were accepted.

The discount line of the Bank of the United States was thus greatly
increased; it grew from $3,000,000 on the 27th of February to
$20,000,000 on the 30th of April; to $25,000,000 on July 29th, and to
$33,000,000 on the 31st of October. The Bank imported much metallic
money, redeemed its notes and those of its branches without distinction;
the notes of its Eastern and Southern branches were returned as soon as
those of the North had paid them, and they were newly issued;
consequently eighteen months after this practice began the cash boxes of
the North were drained of their capital, the length of discount was
reduced, and 5 per cent. was charged for sixty days. On April 1, 1819,
only $126,000, cash remained on hand, on the 12th only $7l,000,
remained, $196,000, was owed to the city banks.

Scarcely had the Directors of the National Bank succeeded in replacing
the paper issued but not redeemed by their bank-note circulation, being
fully aware from their own experience that the circulation could only
reach a limited amount, than they inundated the market with it, and in a
few months all reductions vanished. In this way the market price shortly
resumed its former quotation, and all the difficulties reappeared. This
imprudent management necessarily threw one portion of the public into
debt, from which it had saved itself; and the other portion into the
vortex which it had avoided. The critical moment was delayed somewhat,
but the day of reckoning was near.

THE PANIC OF 1818.--The Bank at last discovered that it had passed the
bounds of safety through its issues, and that it was at the mercy of its
creditors. It saw firstly, on October 21, 1818, the payment of part of
the State of Louisiana's foreign debt withdraw large sums, and then