The suspension of the banks was precipitated by the capture of Washington.
It began in Baltimore, which was threatened by the British, and was at once followed in Philadelphia and New York.

Before the end of September all the banks south and west of New England had suspended specie payment.

In his "Considerations on the Currency," Mr.Gallatin expressed his-- "deliberate opinion that the suspension might have been prevented at the time when it took place, had the Bank of the United States been in existence.

The exaggerated increase of state banks, occasioned by the dissolution of that institution, would not have occurred.

That bank would _as before_ have restrained them within proper bounds and checked their issues, and through the means of its offices it would have been in possession of the earliest symptoms of the approaching danger.