Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/139

 a few days ago, have refused to redeem their paper in specie, or in notes of the United States' Bank. In Kentucky, there are two branches of the United States' Bank; thirteen of the Kentucky bank, and a list of fifty independent banks, some of which are not in operation. In the state of Ohio, there are thirty chartered banks, and a few others which have not obtained that pernicious distinction. In Tennessee, the number of banks, including branches, is fourteen. The total number of these establishments in the United States, could not, perhaps, be accurately stated on any given day. The enumeration, like the census of population, might be affected by births and deaths. The creation of this vast host of fabricators, and venders[vendors?] of base money, must form a memorable epoch in the history of the country.—These craftsmen have greatly increased the money capital of the nation; and have, in a corresponding degree, enhanced the nominal value of property and labour. By lending, and otherwise emitting, their engravings, they have contrived to mortgage and buy much of the property of their neighbours, and to appropriate to themselves the labour of less moneyed citizens. Proceeding in this manner, they cannot retain specie enough to redeem their bills, admitting the gratuitous assumption that they were once possessed of it. They {109} seem to have calculated that the whole of their paper would not return on them in one day. Small quantities, however, of it have, on various occasions, been sufficient to cause them to suspend specie payments.

So long as a credulous public entertained full confidence in the banks, bankers gave in exchange for their paper, that of other banks, equally good with their own. The same kind of exchanges are still offered now, when the