“I do not mean to tax Rhoda with falsehood. I mean that it is very possible that, by bad management, a loaf or two may have been kept too long——”
“But just look at the original quality, ma’am.” And the farmer and his wife spoke alternately.
“You should see the red herrings they dine off five days in the week.”
“And the bone pies the other two.”
“Sacks of bad potatoes are bought for the servants.”
“The nursemaid and baby sleep underground, with a brick floor.”
“The maids are to have no fire after the dinner is cooked in winter, any more than in summer.”
“The errand-boy that was found lying sick in the street, and flogged for being drunk, ma’am, had had not so much as half a pint of warm beer, that his mother herself gave him to cheer him; but his stomach was weak, poor fellow, from having had only a hard dumpling all day, and the beer got into his head. Rhoda can testify to it all.”
Fanny was repeatedly going to urge that it was very common to hear such things, and find them exaggerated; that Rhoda was high-spirited, and had been used to the good living of a farm-house; and, as an only daughter, might be a little fanciful: but proof followed upon proof, story upon story, till she found it better to endeavour to change the subject.
“If it was such a common instance of a bad place as one hears of every day,” observed Martin, “I, for one, should say less about it. But here is a man who comes and gets every body’s money into his hands, and puts out his own notes instead, in such a quantity as to raise the price of everything; and then he makes a pretence of these high prices, caused by himself, to starve his dependents; the very children of those whose money he holds.”
“He cannot hold it for a day after they choose to call for it.”
“Certainly, ma’am. But a bank is an advantage people do not like to give up. Just look, now, at the round of Cavendish’s dealings. He buys corn—of me, we will say—paying me in his own notes. After keeping it in his granaries till more of his notes are out, and prices have risen yet higher, he changes it away for an estate, which he settles on his wife. Meantime, while the good wheat is actually before Rhoda’s eyes, he says, ‘bread is getting so dear, we can only afford what we give you. We do not buy white bread for servants.’ And Rhoda must take out of his hands some of the wages she lodged there to buy white bread, if she must have it.”
Fanny had some few things to object to this statement; for instance, that Cavendish could not float paper money altogether at random; and that there must be security existing before he could obtain the estate to bestow upon his wife: but the Martins were too full of their own ideas to allow her time to speak.
“They are all alike,—the whole clan of them,” cried Mrs. Martin, “the clergyman no better than the banker. One might know Mr. Longe for a cousin; and I will say it, though he is our rector.”
Fanny could not conceal from herself that she had no objection to hear Mr. Longe found fault with; and she only wished for her father’s presence at such times.
“It has always been the custom, as long as I can remember, and my father before me,” observed Martin, “for the rector to take his tithes in money. The agreement with the clergyman has been made from year to year as regularly as the rent was paid to the landlord. But now, here is Mr. Longe insisting on having his tithe in kind.”
“In kind! and what will he do with it?”
“It will take him half the year to dispose of his fruits,” observed Melea, laughing. “Fancy him, in the spring, with half a calf, and three dozen cabbages, and four goslings, and a sucking pig. And then will come a cock of hay; and afterwards so much barley, and so much wheat and oats; and then a sack of apples, and three score of turnips, and pork, double as much as his household can eat. I hope he will increase his house-keeper’s wages out of his own profits; for it seems to me that the trouble must fall on her. Yes, yes; the housekeeper and the errand-man should share the new profits between them.”
“It is for no such purpose, Miss Melea, that he takes up this new fancy. He has no thought of letting any body but himself profit by the change of prices. As for the trouble you speak of, he likes the fiddle-faddle of going about selling his commodities. His cousin, Mrs. Cavendish, will take his pigs, and some of his veal and pork, and cabbages and apples: and he will make his servants live off potatoes and gruel, if there should be more oats and potatoes than he knows what to do with.”
“Let him have as much as he may, he will never send so much as an apple to our lodger,” observed Mrs. Martin. “He never considers Mr. Craig in any way. If you were to propose raising Mr. Craig’s salary, or, what comes to the same thing, paying it in something else than money, he would defy you to prove that he was bound to pay it in any other way than as it was paid four years ago.”
“And it could not be proved, I suppose,” said Melea. “Neither can you prove that he may not take his tithe in kind.”
“I wish we could,” observed Martin, “and I would thwart him, you may depend upon it. Nothing shall he have from me but what the letter of the law obliges me to give him. But what an unfair state of things it is, ladies, when your rector may have double the tithe property one year that he had the year before, while he pays his curate, in fact, just half what he agreed to pay at the beginning of the contract!”
While Melea looked even more indignant than Martin himself, her sister observed that the farmer was not the person to complain of the increased value of tithes, since he profited by precisely the same augmentation of the value of produce. The case of the curate she thought a very hard one; and that equity required an increase of his nominal salary, in proportion as its value became depreciated. She wished to know, however, whether it had ever entered the farmer’s head to offer his landlord more rent in consequence of the rise of prices. If it was unfair that the curate should suffer by the depreciation in the value of money, it was equally unfair in the landlord’s case.
Martin looked somewhat at a loss for an answer, till his wife supplied him with one. Besides that it would be time enough, she observed, to pay more rent when it was asked for, at the expiration of the lease, it ought to be considered that money was in better hands when the farmer had it to lay out in improving the land and raising more produce, than when the landlord had it to spend fruitlessly. Martin caught at the idea, and went on with eagerness to show how great a benefit it was to society that more beeves should be bred, and more wheat grown in consequence of fewer liveried servants being kept, and fewer journeys to the lakes being made by the landlord.
