of the public money in aid of their legitimate exertions to maintain their credit; but as the proposition of the Bank of the United States excludes the deai of pressure on its part, no measure of that nature appears to be necessary at this time."[1] It is evident that the precedent was marching on very steadily. In the hands of Jones it had been formulated into a principle.
After speaking of the distress in England, April 10, 1819, Niles goes on to describe the condition of things here: "From all parts of our country we hear of a severe pressure on men of business, a general stagnation of trade, a large reduction in the price of staple articles. Real property is rapidly depreciating in its nominal value, and its rents or profits are exceedingly diminishing. Many highly respectable tradesmen have become bankrupt, and it is agreed that many others must go." He goes on to say that confidence is destroyed and that three per cent. per month is the rate for good commercial paper.[2] May 22d: "There is no remedy, but the reaction is hard to be borne. The plain fact is that wherever there is one bank that attempts to pay its debts, there must be great distress; but in those places where there are two or more, God help the people! The curse of borrowing, of suffering 'paper to do our business,' is falling heavily upon us." "With nearly $500 in notes of different sizes, and of many old and respectable banks, in his pocketbook, the writer of this article was compelled, on Saturday last, to borrow market money." "Misery abounds and the neighborhood of every bank is a neighborhood of bankrupts, positive or anticipated." Smith & Buchanan failed in June, "with a crash which staggered the whole city of Baltimore and will extend no one knows how far. * * * The affairs of the house appear to have been desperate for many years, but they were Tyrian merchant princes and princely expedients have they taken to save themselves from sinking." They had controlled Baltimore, socially, politically, and commercially.[3]
Matthew Carey stated that of thirty-seven merchants who signed a policy of insurance at Philadelphia in 1799, twenty-seven had become bankrupt in 1822.[4] If the writers of the time were at all correct in their opinion that prices responded promptly to the inflation and contraction of the currency, how was it possible for anyone to do business?
Of course all this was attended by great suffering amongst the wages class. August 7th Niles says: "It is estimated that there are 20,000 persons daily seeking work in Philadelphia; in New York, 10,000 able-bodied men are said to be wandering the streets looking for it; and if we add to them the women who desire something to do, the amount cannot be less than 20,000." October 23d, he said that there were 7,288 persons idle in Baltimore. In the report of a Committee on Manufactures of the city of Philadelphia, quoted by him on that date, it is stated that trades which employed 9,672 persons in 1816, employed only 2,137 in 1819. "It is a singular fact, which conclusively shows the pressure of the times, that our master mechanics,
