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Rh in it, giving confidence and activity to commerce, and facilitating all the operations of trade, in a mercantile point of view, the conduct of the directors, in thus departing from the letter of their establishment, was to be applauded rather than condemned.

The merchants of Amsterdam, however, thought otherwise. This deficiency in the sacred deposits of the bank excited the most vivid indignation against all who had been concerned in the management of that institution, and the spirit of party tended to keep alive and heighten the flames of commercial resentment.

The money thus taken from the coffers of the bank could at no time have been claimed by its creditors, being an accumulation of treasure for which the receipts were expired, by which alone payment could be demanded. The nature of these receipts, by which alone cash could be drawn from the bank of Amsterdam, may be briefly explained. When a person deposited cash or