Banks and Currency Author:Albert Gallatin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: their respective dividends, we annex the following estimate of the whole. Capital.Notes in circulation.Specie.1st January 1811— Bank of the U. S. 84 State Ba... more »nks,10,000,000 42,510,0005,400,000 22,600,0005,880,000 9,120,000Total, 1815—221 State Banks, 1816—242 " "52,510,000 82,620,000 90.800,00028,000,000 44,700,000 66,500,00015,000,000 17,000,000 19,000,000The unequal distribution of the specie on the 1st of January 1815, must be recollected. At that time the banks of the four") states of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New-Hampshire, had J The states of Pennsylvania and Maryland, with the District of Columbia, had And all the other states Capital. $ 15,690,000 Circulation 5,320,000 Specie. 8,200,000 26,000,000 13,750,000 3,000,000 40,930,000 25,630,000 5,800,000 The increase of issues, from about forty-five to near sixty- seven millions, or of about 50 per cent., within the first fifteen months of the suspension of specie payments, was the natural consequence of that event. We must observe, that, where we were obliged to resort to an estimate, the amount of bank notes is set down rather too low than too high. Yet, we are confident, that for the three dates we have given, the actual amount cannot have exceeded thirty, forty-seven, and seventy millions respectively. This last sum falls very short indeed of the one hundred and ten millions which were supposed to have been put in circulation by the banks, but is quite sufficient to account for the depreciation. It is equal to the present amount of the currency; and as the increase of wealth during the last fourteen years has at least been in the same proportion as that of the population, the amount which could have been wanted at that time may be estimated at about forty-six millions, including b...« less