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No ^» s^^im 18.18 58.1 THE LEADER. 97t
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WRITINGS OF WILLIAM PATEUSOT?. ^Si^S^S^r...
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No ^» S^^Im 18.18 58.1 The Leader. 97t
No ^» s ^^ im 18 . 18 58 . 1 THE LEADER . 97 t
Writings Of William Pateusot?. ^Si^S^S^R...
WRITINGS OF WILLIAM PATEUSOT ? . ^ Si ^ S ^ S ^ rf ^ S An excellent volume of Biographical Sketches might be written , to be entitled the Ghosts of Literary History . There is , to . begin with , the cbiet oi literary ghosts—the brawniest in print , yet ni the flesh the most airy and impalpable—the writer ot
the Letters of Junius . For contrast with him take the pious and voluminous , but once highly popular , author of the Whole Duty of Man . Who was he or she ? This ghost had a substantial printer and publisher , and doubtless took substantial bags ot guineas for his or her numberless editions . He or she , moreover , followed up the author ' s principal literar y achievement witli a number of other books —which the old binder of our copy , in despair , we
suppose , of wringing from their shadowy author the secret of its name , has labelled " Whole Duty of Man ' s Works . " Shakspeare himself is very nearly a ghost . Chaucer only escapes being included by the one substantial act of -beating a friar in Fleet-street . People who are fond of speculation and conjecture may build up delightful biographies out of the hints they have left in their works and the suggestions of tradition ; or may spend a pleasant lifetime in piecing together such other scraps of fact as can be found . These we have mentioned , however , are but one kind of literary ghost—solid and weighty in type , and only misty in person . Mr . Bannister has the merit of having introduced a remarkable , specimen
of another kind . His ghost has , or lately had , no solidity anywhere . Literary historians , bibliographers , commentators , editors , knew not his name or the title of a single tract from his ghostly pen . Compilers of Biographical Dictionaries never caught him visibly flitting . Even Scotchmen— -thoug h he was a Scotch ghost—did not brag oF him . Tradition indeed reported , with somethiug like evidence , that the disastrous expedition to Darien , in whixjh so many Scotchmen with their wives and families miserably perished , was the scheme of this ghost : and another tradition , more ghostly in itseU , the
declared him—if a name can make a manoriginal projector of the present Bank of England —vaguely telling us that the Bank originated in the scheme of Mr . William Paterson . But who was he ? Of course if they had told us this we could not have included him in our collection of historical ghosts . Mr . Bannister , however , does undertake to tell us this , and tells us so much that , if his facts and arguments were hot themselves somewhat shadowy , the founder of the Bank of England must be a real substantial man and author henceforth and for ever . Mr . Bannister has not only provided him
• with a business as a merchant with two wives , and installed him in a solid red brick house in Queensquare , Westminster , with a handsome carved porch , aU standing to this hour—has not only exhibited him as a substantial ratepayer on the books of St . Margaret's , Westminster , a great smoker , and coffee-house politician , a closet friend and adviser of royalty , a ' man of influence in the City , a cosmop olitan adventurer , and a magnificent schemer , but lias also furnished him at one bound with thp bulky collection of literary works' contained in these volumes . Never yet , we boliovo , wns a literary chost so thoroughly ghostly and of so old a standing
compelled to untold himself in a manner so sudden and complete . Whether all this be only a dream of Mr . Bannister ' s or not , it is clear that the editor himself devoutly bolioves in his work . In that busy poriod in English history , from the revolution to the year 1719 , j \ li \ Bannister sees his hero dipping his finger into every ministerial , finnnoinl , and political pie . The vory air is full of Paterson . He developed schemos ' for us whioh would havo raisod ua to the highest pitoh of national prosperity , If anything went wrong it was because our forefathers would not listen to Patorson . Honoo tho disastrous confusion in King William's coin ; honco tho South Sea HilnlOVT . Ill'lftft , l \ AlinA <*\ U 11 liulimi irlnf rtrl ttni tr \» iiil rlr \ Ki
m . ¦ ZZif ...... I .. i * . irVffHW , 4 ""^ "fr * V" *;"; " - ¦ Treasurer Gotlolphux got a reputation out of his suggestions ; Havloy borrowed his prinoiplcs of finance j Wai polo steered towards power under his guidauoo 5 Halifax turned a deaf ear , and repented of it . And who knows how much of that ohurn ' dtor for profound sagacity with which Mr . Maouulay endows King William was justly his . Aobonling to Mr . ( Bannister his ghostly but all-pervading hero was in tho habit ot haunting the king ' s oabinot .
