The New Hampshire Gazette

From the Washington Globe.

BANK POLICY AND BANK
MANOEUVRES

In the proper discharge of a periodical
task, which we have felt it a duty we owe
the public to impose upon ourselves, we have
again made enquiry of the Treasury Depart-
ment, as to the movements of the Bank for
the past month. We have been permitted
to examine the statement of the Bank of the
1st of this month, which shows -the Opera-
tions of the last. And what are they? Will
it be believed, after all the declarations of the
Bank, officially put forth during the memora-
ble panic and distress session of Congress of
1833-4, that if the public deposits were
not restored to the Bank, it must go on stead-
ily and regularly to curtail its business, call in
its loans, to be prepared to wind up its busi-
ness at the expiration of its charter? To do this it was stated that the loans of
the Bank must be called in at the rate of two
millions and a half of dollars per month.—
The same statements and declarations were
made by the supporters and defenders of the
Bank in the Senate. An elongation of the char-
ter was proposed and advocated in that body by
one of the leading members of the opponents of
the administration, and supporters of the
Bank. It was advocated for a short time on-
ly, because it was necessary "to adopt some
measure capable of affording relief in the
emergency," and of enabling the Bank to
wind up more gradually than it was represent-
ed it would be compelled to do, unless time
was added to that provided for in the charter
for that purpose.

The bill to elongate its charter, as well as
all the propositions which were made, and so
stoutly contended for, to force a restoration
of the deposits of the public money to the
Bank of the United States, failed. Congress,
after a seven months session, nearly the
whole of which was consumed in discussing
the various projects, decrees, and artifices of
the Bank and its friends, in their warfare up-
on the Executive. adjourned without having
done any thing towards "affording relief in
the present emergency," which are the words
employed by Mr. Webster in the Senate on
the 14th March, or of having compelled the
Executive to restore the deposits to the Bank.

Notwithstanding this, relief came as soon
as the panic notes, which had been rung
through the Congressional Halls, ceased to
sound.. The files of the New York Journal
of Commerce show, that in less than three
weeks thereafter, and during the same calen-
dar month in which the adjournment of Con-
gress took place, commerce was flourishing,
money was abundant, and commercial confi-
dence was general in the city of New York.

The Bank of the United States. true to its
own declarations. and those which it had in-
duced its friends to make, went on curtail-
ing its business. Between the 1st of July
and 1st of November, 1834, it curtailed
$5,270,771 41. This was added to a previous
curtailment between the 1st of August, 1833.
and 1st of July, 1834, which had been regu-
larly going on during these eleven months,
amounting to $13,135,377.

When November came, the Bank found
that unaided by its friends of the Senate. all
its curtailments were of no avail. People
were happy; commerce, both foreign and do-
mestic, was prosperous; and many of those
who had been seduced to take part in its war-
fare, had become ashamed and disgusted with
the parts which they had acted.

They found that they had been deceived.
They found when they attended to their own
business, and left the Bank to take care of it-
self, and left it to its own fate, that they had no
difficulty in obtaining all the money facilities
which their business required, unassisted by
the Bank of the United States; and that their
business thus attended-to, was flourishing and
profitable. The people cared not, inquired
not, what the course was which the Bank
was pursuing. They were willing it should
go on and collect in its debts at any rate it
pleased; they were ready to bid it defiance.
They heeded not the threats which had a few
months before been made, or the power
which it then wielded,

The Bank managers, finding this to be the
case, and, as if forgetting all their former de-
clarations in regard to the near approach of
the expiration of the charter and the neces-
sity of going on to call in the loans for the
purpose of winding up the business of the
Bank when the charter did expire, all at once
changed their course of operations. They
commenced in November last, to extend their
business by increasing the loans and dis-
counts, and extending the circulation of the
Bank.

On the 1st of November last, the aggregate
of the loans of all sorts was
$45,754,001
On the 1st of July it was
65,197,492
Extension,
$19,443,491
Making an extension of almost TWENTY
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, in that short
period.

What commercial country in christendom
ever before was called to experience the evils
attending such contractions and expansions?
Between August, 1833, and November, 1834.
the Bank curtailed its loans $18,406,147 83.
And, between November, 1834. and July,
1835, it extended its loans $19,443,491, be-
ing in the first instance a curtailment of almost
twenty nine per cent on its whole loans, and
in the latter, an extension of more than forty
two per cent upon what they were when at
the minimum.

The extension of the circulation of its
notes by the Bank, within that period, have
been still greater in proportion.

On the 1st of November last, the whole
circulation of the Bank was
$15,963,731
On the 1st July it was
25,332,820
Increase,
$9,369,089
Making an increase in the circulation since
November last of $9,369,089, or nearly
SIXTY PER CENT!!!

The extensions of the loans of the Bank
during the month of June, have been $1,555,
046; and the increase of the circulation dur-
ing the same month is $932,934; and this,
indeed, to an amount of circulation greater
than it ever had before.

