Because that board of directors is, like every other board, pressed on by its shareholders to make a high dividend, and therefore to keep a small reserve, whereas the public interest imperatively requires that they shall keep a large one.
These four evils were inseparable from the system, but there is besides an additional and accidental evil.

The English Government not only created this singular system, but it proceeded to impair it, and demoralise all the public opinion respecting it.

For more than a century after its creation (notwithstanding occasional errors) the Bank of England, in the main, acted with judgment and with caution.

Its business was but small as we should now reckon, but for the most part it conducted that business with prudence and discretion.

In 1696, it had been involved in the most serious difficulties, and had been obliged to refuse to pay some of its notes.