Fanny shook her head, and said that this had nothing to do with the original contract between landlord and tenant. Leases were not drawn out with any view to the mode in which the respective parties should spend their money. The point now in question was, whether an agreement should be kept to the letter when new circumstances had caused a violation of its spirit; or whether the party profiting by these new circumstances should not in equity surrender a part of the advantage which the law would permit him to hold. The farmer was not at all pleased to find himself placed on the same side of the question with Mr. Longe, and his favourite Mr. Craig, whose rights he had been so fond of pleading, holding the same ground with Martin’s own landlord.
The argument ended in an agreement that any change like that which had taken place within two years,—any action on the currency,—was a very injurious thing;—not only because it robs some while enriching others, but because it impairs the security of property,—the first bond of the social state.
Just then, Rhoda and the children burst in from the garden, saying that there must be something the matter in the town; for they had heard two or three shouts, and a scream; and, on looking over the hedge, had seen several men hurrying past, who had evidently left their work in the fields on some alarm. Martin snatched his hat and ran out, leaving the young ladies in a state of considerable anxiety. As the farmer had not said when he should come back, and his wife was sure he would stay to see the last of any disaster before he would think of returning home, the girls resolved to walk a little way down the road, and gather such tidings as they could. They had not proceeded more than a furlong from the farm gate before they met their father’s groom, with their own two horses and a message from his master. Mr. Berkeley begged his daughters to proceed on their ride without him, as he was detained by a riot at the workhouse. He begged the young ladies not to be at all uneasy, as the disturbance was already put down, and it was only his duty as a magistrate which detained him. The groom could tell nothing of the matter, further than that the outdoor paupers had begun the mischief, which presently spread within the workhouse. Some windows had been broken, he believed, but he had not heard of any one being hurt.
“You have no particular wish to ride, Melea, have you?” inquired her sister.
“Not at all. I had much rather see these children home. They look so frightened, I hardly know how Rhoda can manage to take care of them all.”
“The horses can be left at the farm for half an hour while George goes with us all to Mr. Cavendish’s,” observed Fanny: and so it was arranged.
As the party chose a circuitous way, in order to avoid the bustle of the town, the young ladies had an opportunity of improving their acquaintance with five little Miss Cavendishes, including the baby in arms. At first, the girls would walk only two and two, hand in hand, bolt upright, and answering only “Yes, ma’am,” “No, ma’am,” to whatever was said to them. By dint of perseverance, however, Melea separated them when fairly in the fields, and made them jump from the stiles, and come to her to have flowers stuck in their bonnets. This latter device first loosened their tongues.
“Mamma says it stains our bonnets to have flowers put into them,” observed Marianna, hesitating. “She says we shall have artificial flowers when we grow bigger.”
Melea was going to take out the garland, when Emma insisted that mamma did not mean these bonnets, but their best bonnets.
“O, Miss Berkeley!” they all cried at once, “have you seen our best bonnets?”
“With lilac linings,” added one.
“With muslin rosettes,” said another.
“And Emma’s is trimmed round the edge, because she is the oldest,” observed little Julia, repiningly.
“And mamma will not let Julia have ribbon strings till she leaves off sucking them at church,” informed Marianna.
“That is not worse than scraping up the sand to powder the old men’s wigs in the aisle,” retorted Julia; “and Marianna was punished for that, last Sunday.”
“We do not wish to hear about that,” said Fanny. “See how we frightened that pheasant on the other side the hedge, just with pulling a hazel bough!”
As soon as the pheasant had been watched out of sight, Emma came and nestled herself close to Melea to whisper,
“Is not it ill-natured of Rhoda? I saw her mother give her a nice large harvest cake, and she will not let us have a bit of it.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Why,—yes; I think I am beginning to be very hungry.”
“You cannot be hungry,” said Emma. “You had a fine slice of bread and honey just before Miss Berkeley came in. But Rhoda might as well give us some of her cake. I know she will eat it all up herself.”
“I do not think she will; and, if I were you, I would not ask her for any, but leave her to give it to whom she likes; particularly as her mother was so kind as to give you some bread and honey.”
“But we wanted that. Mamma said we need not have any luncheon before we came out, because Mrs. Martin always gives us something to eat. I was so hungry!”
“If you were hungry, what must Marianna have been? Do you know, Miss Berkeley, Marianna would not take her breakfast. She told a fib yesterday, and mamma says she shall not have any sugar in her tea for three months; and she would not touch a bit this morning. Miss Egg says she will soon grow tired of punishing herself this way; and that it is quite time to break her spirit.”
Marianna overheard this last speech, and added triumphantly,
“Tom is not to have any sugar, any more than I, Miss Berkeley: and he was shut up half yesterday too. He brought in his kite all wet and draggled from the pond; and what did he do but take it to the drawing-room fire to dry, before the company came. It dripped upon our beautiful new fire-irons, and they are all rusted wherever the tail touched them.”
“The best of it was,” interrupted Emma, “the kite caught fire at last, and Tom threw it down into the hearth because it burned his hand; and the smoke made such a figure of the new chimney piece as you never saw, for it was a very large kite.”
“So poor Tom lost his kite by his carelessness. Was his hand much burned?”
“Yes, a good deal: but Rhoda scraped some potato to put upon it.”
“You will help him to make a new kite, I suppose?”
“I don’t know how,” replied one, carelessly.
“I shan’t,” cried another. “He threw my old doll into the pond.”
