The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-23 00:00:00

TEE. ROYAL BRITISH BANK.

Publicity is the first principle of our political
institutions. On it we depend for liberty, order,
honour, and all that makes life tolerable. For
every affair of the least general importance we
know that even here what has been whispered in
the ear will be proclaimed from the housetops.
There are people who argue against, and enlarge on
the evils attending the exposure of crime. No doubt
there are such evils. No doubt youthful passion and
foolish curiosity may now and then find their own
nourishment in criminal reports and other details.
We presume the temptation changes with years,
for really, if we ever read anything that struck us
as calculated to charm the manly fancy and to cor-
rupt the mature mind it is the revelations at the
meeting of the shareholders of the Royal British
Bank. It is impossible for a man—we say empha-
tically a respectable man, a man with fairish ante-
cedents, or at least without bad ones—a man with
any tail to his name—for example, an Alderman or
an M.P.—to rise from the perusal of that report
without being conscious of new powers for the ac-
quisition of wealth. The Royal road, or rather the
Royal British road, to wealth in these days is sim-
ply for any dozen gentlemen dining together to ar-
range their parts, to send out d, circular to invite
the public generally—that is, country clergymen,
half-pay, officers, surgeons, Islington shopkeepers,
spinsters, widows, and little people with still less
to do—to subscribe what money they can. The
dozen gentlemen have then to open an office-20
offices, it need be, to chooSe a name, and send round
some more circulars, saying everything or nothing,
and they may proceed to real business—that is, to di-
vide among themselves the contents of the till. There
is, of course, an etiquette in these things, for it is
not the custom to divide equally. The weight con-
tributed by each name, and other circumstances, are
to be taken into account. Then, of course, an
official may make a fair use of his opportunities.
There is honour among thieves, we are told, but
there is also difference of merit, and you will never
find real equality either in a ditch or a cellar, a
gaol or a bank parlour.
The Royal British Bank, stripped of its "leather
and prunella," its organisation, its eight offices,
its charter, and other " properties," was a very
simple affair. As fast as the five hundred simple.
tons bought the shares, or " deposited " their
money on the counter, the gentlemen in the par-
lour " took" it, or " borrowed" it, or whatever
else it is to be called. Humphry Brown, Esq.,
M.P., one of the directors, took 70,0001. ; Mr.
John G-wynne, another director, took 14,000/. ;
Mr. Cameron, the secretary, took 30,0001. ; Mr.
Mullins; the solicitor, took 7,0001. ; one of the
auditors took 2,000/. ; John M'Gregor, Esq., M.P.
for Glasgow, the eminent financial writer and pro-
jector of the bank, took 7,3621., and we are only
surprised that, with so magnificent a prestige, he
did not take more ; he had not his fair share. A
number of suaaller people had 60,0001. among
them. Mr. Oliver, of Liverpool, was favoured
with 13,4861. The directors had also a regular
allowance of 2,0001. a year among them for what
the Persians call " tooth-money," for the wear
and tear of their teeth in masticating and swal-
lowing what they took. There certainly are
anomalies in the distribution that may some day be
explained. There were directors who took nothing
at all, or, at all events, returned what they took.
The chief clue to this inequality is, perhaps, to be
found in the fact of there being here, as every-
where, a master mind. This was Mr. Cameron,
the secretary, who divided the booty, and there
must have been a degree of confidence between him
and some of the directors which there was not with
the rest. He had come up from the country, and
did not know the London way of business ; nor, as
it turns out, had he any occasion to know it, for
his own way of doing business was a vast deal bet-
ter. He kept the real accounts of the Bank in a
little book with a little key to it, and prohibited
all communication between the directors and either
customers or clerks. So, at least, it is stated by
the greener members of the direction, and Mr.
Esdaile says that, even when Mr. Brown was in
debt 70,0001., he (Esdaile) did not know of the debt
till called to the chair in the course of the present
year. Mr. Owen, while director, little more than
two years ago, did not know iere was a single
shareholder in debt to the Bank to the amount of
100,0001. It was all done downstairs, and lie was
told that when he had shut the parlour door he
had nothing to do with the Bank. So the directors
sat in the parlour, and received what information
Mr. Cameron chose to give them, pocketed their
fees for attendance, and went home to dinner.
Talk of public offices, the family of Barnacles, sil-
ver sticks, and prebendaries, what sinecure like
that of these representatives of a free people 1 Mer-
cantile men of high character, Mr. Cameron as-
sured these gentlemen, would not come to ask
money from a Board ; they would only confide
their wants to the general manager. The directors
of the Royal British Bank, with its loyal and
patriotic title staring in your face in every great
thoroughfare, and intrusted with the fortunes of
hundreds of people, profess not to have known
what the custom was when a man wanted a large
advance from his Bank. In fact, they consisted of
those who knew nothing about it and those who
enjoyed Mr. Cameron's confidence, that gentleman
..himself not being acquainted with the London way
of doing business, and having a way of his own.
The Welsh works are a redeeming feature in the
history, and cast a glow of honest enthusiasm upon
it. A Bank has to sow its wild oats like any gen-
tleman of property ; indeed, one of the directors
holds it as a rule that a Bank, like a minor just
come to his estate, uniformly spends its money,
goes through a period of difficulty, reforms, saves,
and gets rich again. " One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin," and there are few noblemen
who will not have a fellow-feeling with the Bank
when they hear the story. Quite in its infancy
" one of the first commercial authorities in the city
of London" recommended to its kindness " parties
of the name of Dumellar and Scales, afterwards
Dinnel!ar and Swift," with whom the Bank accord-
ingly opened a cash credit for 3,0001., and a dis-
count account of 6,0001. Very shortly, "upon the
strength of the same recommendation, the parties
were allowed to go beyond the general limits pre-
scribed. Then (that is in the ensuing autumn)
came the first irregularities with regard to the
paper of these parties." When the debt to the
Bank had mounted up to 20,0001., which it seems
to have done with wonderful buoyancy, collateral
securities were demanded, and offered in the shape
of Welsh works. What was to be done ? "We
had," says Mr. Esdaile, "a property presented to
us, and it was represented to the Board that by
working the property ourselves, and getting into
our hands the plant and mineral property connect-
ed with it, we should be able to recompense our-
selves for the whole of the previous debts." Who
has not heard such captivating representations, and
who, with the means, has not listened to them in
r his time? But the dupes in this case were not
fresh from college, but the directors of a Metro-
politan Bank of the most ambitious pretensions,
and trustees for some five hundred proprietors. It
is a stereotyped tale, except that, instead of a
young baronet; it is a Bank that is sthe
No sooner had it got the ironworks than the iron