In the city of Boston alone, the loans have
been increased, during the month of June,
$888,568; and since the 1st of February
last, $8,152,881. At the latter period, the
the total of loans at the branch at Boston
was $2,802,025. On the 1st July, the ag-
gregate was $5,954,906

With such rapidity does the Bank expand,
it is certainly in debt to the local Banks. By
the last statement, it was in debt to the City
Bank of Charleston, South Carolina, $1,672,
000; and the specie which it had in its vaults
at that place at the same time was but
$1,014,000 ·Has the Bank entered into a
treaty of amity and alliance with the Charles-
ton Bank, that it thus trusts to their honesty?
It was also largely indebted to the city banks
in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and
Baltimore.

It is thus that the Bank is winding up its
business, nine months only before its charter
will expire!

It is well known that there now exists, and
is daily carried on in the large Atlantic cities,
a system of stock gambling, to a greater and
more pernicious extent, than probably there
is any precedent for in this country. This,
which is so demoralizing, both in nature and
effect, the Bank is evidently encouraging.
Since the 1st of February last, the Bank
has increased its loans on stocks in New York.
Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore, $2,405,
591. Of this sum, $708,288 has been in the
cities Of New York and Philadelphia alone,
during the last month.

While these operations are going on, the
community are moving as if no evil is near
them, as if no danger can approach them; as
if no calamity could overtake and overwhelm
them.

Let us tell them, that they are upon the
brink of an alarming and destructive preci-
pice. The prosperity which now seems to
prevail throughout the country, is artificial.
When the Bank of the United States changes
its course, and carries out the other part
of its plans, all will vanish as rapidly as ever the
dew disappeared before the morning sun.—
Then, stocks will fall more rapidly than they
lately did in London. City lots will cease
longer to find purchasers, and uncultivated
lands will be forced into market to pay the
debts of the speculator, contracted for the
original purchase money. Thousands who
have indulged their fancies in counting their
fortunes in imaginary profits, which they ex-
pected to realize out of their speculations in
stocks, houses, lots and public lands, will find
not only those anticipations and hopes disap-
pointed, but themselves ruined and beggared.

The Bank keeps up the farce of winding
up its business, by withdrawing some of its
unimportant branches, while at the same
time it is extending its business in the aggre-
gate, as we have already shown.

We take from the Nashville Republican, a
White and Bell paper, the following standing
article, for some time past:

Bank of the United States.-The Bank of
the United States has closed its offices at Uti-
ca, Hartford, and Portsmouth, and ordered
the office in this place to collect its old debts
by the 4th day of March next, and to close
its new business, founded on bills to be drawn
on New Orleans in anticipation of the grow-
ing crop, within six months from the 1st day
of November next, thereby to enable the
Parent Bank to withdraw its office from this
place on the 1st day of May next.

This we view as an official notice, in re-
gard to the Branch at Nashville; and when
taken in connexion with the late operations
of that branch, discloses the policy of the
Bank and its manoevres.

By the Bank statement of the 1st June
last, the amount of discounts at the branch
at Nashville upon "personal security" was
$914,749 ; and by the statement of the
1st of this month, the amount was $1,149,
457; being an increase of $234,708, or
more than twenty five per cent addition in
one month! During this same month of June
this branch threw out an addition to its
circulation of more than half a million of dol-
lars.

Why this increase of its loans on individual
security, and the extension of its circulation,
at the same time it puts forth this order to be
prepared to close its business? For the same
reason that the Bank is extending generally
its loans and issues of notes.

The Bank will come before the next Con-
gress for a renewal of its charter, at the next
session. About the same time, the order will
be issued, and that in secret, to go upon the
other tack, so call in the loans in all quarters
at the same time; the screws will be turned,
and will be kept turning; the cries of distress
will be rung and echoed from the centre to the
remotest corners of the Republic; there will
be real distress and misery, and ruin will fol-
low. This the Bank will study to produce,
that the cries of the sufferers may be the
thunder. The scenes of the panic session of
1833-4 will be re-enacted in the legislative
halls of the nation, and throughout the
country.

If the Bank fails in obtaining a renewal of
its charter from Congress, the screws are to
be kept turning until after the Presidential
election is past in 1836. This will be done
for the purpose of forcing the People to elect
a President who will be willing to recom-
mend and sign a bill to re-charter the Bank.

We have it from a most authentic source,
that the Bank managers acknowledge that
they have no idea of dividing the capital stock
of the Bank, nor any part of it, among the
stockholders upon the expiration of the char-
ter. We know, that the subject of loaning
money upon MORTGAGE, has lately been
under consideration by the Board, or a portion
of the Board of Directors of the Bank.

They intend to keep the capital together ;
they will concentrate it, knowing that power
concentrated can be wielded with greater ef-
fect than when scattered; the great battle
has yet to be fought with the Bank, and
against it, both in and out of Congress.-
Let those who are opposed to Bank rule and
Bank government buckle on their armor and
prepare for the contest, for it will certainly
come.

We again admonish the State Banks to the
exercise of prudence, that they may be pre-
pared to withstand the tempest, and support
the deserving who will be forced to encoun-
ter it.