“Miss Egg said that was the best place for it,” observed Emma; “but she said so because Tom was a favourite that day.” And the little girl told in a whisper why Tom was a favourite. He had promised to come up to the school-room and tell Miss Egg whenever Mr. Longe was in the parlour, though his mamma had expressly desired him not. But this was a great secret.
“How shall we stop these poor little creatures’ tongues?” asked Melea. “There is no interesting them in any thing but what happens at home.”
“I am very sorry we have heard so much of that, indeed,” replied Fanny. “I do not see what you can do but run races with them, which your habit renders rather inconvenient.”
The few poor persons they met on the out-skirts of the town afforded occasion for the display of as much insolence on the part of the little Cavendishes as they had before exhibited of unkindness to each other. The Miss Berkeleys had no intention of paying a visit to Mrs. Cavendish, but were discerned from a window while taking leave of their charge, and receiving Rhoda’s thanks outside the gate; and once having brought Mrs. Cavendish out, there was no retreat.—They must come in and rest. Mr. Cavendish was gone to learn what was the matter, and they really must stay and hear it. She could not trust them back again unless one of the gentlemen went with them. Terrible disorders indeed, she had heard: the magistrates threatened,—and Mr. Berkeley a magistrate! Had they heard that the magistrates had been threatened?
Melea believed that this was the case once a week at the least. But what else had happened?
O! they must come in and hear. There was a friend within who could tell all about it. And Mrs. Cavendish tripped before them into the drawing-room, where sat Miss Egg and Mr. Longe.
The one looked mortified, the other delighted. As Mr. Longe’s great vexation was that he could never contrive to make himself of consequence with Fanny, it was a fine thing to have the matter of the conversation completely in his own power to-day. Fanny could not help being anxious about her father, and from Mr. Longe alone could she hear anything about him; and the gentleman made the most of such an opportunity of fixing her attention. He would have gained far more favour by going straight to the point, and telling exactly what she wanted to know; but he amplified, described, commented, and even moralized before he arrived at the proof that Mr. Berkeley was not, and had not been, in any kind of danger.—When this was once out, Mr. Longe’s time of privilege was over, and it was evident that he was not listened to on his own account. Then did Miss Egg quit her task of entertaining Melea, and listen to Mr. Longe more earnestly than ever.
“I am so glad to see you two draw together so pleasantly,” said Mrs. Cavendish to Melea, nodding to indicate Miss Egg as the other party of whom she was speaking. “I feel it such a privilege to have a friend like her to confide my children to, and one that I can welcome into my drawing-room on the footing of a friend!”
“I have heard that Miss Egg is devoted to her occupation,” observed Melea.
“O, entirely. There is the greatest difficulty in persuading her to relax, I assure you. And all without the smallest occasion for her going out, except her disinterested attachment to me. You should see her way with the children,—how she makes them love her. She has such sensibility!”
“What is the peculiarity of her method?” inquired Melea. “She gives me to understand that there is some one peculiarity.”
“O yes. It is a peculiar method that has been wonderfully successful abroad; and indeed I see that it is, by my own children, though I seldom go into the school-room. Great self-denial, is it not? But I would not interfere for the world.—O,”—seeing Melea waiting for an exposition of the system,—“she uses a black board and white chalk. We had the board made as soon as we came, and fixed up in the school-room,—and white chalk.—But I would not interfere for the world; and I assure you I am quite afraid of practising on her feelings in any way. She has such sensibility!”
Well, but,—the peculiarity of method. And Melea explained that she was particularly anxious to hear all that was going on in the department of education, as a boy was expected to arrive soon at her father’s,—a little lad of ten years old, from India, who would be placed partly under her charge, and might remain some years in their house.
Indeed! Well, Miss Egg questioned the children very much. So much, that Mr Cavendish and herself took particular care not to question them at all, both because they had quite enough of it from Miss Egg, and because the papa and mamma were afraid of interfering with the methods of the governess. And then, for what was not taught by questions, there was the black board and white chalk.—But, after all, the great thing was that the teacher should have sensibility, without which she could not gain the hearts of children, or understand their little feelings.
All was now very satisfactory. Melea had obtained the complete recipe of education:—questions, sensibility, and chalk.
Mr. Longe was by this time hoping that the Miss Berkeleys would offer to go away, that he might escort them home before any one else should arrive to usurp the office. Mortifying as it was to him to feel himself eclipsed by his curate, he was compelled to acknowledge in his own mind that he was so as often as Henry Craig was present, and that it was therefore politic to make such advances as he could during Henry’s absence. Mr. Longe’s non-residence was a great disadvantage to him. Living fifteen miles off, and doing duty in another church, he was out of the way of many little occasions of ingratiating himself, and could never be invested with that interest which Henry Craig inspired in a peculiar degree as a religious teacher and devotional guide. The only thing to be done was to visit Haleham and the Berkeleys as often as possible during Henry’s absence, to obtain the favour of Fanny’s father, and to show the lady herself that an accomplished clergyman, who could quote the sayings of various friends who moved in “the best society,” who knew the world a thousand times better than Henry Craig, and could appreciate herself as well as her little fortune, was not to be despised. He was at this moment longing to intimate to her what encouragement he had this very day received from her father, when, to his great disappointment, Mr. Berkeley and Mr. Cavendish came in together,—just in time to save Fanny’s call from appearing inordinately long.
“All over? All safe? How relieved we are to see you!” exclaimed the clergyman.
“Safe, my dear Sir? Yes. What would you have had us be afraid of?” said Mr. Berkeley, who, however, carried traces of recent agitation in his countenance and manner.
