| During the middle "fifties" the
people of Canada had entered upon a period of mad speculation
in farmland and land for new towns with the railway expansion.
When crop failures occured in 1857-58, along with the commercial
crisis commencing in Great Britain and spreading rapidly to the
United States and Canada, a severe depression and disaster resulted.
Suspensions of businesses and bankruptcies followed shaking the
banking industry. With limited funds and a policy of unusual
caution the bank was unable to provide the banking facilities
it previously had resulting in its final collapse. |
