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The operations of this bank seem to have produced effects quite

opposite to those which were intended by the particular persons

who planned and directed it. They seem to have intended to

support the spirited undertakings, for as such they considered

them, which were at that time carrying on in different parts of

the country; and, at the same time, by drawing the whole banking

business to themselves, to supplant all the other Scotch banks,

particularly those established at Edinburgh, whose backwardness

in discounting bills of exchange had given some offence. This

bank, no doubt, gave some temporary relief to those projectors,

and enabled them to carry on their projects for about two years

longer than they could otherwise have done. But it thereby only

enabled them to get so much deeper into debt; so that, when ruin

came, it fell so much the heavier both upon them and upon their

creditors.