to the Bank in
great numbers, where they would all be stopped. The news would spread
abroad. The thieftakers would be busy. Every man who had had his note
stopped at the Bank would alarm his neighbourhood. The country would
ring with the news. Nobody would take a bank-note. All business would
be at a stand. The farmers would sell no corn for bank-notes. The
millers would have nothing else to pay with. No markets, because no
money. The baker would be able to get no flour. He could sell no
bread, for nobody would have money to pay him.

Jack, this thing will assuredly take place. Mind, I tell you so. I
have been right in my predictions on former occasions; and I am not
wrong now. I beg you to believe me; or, at any rate, to blame yourself
if you lose by such an event. In the midst of this hubbub what will
you do? Farmer Gripe will, I daresay, give you something to eat for
your labour. But what will become of your five pounds? That sum you
have in the Savings Bank, and as you are to have it out at any time
when you please, your wife sets off to draw it. The banker gives her a
five-pound note. She brings it; but nobody will take it of you for a
pig, for bread, for clothing, or for anything else! And this, Jack,
will be the fate of all those who shall be weak enough to put their
money into those banks!

I beg you, Jack, not to rely on the power of the Boroughmongers in
this case. Anything that is to be done with halters, gags, dungeons,
bayonets, powder, or ball, they can do a great deal at; but they are
not conjurers; they are not wizards. They cannot prevent a man from
dropping bank-notes in the dark; and they cannot make people believe
in the goodness of that which they must know to be bad. If they could
hold a sword to every man's breast, they might indeed do something;
but short of this, nothing that they can do would be of any avail.
However, the truth is that they, in such case, will have no sword at
all. An army is a powerful weapon; but an army must be paid. Soldiers
have been called machines; but they are eating and drinking machines.
With good food and drink they will go far and do much; but without
them, they will not stir an inch. And in such a case whence is to come
the money to pay them? In short, Jack, the Boroughmongers would drop
down dead, like men in an apoplexy, and you would, as soon as things
got to rights, have your bread and beer and meat and everything in
abundance.

The Boroughmongers possess