notwithstanding so many of our merchants of old being gentlefolks,
there is a great improvement in many respects amongst the class. Our
predecessors had not merely to contend with the narrow resources of the
country, and with the want of a thousand conveniences for the transport
of goods by sea and land, which have since come into existence, but,
worst of all, they had to struggle with the dictates of their own
ignorance. Nearly all the principles which they advanced and sought
to realise in legislation, as for the encouragement of trade and
manufactures, were false, and could only operate for the repression
of the industrial energies of the community, and, by consequence, for
the keeping up of poverty in the land. It is a strange thing to say,
but it is true, that breakers of laws have in a great measure been the
means of bringing about a sounder policy. We have happily got above the
greater part of these errors, and daily reap the natural advantages
of our superior light; and yet, as a part of the British community,
I think we ought to feel modest about the faults of our ancestors,
since it is undeniable that the commercial world is still far from
having attained the summit of perfection. It has faults, too, which
are almost peculiar to our own age. The advance by banks of large sums
of deposited money to reckless traders destitute of capital of their
own, and who only hope for some trump to turn up in their favour before
ruin overtakes them, is a mercantile error which our ancestors never
dreamed of. So, also, those consequent disastrous crises of trade, of
which we have just seen an example sweep over the industrial world,
were unknown to our forefathers. The present Company may, however,
be gratified in reflecting that from these errors the old banking
companies of Edinburgh have been comparatively free. The five or six
great banks of old standing amongst us not only came out safe in the
late crisis, but they were able to hold out help to some at a distance
which were less fortunate. As a humble individual of this community,
I must say I feel a pride in the old Edinburgh banks, as an exponent
of business procedure amongst us. If we overlook only the brief civil
war of 1745, when the grandfather of our present sheriff-clerk—being
cashier to the Royal Bank—marched up in his tartans, pistols, and
claymore, to deposit the bank’s money in the castle, that it might
be safe from his less scrupulous countrymen, and when the Bank of
Scotland was but too happy to follow the example—there we see doors
which have never for a day been closed for a hundred and forty-four
years! I was going to have said a hundred and sixty-four years; but
on looking into the history of the Bank of Scotland, I find there was
a brief stoppage of cash-payments in 1704 occasioned by a malicious
run, and another caused by the civil troubles of the year 1715. As
it is, overlooking only the unavoidable cessation of business in the
Forty-five, the doors of the ‘Auld Bank’ have been in the ordinary
condition of those of the temple of Janus at Rome for a hundred and
forty-four years. It cannot have been without consummate prudence that
this glory has been achieved. During the late crisis, moreover, the
number of failures in our city, including Leith, was comparatively
small. It will be said, perhaps, that Edinburgh is not a city of
much business—a saying against which I take leave to reclaim. It is,
for one thing, the centre of monetary business for the kingdom. The
life-assurance companies and societies of Scotland—hitherto, like our
old banks, of untainted character—have, with but little exception,
their headquarters here; and let us just passingly observe, three of
these establishments in St Andrew Square enjoy an annual income of
six hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and have the management of
accumulated funds to the extent of five and a half millions.[2] When
we further consider the legal business of Edinburgh, its agenting of
property throughout the country, its large publishing establishments,
its glass-works and foundries, its merchandise in wine and drysaltery,
it is, even leaving Leith out of view, in reality very much a city of
business. While, then, I acknowledge that we are still everywhere under
more or less of commercial error, I think it may at the same time be
allowable to describe the mercantile community of Edinburgh, as one in
which experience has proved that a more than usually sound and prudent
practice—with happy fruits—has the ascendant.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For these interesting particulars, I am indebted to Joseph
Robertson, Esq., Record Office, Edinburgh.
[2] The Scottish Widows’ Fund, Scottish Equitable, and Scottish
Provident Offices, are here alluded to. The entire annual income
of the life-assurance offices of Scotland, chiefly centering in
Edinburgh, is stated at £2,082,000, and the sum-total of their funds
at £11,116,000.—_Letter of R. Christie, Esq., Accountant, Courant
newspaper, Feb. 26, 1859._