In 1783 a Special Committee was appointed by the Governors to ‘inspect and enquire into the mode and execution of the business as now carried on in the different departments of the Bank’. In its report the Committee expressed disapproval of the arrangements then in force for printing bank notes, which had indeed scarcely altered since the Bank's foundation nearly a hundred years before. The paper which since 1724 had been provided by the firm of Portals (who are still the sole supplier of bank note paper to the Bank), arrived in Threadneedle Street in massive iron-bound chests and was delivered to the custody of the Cashiers. At the beginning of each month a quantity judged sufficient for a month's work was taken by a Cashier to the printer – at the time the Committee was in session this was Mr Cole of Kirby Street, more than a mile away from the Bank and near Field Street, a notorious haunt of thieves. The engraved copper plates were also the responsibility of the Cashiers, one of whom took them each morning to Kirby Street accompanied by a clerk who remained at the printer's premises for the rest of the day to observe the printing process and count the sheets as they came off the presses.