The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-12-01 00:00:00

STATE OF TRADE

LEEDS.—Saturday last was a bad day in both of the Cloth
Halls; but on Tuesday rather more business was done at a
slight advance in some cases, though very slight. Buyers
only take what they need; yet the moneyed houses will pur-
chase on any inducement. In the warehouses there is not
much doing.

BRADFORD MARKET.—There was a fair attendance of
buyers at this market on Thursday, but owing to the density
of the fog very little business was done, the merchants being
unable to discern accurately the qualities of the goods. In
the yarn market the transactions were as extensive as is
usual at this season of the year, principally for home con-
sumption, and prices were fully sustained. The Wool
market was dull, but in other respects there was no material

THE FAILURE OF MESSRS. WRIGHT AND CO.

(From the Morning Herald.)
Numerous have been the speculations, well or ill-founded,
adulged in by the press, and the rnmours not less so, in re-
ard to the failure of Messrs. Wright and Co., the bankers.

On such subjects accuracy and the avoidance of exaggeration
are the objects most desirable to be arrived at, and therefore
generally it would be the preferable course to wait for autho-
rised statements on the part of those concerned, at least for
a fitting period. This has been the reason why, beyond the
announcement of the failure, as made public by the circular
of the house, and the causes therein enumerated, it has not
been deemed necessary to advert to the reports in circulation
respecting the causes of the failure and the probable conse-
quences. Now, that attention has been much attracted to the
subject on the one hand, whilst on the other no authorised
statement of the bank's affairs has been made public, it can-
not be considered improper that some notice should be taken,
and some facts illustrative of the bank's difficulties be made
public. Mr. John Wright has made the confession humilia-
ting enough for himself, though exculpatory for his partners,
that he alone by indiscreet, or rather extravagant speculation
on his own account, has been the origin of all the mischief.
Among those extraordinary sins of speculation of which he
reports himself guilty, it may be noted that not the least
extravagant were the establishment projected or carried into
effect of two foreign banks, the one at Athens, the other at
Havana. It is quite clear that the raw material of speculation
in these two instances must have been of very elastic quality,
or of very opposite fibre. For the establishment of a bank at
Athens could be justified on no other grounds than the total
absence of capital or credit there, in a metallic or any other
form, the void of which therefore it was profitable and expe-
dient to fill up with issues of paper money. Whilst on the
direct contrary the project of the Havana bank could only be
accounted for on the plea that there was an abundance of hard
dollars and doubloons to overflowing, and that it would be no
less gainful than easy to relieve the people of this superfluous
load of gold and silver by getting them to part with it for
paper. It happened, however, that the Havana people could
not be persuaded of the superior or equal value of flimsy paper
with metals, and so the bank might as well have shut up shop
from the very first day of its opening for any business it could
do, or profit it could make. Mr. Wright, moreover, was an
extensive dealer in lands as well as banks, and it was mainly
to him that the colony of South Australia owed its existence,
as he was about the largest subscriber for taking land lots and
accumulating town and country sections, not only there in-
deed but subsequently in the new scheme of New Zealand.
Whether he was concerned in any of the banking speculations
for supplying the settlers in those countries with paper
money in addition to land does not appear, but if territorial
possessions abroad could enrich an individual and be
convertible into stuff for constituting banking stock,
undoubtedly Mr. Wright's titles must rim over no
small extent of her Majesty's dominions beyond
seas among kangaroos and cannibals. One of the first large
operations which brought Mr. Wright prominently before
the public eye was the project for a Russian loan of large
amount some years ago, which was rendered abortive through
the decisively expressed repugnance against the design, and
the odium not unattended with serious danger to bank credit
which would attend its undertakers. Since that time Mr.
Wright's private room at the hank became the head-quarters '
for schemers of all sorts and sizes, and where any scheme,
however strange, wild, and incompatible with banking busi-
ness, was sure of favour if not acceptance. In the case of
Hammersley's bank, the speculations of the partners were
at least confined to mercantile operations on their own ac-
count, among which may be noticed one, not before men-
tioned among those talked of, an extensive establishment on
the other side of the water for the fabrication of brandy
spirit out of potatoes, according to a new process, and by a
new still introduced by some French adventurers. Upon
this losing scheme it is supposed some £BO,OOO or £lOO,OOO
was thrown away. But independent of private adventures
on his sole account and charge, Mr. Wright's name became
attached to a large number of company undertakings. in
which the expected premiums on shares evidently formed no
small part of the returns in the way of profit which were
looked for. Many of them were of an equivocal, not to say
of a discreditable kind, and gave rise to serious questions
on some occasions of the credit and solvency of the bank
itself. It is well known that the bank was the great money
agent of the leading proprietors and capitalists, great and
small, and of institutions public and private, appertaining
to the Roman Catholic interest of the kingdom. Its des-
pots from these particular classes were enormous, and the
knowledge of the fact with the reputation consequent of un-
limited command of money that way contributed above all
to sustain and elevate the credit of the bank in spite of the
discredit attaching to Mr. Wright's operations. The state-
ment of £50,000 as the amount in hand on the Duke of
Norfolk's account is however believed to be erroneous. It
is understood not to exceed £28,000, which is still a large
sum. It is considered, however, that the Earl of Shrews-
bury has been, if he be not now among the largest, or pro-
bably the largest depositor, and his account is said sometimes
to have exhibited as much as £200,000 or £300,000 to his
credit. What the balance may be now is not stated, but
long before the stoppage of the bank it was not an unfrequent
remark that but for Lord Shrewsbury's account and balance
it could not have held on so long by some years, in the face
of Mr. John Wright's extraordinary speculations. Several
of the poorer pious institutions of the Roman Catholics will
be very severe sufferers on this occasion, even to their ruin,
although doubtless the majority of the leading depositors of
that persuasion are too substantial to be materially injured
by the event.

