enjoy their indulgences without torment from the boisterous; the children be educated, and the able-bodied subjected to such courses of labour and discipline as will repel the indolent and vicious.

10. The Poor Law Amendment Act [Statutes, 4 and 5 Wm. IV, 76], 1834.

XV. And be it further enacted, ... for executing the powers given to them by this Act the said Commissioners shall and are hereby authorized and required, from time to time as they shall see occasion, to make and issue all such rules, orders, and regulations for the management of the poor, for the government of workhouses and the education of the children therein, and for the management of parish poor children under the provisions of an Act made and passed in the seventh year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third, intituled An Act for the better Regulation of Parish poor Children of the several Parishes therein mentioned within the Bills of Mortality, and the superintending, inspecting, and regulating of the Houses wherein such poor children are kept and maintained, and for the apprenticing the children of poor persons, and for the guidance and control of all Guardians, Vestries, and Parish officers, so far as relates to the management or relief of the poor, and the keeping, examining, auditing, and allowing of accounts, and making and entering into contracts in all matters relating to such management or relief, or to any expenditure for the relief of the poor, and for carrying this Act into execution in all other respects, as they shall think proper; and the said Commissioners may, at their discretion, from time to time suspend, alter, or rescind such rules, orders, and regulations, or any of them: provided always that nothing in this Act contained shall be construed as enabling the said commissioners or any of them to interfere in any individual case for the purpose of ordering relief.

XXVI. And be it further enacted, that it shall be lawful for the said commissioners, by order under their hands and seal, to declare so many parishes as they may think fit to be united for the administration of the laws for the relief of the poor, and such parishes shall thereupon be deemed a Union for such purpose, ... but, notwithstanding ... each of the said parishes shall be separately chargeable with and liable to defray the expense of its own poor, whether relieved in or out of any such workhouse.

XXXVIII. And be it further enacted, that where any parishes shall be united by order or with concurrence of the said commissioners for the administration of the laws for the relief of the poor, a Board of Guardians of the poor for such Union shall be constituted and chosen, and the workhouse or workhouses of such Union shall be governed, and the relief of the poor in such Union shall be administered, by such Board of Guardians; and the said Guardians shall be elected by the ratepayers, and by such owners of property in the parishes forming such Union as shall in manner hereinafter mentioned require to have their names entered as entitled to vote as owners in the books of such parishes respectively.

11. Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order [11th Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, pp. 29-33], 1844.

1. Every able-bodied person, male or female, requiring relief from any parish within any of the said Unions, shall be relieved wholly in the workhouse of the Union, together with such of the family of every such able-bodied person as may be resident with him or her, and they not be in employment, and together with the wife of every such able-bodied male person, if he be a married man, and if she be resident with him; save and except in the following cases:—

1st. Where such person shall require relief on account of sudden and urgent necessity.

2nd. Where such person shall require relief on account of any sickness, accident, or bodily or mental infirmity affecting such person, or any of his or her family.

4th. Where such person, being a widow, shall be in the first six months of her widowhood.

5th. Where such person shall be a widow, and have a legitimate child or legitimate children dependent upon her, and incapable of earning his, her, or their livelihood, and have no illegitimate child born after the commencement of her widowhood.

7th. Where such person shall be the wife, or child, of any able-bodied man who shall be in the service of Her Majesty as soldier, sailor, or marine.

Given under our hands and Seal of Office, this 21st day of December, in the year of our Lord 1 thousand 8 hundred and 44.

(Signed) Geo. Nicholls.
               G.C. Lewis.
               Edward W. Head.

