Page:The wealth of nations, volume 1.djvu/453

 those two calls, therefore, the bank capital amounted to £5,559,995 14s. 8d.

In pursuance of the 3d George 1. c. 8, the bank delivered up two millions of exchequer bills to be cancelled. It had at this time, therefore, advanced to government £5,375,027 17s. 10d. In pursuance of the 8th George I. c. 21, the bank purchased of the South Sea Company stock to the amount of £4,000,000; and in 1722, in consequence of the subscriptions which it had taken in for enabling it to make this purchase, its capital stock was increased by £3,400,000. At this time, therefore, the bank had advanced to the public £9,375,027 17s. 10½d. and its capital stock amounted only to £8,959,995 14s. 8d. It was upon this occasion that the sum which the bank had advanced to the public, and for which it received interest, began first to exceed its capital stock, or the sum for which it paid a dividend to the proprietors of bank stock; or, in other words, that the bank began to have an undivided capital over and above its divided one. It has continued to have an undivided capital of the same kind ever since. In 1746, the bank had, upon different occasions, advanced to the public £11,686,800 and its divided capital had been raised by different calls and subscriptions to £10,780,000. The state of those two sums has continued to be the same ever since. In pursuance of the 4th of George III. c. 25, the bank agreed to pay to government for the renewal of its charter £110,000 without interest or repayment. This sum, therefore, did not increase either of those two other sums.

The dividend of the bank has varied according to the variations in the rate of the interest which it has, at different times, received for the money it had advanced to the public, as well as according to other circumstances. This