(From the Morning Post.)
Mr. John Wright was known to every man of business in
the City as a most sanguine person, and a promoter of many
of the bubble companies and foreign loan schemes that have
been thrust upon the patience of the over-credulous people of
this country. The property of Mr. Anthony Wright, or
Biddulph, which name he took on the death of a rich uncle
of that name, and who is the elder brother of Mr. John
Wright, has been commonly estimated at from £14,000 to
£16,000 a-year, the whole being derived from the relative in
question, besides the sum of £lOO,OOO, more or less, which
was left him by his father. On the death of the uncle
Thomas Wright (the banker), of Fitzwalter's, in Essex, Mr.
Anthony Wright came into the firm, and with his ample
funds, supported as they were by a high and respected cha-
racter, but, more than all, by the magnificent prospects sub-
sequently realised, on the death of Mr. Biddulph, gave a
weight to the bank which procured for it the confidence, not
of the Roman Catholic nobility and gentry alone, but of a
very extensive Protestant, connection also. Mr. Anthony
Wright took no active share in the business, but resided on
his estates, highly respected, and abounding in wealth. Mr.
Robinson, the father of one of the present partners, died
about a year since, and was reputed very rich. He had,
however, several children, and his property may possibly be
no longer available, but is perhaps divided, and withdrawn
altogether from the Covent-garden concern, excepting only
such portion of it as may have been bequeathed to Mr.
Henry Robinson, his eldest son and successor in it. The
other partners, Mr. Jerningham (grandson of Mr. Thomas
Wright, of Fitzwalter's, Mr. Jerningham's father having
married a Miss Wright) and Mr. Beetle, or Bittle, who was
many years a clerk in the house, and a man of considerable
ability and most enduring and laborious habits of business,
could neither of them, it is presumed, have possessed much
independent property. Such were the elements of which the
establishment was composed, and it is but due to the several
partners to observe that, with the one single exception, more
prudent and steady men never existed. -

The Roman Catholic nobility and gentry are for the most
part very wealthy, and by no means prodigal in their expen-
diture, but in the case of a majority of them, quite the reverse.
The failure will, therefore, not seriously affect them. Of the
religious communities who deposited their moneys in the
hands of Messrs. Wright, some are 'needy enough. It is
considered that at least twenty of the secular clergy establish-
ments of education in England did the same. In addition to
the special Catholic and Protestant support of the house, it
enjoyed the confidence of an extensive class of rich and
money-making people located in and about Covent-garden.
The Protestant connection also was, we will venture to say,
equal, on the average, to that of the London bankers gene-
rally. How lamentable is it, then, that so valuable an insti-
tution, as it may be termed, should have been overturned,
and so many splendid properties shipwrecked, through the
blind infatuation—the inordinate speculative propensities—of
one man! . _ _ _

- .
It was shown in a recent proceeding before one of the com-
missioners of bankrupts that Messrs. Wright and Co. were
crediters for £60,000 on the estate of Mr. Denew, the auc-
tioneer, of Charles-street, Berkeley-square. This is a large
sum, but is said to be Well guaranteed. Yet much of it will,
of course, be squandered in law.

SECOND EDITION.

Standard Office, Three o' Clock

IMPORTANT NEWS FROM EGYPT,

The Moniteur of Saturday publishes the following
telegraphic despatch, which was regarded in Paris as
conveying a proof that Mehemet Ali had submitted to

the decree of the Al

TOULON, Nov. 25, Four o'Clock P.M
[Received on the 26th.]

`THE CONSUL GENERAL TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE