26, fifty-nine commissions of bankruptcy
were issued against English country banks, and four times the number
of private compositions were calculated to have taken place during the
same period. While merchants and manufacturers were without credit,
their inferiors were without employment, and distress reached almost
every class of the community. Some liberal pecuniary measures on the
part of the Bank of England helped in a short time, rather by
inspiring confidence than by actual disbursement of money, to
retrieve in some measure the embarrassed circumstances of the country.

"On the same day," Mr Montefiore says, "when the death of an
unfortunate speculator caused a general gloom to prevail in the
financial world, I was asked by a gentleman if I had the courage to
join him in a speculation, my reply was I would see to-morrow." "I
fear," Mr Montefiore observes, "this day's awful lesson is quite lost
upon him."

The entries I am now giving are very brief, sometimes abrupt, showing
(probably) the excited state of affairs in the political and financial
world, which appear to have induced him to form a resolution to
withdraw entirely from all the turmoil of London.

_March 5th._--Heard there will be no war. The ministers' plan of
funding and repaying six millions of the bank has lowered the funds.

_March 17th._--Attended the meeting of the schools; meeting of the
society for granting marriage portions to orphans (Spanish and
Portuguese Hebrew community).

_March 20th._--The King of Portugal died; The Emperor of Austria
dangerously ill; our good king much better.

_April 9th._--Dined with Mr N. M. Rothschild; met there Prince
Esterhazy, Duke of St Albans, his brother and two sisters, Lady
Augusta Cotton, a son of Lord Coventry, and the Earl of Lauderdale.

_April 13th._--The Emperor Nicholas insists upon the Turks evacuating
Moldavia.

_April 16th._--Attended meeting of the elders (Sp. and Port.
Synagogue); signed 1171 cheques, dividends of the Alliance, sixteen
shillings per share.

_June 20th._--War commences again in India, after Bhurtpore had been
stormed by Lord Combermere and peace made with the Burmese, when they
had to pay L100,000 sterling, and cede a great extent of the
territory.

During the following three months he again devotes much time to
communal affairs, attending committees of schools and charitable
institutions.

_October 15th._--Political events of great importance attract his
attention.