“Father!” said Melea, “you do not mean to say that nothing more has happened than you meet with from the paupers every week.”
“Only being nearly tossed in a blanket, my dear, that’s all. And Pye was all but kicked down stairs. But we have them safe now,—the young ladies and all. Ah! Melea; you have a good deal to learn yet about the spirit of your sex, my dear. The women beat the men hollow this morning.”
Mr. Cavendish observed that the glaziers would be busy for some days, the women within the workhouse having smashed every pane of every window within reach, while the out-door paupers were engaging the attention of magistrates, constables, and governor.
“But what was it all about?” asked Fanny.
“The paupers have been complaining of two or three things for some weeks past, and they demanded the redress of all in a lump to-day; as if we magistrates could alter the whole state of things in a day to please them. In the first place, they one and all asked more pay, because the same allowance buys only two-thirds what it bought when the scale was fixed. This they charged upon Cavendish and me. It is well you were not there, Cavendish; you would hardly have got away again.”
“Why, what would they have done with me?” asked Cavendish, with a constrained simper, and a pull up of the head which was meant to be heroic.
“In addition to the tossing they intended for me, they would have given you a ducking, depend upon it. Heartily as they hate all bankers, they hate a Haleham banker above all. Indeed I heard some of them wish they had you laid neatly under the workhouse pump.”
“Ha! ha! very good, very pleasant, and refreshing on a warm day like this,” said Cavendish, wiping his forehead, while nobody else was aware that the day was particularly warm. “Well, Sir; and what did you do to appease these insolent fellows?”
“Appease them! O, I soon managed that. A cool man can soon get the better of half a dozen passionate ones, you know.”know.”
The girls looked with wonder at one another; for they knew that coolness in emergencies was one of the last qualities their father had to boast of. Fanny was vexed to see that Mr. Longe observed and interpreted the look. She divined by his half-smile, that he did not think her father had been very cool.
“I desired them to go about their business,” continued Mr. Berkeley, “and when that would not do, I called the constables.”
“Called indeed,” whispered Mr. Longe to his cousin. “It would have been strange if they had not heard him.”
“But what were the other complaints, Sir?” inquired Fanny, wishing her father to leave the rest of his peculiar adventure to be told at home.
“Every man of them refused to take dollars. They say that no more than five shillings’ worth of commodities, even at the present prices, is to be had for a dollar, notwithstanding the government order that it shall pass at five and sixpence. Unless, therefore, we would reckon the dollar at five shillings, they would not take it.”
“Silly fellows!” exclaimed Cavendish. “If they would step to London, they would see notices in the shop-windows that dollars are taken at five and ninepence, and even at six shillings.”
“There must be some cheating there, however,” replied Mr. Berkeley; “for you and I know that dollars are not now really worth four and sixpence. Those London shopkeepers must want to sell them for the melting-pot; or they have two prices.”
“Then how can you expect these paupers to be satisfied with dollars?” inquired Melea.Melea.
“What can we do, Miss Melea?” said Cavendish. “There is scarcely any change to be had. You cannot conceive the difficulty of carrying on business just now, for want of change.”
“The dollars have begun to disappear since the government order came out, like all the rest of the coin,” observed Mr. Berkeley: “but yet they were almost the only silver coin we had: and when these fellows would not take them, for all we could say, we were obliged to pay them chiefly in copper. While we sent hither and thither, to the grocer’s and the draper’s——”
“And the bank,” observed Cavendish, consequentially.
“Aye, aye: but we sent to the nearest places first, for there was no time to lose. While, as I was saying, the messengers were gone, the paupers got round poor Pye, and abused him heartily. I began to think of proposing an adjournment to the court-yard, for I really expected they would kick him down the steps into the street.”
“Poor innocent man! What could they abuse him for?” asked Melea.
“Only for not having his till full of coin, as it used to be. As if it was not as great a hardship to him as to his neighbours, to have no change. He is actually obliged, he tells me, to throw together his men’s wages so as to make an even sum in pounds, and pay them in a lump, leaving them to settle the odd shillings and pence among themselves.”
“With a bank in the same street!” exclaimed Fanny.
Cavendish declared that his bank issued change as fast as it could be procured, but that it all disappeared immediately, except the halfpence, in which, therefore, they made as large a proportion of their payments as their customers would receive. People began to use canvass bags to carry their change in; and no wonder; since there were few pockets that would bear fifteen shillings’ worth of halfpence. The bank daily paid away as much as fifteen shillings’ worth to one person.
Mr. Berkeley avouched the partners of the D—— bank to be equally at a loss to guess where all the coin issued by them went to. Mrs. Cavendish complained of the difficulty of shopping and marketing without change. Miss Egg feared Mr. Longe must be at great trouble in collecting his dues of tithes; and the rector took advantage of the hint to represent his requiring them in kind as proceeding from consideration for the convenience of the farmers.
All agreed that the present state of the money system of the country was too strange and inconvenient to last long. Though some people seemed to be growing rich in a very extraordinary way, and there was therefore a party every where to insist that all was going right, the complaints of landlords, stipendiaries, and paupers would make themselves heard and attended to, and the convenience of all who were concerned in exchanges could not be long thwarted, if it was desired to avoid very disagreeable consequences.
So the matter was settled in anticipation by the party in Mr. Cavendish’s drawing-room, immediately after which the Berkeleys took their leave, attended by Mr. Longe.
