On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
WRITINGS CO ? WILLIAM PATERSON . The Writings of William Paterson , Founder of the BanTc of £ g laid / wit \ . Biographical Notices of the Author , his Contemporaries and bis Race . Edited _ by S . ¦ Bannister . 2 vols . Effingham Wrison . An excellent volume of Biographical Sketches might be written , to be- entitled the ' Ghosts of Literary History . There is , to begin with , the chief of literary ghosts—the brawniest m print , yet in tJie flesh the most airy and impalpable—the writer or
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 one 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 pedler , a useful class—chiefly Scotchmen—in those 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 evidentl y of a restless disposition , with a pedler ' s disposition to roving . He went to America — some say as a missionary , while his 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—had given to fiuancial operations a kind of magical character which captivated imaginative minds . 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—Patersomari rnarks-r-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 ' 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 not marked with the the same 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 philosopher ; but it is evident that he was not beyond the best informed of liis 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 wUnrf , and ending , perhaps , with a Liverpool . With this " grandest of conceptions , " as it is styled by his " foolish fond" biographer , he besioged King William and the Elector of Brandenburg for years . The history of its final adoption by the Scottish nation , and its terribly disastrous failuro—which , in spite of Mr . Bannister ' s excuses and unshaken faith , was inevitable from the firstis too well known to be repeated here . Among
other of the events of Patorson ' s life , ho took . a share in the undertaking of Sir William Phipps , to raise treasure from a sunken Spanish galloon , near New Providence He was one of the projectors of the Hampstcad and Higligato waterworks , and was also one of the first directors of the Bank of England , being a proprietor of 2000 / . atook . Anonymous writers , some yours after , claimed for him the honour of being the original projector of that institution ; but the chum is not satisfactorily established . Ho at all events sold his stock , ana retired from the direolion within a few months after
its commencement , so that his share in its ultimate "SuocosH'CoukWvttve » -been ^ bal )« 'smaHr ~ w'Immediately- " upon his retirement , ho ( started a new banking institution oalled the Orpjmua' Fund , tho preoise object of which wo arc unable to disoovor from his " proposals ; " although it is stated with sufficient , clearness that Mr . Palerson is to have a . jper-centage on the profits as promoter , After his return from Darion , his new sohpmo whioh was soarooly loss extensive , was a project for tho establishment of a
the Letters of Junius . Tor 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 literary achievement with 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 "host 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—though he was a Scotch ghost—did not brag of him . Tradition indeed reported , with something like evidence , that the disastrous expedition toparieu , in which so many Scotchmen witli their wives and families miserably perished , was the scheme of this ghost : It
and another tradition , more ghostly in self , declared bin *—if a name can make a man—the original 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 not 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 norch , all 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 cosmopolitan adventurer , and a magnificent schemer , but has also furnished him at one bound with the bulky collection of literary ' works' contained in these volumes . Never yet , we believe , was a literary
ghost so thoroughly ghostly and ot so old a standing compelled to unfold himself in a manner so sudden and complete . Whether all this be only a dt'eam of Mr . Bannister ' s or not , it is clear that tho editor himself devoutl y believes in his work . In that busy period in English history , from the revolution to thq year 1719 , Mr . Bannister seos his hero dipping his finger into every ministerial , financial , and political pic . The very air is full of Paterson . Ho developed schemes for us whioh would have raised us to the highest pitch of national prosperity . If anything
went wrong it , was because our forefathers would not listen to Patorson . Henco the disastrous confusion in King William ' s coin ; Jicnco tho South Sea misfortunes ; liqnce our unliquidated national debt . ^ easuMoi ^ Qodolphin-ffotr'a ^ 'opxitation' - 'outr'of' -his suggestions ; H&rloy borrowed his principles of finanoe j Walpolo steered towards power under his guidanoo ; Halifax turned a deaf oar , and repontod of it . And who knows how much of that oharaoter for profound sagacity with whioh Mr . Maoaulay endows King William was justly his . According to Mr . ( Bannister his ghostl y but all-pervading 1 horo was in tho habit oFliauutiug tho king ' s oubinot .
Untitled Article
vast national Council of Trade . In Iris tract on this subject , the authorship of which seems sufficient jy proved , he developed an absurd plan for involving the tirade of Great Britain in a hopeless maze of bureaucratic red tape . All that is certain after this is , that having married again , he 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 behincl 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 :
Paterson , 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 suceessj 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 Wednesday ' s Club , " amidst much heavy and obsolete lumber , pol itical 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 prosecuted , is the conduit of riches . As a man who is sensible of the decay and weakness of his natural bodyought to use restorative medicines , so a nation ^ which issensible 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 laboureth under , it ought to be' the business of those whoare invested with the government of this nation to appoint a council , composed of gentlemen of the best .
sense , and merchants of the greatest experience , withm the kingdom , for contriving a scheme of trade , the vigorous and industrious prosecution , whereof may tend to the enriching the nation . Now to excite iny 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 { per se ) cannot enrich a nation , but may disturb the public 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 , 1 shall give an idea of company dealing ; Sthly , I shall showhow a company , or national trade , may be constituted in Scotland ; Gthly , I shall name some advantages which , as it were , naturally result from the same ; and , 7 thly , I shall conclude .
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 were 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 the body . But when private men , by lawful industry or perhaps worse means ,, acquire a great part of the wealth of the kingdom , such private acquisitions and monopolies evidently threutenetli the destruction and ruin of the public peace and safety . For certainly hereby some of tho members of this bodypolitick must be denuded of that' which sometime was
their property and means of subsistence , whereby the body politick is threatened with the loss , or ( if they be of honest dispositions , and etfoop to the embraces of publick charity ) burthened with the maintenance of such exhausted and languishing members . But if , as it too often happeneth , these exhausted members have squandered away their means of subsistence , by sloth or idleness , debauchery or riot ; and if these vices ( and it is more than probable they will ) outlive their moans of subsistence , these vices , I say , in conjunction with their poverty , will begot in thorn a rapacity whioh tho
charity of a poor nation will be altogether unable to support and satisfy . And thus , upon tho power or im" pTfltency ' df"T ^ ir ^^ vation of the publio peace and safety . Sallust plainly and elegantly deolarotli that tho Catalino conspiracy arose from those very vices which well-nigh overthrew the Roman empire , whew it was almost arrived at Its greatest strength . , . After tho great progress thafc has boon made m tho last half-century iu popularising the osta * Wished truths of politiool eqouoiny , it would appear
Untitled Article
•*« AA % . September 18 , 1858 . ] THE IjEADEB . 9 ? t
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1858, page 971, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2260/page/19/
-