SECTION VI

FINANCE AND FOREIGN TRADE

This section illustrates various departments of Government policy: taxation and revenue (Nos. 1, 9 and 12), public debts (Nos. 7 and 10), fiscal and trade policy (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 13-17, 19), the coinage (Nos. 3, 5 and 8), and the national Bank (Nos. 7, 11, and 18). The specimens of revenue policy begin with the Act by which Charles II abandoned feudal dues in exchange for a general and hereditary excise (No. 1). The principle involved in this transaction may be compared with Sir Robert Walpole's remarks on the question of justice in taxation (No. 9) and with Pitt's speech on introducing the Income Tax in 1798, which also gives a survey of the whole financial position and a defence of the policy of paying for wars out of hand (No. 12). The opposite policy, of war-loans, had been adopted earlier, and the French wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established the funding system. An outline is given of the Sinking Fund by which it was supposed that this national liability could be reduced while it was being created (No. 10). The foundation of the Bank of England (No. 7) was an important step in the policy of national loans as well as an encouragement to the growth of capital and capitalist industry. The French wars at the end of the eighteenth century produced a crisis in the management of the Bank's reserve; an official report explains the causes of the panic which led to the suspension of cash payments and also shows the deliberate policy by which the suspension was continued till 1819 (No. 11). This was the first controversy of great importance on the subject of currency since the seventeenth century, when the government of Charles II had adopted the policy of allowing free export and free coinage of Gold and Silver (Nos. 3 and 5). The gradual deterioration of the coinage which led to the recoinage of 1696 is illustrated by a contemporary description (No. 8). The Bank Charter Act (No. 18) shows the financial aspect of rapid national expansion in the nineteenth century and the method adopted to give stability to credit by limiting the issue of unsupported paper currency, in the period before the triumph of the cheque system.

The Navigation Act of Charles the second's reign (No. 2) formed part of a system by which the State set itself to encourage particular industries and took a part in the struggle for commercial leadership. (See also Nos. 4 and 6.) The complications of this policy with considerations of revenue and particular interests rapidly increased, while the manufacturing export trade became more important (No. 13). A reaction led by the Economists had begun in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century the battle raged over the special protection successfully claimed by the Agricultural Interest in the depression at the end of the Napoleonic wars (No. 15). The debates and petitions (No. 14, No. 16, No. 19) bristle with the new Political Economy. They also give an indication of the new social class created by the Industrial Revolution and of the struggle of the landowners with the North of England manufacturers who founded and financed the Anti-Corn-Law League, the most successful of all political associations for an economic object (No. 17).

AUTHORITIES

1. Act Abolishing Tenure by Knight Service, etc. [Statutes, 12 Charles II, 24], 1660.

2. Navigation Act [Statutes, 12 Chas. II, 18], 1660.

For the increase of shipping and encouragement of the navigation of this nation wherein, under the good providence and protection of God, the wealth, safety and strength of this kingdom is so much concerned; be it enacted by the King's most excellent majesty, and by the lords and commons in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority thereof, that from and after the first day of December one thousand six hundred and sixty, and from thenceforward, no goods or commodities whatsoever shall be imported into or exported out of any lands, islands, plantations or territories to his Majesty belonging or in his possession, or which may hereafter belong unto or be in the possession of his Majesty, his heirs and successors, in Asia, Africa or America, in any other ship or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but in such ships or vessels as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of England or Ireland, dominion of Wales or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or are of the built of and belonging to any the said lands, islands, plantations or territories, as the proprietors and right owners thereof, and whereof the master and three-fourths of the mariners at least are English.

And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no goods or commodities that are of foreign growth, production or manufacture, and which are brought into England, Ireland, Wales, the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in English-built shipping, or other shipping belonging to some of the aforesaid places, and navigated by English mariners, as aforesaid, shall be shipped or brought from any other place or places, country or countries, but only from those of the said growth, production or manufacture, or from those ports where the said goods and commodities can only, or are, or usually have been, first shipped for transportation, and from none other places or countries.

3. Proposals for Free Exportation of Gold and Silver [McCulloch, Tracts on Money,1856, pp. 145], 1660.

... Supposing that it were of absolute necessity to restrain all money and bullion, once imported, to be kept within this kingdom. It then came under consideration whether either the laws hitherto made in that behalf are, or that it be possible to make a law, adequate to prevent the exportation thereof.

And here we were convinced, by experience, that the laws of this kingdom (hitherto made) have been of no effect to the end thereby designed; and looking abroad, as there are nowhere more strict and severe laws against the exportation of coin and bullion than in Spain and France, we found all to be to as little purpose.

