ABSTRACT
X 7 C a*m, with perfect right - at a rank and position equal to the % /% / Barings, but it is impossible that we can maintain it, if we are to be in T Y the discount market week by week. . . whereas they never discount and
are known to have always large sums lying at call*.1 That was the pessimistic assessment of the situation by the resident managers of Brown, Shipley & Co. in their letter of 9 February 1855, to their partners in the firm’s New York branch. If the house was to achieve parity with Baring Brothers & Co., the Liverpool partners added, it would have to make sweeping changes in the firm’s capital structure: changes that would reduce the size of the partnership’s invest ments in American railroad securities and concurrently increase the overall liquidity of the English branch. This transatlantic debate about the proper allo cation of the partnership’s financial resources was one of the matters causing divisiveness within the House of Brown around the mid-century. The resolution of this dispute over the firm’s strategy is among the several topics discussed in the following examination of the role played by the Liverpool branch in the manage ment of the Browns’ Anglo-American foreign exchange operations.