A change was indeed inevitable, as Mr. Cavendish well knew; and to prepare for it had been the great object of his life for some time past. To make the most of his credit, while the credit of bankers was high, was what he talked of to his wife as the duty of a family man; and she fully agreed in it, as she well might, since she had brought him a little fortune, which had long ago been lost, partly through speculation, and partly through the extravagance which had marked the beginning of their married life. Mrs. Cavendish had not the least objection to getting this money back again, if it could be obtained by her husband’s credit; and she spared no pains to lessen the family expenses, and increase, by her influence, the disposable means of the bank, on the understanding that, as soon as the profits should amount to a sufficient sum, they should be applied to the purchase of an estate, which was to be settled upon herself. Thus she would not only regain her due, but some resource would be secured in case of the very probable chance of a crash before all Mr. Cavendish’s objects were attained. Economy was therefore secretly practised by both in their respective departments, while they kept up a show of opulence; and the activity of the gentleman in his various concerns procured him the name of Jack of all trades. Nobody could justly say, however, that he was master of none; for in the art of trading with other people’s money he was an adept.
When he opened his bank, his disposable means were somewhat short of those with which bankers generally set up business. He had, like others, the deposits lodged by customers, which immediately amounted to a considerable sum, as he did not disdain to receive the smallest deposits, used no ceremony in asking for them from all the simple folks who came in his way, and offered a larger interest than common upon them. He had also the advantage of lodgments of money to be transmitted to some distant place, or paid at some future time; and he could occasionally make these payments in the paper of his bank. Again, he had his own notes, which he circulated very extensively, without being particularly scrupulous as to whether he should be able to answer the demands they might bring upon him. One class of disposable means, however, he managed to begin banking without,—and that was, capital of his own. The little that he had, and what he had been able to borrow, were invested in the corn, coal, and timber concern; and upon this concern the bank wholly depended. He undersold all the corn, coal, and timber merchants in the county, which it was less immediately ruinous to do when prices were at the highest than either before or after; and, by thus driving a trade, he raised money enough to meet the first return of his notes. This nervous beginning being got over, he went on flourishingly, getting his paper out in all directions, and always contriving to extend his other business in proportion, by a greater or less degree of underselling, till he began to grow so sanguine, that his wife took upon herself the task of watching whether he kept cash enough in the bank to meet any unexpected demand. The money thus kept in hand yielding no interest, while every other employment of banker’s capital,—the discounting of bills, the advancement of money in overdrawn accounts, and the investment in government securities,—does yield interest, bankers are naturally desirous of keeping as small a sum as possible in this unproductive state; and never banker ventured to reduce his cash in hand to a smaller amount than Cavendish. His wife perpetually asked him how he was prepared for the run of a single hour upon his bank, if such a thing should happen? to which he as often replied by asking when he had ever pretended to be so prepared? and, moreover, what occasion there was to be so prepared, when nobody was dreaming of a run, and when she knew perfectly well that the best thing he could do would be to stop payment at the very commencement of a panic, having beforehand placed all his property out of the reach of his creditors.
Such were his means, and such the principles of his profits;—means which could be successfully employed, principles which could be plausibly acted upon, only in the times of banking run mad, when, the currency having been desperately tampered with, the door was opened to abuses of every sort; and the imprudence of some parties encouraged the knavery of others, to the permanent injury of every class of society in turn.
As for the expenses of the Haleham bank, they were easily met. The owner of the house took out the rent and repairs in coals; and Enoch Pye was paid in the same way for the necessary stationery, stamps, &c.; so that there remained only the taxes, and the salaries of the people employed—a part of the latter being detained as deposits. Thus Mr. Cavendish achieved his policy of having as many incomings and as few outgoings, except his own notes, as possible.
It is not to be supposed but that Cavendish suffered much from apprehension of his credit being shaken, not by any circumstances which should suggest the idea of a run to his confiding neighbours, but through the watchfulness of other banking firms. As it is for the interest of all banks that banking credit should be preserved, a jealous observation is naturally exercised by the fraternity, the consciousness of which must be extremely irksome to the unsound. The neighbourhood of the Berkeley family was very unpleasant to the Cavendishes, though no people could be more unsuspicious or less prying: such, at least, was the character of the ladies; and Mr. Berkeley was, though a shrewd man, so open in his manner, and, notwithstanding a strong tinge of worldliness, so simple in his ways of thinking and acting, that even Mr. Cavendish would have had no fear of him, but for the fact of his having a son of high reputation as a man of business in a bank in London. Cavendish could not bear to hear of Horace; and dreaded, above all things, the occasional visits of the young man to his family. Never, since he settled at Haleham, had he been so panic-struck, as on learning, in the next spring, that Horace had been seen alighting at his father’s gate from the stage-coach from London.London.
Horace’s sisters were little more prepared for his arrival than Mr. Cavendish. There was some mystery in his visit, as they judged from the shortness of the notice he gave them, from its being an unusual time of year for him to take holiday, and from their father’s alternations of mood. Yet it seemed as if Horace had never been so much wanted. Fanny, especially, needed his support in her rejection of Mr. Longe, whom her father was disposed not only to favour, but almost to force upon her. In his gloomy moods, he told her that she little knew what she was about in refusing such an establishment, and recurred to the old intimation, that his daughters had better prepare themselves for a reverse of fortune. When in high spirits, he wearied Fanny with jests on Mr. Longe’s devotion to her, and with exhibitions of all his accomplishments; and when prevailed upon to quit the subject, he let her see, in the midst of all his professions about leaving perfect liberty of choice to his children, that he meant never to forgive Mr. Longe’s final rejection. Melea, and even Mrs. Berkeley, could do nothing but sympathise and hope: Horace was the only one who could effectually interfere. Did he come for this purpose? the sisters asked one another; or was it, could it be, to interfere with some one else, who was as much less acceptable than Mr. Longe to their father, as he was more so to themselves? Could Horace be come, Melea wondered, to call Henry Craig to account for being at the house so often?
