Page:The wealth of nations, volume 1.djvu/447

 than the course of two years, advanced to different people upward of eight hundred thousand pounds at five per cent. Upon the two hundred thousand pounds which it circulated in banknotes, this five per cent might, perhaps, be considered as clear gain, without any other deduction besides the expense of management. But upon upward of six hundred thousand pounds, for which it was continually drawing bills of exchange upon London, it was paying, in the way of interest and commission, upward of eight per cent and was consequently losing more than three per cent upon more than three-fourths of all its dealings.

The operations of this bank seem to have produced effects quite opposite to those which were intended by the particular persons who planned and directed it. They seem to have intended to support the spirited undertakings, for as such they considered them, which were at that time carrying on in different parts of the country; and at the same time, by drawing the whole banking business to themselves, to supplant all the other Scotch banks; particularly those established at Edinburgh, whose backwardness in discounting bills of exchange had given some offence. This bank, no doubt, gave some temporary relief to those projectors and enabled them to carry on their projects for about two years longer than they could otherwise have done. But it thereby only enabled them to get so much deeper into debt, so that when ruin came, it fell so much the heavier upon them and upon their creditors. The operations of this bank, therefore, instead of relieving, in reality aggravated in the long run the distress which those projectors had brought upon themselves and upon their country. It would have been much better for themselves, their creditors and their country, had the greater