Two clerks, seated in one counting house, did what, under the old system, must have been done by twenty clerks in twenty different establishments.
A goldsmith's note might be transferred ten times in a morning; and thus a hundred guineas, locked in his safe close to the Exchange, did what would formerly have required a thousand guineas, dispersed through many tills, some on Ludgate Hill, some in Austin Friars, and some in Tower Street.

[514] Gradually even those who had been loudest in murmuring against the innovation gave way and conformed to the prevailing usage.

The last person who held out, strange to say, was Sir Dudley North.

When, in 1680, after residing many years abroad, he returned to London, nothing astonished or displeased him more than the practice of making payments by drawing bills on bankers.

He found that he could not go on Change without being followed round the piazza by goldsmiths, who, with low bows, begged to have the honour of serving him.