for coining. For doing this, and for defraying the expenses of the Mint, certain taxes were to be imposed upon various imported goods and articles. A clerk was to be appointed, who should keep a record on parchment books of the quantities of bullion given in by the merchants, "which record shall be open for the inspection of anyone who requires the same, under the penalty of deprivation"; he had also to keep an accurate record of the amount of money coined, "that it may be known what quantities of silver have passed his Majesty's irons from time to time". The act fixed the salaries of the officials and officers of the Mint, and a sum of £1100 was allowed for maintaining the fabric of the establishment, and providing new tools and incidental charges.

The kinds of current silver coins were stated to be the sixty, forty, twenty, ten, and five shillings Scots pieces; and the weights of each were minutely stated. It was expressly required by the act that the sixty and the forty shilling pieces should be lettered round the edges, and the edges of the other three pieces grained. The Privy Council were empowered to cognise and consider the gold coins, and to regulate and determine the fineness and the weight and the type of the coins, when the King should think fit to grant a warrant for a gold coinage; no copper was to be coined without the King's express warrant, and when it was issued it was to be in sixpenny and twopenny pieces. 125

In 1690, the government of Scotland received a warrant from the King authorising the coining of the current pieces of silver, and ordering that the provisions of the act of 1686 should be put in operation. The same year, parliament sanctioned a copper coinage, not exceeding three thousand stones, and to be spread over six years. In 1695, a change in the rate of money was proposed, and accepted by the King, and a general rise of about ten per cent. was proclaimed on the money then current. But the next year, the Scots silver pieces of sixty, forty, twenty, ten, and five shillings, were reduced to the values which were

125 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VIII., pp. 603-608.

current in 1686. On the 10th of December, 1695, sixty stones of silver were ordered to be coined and issued in forty shilling pieces, and one hundred and twenty stones in twenty, ten, and five shilling pieces.126

On the 6th of October, 1696, parliament passed an act authorising a copper coinage, not exceeding three thousand stones in the space of six years, of which two parts were to be coined in twopenny pieces, and a third in sixpenny pieces. At the same time an act was passed against false coiners. About the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, counterfeit coining had become a common crime. In 1704, a batch of false coiners was discovered, and the authorities proceeded vigorously to prosecute them.127

By a proclamation emitted in May, 1697, the importation of foreign copper coin or base money was prohibited, under a penalty of ten pounds; but in December another proclamation legalised the currency of the French three-sous piece at three shillings Scots, and the French crown at fifty-eight shillings Scots, and raised the fortypence piece to three shillings and sixpence Scots.

At the Union it was agreed that the coin should be of the same standard and value throughout the United Kingdom. Accordingly, in 1707, arrangements were made for changing the Scotch coinage into English; and all the English, Scotch, and the foreign money was called in and reminted, and reissued as the coinage of Great Britain. In April, 1708, the Scottish coins were finally called in, and preparations made for carrying out the recoinage exactly on the methods of the English mint,123

126 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. IX.; Records of the Coinage of Scotland, Cochran Patrick, Vol. II., p. 253.

127 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. X., p. 12, App., pp. 53, 55, 79.

128 Register of the Privy Council; Records of the Coinage of Scotland, Cochran Patrick, Vol. II., pp. 271-272. Mr. Cochran Patrick's Records of the Coinage of Scotland, often referred to in the preceding pages, was published in 1876, and is a very valuable work. The introduction to the records and the documents

Thus one of the beneficial results of the Union was soon obtained; since, commercially, the great advantage and the convenience of having one coinage, and only one standard of money for the whole Island, is too obvious to need illustration.

129

The establishment of a bank in Scotland was a sign of the growing commercial spirit of the nation, which was manifesting itself in various directions. In Scotland, as in England, till towards the close of the seventeenth century, exchanges and other monetary transactions had been wholly in the hands of a few leading merchants; as in the back-room of a clothier in the High Street of Edinburgh, or the counting-room in the Saltmarket of Glasgow." The scheme of the first Scotch bank, as drawn in an act of parliament in 1695, was limited and prudential in a high degree, and founded upon the jointstock principle. It was to begin with a subscribed capital of £1,200,000 Scots, or £100,000 sterling, in shares of one thousand pounds Scots, of which no one was to have more than twenty; two-thirds of the capital was to be subscribed by persons residing in Scotland, and one-third by individuals in England or elsewhere. The company was to be placed under the direction of a governor, a deputy-governor, and twenty-four directors, who were to have the sole management of the bank. At the beginning it was thought best that twelve of the directors should be Englishmen, as it was assumed that they were better acquainted with the business of banking than the Scots. The names of the original proprietors of the bank are preserved in the act of parliament which sanctioned its establishment; and among them were Mr. Holland, and six other London merchants, and