It was a great relief to her to find Horace’s head so full of business as it appeared to be. She would have complained of this, if such had been his mood during his last visit; but now she had no objection to see him turn from his favourite bed of hepaticas and jonquils, to answer with animation some question of his father’s about the price of gold; and when, for the first time in her life, she had dreaded riding with him between the hawthorn hedges, and over the breezy downs which they used to haunt as children, her spirits actually rose, because, at the most interesting point of the ride, he woke out of a reverie to ask what proportion of Cavendish’s notes in comparison with other kinds of money, she supposed to be in the hands of the poorer sort of her acquaintance in the town.
In fact, nothing was further from Horace’s thoughts, when he came down, than any intervention in favour of or against either of the clergymen, however much interest he felt in his sister’s concerns, when he became a witness of what was passing. The reason of his journey was, that he wished to communicate with his father on certain suspicious appearances, which seemed to indicate that all was not going on right at Cavendish’s; and also to give his opinion to the partners of the D—— bank as to what steps they should take respecting some forged notes, for which payment had lately been demanded of them. When two or three excursions to D—— had been made by the father and son, and when, on three successive days, they had remained in the dining-room for hours after tea was announced, the ladies began to grow extremely uneasy as to the cause of all this consultation,—of their father’s gravity and Horace’s reveries. Horace perceived this, and urged his father to take the whole of their little family into his confidence, intimating the comfort that it would be to him to be able to open his mind to his daughters when his son must leave him, and the hardship that it was to his mother to be restrained from speaking of that which was uppermost in her mind to those in whose presence she lived every hour of the day. It was difficult to imagine what could be Mr. Berkeley’s objection to confidence in this particular instance, while it was his wont to speak openly of his affairs to all his children alike. He made some foolish excuses,—such as asking what girls should know about banking affairs, and how it was possible that they should care about the matter?—excuses so foolish, that his son was convinced that there was some other reason at the bottom of this reserve. Whatever it was, however, it gave way at length; and Horace had permission to tell them as much as he pleased.pleased.
“Must you go, mother?” he asked that afternoon, as Mrs. Berkeley rose to leave the table after dinner. “We want you to help us to tell my sisters what we have been consulting about ever since I came.”
The ladies instantly resumed their seats.
“How frightened Fanny looks!” observed her father, laughing; “and Melea is bracing herself up, as if she expected to see a ghost. My dears, what are you afraid of?”
“Nothing, father; but suspense has tried us a little, that is all. We believe you would not keep bad news from us; but we have hardly known what to think or expect for some days past.”
“Expect nothing, my dears; for nothing particular is going to happen, that I know of; and it may do me a serious injury if you look as if you believed there was. The bank is not going to fail; nor am I thinking of locking up Fanny, because she will not accept Mr. Longe. Fanny shall have her own way about that; and I will never mention the fellow to her again.”
Fanny burst into tears; and her father, instead of showing any of his usual irritation on this subject, drew her to him, and said he was sorry for having teazed her so long about a shabby, boasting, artful wretch, who deserved to be posted for a swindler.
“Father!” exclaimed Melea, who thought this judgment upon Mr. Longe as extravagant in one direction as the former in another.
“I would not say exactly that,” interposed Horace; “but there is no question about his being unworthy of Fanny; and I would do all I fairly could to prevent his having her, if she liked him ever so well. As she does not like him, there is no occasion to waste any more words upon him.”
As Horace laid an emphasis on the last word, Melea’s heart rose to her lips. Henry’s name was to come next, she feared. The name, however, was avoided. Her father put his arm round her as she sat next him, saying,—
“As for you, my little Melea, we shall let you alone about such matters for some years to come. When you are five-and-twenty, like Fanny, we may teaze you as we have been teazing her; but what has a girl of eighteen to do with such grave considerations as settling in life? You are too young for cares, dear. Be free and gay for a few years, while you can; and remember that it is only in novels that girls marry under twenty now-a-days. Trust your best friends for wishing to make you happy, and helping you to settle, when the right time and the right person come together.”
Melea smiled amidst a few tears. She owned that this was very kindly said; but she did not the less feel that it was not at all to the purpose of her case, and that she could not depute it to anybody to judge when was the right time, and who was the right person.
“Fanny is longing to know what has so suddenly changed your opinion of her suitor,” observed Mrs. Berkeley, in order to give Melea time to recover. “Unless you explain yourself, my dear, she will run away with the notion that he has actually been swindling.”
Mr. Berkeley thought such transactions as Longe’s deserved a name very nearly as bad as swindling. Horace, who had for particular reasons been inquiring lately into the characters of the whole Cavendish connexion, had learned that Longe had debts, contracted when at college, and that he had been paying off some of them in a curious manner lately. He had not only insisted on taking his tithe in kind, and on being paid his other dues in the legal coin of the realm,—which he had an undoubted right to do; but he had sold his guineas at twenty-seven shillings, and even his dollars at six shillings; while he had paid his debts in bank-notes;—in those of his cousin’s bank, wherever he could contrive to pass them.
“Shabby, very shabby,” Horace pronounced this conduct, and, as far as selling the coin went, illegal; but it was no more than many worthier people were doing now, under the strong temptation held out by the extraordinary condition of the currency. Those were chiefly to blame for such frauds who had sported with the circulating medium, and brought the whole system of exchanges into its present ticklish state.
