The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-02 00:00:00

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COMMERCIAL BANK OF ENGLAND,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

SlR,—The statements in your leading article of Tuesday
last, having reference to the late action tried at Liverpool,
connected with the Commercial Bank of England, contains
so gross a perversion of the facts of the case, that, as one of
the directors referred to in that article, though not a party
in the cause, 1 have to request you will so far repair the in-
jury done to the character of the individuals whom you have
so unjustly traduced, as to correct the statement of facts on
which your observations appear to be founded.
To enable you then to make this correction, 1 beg to assure
you that the allotment of shares by the directors, in place of
being, as represented in your statement, a source of profit to
them, was, I believe, a source of Joss to each director. In
my own case, such was my confidence in the establishment
of the establishment, that after retiring from the direction in
February, 1837, I still retained, up to the stoppage of the
bank, the 1,500 shares allotted to me, and by which l sus-
tain a loss of £7,575, being the price paid for them. That,
though the proposal made to the directors by the party
through whose instrumentality the bank was formed, was to
pay interest after the rate of 3; per cent. (and not three per
cent., as stated by you) on the shares, from the allotment to
the time they were paid for, the directors voluntarily paid in-
terest after the rate of five per cent. per annum upon the no-
minal value of the shares until the cash was paid, which pay-
ment, as to my own shares, and as to those of the defendants
Ashton and Turner, was wholly made in May and June,
1836. That the dividend of 8 per cent. declared in February,
1836, was for a period of between 16 and 17 months, during
which the bank had been in operation at the close of 1835 ;
and which, therefore, was at the rate of between 5 and 6 per
cent. per annum. That the declaration of this high rate of
dividend was in direct opposition to the wishes and votes of
myself and of the defendants Ashton and Turner, who were
anxious to pay, or voted for, only such a rate of dividend as
would have enabled the directors not only to discharge the
current expenses of the establishment, but the amount of the
dividend declared out of the profit made up to the close of
1835. In this object, however, the Manchester directors
were outvoted by the local directors, myself entering a pro-
test against the higher dividend declared, which, when paid
out of the profits of the bank, left a portion of the current
expenses unpaid, but which remaining portion of expenses
were discharged out of the profits of the year 1836, before
the dividend of February, 1837, was declared.
That the directors made the report to the shareholders on
the accounts and representations produced and made to them
by the officers in the bank, under a full conviction of the
truth of those statements, and that notwithstanding the ex-
parte evidence adduced by the plaintiff on the late trial, there
is not the slightest pretence for charging the directors with
any intention to deceive either the shareholders or the public
in any of those statements.

In reference to the decision of the then directors of the
bank to appropriate a sum of £lO,OOO in the purchase of
shares, as the resolutio❑ was passed on the Ist April, 1840,
after not only myself, but the defendants Ashton and Tur-
ner, had ceased to be directors of the bank, neither myself
nor those defendants can be held responsible, nor is it for me
to assign motives for such a resolution.

I am unwilling to believe that the statements and observa-
tions published by you, have been prepared with any object
to advance the private interest of a particular individual to
the prejudice of the directors of the bank ; but I must be
allowed to say that I consider those statements and observa-
tions to be unwarranted, even by the coloured and grossly
partial evidence delivered on the trial, a large portion of
which evidence 1 know to be at variance with the facts of the
case, and some of it in direct opposition to the correspond-
ence of the plaintiff, and to the written report of the wit-
nesses themselves, but which, as the defendants were ad-
vised by their counsel not to call evidence, (the plaintiff
having wholly failed to establish a case of fraud,) they had
not the opportunity of rebutting.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
THOMAS SLATER.

Oldha►s-road, Manchester,'April 2S, 1838.
[Our remarks were founded entirely on the evidence ad-
duced at the trial, and the reluctant belief of Mr. Slater ex-
pressed at the opening of the last paragraph, is as uncalled
for as it is unjust. What Mr. Slater says about himself and
some of the defendants not being directors of the bank at the
time whe❑ the alleged malpractices took place, has nothing
to do with our statements, which were made with reference
to the management of the bank, and not to the conduct of
any individual members of the board.]

THE SHIPWRIGHTS AND RADICALISM,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,