How often do kings unjustly appropriate the merits of obscurer men ? Setting aside speculations and vague conjectures , what is known of Paterson , shows that he was oiie of a very common class at the period of the revolution—a professional projector . He was born in Dumfriesshire in 1658 , but came when a youth to Bristol , to reside with an aged' female relative of his mother , who died and left him some small sum . With this he appears to have set up as an itinerant . ji ... . .. ' !*! « u »« nliicflir S ^ ntY > limp . n- —in-those >/ /
_„ peaier , a usci uj . umoo- uiwj ^ vv ~^ . » # --days of bad roads , though the shopkeepers _ inveighed against them as undersellers and invaders of their privileges . It is next supposed that he entered a merchant ' s counting-house in the City ; but he was evidently of a restless disposition , with a pedler ' s disposition to roving . He went to America — some say as a missionary , while , lus enemies declare that he was nothing but a buccaneer . Anyway , he acquired a remarkable knowledge of the coasts of Central America and the Spanish main . He married the widow of a New England parson , who died ; and Paterson returned to England , where he started as a merchant and failed . ..
As a bad poet , they say , becomes naturally a critic , so an unsuccessful merchant generally develops into a schemer and projector . Paterson s was the age of bubbles . The successful establishment of banks on the Continent , the wondrous discovery that bits of paper , under regulation , could be made to do the duty of silver and gold—the new creation of Government stock with its rises and falls , making and destroying fortunes in a day—bad given to financial operations a kind of magical character which captivated imaginative minds .
vast national Council of Trade . In Jus tract on this subject , the authorship of which seems sufficiently proved , he developed an absurd plan for involving the trade of Great Britain in a hopeless maze of bureaucratic red tape . All that is certain after this is , that having . . married again ,, be took up his . quarters in Westminster , from whence he commenced so heavy a bombardment of the House of Commons with petitions on his claims on account of the disastrous Darien expedition , that they at last actually voted him the sum of 18 , 000 / . The dupes of his Darien scheme , whose bones were not left in the unwholesome wilderness of Panama , may well have shielded themselves from ridicule behind this proof of his irresistible powers of persuasion . The next certain fact is the fact which the most prolix of biographers must come to at last . Pater »•
son , who was fond of frequenting coffeehouses or taverns , and discoursing of his projects to the company there , certified the making of his will on the 3 rd of July , 1718 , " at the Ship Tavern without Temple-bar , " and died a few months afterwards . His " works , " to which Mr . Bannister , with more or less success , makes out his claim from internal evidence and contemporary opinion , are but of small , if any , value . His scheme for a Council of Trade we have already alluded to . The " Proceedings of the WednesdayV Club , " amidst much heavy and obsolete lumber , political and financial , comprises some interesting particulars of the private history of the foundation of the Bank . A brief extract from another pamphlet among his " works ' * will give the political economist some notion of their value : —•
As . the health and strength of the natural bodydepends upon temperance and plenty of wholesome food , so the health and strength of the body politick depend * upon good discipline and plenty of riches . And as good and well executed laws are the conveyances of good discipline : so trade , well projected and industriously prosecutedj is the conduit of riches . As a . man who i & sensible of the decaj-- and weakness of his natural body ought to use restorative medicines , so a nation , which i & sensible of its poverty , ought to use an enriching trade-Since , then , poverty is the disease of this nation , and the source of the many distempers and incumbrances it labpureth under , it ought to be the business of those who are invested with the government of this nation toappoint a council , composed of gentlemen of the best
Mr . Paterson set upas a " great calculator / which was nearly the same thing as a great wizard . If statesmen would only listen , he knew how to make riches at will . He had formidable rivals , who were of course impostors and quacks ; and of course his schemes had important points of difference from theirs—PatersomaiL marks—without which none were genuine . " He had , indeed , the good fortune —^ and his biographer considers this alone as constituting a claim to fame—to be not so mad as Dr . Chamberlen , who would have had a bank-note in circulation for every acre of ground in _ the kingdom .
