See last post first.....

One benefit of having an account at a bank was the ability to write checks from your account1 draw banknotes and have a secure place to put your money. 
     Bills of Exchange came in two primary types: Banknotes and the predecessor to the Modern Check. As defined in the Marteau Early Modern World Economic Dictionary, a Bill of Exchange is:
     “Often referred to as a 'draft' or 'bill', a document demanding payment. The legal definition of a Bill of Exchange is an unconditional order in writing addressed by one person (the drawer) to another (the drawee), signed by the person giving it (the drawer) requiring the person to whom it is addressed (the drawee, who when he signs becomes the acceptor) to pay on demand or at a fixed or determinable future time a sum certain [Sic] in money to, or to the order of, a specified person or to the bearer (the payee). “2

Bills of exchange were used to pay off debts to England by having indebted planters in the West Indies write out bills for the sum of their debts, then they were applied to the accounts of the American merchants when they were turned in to a Factor (agent) or merchant in England.3  These private bills were much like banknotes, which were issued quite frequently in Europe, and, much akin to banknotes could be used to produce gold, silver or goods to their value on demand.
Banknotes at the time were much like Cashier’s checks today.  The text printed on them was
{Bank Logo, Number, Location and date on top line}.
I promise to pay to {name of payee here}
or bearer on demand {Written sum in pounds, shillings and pence}.
{Sum £/S/d}            For {Bank Name (Drawer and Drawee)}                              {signature}4

Thus this is like having a check written out to cash, and these notes would circulate for a while before they were redeemed, esp. in the colonies. Banknotes were not backed by any government, and were redeemable at the bank that issued them.  Their acceptance relied on the bank’s reputation.  These notes, however, had a few advantages over the treasury notes issued by the colonies, in that the banks were required to have at least some of the money they loaned out in credit or notes, unlike the colonial governments.  Also, their notes could be redeemed for the face value in hard cash, and would be more useful when going between colonies, as many colonies followed Massachusetts’ example and outlawed the use of other colony’s currency.5
Checks worked somewhat the same way. The major difference is that they were issued by the account-holder, not the bank directly, and consisted of a hand-written note to the bank requesting a sum be paid out from your account to a certain individual and signed by the person requesting it.  They followed the general format of this check written in 1705:
                                         Nottingham, 31 of August 1705
           Please to pay Tho(mas) Wright or (on) order Sixty fouer pounds Eleaven
           Shil(in)gs and five pense and plase [place] the same to Eliz(abeth) Metcalfe and sister.
                 P(er) yours
                 To Mr Tho(mas) Smith p(re)sent {Signed J Smith} 6

Thus, Thomas Wright is the Drawee, who is to be paid £64/11/5 from Mrs. Metcalf (the drawer) by Mr. Thomas Smith (the Payee), who will count the payment against the account of the Metcalfe sisters.  The signature of J smith is believed to be a financial Factor (Agent) of the Metcalf sisters.7
     If one could not find a bank near enough to be practicable, almost every store in the colonies would offer credit to their customers, provided they could trust you to pay it back (sorry all you wandering types… you’re SOL).  Thus, they would offer many of the same services as a bank. On a smaller scale the merchants would most probably allow you to draw checks and “Storenotes.” One would most likely not redeem a “Storenote” or a check drawn on a merchant account in money, but in goods, or a transfer of credit.  Sometimes, a note wasn’t even used, as the two parties would meet with the merchant in person to make the transfer.8

           “Man, generally speaking, being eager and greedy of Gain, is impatient in Trade; so that when he      cannot have the Value of things, as soon as he would, he chuses [sic] rather to allow unto the Buyer, more or      less time, at once to force the Vent [sale], and to prevent any other’s supplanting him.
“That Time which is allow’d in Trade, is call’d Credit.” 9

     The money situation in the colonies was not the greatest, as explained above, and so, as any salesman worth his commission will tell you when you don’t have the cash, “well, you can put it on your Credit Card.”  This service was commonly the answer to the money shortage, and was paid off by work (Barter) or exchange of goods (Trading)10.  For example, if there was a storekeeper whose roof was leaking, and had a carpenter in his debt, the carpenter would repair the roof in exchange for the value of the repairs being taken off of his debt.  The service of allowing “Storenotes” and Checks to be drawn off of these accounts filled a very large deficiency in the colonial economy.11
In the Large Scale, Credit was used as well, all over the world, to accommodate the shipments of goods, and simplify transactions.  Between nations and merchants, it was easier to keep logs of credit and debts, then pay these off by an exchange of commodities. The dangers of credit were well known as well. As it was said by Isaac Gervaise, in the case of a nation attempting to gain wealth purely by credit,

