Excerpt from Sovereign and Quasi-Sovereign States: Their Debts to Foreign Countries Among other operations, the Greshams, under the title of the king's exchanger, appear to have been engaged in raising temporary loans at Antwerp, and its allied bourses. As late as 1800 United States dividends were paid at Antwerp, and there is still a small foreign bourse, but supplanted by Brussels. The merchants of the Hanse Towns and Low Countries had already been engaged in these operations in succession to the Italians, when the independence of Holland concentrated them in that country, which likewise became a refuge for the Jews driven out of Spam. The accession of William of Orange to the throne of England, by putting a stop to the naval rivalry, brought England again into its old and close relation with Holland, and on the establishment of the funding system here, the Hollanders took a large part in our consolidated debt, bank stock, and in India stocks. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.