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The commerce of Scotland, which at present is not very great, was

still more inconsiderable when the two first banking companies

were established; and those companies would have had but little

trade, had they confined their business to the discounting of

bills of exchange. They invented, therefore, another method of

issuing their promissory notes; by granting what they call cash

accounts, that is, by giving credit, to the extent of a certain

sum (two or three thousand pounds for example), to any individual

who could procure two persons of undoubted credit and good landed

estate to become surety for him, that whatever money should be

advanced to him, within the sum for which the credit had been

given, should be repaid upon demand, together with the legal

interest. Credits of this kind are, I believe, commonly granted

by banks and bankers in all different parts of the world.