“Credit is to the Denominator [gold and silver] much as the cipher is to Arithmetick; which of itself is of no Value, unless accompanied or mixed with Numbers, and loses that Value, as those Numbers vanish; in like manner, Credit, the Cypher of the grand Denominator, losing its Value, as Gold and Silver vanish: And as in Arithmatick, Cyphers increase the Value of Numbers; in like manner, Credit increases the Denomination of Value, proportion'd to the increase of the denominator (gold or silver) by Credit.... Increase of credit will act on a nation, as if it had drawn an equal sum from a Gold or Silver mine, and will preserve but it's proportion of that increase; so that the rest thereof will in time be drawn off by the labor of other nations, in Gold or Silver.”12

BLOODY HECK!!! I bungled the first post, tryed top fix it and hit remove not modify on accident!  I had said:

I'm doing research on finance, communications and trade in the 18th century, and was wondering if anyone knew if the banks were still functioning their accounts in the '45, despite having most of their possessions in the castle.?
   This is the finance portion of the paper, for those who are interested. it focuses mostly on N. America, but they went back and forth so much and used English and scotts bankers that most of it applies to Jacobites as well.

An old saying goes “Money makes the world go round.”  the same thing was true in the 18th century.  Though the systems in place were a bit different from ours, many of the financial options, services and laws people take for granted today were in place throughout the world by 1750, as well as some of the problems we are familiar with.  Checking, credit, counterfeiting, loans, cash, and exchange rates were all dealt with on a daily basis.  Finance was invented to make trade simpler, by creating a universally accepted item to barter with.  The usefulness of this was soon capitalized upon, in the form of banking, which allowed this commodity of money to be traded across nations and great distances, balanced out in hard coinage or the exchange of numbers and other goods of like value(relative to money).  Once confidence of this was established, the system could be used to ensure parties in a trade that the items being traded were of equal value, or of the difference between their values.  Others abused the system by making false tokens of this commodity, what became known as counterfeiting, and destroyed the trust in the system, which was and is essential to maintaining the trade of the world.  The colonies saw it all, as will be treated of in this chapter.
As for Cash (the untraceable, universally accepted and generally coinage-based medium of exchange), it was in reasonable supply in the colonies in the mid 18th century.  It consisted of many foreign coins, a smattering of English silver and copper coins, as well as a very small amount of gold and Colonial paper.
The monies of account in the Colonies were normally of two types: British Pounds Sterling and Colonial Pounds.  For the most part, colonial currencies were 75% of the value of the same unit in Sterling. The pound was divided into three units: Pounds, Shillings and pence.  There were 12 pence per shilling, 20 shillings per pound (or 240 pence per pound)1.  The exchange rates internationally and inter-colonially were based on weight of silver or gold in each unit. This made the conversion of foreign currencies easy, provided one had a scale or a chart with the weights of the coins in question2.  These charts were frequently  published in the form of broadsides, as explained above.
Any coins which were not of the English standard were considered Bullion, which “is Gold or Silver, which is not value[d] either for its Workmanship or Stamp.”3  English coins were treated as true money, which is “a certain piece generally of metal, which is establish'd by a nation, to be a measure of the Value of the Commodities procured there. One certain piece is to produce such a quantity of goods, as will bear a proportion to the value put upon it.4”
Bullion, or the coined forms of it such as Spanish, Dutch, French and German silver coins, were valued only by their weight of metal.  Thus, if one had a Spanish coin of 1 Real, it would take it's value from the weight of silver it possesses, measured in grains and pennyweights, which is easily set to the English or colonial standard exchange rate.  In fact, the postal chart of 1765 gives postage in pennyweights and grains of silver for the express reason that most of the coins in use were foreign, and thus considered bullion.
As for the English coins, which were considered true money, their value came not only their weight but from the stamp upon them which ascertained the weight of metal and government endorsement of the coin's value.  The predominant type of coinage in the colonies would have been the British Copper halfpence and Farthings (Quarter-pence), which were of two major types: Government and Counterfeit.  As for the Government coins “It has been estimated some £69,000 in farthings and halfpence were exported to the American colonies from 1695 to 1795.“5 These coins were a convenient aid to commerce that kept the lines short at small businesses throughout cities, as this skips the long ledger entries which credit, trade and barter entailed in working out the value of work or goods to be traded and measuring out volumes and weights of things in exchange.
However, the counterfeit coins of the same denominations caused some problems with this convenience of having small change.  The counterfeits were mostly cast replicas of 50 year old, well worn coins, with inferior metals mixed with the copper which theoretically gave the coin its value.  These forgeries were actually quite effective, and were thought to comprise almost half of the copper coins in circulation in the British Empire in the 18th century.6  These coins also caused several mass panics through most of the Colonial cities at one time or another and so older coins, government issues or not, were often held suspect.7
Even with the counterfeit problems, the copper coinage was accepted anywhere in the colonies, and so common that a Massachusetts exchange rate broadside of 1750 stated, on the subject of the copper coinage:

