Prescient words from the House of Lords in 1803.  Britain was at war with France, and the resulting financial system upheaval was the topic here.

BANK RESTRICTION BILL | Hansard (UK Parliament – 13 December 1803)

Lord Grenville said, … … The fundamental principle of all governments on this subject ought to be, that credit and circulation, if undisturbed by legislative interference, will invariably find their own level. Whenever any temporary purpose (as must sometimes happen) induces a departure from this principle, the misfortune is, that the first deviation too commonly leads to the necessity of a second, and so necessarily, until it becomes almost impossible to tread back the same steps, or to revert to the only wise system of policy on the subject. So it happened in this case.

The worry for 2009 is that the governments’ actions and will is to increase credit avaialbility as was the situation in 1803.  Yet the problem we have is too much debt – how will more credit solve that problem?