relating to the coinage, and to the mints of Scotland, is all that could be desired; while the method of arranging the records for easy consulting and reference is admirable. Altogether the work is a monument of research and industry.

129 The dates at which banks were established in the countries of Europe are as follows :-In Venice, 1157; in Geneva, 1345; in Barcelona, 1401; in Genoa, 1407; in Amsterdam, 1407; in Hamburg, 1619; in Rotterdam, 1635; in Stockholm, 1688; in England, 1694; in Copenhagen, 1736; in Berlin, 1765; in St. Petersburg, 1786.

six Edinburgh merchants. Mr. Holland came down to Edinburgh and resided there for some time, superintending the proceedings of the bank; and he found that the Scots were rather ignorant about banking matters. But the bank prospered, and in a few months after it was opened it had attained a wonderful degree of credit. Shortly after the bank was fairly put in operation, by the common consent of the company, the whole of the directors were elected by the Scotch shareholders, the English ones being left to act as trustees, and to manage what business the bank might have in London. At length, when there were no longer thirteen proprietors of the bank in England, this arrangement also was relinquished.130

At first the chief business of the bank consisted in lending money on heritable bonds and other securities. The giving of bills of exchange was next tried, with the object of extending the advantages of the bank as much as possible; and with the same aim, to carry the circulation of their notes throughout the country, branch-offices were opened in Glasgow, Montrose, Dundee, and Aberdeen, for receiving and paying money in the form of inland exchange, by notes and bills prepared for the purpose. But after a trial of this branch business, the directors came to the conclusion "that the exchange trade was not proper for a banking company; a bank, they thought, should be chiefly designed as a common repository of the nation's cash, a ready fund for affording credit and loans, and for making receipts and payments of money easy, by the company's notes. To deal in exchange interfered with the trade and the business of private merchants, and the Bank of Scotland had found it very troublesome, unsafe, and improper." After a short trial, it was also found that the bank could not continue the four branchoffices, except at a loss far exceeding any advantages which could be derived from them; and after spending a considerable sum on these branches, the directors felt obliged to relinquish them,

130 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. IX., pp. 494-497; Account of the Bank of Scotland,

and recall their money to Edinburgh. For many years the business of the bank was entirely limited to lending money.'

131

Touching the paper currency then introduced, the Bank of Scotland issued from the first, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and hundred pound notes. It was not till the year 1699 that the bank began to issue one pound notes, which have ever since been a special and an important feature of Scottish banking, and of the circulating medium of the country. These twenty shilling notes soon got into circulation in Edinburgh, and in some other parts of the kingdom, but some time elapsed before they obtained a ready and general currency in the markets of the kingdom, for among the common people of that day nothing. answered so well as silver money: gold was then little used among them, 132

Having presented the foregoing details of the rise of the industrial arts, and noted the difficulties in the way of their progress, and already indicated that there was a growing spirit in the nation towards trade and commercial enterprise, it seems requisite to adduce a little more evidence of the strength and generality of this spirit, which was vigorously struggling to find new means of outlet. Thus the consecutive and rapid progress of industry, of trade, and of commerce which subsequently ensued in Scotland will be better appreciated and easier understood when it shall have been seen to flow from a natural succession of causes. Let us, therefore, briefly notice some of the numerous projects and trade adventures which were originated or proposed in the closing years of the seventeenth century, and the opening years of the eighteenth.

A sugar work was first erected in Glasgow in 1667, and in 1683 there were two sugar works in that city-the only ones in the kingdom. In 1696, parliament passed an act authorising

131 Account of the Bank of Scotland, p. 6.

132 Ibid. The one pound notes, however, it is well known, became and have long continued great favourites among the Scots; indeed, they have as much confidence in the paper notes of the old banks as they have in gold or in silver money.