A Prime Minister, or a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or a Secretary of State must explain his policy and defend his actions in Parliament, and the discriminating tact of a critical assembly--abounding in experience, and guided by tradition--will soon discover what he is.

But the Governor of the Bank would only perform quiet functions, which look like routine, though they are not, m which there is no immediate risk of success or failure; which years hence may indeed issue in a crop of bad debts, but which any grave persons may make at the time to look fair and plausible.

A large Bank is exactly the place where a vain and shallow person in authority, if he be a man of gravity and method, as such men often are, may do infinite evil in no long time, and before he is detected.

If he is lucky enough to begin at a time of expansion in trade, he is nearly sure not to be found out till the time of contraction has arrived, and then very large figures will be required to reckon the evil he has done.
And thirdly, I fear that the possession of such patronage would ruin any set of persons in whose gift it was.

The election of the Chairman must be placed either in the court of proprietors or that of the directors.