The Land Bank.

In 1739 the Land Bank scheme was revived. The scheme was this: a number of land owners formed a company and mortgaged their estates to it for its notes, giving 3 per cent. per annum interest in merchandise, and 5 per cent. per annum on the principal in the same currency. A mechanic, with two sureties, might have £100 stock. The notes were payable after twenty years “ in manufactures of the province.” The preamble of the schedule of this bank recites that it is organized “ in order to redress the existing circumstances which the trade of this province labors under for want of a medium.” This bank was the most prominent factor in the political movements of the next ten years, and even later it turns up, from time to time, a cause of perplexity and distress to the government and the surviving stockholders.