Memoirs of a banking-house

28 MEMOIRS OF A BANKING-HOUSE.
Messrs William Alexander and Sons, merchants in Edinburgh,
were the correspondents of the Farmers-general, and enjoyed the
lucrative commission of making their purchases of tobacco ; but
they had become dissatisfied with the manner in which Messrs
Alexander transacted their business, so that they were not indis-
posed to make a change of their correspondents in this country.
Mr Herries, in one of his journeys through France into Spain,
had travelled in company with a gentleman somehow connected
with the Farmers-general, and had continued to cultivate his
acquaintance as he occasionally visited France ; so that when the
conduct of the Messrs Alexander in the execution of the orders of
the Farmers-general had been disapproved of by them, Mr Herries
procured an order from them for the purchase of two thousand
hogsheads of tobacco at Glasgow, a commission which he executed
so much to their satisfaction that he was appointed their sole
agent in Scotland. As this lucrative commission had been pro-
cured solely by Herries's personal influence at Paris, it was thought
no more than reasonable that, instead of his third share with
Mr Hunter and me of the ordinary profits of the house at Edin-
burgh, he should have one-half of the commission on the purchases
of tobacco. In consideration of which, however, he was to be at
all the expense of his journeys to Paris, as well as of any presents
or other outlay which he might be put to in preserving his influence
with the Farmers-general.* The other half was thrown into the
ordinary profits of the house.
I shall very soon have occasion to mention the manner in which
the house was deprived of this valuable branch of business.
The other event I have alluded to was our forming a new esta-
blishment in London. In the year 1768 — almost the whole of
which year and a part of the next, I spent as a guest with Mr
Herries in London, attending the counting-house — Mr Herries con-
trived a plan for supplying travellers with money on the continent,
which, for its ingenuity, deserves special mention, and of which
the success fully rewarded the merit of the invention during many
years, until the present war in a manner put a stop to all conti-
nental travelling. As Mr Herries communicated to me not only
the first idea, but every subsequent step of his plan till he brought
it to a state of maturity, it is with pleasure I look back to the
many pleasant evenings he and I spent together at his fireside
discussing this plan. In the course of his own journeys on the
• I recollect to have heard him say, that, the daughter of a leading man of the
number being married while he was at Paris, he made her a present of a set of
dressing-plate.