COLMAN's Bank.

The mystery of banking was now attracting attention the world over. The Land Bank in England about 1685, the Austrian enterprises of 1700, John Law's scheme of 1715, the South Sea Company founded in 1711, bear witness to it. The Massachusetts people were not behind the age. In 1715 John Colman and others proposed a bank based on land and issuing notes. They proposed to build a bridge over Charles river, which was scouted as impracticable. The Council (upper house of the General Court, always conservative) forbade them to make public proposals or print notes until the General Assembly could act on their plans.