real property, which, independent of their
personal means, is responsible for their commercial engagements. In
most banking establishments this fund of credit is considerable, in
others immense; especially in those where the shares are numerous, and
are held in small proportions, many of them by persons of landed
estates, whose fortunes, however large, and however small their share
of stock, must all be liable to the engagements of the Bank. In
England, as I believe, the number of the partners engaged in a banking
concern cannot exceed five; and though of late years their landed
property has been declared subject to be attacked by their commercial
creditors, yet no one can learn, without incalculable trouble, the
real value of that land, or with what mortgages it is burthened. Thus,
_caeteris paribus_, the English banker cannot make his solvency
manifest to the public, therefore cannot expect, or receive, the same
unlimited trust, which is willingly and securely reposed in those of
the same profession in Scotland.

Secondly, the circulation of the Scottish bank-notes is free and
unlimited; an advantage arising from their superior degree of credit.
They pass without a shadow of objection through the whole limits of
Scotland, and, though they cannot be legally tendered, are current
nearly as far as York in England. Those of English Banking Companies
seldom extend beyond a very limited horizon: in two or three stages
from the place where they are issued, many of them are objected to,
and give perpetual trouble to any traveller who has happened to take
them in change on the road. Even the most creditable provincial notes
never approach London in a free tide--never circulate like blood to
the heart, and from thence to the extremities, but are current within
a limited circle; often, indeed, so very limited, that the notes
issued in the morning, to use an old simile, fly out like pigeons from
the dovecot, and are sure to return in the evening to the spot which
they have left at break of day.

Owing to these causes, and others which I forbear mentioning, the
profession of provincial Bankers in England is limited in its regular
profits, and uncertain in its returns, to a degree unknown in
Scotland; and is, therefore, more apt to be adopted in the South by
men of sanguine hopes and bold adventure (both frequently
disproportioned to the extent of their capital), who sink in mines or
other hazardous speculations the funds which t