We then, thirdly, enquired what loadstone attracted this metal by force of nature to itself, against all human providence or prevention; and soon found that it was alone the present course of trade and traffic throughout the world....

And therefore, in the fourth place, we discovered that, as it is impossible by any laws to restrain money and bullion against the use that traffic finds for the same; so also the adhering to this principle of restraining thereof discourageth, as well all natives as foreigners, to import any money or bullion—where the exportation thereof is forbidden them.

From whence, fifthly, the many advantages (thereby given away clearly to the stranger from the English) present themselves; for the stranger, knowing we must be furnished in one of these places for our occasions, make us pay dearly for our accommodation.

So that, to wind up all that has been said, the result of the several reasons and arguments herein summed up seemed to be this: that time and experience instruct, and the present state of traffic throughout the world require, that, for the increase of the stock of money in these your Majesty's kingdoms, some way of liberty for the exportation, at least of foreign coin and bullion, should be found out, and put in execution; which hath produced the humble advice offered in the preceding paper.

4. An Attack on the Navigation Act[384] [P.R.O. Colonial Papers, Vol. XXXVI, No. 88], c. 1663.

To the King's Most Excellent Majesty.

The Humble Remonstrance of John Bland, of London, Merchant, on the behalf of the Inhabitants and Planters of Virginia and Maryland.

Most humbly representing unto your Majesty the inevitable destruction of these colonies, if so be that the late Act for increase of trade and shipping be not as to them dispensed with; for it will not only ruinate the inhabitants and planters, but make desolate the largest, fertilist, and most glorious plantations under Your Majesty's Dominion; the which, if otherwise suspended, will produce the greatest advantage to this nation's commerce and considerablest income to Your Majesty's revenue, that any part of the world doth to which we trade. [Rejoinder to argument that the Dutch prohibit English trade with their Indian Dominions. The American colonies are in need of customers. Why should the Dutch be prevented from dealing with them?]

Virginia and Maryland are colonies, which though capable of better commodities, yet for the present afford only these, tobacco chiefly, then in the next place corn and cattle, commodities almost in every country whatever to be had; withal they are such commodities, that except purchased in these plantations so cheap as not elsewhere so to be had, none would ever go thither to fetch them, no, not we ourselves. Which being so, then certainly it cannot stand with wisdom to hinder the Hollanders from going thither.

Then again, if you keep thence the Hollanders, can it be believed that from England more ships will be sent than are able to bring thence what tobacco England will spend? If they do bring more, must they not lose both stock and block, principal and charges?...

A further prejudice doth evidently attend the commerce by this Act, not only in debarring Hollanders from trading to these colonies, but thereby we do likewise debar ourselves; for, by the Act, no English ships can load any goods in Virginia and Maryland to transport to any country but our own territories.... I demand then, if it would not be better to let our English ships, loading in those colonies, to go whither they please, and pay in the places where they do trade (if it will not be dispensed with otherwise), the same customs to your Majesty as they should have done in England, or give bills from thence to pay it in England? Certainly this would be more beneficial to the commerce, and security both for the ships and goods, and advantageous to your Majesty; for whilst they are coming to England they might be at the end of their intended voyages and obtain a market, which haply in England could not be had....

If that notwithstanding what is by the foregoing particulars declared, it may seem reasonable that the Act shall stand in force.... Then let me on behalf of the said colonies of Virginia and Maryland make these following proposals which I hope will appear but equitable; and I dare undertake for them, that they will be very well satisfied, that those few tobacconists that have engrossed that trade into their hands, shall still continue in it without moving further against them therein.

First, that the traders to Virginia and Maryland from England shall furnish and supply the planters and inhabitants of these colonies with all sorts of commodities and necessaries which they may want or desire, at as cheap rates and prices as the Hollanders used to have when the Hollander was admitted to trade hither.

Secondly, that the said traders out of England to these colonies shall not only buy of the planters such tobacco in the colonies as is fit for England, but take off all that shall be yearly made by them, at as good rates and prices as the Hollanders used to give....

