It appears that the notes and deposits were all paid, whether with interest or not is uncertain. Private inquiries make it seem probable that the other domestic creditors got about eighty per cent. The stockholders got nothing. It has been calculated that the United States made $6 millions out of the Bank of the United States. This result is reached by setting the cost of the government stock and interest paid on the same, until it was converted into cash, against the bonus, the dividends, and the amount received for the stock.[1]
Nicholas Biddle died February 27, 1844, aged 58. John Quincy Adams said of him in 1840: "N. Biddie has a fair mind, a brilliant genius, a generous temper, an honest heart, waylaid and led astray by prosperity, suffering the penalty of scarcely voluntary error. It is piteous to behold."[2] The men who had flattered him and pushed him on to folly, when he appeared to be a leader who could serve their purposes, turned upon him and insulted him when he failed,[3] as of course he was bound to do; but if he had been a man of straightforwardness and rectitude of character, this whole story would have been very different.
Virginia.—In April, 1840, the teller of the Bank of Virginia absconded, being a defaulter for about half a million. He had begun by allowing overdrafts.
The Virginia banks resolved to resume with the Baltimore banks, and did resume about January 15, 1841, but suspended again a little later. The bad and doubtful debt to the Bank of Virginia was then $910,848, including the teller's deficiency.[4]
February 10th, the banks were allowed to issue ones and twos under the same conditions as before, until January 1, 1842. The notes of the Merchants and Mechanics' Bank and of the Northwestern Bank were not to be received by the State unless they would desist from using post-notes for any sum under $500. All penalties, forfeitures, and remedies against banks were further postponed, March 15th, until January 1, 1842. The fifteen per cent. penalty for non-redemption was suspended until June 1, 1842. At the next session there was further postponement until April 1, 1842, and finally the day for the resumption of specie payments was set at November 1, 1842. The Governor, in his message of 1841, said that he could not urge speedy resumption because the State owed the banks $350,000 which it could not pay. The banks resumed September 15, 1842.[5] It was asserted by a well informed writer that the bank directors of Virginia owed to the banks a sum equal to one-quarter of their total capital. The directors generally owned only enough shares to qualify.[6] In May there were reports of outrages in the State to prevent sheriff's sales and action of the courts against debtors.
The banks were allowed to issue small notes payable in specie to the
