Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. But it was otherwise decided. At this time the purely financial interest dominated. The trading and country interest was to a large extent sacrificed, and administra tive facilities were not considered. It was nearly 150 years before the country had an adequate system of banks, such as might have been founded in 1694, if one or other of these proposals for national banks had been accepted. The administrative economies possible in the system of public receipts and payments were postponed to the more urgent problem of obtaining money to pay. AS our author Shows, the engrafting of Exchequer business on the Bank grew up gradually, almost by accident; possibilities of this sort were not taken into account in deciding on the form to be given to the Bank.