Memoirs of a banking house

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
The public is here presented with a Memoir, the genuine composi-
tion of Sir William Forbes, regarding the history of a mercantile
establishment, of which he was long the chief. The manuscript
having been accidentally shewn to the editor, he saw in it so much
that was interesting, as to be induced to plead with Sir William's
surviving friends for permission to place it before the world. It
is consec[uently published at the distance of fully fifty-six years
from the time when it was Avritten, for the author appears to have
closed his narration in May 1803.
The private banking-house so long known in Scotland in con-
nection with the name of Sir William Forbes — merged since 1838
in the joint-stock Union Bank of Scotland — ^had a somewhat com-
plicated genealogy, reaching far back in the last century — the
century of progress in Scotland — and even faintly gleaming through
the obscurities of the one before it, when mercantile efforts and
speculations Avere taking their birth amidst the embers of scarcely
extinct civil Avars and all kinds of private barbarisms. The
genealogy is here traced through a firm styled John Coutts & Co.,
of which the principal member was John Coutts, lord-provost of
Edinburgh in the years 1742 and 1743, to Patrick Coutts, Avho
carried on considerable merchandise at Montrose in the reign of
William III. The concern is shewn as the main stock from which
branched off the eminent London banking firms of Coutts & Co.,
Strand, and Hcnies & Co., St James's Street.