A Note on the Interpenetration of Anglo-American Finance, 1837–1841

There is a widespread impression among students of American financial history that, in the period immediately following the panic of 1837, American financiers engaged in sharp practices amounting to the wholesale deception of British bankers and European investors. This impression has been fostered especially in connection with the well-known episode of the partial or complete repudiation of state bonds by Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Michigan, and Florida in the 1840's. According to the charge, the large British bankers originally transacted business in the United States only through old and established bankers and agents. This enabled them to avoid the more speculative securities. Much of the distribution of bonds in England was done through three British firms, which were prominent in the merchant-banking business for the American trade: Thomas Wilson & Co., Timothy Wiggin & Co., and Geo. Wildes & Co.—popularly known as the 3 W's. A change for the worse occurred—so the charge runs—when these firms were forced to suspend payments because of the financial strain in England and the United States in 1837. After the resumption of specie payments in the United States the following year, a more speculative type of American banker, assisted by high-pressure salesmen who were sent to England, was prominent in financiering. These agents were so persuasive that they involved the British bankers in the wildest of schemes, and these bankers, in turn, disposed of American securities to equally innocent investors.