under guarantee of the city of Amsterdam, various sums, amounting on the whole to upwards of six million florins. In a similar way the provinces of Holland and West Friesland were indebted to the bank nearly a million florins. The loan-office of Amsterdam had contracted with the bank a debt of one million seven hundred and fifty thousand florins, and the city was otherwise in arrears with the bank upwards of four hundred thousand florins. The whole amounting to upwards of nine million florins, or rather more than eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. For the whole of this sum there had originally been investments of cash or bullion in the bank, to remove one florin of which, by way of loan, was a violation of the compact between the bank and its creditors. But if the money so disposed of, instead of being hoarded up in the coffers of the bank, in a duplicate ratio increased the circulating medium of the country, efficiently by the cash so issued from the strong chests of the bank, and virtually by the credit which it possessed from the imaginary treasure lodged