Paterson , if Mr . Bannister ' s Paterson be really himself and not somebody else , appears to have been of opinion that a promise to pay twenty guineas could not be fulfilled by handing over a rood of wild heath ; but must be met , if the holder demands them , with twenty guineas and nothing else . This view was sensible enough ; but unfortunately all his projects were riot marked with the the sanic sobriety . The dream of his life was the foundation of a great trading settlement in Central America . Mr . Bannister claims for his hero the character of a profound economist and political
sense , and merchants of the greatest experience , within the kingdom , for contriving a scheme of . trade , thevigorous and industrious prosecution whereof may tend to the enriching the nation . Now to excite my countrymen to this so very excellent and Juseful enterprise , I endeavour to expose my weakness in the following discourse , wherein I shall , 1 st , Shew that an inland trade ( pei' se ) cannot enrich a nation , but may disturb thepublic peace and safety of the same ; 2 dly , I shall give a character of foreign trade ; 3 dly , I shall show the hazard of private and separate trading ; 4 thly , I shall give an idea of company dealing ; 6 thly , I shall show how a company , or national trade , may be constituted in Scotland ; 6 thly , I shall name some advantageswbich , as it were , naturally result from the same ; and , 7 thly , I shall conclude .
p hilosopher ; but it is evident that he was not beyond tho best informed of his age in these characters . He did not know that great trading settlements are not made at a bound , but grow out of the necessities of things—beginning with a few hut 3 and a wharf , and ending , perhaps , with a Liverpool . With this " grandest of conceptions , " as it is styled by his " foolish fond" biographer , lie besieged Iving William and the Elector of Brandenburg for years . The history of its final adoption
The only way that the wealth of this kingdom is increased is by that which we call our foreign trade ; but this is so confined and inconsiderable , that in respect of the diffused foreign trade of other nations , it may be esteemed little better than domestick and private commerce . But wore it purely such , it could add no more to tho wealth of the kingdom than the circulation of the blood can add unto the blood of tho body . But when private mon , by lawful industry or perhaps worse means ,, acquire a great part of the wealth of tho kingdom , such private acquisitions ond monopolies evidently throatenetb the destruction and ruin of the public peace and safety * For certainly hereby some of the members of this body politick must bo denuded of that which sometime was
by the Scottish nation , and its terribly disastrous failure—whioh , in spite of Mr . Bannister ' s excuses and unshakou faith , was inevitable from tho firstis too well known to be repeated here . Among other of " the events of Paicrsbh ' s life , lid " took a share in the undertaking of Sir William Phipps , to raise treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon , near Now Providence He was one of tho projectors of the Hampstcad and Highgate waterworks , and was also ono of the first dircotors of tho Bank of
their property and means of subsistence , whereby thebody politick ia threatened with the lose , or ( if they b « of honest dispositions , and stoop to the embraces of publick charity ) burthened with the maintenance of such exhausted and languishing members . But if , as it tooofton happeneth , these exhausted members have squandered away their means of subsistence , by sloth or idleness , debauchery or riot ; nud if these vicea ( and it is more than probable they will ) outlive their means of subsistence , these vices , I aay , in conjunction with their poverty , will beget in them a rapacity which tho
England , boing a proprietor of 2000 / . stock . Anonymous writers , some yonrs after , claimed for him tho honour of being the original projeotor of that institution ; but the claim is not satisfactorily established . He at ull events sold Ins stock , and retired from the direotion within a lew mouths after jjfl oonunouoemonj ; . so that his sharp , iu its , ultimata ' success coiJd havo been but small . Immediately upon his retirement , ho started a new banking institution culled tho Orphans' Fund , tho precise object of which wo arc unable to disoovoi ? from his " proposals j" although it is stated . with sufficient clearness that Mr . Puiorson is to havo aper-coutago on tho profits us promoter . After his return from Purion , his now sohcino which was scarcely loss extensivo , was a project for the establishment of a ,
charity of a poor nation will bo altogether unable to' 8 uppor (^ and « satisfyr * ATid"tlnisrnpon" -the-powor'or' -lm- " --- — potency of such men depends the destruction or preservation of tho public peace and safety . Sallust plainly and elegantly doolaroth that the Cataline conspiracy arose from those vory vices whioh well-nigU overthrow the Roman empire , when it was almost arrived ftt ho greatest strength . , . After the great progress that has . been made in tho last half-oentury in populating the established truths of political economy , it would appowr
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18091858/page/19/
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