Memoirs of a banking-house

HE1I0IES OF A BANKING-HOUSE. 19
end of every third year. The only unusual clause was a power
which Messrs Coutts reserved to themselves, in the event of a
vacancy happening, to bring in a new partner, in which event,
however, any of the partners, if he disliked the new associate, was
to be at liberty to withdraw from the society. To this privilege
reserved to themselves by Messrs Coutts, Mr Herries strongly
objected at the time, assigning as a reason that, as he would not
allow any man to choose a wife for him, he had an equal dislike
to a partner being chosen for him by anybody but himself.
The article, however, was unfortunately suffered to stand a part
of the agreement ; and it was afterwards the cause of much
dispute and altercation between Messrs Coutts and us. On
the morning after signing the contract in London, Mr James
Coutts, Mr Herries, and I set out for Scotland, in order to
complete the contracts, and make the necessary preparations for
the commencement of the new copartneries ; and the new firms
began to be used on the 1st February 1763. The counting-house
at Edinburgh was continued in Provost Coutts's house in the
President's Stairs, Parliament Close, in which Mr Stephen's
family had resided since the death of Mr John Coutts. In
London, the counting-house was also continued in the house
where it had been first established, in Jeffrey's Square, St Mary
Axe, in which Mr Patrick and Mr Thomas Coutts had resided,
and which was now occupied by Mr and Mrs Cochrane.
The declared patronage of Messrs Coutts, who were bankers of
eminence in London, the circumstance of James being member of
parliament for the city of Edinburgh, the popularity of the name
of John Coutts, and the established reputation of Mr Herries, all
combined to give an additional degree of credit and respectability
to the two houses, which it was the study of Mr Hunter and
myself to increase by our unremitting attention to the executive
part of the business. It was resolved by all concerned that the
house at Edinburgh should totally abstain from dealing in corn or
any other species of merchandise ; confining themselves solely to
their regular business of receiving money on deposit, granting
cash-accounts, discounting bills, and dealing in exchanges on
London, Holland, and France — a resolution to the adherence
to which the great prosperity of the house may, under Heaven, be
mainly attributed. It was also resolved that the house in London
should chiefly confine itself to the sale and purchase of goods on
commission and the business of exchanges.
On this footing, our new copartnery commenced, and the success
was fully equal to our most sanguine expectations. The Seven