The financial panic that began after speculative land and securities markets collapsed in Britain and the United States was the Panic of 1796–1797.
The episode followed rapid speculation in American land and securities, supported by easy credit. When confidence weakened, prices fell and borrowers struggled to repay loans. The distress spread through commercial and banking networks on both sides of the Atlantic.
British banks faced pressure partly because the French Revolutionary Wars disrupted trade and encouraged demands for specie. In the United States, the failure of major land speculators, including Robert Morris and James Greenleaf, helped deepen the crisis.
The panic is often confused with later American panics such as 1819 or 1837. It was an early transatlantic financial crisis, occurring before the modern stock exchanges and central-bank systems familiar today.