circumstances it has through its organs openly assailed the credit of
the Government, and has actually made and persists in a demand of 15 per
cent, or $158,842.77, as damages, when no damage, or none beyond some
trifling expense, has in fact been sustained, and when the bank had
in its own possession on deposit several millions of the public money
which it was then using for its own profit. Is a fiscal agent of the
Government which thus seeks to enrich itself at the expense of the
public worthy of further trust?

There are other important facts not in the contemplation of the House
of Representatives or not known to the members at the time they voted
for the resolution.

Although the charter and the rules of the bank both declare that "not
less than seven directors" shall be necessary to the transaction of
business, yet the most important business, even that of granting
discounts to any extent, is intrusted to a committee of five members,
who do not report to the board.

To cut off all means of communication with the Government in relation
to its most important acts at the commencement of the present year, not
one of the Government directors was placed on any one committee; and
although since, by an unusual remodeling of those bodies, some of those
directors have been placed on some of the committees, they are yet
entirely excluded from the committee of exchange, through which the
greatest and most objectionable loans have been made.

When the Government directors made an effort to bring back the business
of the bank to the board in obedience to the charter and the existing
regulations, the board not only overruled their attempt, but altered the