“How came it into this state?” asked Melea. “Who began meddling with it? We shall never understand, unless you tell us from the beginning.”
“From the very beginning, Melea? From the days when men used to exchange wheat against bullocks, and clothing of skins against wicker huts?”
“No, no. We can imagine a state of barter; and we have read of the different kinds of rude money in use when people first began to see the advantage of a circulating medium;—skins in one country, shells in another, and wedges of salt in a third: and we know that metals were agreed upon among civilized people, as being the best material to make money of; and that to save the trouble of perpetually examining the pieces, they were formed and stamped, and so made to signify certain values. And——”
“And do you suppose they always keep the same value in reality; supposing them of the due weight and fineness?”
“No, certainly. They become of less and greater real value in proportion to the quantity of them; in the same way as other commodities are cheap or dear in proportion to the supply in the market. And I suppose this is the reason why money is now so cheap,—there being a quantity of paper money in the market in addition to the coin there was before. But then, I cannot understand where the coin is all gone, if it be true that we have too much money in consequence of its circulating together with paper.”
“The coin is gone abroad, and more paper still has taken the place of it. This is proved by two circumstances; first, that all commodities except money have risen in price; and secondly, that we have more foreign goods than usual in the market, notwithstanding the war.”
“To be sure, less of every thing being given in exchange for one thing proves that there is more of that one thing to be disposed of. And the foreign goods you speak of pour in, I suppose, in return for the gold we send abroad.”
“Yes. A guinea buys nearly as much abroad as it bought three years ago, while it buys much less at home,—(unless indeed it be sold in an illegal manner.) Our guineas are therefore sent abroad, and goods come in return.”
Fanny thought it had been also illegal to export guineas. So it was, her father told her; but the chances of escaping detection were so great that many braved the penalty for the sake of the speculation; and, in fact, the greater part of the money issued by the mint was so disposed of. He took up the newspaper of the day, and showed her an account of a discovery that had been made on board a ship at Dover. This ship—the New Union, of London—was found on the first search to contain four thousand and fifty guineas; and there was every reason to believe that a much larger sum was on board, concealed in places hollowed out for the reception of gold. Horace told also of a ship being stopped on leaving port, the week before, on board of which ten thousand guineas had been found.
“What an enormous expense it must be to coin so much money in vain!” exclaimed Fanny. “It seems as if the bankers and the government worked in direct opposition to each other; the one issuing paper to drive out gold; and the other supplying more money continually to depreciate the value of that which the banks put out.”
“And in putting out paper money,” observed Melea, “we seem to throw away the only regulator of the proportion of money to commodities. While we have coin only, we may be pretty sure that when there is too much of it, it will go away to buy foreign goods; and when too little, that more will flow in from foreigners coming to buy of us: but our bankers’ notes not being current out of England, we may be flooded with them and find no vent.”
“And then,” observed Mrs. Berkeley, sighing, as if with some painful recollection, “comes a lessening of the value of money; and then follow laws to forbid the value being lessened; and next, of course, breaches of the law——”
“A law!” exclaimed Melea. “Was there ever a law to prevent an article which is particularly plentiful being cheap? It seems to me that the shortest and surest way for the lawmakers is to destroy the superabundance, and thus put cheapness out of the question.”
Horace laughed, and asked what she thought of a government that first encouraged an unlimited issue of paper money by withdrawing the limitations which had previously existed, and then made a solemn declaration that the notes thus issued were and must remain, in despite of their quantity, of the same value as the scarce metal they were intended to represent. Melea supposed this an impossible case; a caricature of human folly.
“Do you mean,” said she, “that if where there had been a hundred pounds in gold to exchange against commodities, eighty of them disappeared, and a hundred and eighty pound notes were added, those two hundred notes and pounds were each to buy as much as when there was only one hundred? Did the government declare this?”
“Its declaration was precisely on this principle.”
“How very absurd! It is only condemning half the money to remain over, unused, when the commodities are all exchanged.”
“It might as well have been thrown into the fire before the exchanging began,” observed Fanny.
“If it had been held in a common stock,” replied her brother: “but as long as it is private property, how is it to be determined whose money shall be destroyed?”
“Or whose to remain unused,” added Melea.
“Is it not to be supposed,” asked Horace, that the buyers and sellers will make any kind of sly and circuitous bargain which may enable them to suit their mutual convenience, or that the buyers will, if possible, avoid buying, rather than submit to have half their money rendered useless by an interference which benefits nobody?”
“The buyers and sellers will come to a quiet compromise,” observed Fanny. “The seller will say, ‘You shall have thirty shillings’ worth of goods for two pound notes, which will be better worth your while than getting nothing in exchange for your second note, and better worth my while than letting you slip as a customer, though I, in my turn, shall get only thirty shillings’ worth for these two notes.’ And the buyer agreeing to this, the notes will continue to circulate at the value of fifteen shillings each.”
“In defiance of the punishments of the law,” added Mrs. Berkeley, again sighing.
“One would think,” observed her husband, “that there are crimes and misdemeanours enough for the law to take notice of, without treating as such contracts which, after all, are as much overruled by the natural laws of distribution as by the will of the contractors. It would be as wise to pillory by the side of a sheep-stealer, a man who sells potatoes dear after a bad season, as to fine a man for getting a little with his depreciated money, rather than get nothing at all. Your mother could tell you of something worse than any fine that has been inflicted for such a factitious offence.”
