Gentlemen,

    Your letters of the 19th June, 8th & 29th July and 11th Inst. were duly received and also the two boxes containing 25,000 Deposit Receipts which have been found correct.

    By the Royal William Steam Packet which sails from Leith this afternoon, we have forwarded two boxes to your address.   No. 1 of which contains 20,000, 20/- Notes to be stamped, and No. 2 2,000, £20 and 2,000, £10 Notes also to be stamped, and 21 Reams of paper for £5 Note impressions (10,000) which we also wish stamped & the remainder of the paper returned to us.

    By this Post we request Messrs Glyn & Co. to open a Credit in your favour to the extent of £1,500, to pay the duty on the Notes, and the amount of your Account rendered on the 10th Instant (less discount) £40. 13/-

    As we shall soon require the above Notes we shall be obliged by your returning them to us by one of the Steam Packets from the Glasgow Wharf with as little delay as possible.

Steam Packet - Royal William.  The early history of passenger steamship services saw keen competition between small concerns anxious to capture a share of an increasingly popular – and profitable – means of transport.  From the summer of 1831 the ships of the London and Edinburgh Steam Packet Company were in fierce rivalry with the London, Leith, Edinburgh and Glasgow Shipping Company, which in that year introduced the brand new steamers Royal William, Royal Adelaide and Victoria to challenge the earlier established Soho, James Watt and United Kingdom which regularly plyed the Leith to London route.  The London, Leith, Edinburgh and Glasgow Shipping Company claimed of the Royal William that “it was admitted by all to be unrivalled in the elegance and comfort of her accommodation” and that she had established “a decided superiority in speed over all the other vessels”.  The rival company dismissed this claim in newspaper advertisements, asserting of the Soho and James Watt that “the well known character of these vessels supersedes the necessity of any comment as to their speed, safety and comfort".

The National Bank of Scotland was established in 1825 with a capital of £5,000,000 divided into 50,000 shares of £100 each. 

At the time of the letter the Manager of the National Bank of Scotland was Patrick Borthwick with George Crosble the Bank's Secretary.  Borthwick died in 1837 and was succeeded by George Crosbie who carried out the position as Manager until 1846 when he retired.

The reference to Stamping is, I believe, the Printer being requested to pay the Stamp Duty Tax which was due by any note issuing bank to the Crown.  I have found the following article

Stamp Duty was first levied on bank notes in 1783.  At first the Stamp Duty related only to notes over one guinea but by 1800 it had to be paid on every banknote.  Under the Act the paper had to be stamped before each note was printed.  Stamping the paper was a lengthy process as it involved the Scottish banks travelling to the Stamp Office in London.  In 1808 the Scottish banks were granted the concession of issuing their notes on unstamped paper and paying the duty in a lump sum.

I can follow some of what is suggested above although this article suggests that the Scottish Banks were able to use unstamped paper.  Further investigation is required although I recall that this concession may only have been available to Bank of Scotland, the British Linen Company Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland.  This letter does suggest that in 1837 the National Bank of Scotland was still required to pay Stamp Duty at the time of printing although the ability to have the Printer arrange this payment seems to have existed.

The Deposit Receipt was an early method of taking deposits and paying Customers interest on these deposits.  Whilst in the present day it is not uncommon for Banks to pay interest on Credit balances there was no similar arrangement in the early days of Scottish banks and money sitting at Credit would not be earning (for the customer at least!) unless it was placed on a deposit receipt.  This service was attractive as the money was "at call" and whilst the service still existed in the 1980s it has probably disappeared by now.