the whole
amount of specie for which "bank money" was outstanding. This regulation
was not, however, strictly observed. Loans were made at various dates to
the Dutch East India Company. In 1795 a report was issued showing that the
city of Amsterdam was largely indebted to the bank, which held as security
the obligations of the states of Holland and West Friesland. The debt was
paid, but it was too late to revive the bank, and in 1820 "the
establishment which for generations had held the leading place in European
commerce ceased to exist." (See _Chapters on the Theory and History of
Banking_, by Charles F. Dunbar, p. 105.)

Similar banks had been established in Middelburg, (March 28th, 1616), in
Hamburg (1619) and in Rotterdam (February 9th, 1635). Of these the Bank of
Hamburg carried on much the largest business and survived the longest. It
was not till the 15th of February 1873 that its existence was closed by the
act of the German parliament which decreed that Germany should possess a
gold standard, and thus removed those conditions of the local medium of
exchange--silver coins of very different intrinsic values--whose
circulation had provided an ample field for the operations of the bank. The
business of the Bank of Hamburg had been conducted in absolute accordance
with the regulations under which it was founded.

The exchange banks were established to remedy the inconvenience to which
merchants were subject through the uncertain value of the currency of other
countries in reference to that of the city where the exchange bank carried
on its business. The following quotation from _Notes on Banking_, written
in 1873, explains the method of operation in Hamburg. "In this city, the
most vigorous offshoot of the once powerful Hansa, the latest
representative of the free commercial cities of medieval Europe, [v.03
p.0335] there still remains a representative of those older banks which
were once of the highest importance in commercial affairs. Similar
institutions greatly aided the prosperity of Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam and
Nuremberg. The Bank of Hamburg is now the last survivor of these banks,
whose business lay in the assistance of commerce, not by loans, but by the
local manufacture, so to speak, of an international coinage. In a city of
the highest rank of commercial activity, but greatly circumscribed in
territory, continually receiving payments for merchandise in the coin of
other countries, a common standard of value