“Melea gives us up, I see,” said Horace. “She can never esteem us again, father, while we are aiding and abetting in circulating this horrible paper money. She would make a bonfire of all the bank notes in Great Britain as they are returned to the bankers. Would not you, Melea?”
“I do not see why I should run into such an extreme,” she replied. “If there were no means of limiting the quantity of paper money, I might speculate on such a bonfire; but if a moderate amount of bank notes saves the expense of using gold and silver, I do not see why the saving should not be made.”
“If white ware and glass answered all the purposes of gold and silver plate,” observed Fanny, “it would be wise to set apart our gold and silver to make watches, and other things that are better made of the precious metals than of anything else.—What do you suppose to be the expense of a metallic currency to this country, Horace?”
Horace believed that the expense of a gold currency was about one million to every ten millions circulated: that is, that the 10 per cent. profit which the metal would have brought, if employed productively, is lost by its being used as a circulating medium. This, however, is not the only loss to the country, the wear of coin, and its destruction by accidents, being considerable; besides which, much less employment is afforded by coining, than by working up gold for other purposes. Supposing the gold currency of the country to be thirty millions, the expense of providing it could scarcely be reckoned at less than four millions; a sum which it is certainly desirable to save, if it can be done by fair means.
“The metals being bought by our goods,” observed Fanny, “it seems to be a clear loss to use them unproductively. The only question therefore appears to be whether bank notes make a good substitute. They might, I suppose, by good management, be made sufficiently steady in value. They might, by common agreement, be made to signify any variety of convenient sums. They may be much more easily carried about; a note for the largest sum being no heavier than for the smallest. There is not the perfect likeness of one to another that there is in coins of the same denomination, but the nature of the promise they bear upon their faces serves as an equivalent security. As to their durability and their beauty, there is little to be said.”
“As to their beauty, very little,” replied Horace; “for, if a new bank note is a pretty thing, few things are uglier than a soiled, and pasted, and crumpled one. But, with respect to their durability, you should remember that it signifies little in comparison with that of a medium which is also a commodity. If a bank note is burned, the country loses nothing. It is the misfortune of the holder, and a gain to the banker from whose bank it was issued.”
“Like a guinea being dropped in the street, and presently picked up,” observed Melea.—“It is not lost, but only changes hands by accident. Yet it seems as if there must be a loss when a 100l. bank note goes up the chimney in smoke, leaving only that below with which children may play ‘there goes the parson, and there goes the clerk.’”
“Nay,” said Horace, “consider what a bank note is. What are the essentials of a bank note, Melea?”
“It would be strange if we did not know what a bank note was, would it not, father, when you have been spreading them before our eyes continually for this twelvemonth? First comes ‘I promise to pay——’”
“Never mind the words. The words in which the promise is made are not essential.”essential.”
“A bank note is a promissory note for a definite sum; and it must be stamped.”
“And payable on demand. Do not forget that, pray. It is this which makes it differ from all other promissory notes.—Well, now: what is the intrinsic value of a bank note? Its cost of production is so small as to be scarcely calculable.”
“It is, in fact, circulating credit,” observed Melea; “which is certainly not among the things which can be destroyed by fire.”
“It is only the representative of value which goes off in smoke,” observed Horace. “The value remains.”
“Where? In what form?”
“That depends upon the nature of the paper currency. Before bank notes assumed their present form,—when they were merely promissory notes, which it occurred to bankers to discount as they would any other kind of bills, the property of the issuers was answerable for them, like the goods of any merchant who pays in bills; and the extent of the issue was determined by the banker’s credit. Then came the time when all bank notes were convertible into coin, at the pleasure of the holder; and then the value, of which the notes were the representatives, lay in the banker’s coffers, in the form of gold and silver money. As for the actual value of the Bank of England notes issued since the Restriction Act passed, you had better ask somebody else where it is deposited, and in what form, for I cannot pretend to tell you. I only know that the sole security the public has for ever recovering it lies in the honour of the managers of the Bank of England.”
“What is that Restriction Act?” asked Melea. “I have heard of it till I am weary of the very name; and I have no clear notion about it, except that it passed in 1797.”
“Before this time,” replied her brother, “by this 9th of May, 1814, every banker’s daughter in England ought to be familiar with the currency romance of 1797.”
“In order to be prepared for the catastrophe,” muttered Mr. Berkeley, who had forebodings which made the present subject not the most agreeable in the world to him.
“First, what is the Bank of England?” asked Fanny. “It is the greatest bank of deposit and circulation in the world, I know; but to whom does it belong, and how did it arise?”
“It came into existence a little more than a hundred years before the great era of its life,—the period of restriction. Government wanted money very much in 1694, and a loan was raised, the subscribers to which received eight per cent. interest, and 4000l. a-year for managing the affair, and were presented with a charter, by which they were constituted a banking company, with peculiar privileges.”
“No other banking company is allowed to consist of more than six persons; this is one of their privileges, is it not?”
“Yes; it was added in 1708, and has done a vast deal of mischief; and will do more, I am afraid, before it is abolished.[B]—The very circumstances of the origin of the Bank of England brought it, you see, into immediate connexion with the government under whose protection it has remained ever since. Its charter has been renewed as often as it expired; and has still to run till a year’s notice after the 1st of August, 1833. The government and the Bank have helped one another in their times of need; the Bank lending money to government, and the government imposing the restriction we were talking of in the very extremity of time to prevent the Bank stopping payment. It also afforded military protection to the establishment at the time of the dreadful riots in 1780.”