the cash to redeem because Upper Canada was a specie-poor province, and the notes would pass from hand to hand to enable trade without ever being returned to the bank. On average, the bank lent out more than three times more banknotes than it could redeem; it made 6% interest on each note that it loaned out. The bank's manager, Thomas Ridout, estimated that in the first three years of its operation, the bank's notes comprised between 74 and 77% of the province's money supply. Between 1823 and 1837, its profit on paid in capital ranged between 3.6% (1823) and 16.5% (1832) at a time when the maximum legal interest rate was 6%. The Bank of Upper Canada suspended payments from March 5, 1838 to November 1, 1839 during the financial panic of that year. It was bankrupt, but a special act of legislature allowed it to continue operating without having to repay its loans with specie. The bank was a small operation, which, like many other early Canadian banks, collapsed in 1866. The financial panic of 1836-8 On 10 July 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill for the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States, arguing that it was utilized by a "moneyed aristocracy" to oppress the common man. The same complaint was lodged by the Reformers against the Bank of Upper Canada, which served a similar role. The dismantling of the bank plunged the Anglo-American world into an enormous depression (1836-8) that was worsened by bad wheat harvests in Upper Canada in 1836. Farmers were unable to pay their debts. Most banks, including the Bank of Upper Canada,- suspended payments (i.e. declared bankruptcy) by July 1837 and requested government support. While the banks received government support, ordinary farmers and the poor did not. Bank Wars (1835-1838) The Bank of Upper Canada was the subject of almost continuous political attack. Shortly after its founding, Reform critic William Lyon Mackenzie published a series of articles on how speculative the Bank's loan practices were, and how close to bankruptcy it was. That resulted in an event, now known as the Types Riot, in 1826 in which the clique of Bank officers dubbed the Family Compact destroyed Mackenzie's printing press. Mackenzie, a bank critic, pushed for a non-speculative "hard money" policy where the bank loaned out only money that it actually had. Until 1835, all banks in Upper Canada