But any depreciation, however small--even the liability to depreciation without its reality--is enough to disorder exchange transactions.

They are calculated to such an extremity of fineness that the change of a decimal may be fatal, and may turn a profit into a loss.

Accordingly London has become the sole great settling-house of exchange transactions in Europe, instead of being formerly one of two.

And this pre-eminence London will probably maintain, for it is a natural pre-eminence.

The number of mercantile bills drawn upon London incalculably surpasses those drawn on any other European city; London is the place which receives more than any other place, and pays more than any other place, and therefore it is the natural 'clearing house.' The pre-eminence of Paris partly arose from a distribution of political power, which is already disturbed; but that of London depends on the regular course of commerce, which is singularly stable and hard to change.
Now that London is the clearing-house to foreign countries, London has a new liability to foreign countries.