By way of accommodation this I propose. Let all Hollanders and other nations whatsoever freely trade into Virginia and Maryland, and bring thither and carry thence whatever they please, and to counterpoise the cheapness of their sailing, with dearness of our ships, to pay a set duty and imposition that may countervail the same; and when what they paid formerly will not do it, let it be doubled and trebled, as shall be thought meet, yet still with this caution, that it may not make it as bad as if they were totally prohibited.

In the next place, that all English ships that do go thither to trade, and carry goods to any other country besides England, may be freed of any custom there, more than some certain duty to the use of the colonies....

5. Free Coinage of Bullion at the Mint Proclaimed [Statutes, 18 Chas. II, 5], 1666.

Whereas it is most obvious that the plenty of current coins of gold and silver of this kingdom is of great advantage to trade and commerce ... be it enacted ... that whatsoever person or persons, native or foreigner, alien or stranger, shall from and after the twentieth day of December one thousand six hundred sixty and six, bring in any foreign coin, plate or bullion of gold or silver, in mass, molten or alloyed, or any sort of manufacture of gold or silver, into his Majesty's mint or mints within the kingdom of England, to be there melted down and coined into the current coins of this kingdom, shall have the same there assayed, melted down and coined with all convenient speed, without any defalcation, diminution or charge for the assaying, coinage or waste in coinage: so as that for every pound troy of crown or standard gold that shall be brought in and delivered by him or them ... there shall be delivered ... a pound troy of the current coins of this kingdom, of crown or standard gold.

6. The East India Company and the Interlopers [Diary and Consultation Book of Fort St. George, Ed. Pringle Series I, Vol. III, p. 49], 1684.

His Majesty the King of England our Sovereign Lord having granted the Honourable East India Company full power and authority to enter into any ship or vessel, and to make seizure of the same, that shall be found in these parts of the East Indies, contrary to his royal will and pleasure,[385] ... we therefore, the Agent and Council of Fort St. George, for the said Honourable East India Company, do ... (there being now an Interlopers' ship, the Constantinople, merchant, John Smith, master, at Covelon), require you immediately to repair aboard your ship, weigh anchor, and set sail for that port of Covelon, and there seize upon the said Interlopers' ship and bring her into this Road of Madras.... Dated in Fort St. George the sixth day of June, 1684.

William Gyfford.
John Bigrig.
Elihu Yale.
John Nicks.
John Littleton.
John Gray.

7. Foundation of the Bank of England [Statutes, 5 & 6, Wm. & Mary, 20], 1694.

XXVIII. Provided, that nothing herein contained shall any ways be construed to hinder the said corporation from dealing in bills of exchange, or in buying or selling bullion, gold, or silver, or in selling any goods, wares, or merchandize whatsoever, which shall really and bona fide be left or deposited with the said corporation for money lent and advanced thereon, and which shall not be redeemed at the time agreed on, or within three months after, or from selling such goods as shall or may be the produce of lands purchased by the said corporation.

8. The Need for the Recoinage of 1696 [H. Haynes, Brief Memoirs Relating to the Silver and Gold Coins of England (in Lansdowne MSS, 801, British Museum), fs. 33-48].

These were the just weights, and the legal fineness of our silver moneys coined with the hammer, of which sort the far greater part of the cash of the whole kingdom did consist; but they were very liable to be clipped and diminished in their weight, because very few of these pieces were of a just assize when they first came out of the Mint. So many pieces, I suppose, were by the Moneyers cut out of a bar of standard silver, as did pretty exactly answer the pound weight Troy; and the tale of the pieces required in that weight, by the Indenture of the Mint: but though all the pieces together might come near the pound weight or be within remedy; yet divers of them compared one with the other were very disproportionable, as was too well known to many persons, who picked out the heavy pieces, and threw them into the melting pot, to fit them for exportation, or to supply the silver smiths.

