Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles - The Ludwig von Mises ...

114 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic CyclesBank of Barcelona and of other Catalonian banks that systematicallyaccepted the irregular deposit of securities withoutkeeping full custody of them. 123 Instead, to attain a profit, theyused them in all sorts of speculative operations to the detrimentof their true owners, just as Cantillon had done two hundredyears earlier. Richard Cantillon was brutally murdered athis London home in 1734, after twelve years of litigation, twoarrests, and the constant threat of imprisonment. Although theofficial version was that he was murdered and his bodyburned beyond recognition by an ex-cook who killed him torob him, it is also plausible that one of his many creditorsinstigated the murder, or even, as suggested by A.E. Murphy,his most recent biographer, that Cantillon staged his owndeath to escape and to avoid more years of lawsuits and legalaction against him. 124Cantillon’s lawyer Henry Cochin, Memoire pour Richard Cantillon, intimé& apellant (Paris: Andre Knapen, 1730).123 On the irregular deposit of securities and the type of misappropriationcommitted by Cantillon and later Catalonian bankers until thestart of the twentieth century, see La cuenta corriente de efectos o valoresde un sector de la banca catalana: su repercusión en el crédito y en la economía,su calificación jurídica en el ámbito del derecho penal, civil y mercantil positivosespañoles según los dictámenes emitidos por los letrados señoresRodríguez Sastre, Garrigues, Sánchez Román, Goicoechea, Miñana y Clementede Diego, seguidos de un estudio sobre la cuenta de efectos y el mercado libre devalores de Barcelona por D. Agustín Peláez, Síndico Presidente de la Bolsa deMadrid (Madrid: Delgado Sáez, 1936).124 Antoin E. Murphy, Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 209 and 291–97. Murphy mentionsthe following facts in support of this last thesis: (1) Cantillon liquidateda substantial part of his assets the day prior to his murder; (2) The bodywas burned beyond recognition; (3) His family displayed a mysteriousindifference following the murder; and (4) The accused behavedstrangely, never acting like the typical murderer.