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The operations of this bank, therefore, instead of relieving, in

reality aggravated in the long-run the distress which those

projectors had brought both upon themselves and upon their

country. It would have been much better for themselves, their

creditors, and their country, had the greater part of them been

obliged to stop two years sooner than they actually did. The

temporary relief, however, which this bank afforded to those

projectors, proved a real and permanent relief to the other

Scotch banks. All the dealers in circulating bills of exchange,

which those other banks had become so backward in discounting,

had recourse to this new bank, where they were received with open

arms. Those other banks, therefore, were enabled to get very

easily out of that fatal circle, from which they could not

otherwise have disengaged themselves without incurring a

considerable loss, and perhaps, too, even some degree of

discredit.