[Pieces of hammered money, "though never clipped, did many of them in their weight and value want or exceed the legal standard." Crowns varied from 5s. 3d. to 4s. 9d., half-crowns from 3s. to 2s. 4d., etc.]

According to the best observation of Goldsmiths[386] and others the clipping of our coins began to be discoverable in great receipts a little after the Dutch war in 1672, but it made no great progress at first for some years: and the silver moneys of Queen Elizabeth were very little diminished.... But the yearly loss by clipping made terrible advances every year from 1686.... In the later end of 1695[387] the public loss upon all the clipped money then actually current (if one may judge of the whole by the foregoing table) was at least 45 per cent. by mere clipping and light counterfeit pieces, which upon the whole running silver cash of the kingdom amounts to 2,250,000l.[388] ...

The whole kingdom was in a general distraction by the badness of the silver coin and the rise of guineas, for no one knew what to trust to; the landlord knew not in what to receive his rents, nor the tenant in what to pay them. Neither of them could foretell the value of his moneys to-morrow. The merchant could not foresee the worth of his wares at two or three days distance, and was at a loss to set a price upon his goods. Everybody was afraid to engage in any new contracts, and as shy in performing old ones, the King subsisted his forces in foreign parts at the disadvantage of seven or eight per cent. interest and five per cent. premio for money borrowed here, besides the loss by the Exchange abroad: and how to provide for the next year's expense, was a mystery.

9. Speech by Sir Robert Walpole on the Salt Duties [Parliamentary History (Cobbett), Vol. VIII, Col. 943], 1732.

As there is nothing his Majesty has more at heart than the giving all possible ease to his subjects; so, whenever he is necessarily obliged to desire assistance from them for the immediate support of the government, he desires that they would choose those ways and means for raising the annual supplies, which are least burthensome to the people, and which makes the load fall equally upon the subjects in general. When money is to be raised for the public good, for the security of all, he thinks that every one ought to contribute his share, in proportion to the benefit that he is thereby to receive.

As to the manner, sir, of raising taxes upon the people, it is a certain maxim that that tax which is the most equal and the most general, is the most just, and the least burthensome. Where every man contributes a small share, a great sum may be raised for the public service, without any man's being sensible of what he pays; whereas a small sum, raised upon a few, lies heavy upon each particular man, and is the more grievous, in that it is unjust; for where the benefit is mutual, the expense ought to be in common. Of all the taxes I ever could think of, there is not one more general nor one less felt, than that of the duty upon salt. The duty upon salt is a tax that every man in the nation contributes to according to his circumstances and condition in life; every subject contributes something; if he be a poor man, he contributes so small a trifle, it will hardly bear a name; if he be rich, he lives more luxuriously, and consequently contributes more; and if he be a man of a great estate, he keeps a great number of servants, and must therefore contribute a great deal. Upon the other hand, there is no tax that ever was laid upon the people of this nation, that is more unjust and unequal than the Land Tax. The landholders bear but a small proportion to the people of this nation, or of any nation; yet no man contributes any the least share to this tax, but he that is possessed of a land estate; and yet this tax has been continued without intermission for above these 40 years.

10. Pitt's Sinking Fund Act [Statutes, 26 Geo. III, 31], 1786.

An Act for vesting certain sums in commissioners, at the end of every quarter of a year, to be by them applied to the reduction of the national debt.

[£250,000 is to be set apart quarterly out of the sinking fund.]

IV. Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if at any time it should happen, that at the end of the year ending the fifth day of January, one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, or at the end of any future year, computed as aforesaid, after provision shall have been made for all payments for which monies are previously to be set apart or issued according to the directions of this act, the said surpluses, excesses, and overplus monies, composing the sinking fund, shall not be sufficient to make good as well all such deficiencies as shall have arisen during such year, as the payment of the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds then due, in every such case, the amount of such deficiency or deficiencies, whether the same shall have arisen in any preceding quarter or quarters within such year, or in the quarter ending on the fifth day of January on which such year shall end, shall not be carried forward as a charge on the said sinking fund at the end of the next succeeding quarter, but shall be made good out of any aids or supplies which shall be or shall have been granted by parliament for the service of the then current year; and the amount of such deficiency or deficiencies so to be made good, shall be issued to the governor and company of the bank of England, in the manner hereinafter directed, within ten days after monies sufficient to answer the same shall have been paid into his Majesty's receipt of exchequer, on account of any such aids or supplies.

V. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the monies so set apart, at the end of any quarter of a year ending as aforesaid, or of any year computed as aforesaid either for the payment of the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds due at the end of such quarter, or of any part thereof, or for making good such deficiency or deficiencies as aforesaid, shall forthwith be issued and paid to the governor and company of the bank of England, and shall by them be placed to an account to be raised in their books, and to be intituled, The account of the commissioners appointed by act of parliament for applying certain sums of money annually to the reduction at the national debt: and that as well all such monies, as any other monies which shall be paid to the governor and company of the bank of England by virtue of this act, to be placed to the said account, shall be applied by the commissioners hereinafter appointed towards the reduction of the national debt, in the manner hereinafter directed, and to no other intent or purpose, and in no other manner whatever.

X. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all monies whatever, which shall be placed from time to time to the account of the said commissioners by virtue of this act, shall be applied by them either in payments for the redemption of such redeemable public annuities as shall be at or above par, in such manner and at such periods as shall be directed by any future act or acts of parliament, or to the purchase of any public annuities below par in the manner hereinafter directed.

11. The Suspension of Cash Payments [Reports of Committees on Bank of England, 1797 and 1826, in Reports 1826 (III), pp. 142 and 255-256], 1797.

The alarm of Invasion [in 1796-1797] which, when an immediate attack was first apprehended in Ireland, had occasioned some extraordinary demand for cash on the Bank of England, in the months of December and January last, began in February to produce similar results in the north of England. Your Committee find, that in consequence of this apprehension, the farmers suddenly brought the produce of their lands to sale, and carried the notes of the County Banks, which they had collected by those and other means, into those banks for payment; that this unusual and sudden demand for cash reduced the several banks at Newcastle to the necessity of suspending their payments in specie, and of availing themselves of all the means in their power of procuring a speedy supply of cash from the metropolis; that the effects of this demand on the Newcastle banks and their suspension of payments in cash, soon spread over various parts of the country, from whence similar applications were consequently made to the metropolis for cash; that the alarm thus diffused not only occasioned an increased demand for cash in the country, but probably a disposition in many to hoard what was thus obtained; that this call on the metropolis, through whatever channels, directly affected the Bank of England, as the great repository of cash, and was in the course of still further operation upon it, when stopped by the Minute of Council of the 26th of February.[389]

Your Committee find, that the Court of Directors of the Bank did, on the 26th October 1797, come to a Resolution, a copy of which is subjoined to this Report.

Your Committee, having further examined the Governor and Deputy Governor, as to what may be meant by the political circumstances mentioned in that resolution, find, that they understand by them, the state of hostility in which the nation is still involved, and particularly such apprehensions as may be entertained of invasion, either in Ireland or in this country, together with the possibility there may be of advances being to be made from this country to Ireland; and that from these circumstances so explained, and from the nature of the war, and the avowed purpose of the enemy to attack this country by means of its public credit, and to distress it in its financial operations, they are led to think that it will be expedient to continue the restriction now subsisting, with the reserve for partial issues of cash, at the discretion of the Bank, of the nature of that contained in the present Acts; and that it may be so continued, without injury to the credit of the Bank, and to the advantage of the nation.

"Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Court,[390] that the Governor and Company of the Bank of England are enabled to issue Specie, in any manner that may be deemed necessary for the accommodation of the public; and the Court have no hesitation to declare that the affairs of the Bank are in such a state, that it can with safety resume its accustomed functions, if the political circumstances of the country do not render it inexpedient: but the Directors deeming it foreign to their province to judge of these points, wish to submit to the wisdom of Parliament, whether, as it has been once judged proper to lay a restriction on the payment of the bank in cash, it may, or may not, be prudent to continue the same?"[391]