Perhaps a public bank is as necessary to the health of the commercial
body, as exercise to the natural. The circulation of the blood and
spirits are promoted by one, so are cash and bills by the other; and a
stagnation is equally detrimental to both. Few places are without: Yet
Birmingham, famous in the annals of traffic, could boast no such claim.
To remedy this defect therefore, about every tenth trader was a banker,
or, a retailer of cash. At the head of whom were marshalled the whole
train of drapers and grocers, till the year 1765, when a regular bank
was established by Messrs. Taylor and Lloyd, two opulent tradesmen,
whose credit being equal to that of the bank of England, quickly
collected the shining rays of sterling property into its focus.