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THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF 1837
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They did not indeed know its internal history. It might have recovered if it had not been ruined from within. The cotton speculations showed a loss, in the summer of 1840, after saddling the Bank with all possible charges, of $630,000 for the speculators. The legislature of Pennsylvania ordered the banks to resume January 15, 1841. On the first of January, 1841, a statement of the assets of the Bank was made, when it appeared that they consisted of a mass of doubtful and worthless securities. The losses to date were over five millions, according to the report of the directors, but over seventeen millions, taking the stocks at their market value. The Bank resumed January 15, with the other Philadelphia banks, and the great Bank loaned the state four hundred thousand dollars, agreeing to loan as much more. In twenty days the Philadelphia banks lost eleven millions in specie, of which six millions were taken from the Bank of the United States. On February 4 the Bank failed for the third and last time. Its final failure was said to be due to stock jobbers. Suits were at once begun in such numbers that all hope of ever resuscitating it had to be abandoned. Its deposits, when it failed, were one million one hundred thousand dollars and its notes in circulation two million eight hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-seven millions out of the thirty-five of its capital were held in Europe. The stock, in March, 1841, was at seventeen. A committee of the stockholders reported in April, showing the internal history of the Bank for five years. This brought out from Mr. Biddle six letters of explanation, defense, and recrimination, which are valuable chiefly for the further insight they give into the history. As to the winding up of the Bank it is very difficult to obtain information. Private inquiries lead to the following results. Three trusts were constituted: one for the city banks to which the Bank owed five or six millions; one for the note-holders and depositors; and one