Memoirs of a banking-house

MEMOIRS OF A BANKING-HOUSE. 31
return to London, Mr Hemes immediately acquired for the
purpose.
As the first offer of a concern in the scheme had been made to
Messrs Coutts, and they had declined it, and as it was thought
impossible to continue to issue the notes from their house, because
it seemed not altogether a business to their liking, I confess it did
not occur to me that I was doing anything improper towards
Messrs Coutts by engaging in this new copartnery, and it was not
till a few weeks after the house in St James's Street was opened,
that it struck me that this new establishment, although primarily
for the issuing of notes to travellers, was to be, to all intents and
purposes, a banking-house — by consequence a rival to Messrs Coutts
in their own line of business. Mr Hemes, in his correspondence
with us, urged the propriety of our soliciting our friends to
patronise this new establishment. My answer was, that when we
knew of persons meaning to go abroad, we should certainly ask
them to take travelling notes ; but that I was scrupulous of
soliciting general business to the house, lest it might appear an
attempt at interference in Messrs Coutts's business. This produced
an answer from Mr Herries, avowing that he had no intention to
decline any banking business which might accompany the trans-
acting of the travellers' notes, and then it was that I became fully
sensible of the real nature of the plan. The effect it produced on
the mind of Messrs Coutts was very soon fully explained to me by
our friend Mr Seton of Touch,* to whom I had written, requesting
him to procure me an answer from Mr James Coutts to a pro-
position I had made for becoming tenant of his house in the
President's Stairs, Parliament Close, where the counting-house was
kept, which was occupied at that time by Mr Stephen, now about
to remove from it. Mr Seton wrote to me that Mr Coutts seemed
not altogether disposed to give me the use of this house, probably
on account of our new establishment, which he considered as a
direct invasion of his own, which we were bound by every principle
of honour to keep clear of, from our establishment having been
originally of Messrs Coutts's own formation. This led to a corres-
pondence on the subject with Mr Seton, who was the friend of
both parties, and which goes at considerable length into the history
of our oricrinal connection with Messrs Coutts : the two following
letters between Mr Herries and me will still more clearly shew
our sentiments on the question. On the 17th January 1772, I
* [Hugh Smith, son of an eminent merchant in London, had married the
heiress of Touch, and now bore the name and arms of that old family.]