Indeed it would have been a mean-spirited course to go back on the century-old standard on account of so trifling a premium on gold, a premium which, as it turned out, the action of the market wiped out in a few months, before any of the provisions of the Act of 1819 had come into operation.
Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing.
That was to cry, Fire, Fire, in Noah's Flood.