Читать книгу John Law of Lauriston. Financier and Statesman, Founder of the Bank of France, Originator of the Mississippi Scheme, Etc онлайн

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Notwithstanding his propensities in this direction, Law also devoted his abilities and his keen powers of observation to another and more creditable study. The subject of banking, the mysteries of credit, and all the intricacies of financial problems appealed to his strongly mathematical mind, and of the advantages afforded him, whilst on the Continent, for an intimate acquaintance with the various systems of his time he was not slow to avail himself. At this period there were several banking companies in Europe, and of these the banks of Venice, Genoa, and Amsterdam were the chief. The first two owe their origin to the financial difficulties of the Venetian and Genoese Republics, and had been in existence since 1157 and 1407 respectively. The Bank of Amsterdam, on the other hand, was of more modern growth, having been established in 1609 in order to minimise the confusion continually arising from the unsteady value of the currency by placing the coinage upon a fixed and more permanent basis. Law, accordingly, utilised his stay in these three cities to gaining an insight into their methods of business. At Venice, we are told, he constantly went to the Rialto at Change time, and no merchant upon commission was more punctual. He observed the course of exchange all the world over; the manner of discounting bills at the bank; the vast usefulness of paper credit; how gladly people parted with their money for paper, and how the profits accrued from this paper to the proprietors. At Amsterdam, where he was employed as secretary to the British Resident in Holland, “he made himself acquainted on the spot with the famous bank of that city; with its capital, its produce, its resources; with the demands individuals had upon it; with its variations, its interests; with the mode of lowering or raising its stock, in order to withdraw the capital, that it might be distributed and circulated; with the order that bank observed in its accounts and in its offices; and even with its expenditures and its form of administration.”