“Nothing here is said concerning the rate that English copper halfpence must pass at, by reason that the government being possessed of so large a quantity, will no doubt fix their value: But with humble submission, should they put the value of a penny on an English half-penny (as it is thought by some they will), there is great danger that it will be attended with very fatal consequences.  For anyone, the least acquainted with Trade and Business, must be convinced that in a few years, we shall not have a single dollar in the province, but shall have copper substituted in the room of silver, with this additional misfortune, that we shall sink one Third Part of the Sterling Value of the original Grant made by His Majesty to this Province: For at present no Trade is so advantageous as shipping off Dollars, either to New-York, Philadelphia, or Great Britain, and importing Half Pence for Returns, provided those Half-Pence are worth here a Penny Lawful Money. But should the Government exchange them, and enact that others should take them in a just Proportion with Dollars, then the true Value of them which is annexed to the Table to know the Value of coin'd Gold, &c. may be of  Service.”8

Thus, by these indications, small change coinage was not so much a problem, as added to the English small change, divers kinds of “Black doggs”9 (foreign coppers which passed as small change, typically at about 2 pence colonial10) were floating about the colonies.  The problem was with higher denomination coinages. These silver and gold coins, such as Spanish coins of ½, 1, 2, 4, or 8 Reals , Dutch Lion Dollars, French Ecu's and  were less common, yet still in use, as can be seen on the conversion charts of the times.11
     Furthermore, many advertisements of the time period for horses or slaves which have wandered or run off list a full or half-pistole (worth 11 or 22 Shillings Mass., respectively) reward for their return.12  Also, in an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette where a man was robbed by a highwayman, he lists what was stolen, among which are “A Dubloon, Three Pistoles two dollars and two or three pistereens...13”  This amount of cash was a lot, and not typical, but it illustrates that there were at least enough coins in circulation to provide a reasonable amount of silver and gold to make larger purchases.
The higher denomination coins were also counterfeited, as can be seen in the newspapers of the time.  The Virginia gazette makes many mentions of counterfeiters in the colonies producing copies of the more common Spanish Dubloons, Dollars, Pistereens and Pistoles and attempting to pass them.14  Although many of these operations were stopped, found out or did a poor job, making it easy to spot their work,15  They could and did have the effect of undermining the public confidence in their money.  Much like the coppers mentioned above, the panics caused could grind an entire city's trading to a halt, and without the daily commerce upon which many of the city dwelling craftsmen relied for their food, the cities could begin falling apart.
The other main source of cash was provincial paper Treasury Notes.  This paper money was used throughout the colonies and to greater or lesser success depending on the colony.  For the most part, they were considered not good for their face value, because if the colonies had the silver they were promising, they would issue it instead of paper.  Still, when nothing else was around, paper money served its purpose, as merchants would occasionally hoard silver and gold cash so that they could use it to pay off international or inter-colonial debts, thus reducing the money supply.16 These notes were primarily treasury notes, redeemable for a certain amount of gold or silver at the colony’s treasury. However, with the situation as it was with bullion, they were not really trusted, and inflation was rampant; to the point that its issue was discontinued in the 1750s in favor of coinage.17
The Banking situation was a bit different. The currency system was only in one form, that of English Pounds Sterling, and occasionally Colonial Pounds, though not as often.  In 1750 there were about 20 banks in London18, Two in Edinburgh19 and several scattered about the colonies.  They offered many financial services much like banks today.