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It is now more than five and twenty years since the paper money

issued by the different banking companies of Scotland was fully

equal, or rather was somewhat more than fully equal, to what the

circulation of the country could easily absorb and employ. Those

companies, therefore, had so long ago given all the assistance to

the traders and other undertakers of Scotland which it is

possible for banks and bankers, consistently with their own

interest, to give. They had even done somewhat more. They had

over-traded a little, and had brought upon themselves that loss,

or at least that diminution of profit, which, in this particular

business, never fails to attend the smallest degree of

over-trading. Those traders and other undertakers, having got so

much assistance from banks and bankers, wished to get still more.

The banks, they seem to have thought, could extend their credits

to whatever sum might be wanted, without incurring any other

expense besides that of a few reams of paper.