Panic of 1796–97

The Panic of 1796–1797 was a series of downturns in Atlantic credit markets that led to broader commercial downturns in both Great Britain and the United States. In the U.S., problems first emerged when a land speculation bubble burst in 1796. The crisis deepened when the Bank of England suspended specie payments on February 25, 1797 under the Bank Restriction Act of 1797. The Bank's directors feared insolvency when English account holders, who were nervous about a possible French invasion, began withdrawing their deposits. In combination with the unfolding collapse of the U.S. real estate market, the Bank of England's action had disflationary repercussions in the financial and commercial markets of the coastal United States and the Caribbean at the start of the 19th century.

By 1800, the crisis had resulted in the collapse of many prominent merchant firms in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and the imprisonment of many American debtors. The latter included the famed financier of the revolution Robert Morris and his partner James Greenleaf, who had invested in backcountry land. Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court James Wilson was forced to spend the rest of his life literally fleeing from creditors until he died at a friend's home in Edenton, North Carolina. George Meade, the grandfather of the American Civil War Union General George Gordon Meade was ruined by investments in Western land deals and died in bankruptcy due to the panic. The fortune of Henry Lee III, father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, was reduced by speculation with Robert Morris. The scandals associated with these and other incidents prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which was not renewed after its three-year duration expired in 1803.

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