Page:The wealth of nations, volume 1.djvu/452

 new government, established by the Revolution, we may believe, must have been very low, when it was obliged to borrow at so high an interest.

In 1697, the bank was allowed to enlarge its capital stock by an ingraftment of £1,001,171 10s. Its whole capital stock, therefore, amounted at this time to £2,201,171 10s. This ingraftment is said to have been for the support of public credit. In 1696, tallies bad been at forty, and fifty, and sixty per cent discount, and banknotes at twenty per cent. During the great recoinage of the silver, which was going on at this time, the bank had thought proper to discontinue the payment of its notes, which necessarily occasioned their discredit.

In pursuance of the 7th Anne, c. 7, the bank advanced and paid into the exchequer the sum of £400,000; making in all the sum of £1,600,000 which it had advanced upon its original annuity of £96,000 interest and £4,000 for expense of management. In 1708, therefore, the credit of government was as good as that of private persons, since it could borrow at six per cent interest, the common legal and market rate of those times. In pursuance of the same act, the bank cancelled exchequer bills to the amount of £1,775,027 17s. 10d. at six per cent interest, and was at the same time allowed to take in subscriptions for doubling its capital. In 1708, therefore, the capital of the bank amounted to £4,402,343; and it had advanced to government the sum of £8,375,027 17s. 10½d.

By a call of fifteen per cent in 1709 there was paid in and made stock £656,204 1s. 9d.; and by another of ten per cent in 1710, £501,448 12s. 11d. In consequence of