Loco-Foco was evidently puzzled by this distinction between debts and obligations. Indeed he confessed as much, for he said the whole of the Professor's reasoning reminded him of a story he had once heard, and which he would endeavor to repeat. A certain Irishman went into a certain tavern and called for six pence worth of crackers. They were duly set before him, and after looking at them for some time, he inquired if the landlord would have any objection to exchange the crackers for six pence worth of brandy toddy. Certainly not, said Boniface. Paddy having finished his potation, was preparing to depart, when the landlord called out to him to pay for the toddy. "Pay for the toddy!" exclaimed Patrick in amazement. "Did I not give you the crackers in pay?" "Well then," said the landlord, "pay me for the crackers." "Pay you for the crackers! The divil take you! you unconscionable varmint! Hav'nt you got the crackers?" "You may go," said the landlord, utterly confounded. "You have, in some way, diddled me out of six pence. I can't exactly tell how, but I am sure I have lost that much. You can go."

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Now, said Loco-Foco, it has always appeared to me that the banks treat the people just as Paddy treated the tavern-keeper. They take two values from us, and give us one value in return. And in such a manner that few are able to discover the rationale of the process. Professor Hare, however, has laid the matter open, by shewing that the outstanding notes of a bank are no part of its debts.

Tuesday. Could not help laughing, in spite of myself, at the humor of a wag of a Loco-Foco from the country. I had bargained with him for five tons of hay to feed my carriage horses, and offered him bank notes in payment. Loco-Foco very deliberately took from his pocket book a note promising to pay me five tons of hay, and ordered his wagoner to drive off. "Now," said he, "we are quits. You have given me promises to pay silver, and I have given you a promise to pay hay. Nothing can be fairer than promise against promise." The rascal's drollery diverted me so much that I paid him at once in gold.

That old father to whom I sometime ago sold some of the best stocks in the market, came to me in great distress, complaining that the stocks were utterly worthless, and that he was now left not only without property, but with a load of debts which he should never be able to discharge. Cheered him up as well as I could. Told him that this country was a fine field for enterprise, and that so far from repining, he ought to bless his stars, that in his long life of seventy-five years he had never failed before. What other business-man, I asked him, in the whole circle of his acquaintance, could say as much? I myself had failed not less than three times, but on no one of those occasions did I become disheartened. It

was true, indeed, that I always made such previous arrangements that my family were sensible of no change in their mode of living. I was duly impressed with the truth that "he who provideth not for his family, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” Not willing to sink myself to a level with the wretched infidel LocoFocos, I always, before stopping payment, set my house in order, by securing to my wife, or infant daughter, a coach and country. seat, and such other little comforts and conveniences, as the usages of good society render indispensable. I did not, however, mention this to old father, for fear he should think I was reflecting on his want of Christian prudence in not having done likewise. We cannot be too delicate in our treatment of the feelings of people who are in distress.

Wednesday.-Looking through a file of the National Intelli gencer, I was forcibly struck with the following remarks by a distinguished Senator from Kentucky, delivered by him on the twentyArst of June, 1838:

"He had denounced a military aspirant, and denounced him in language which he was proud to have used, when he had exclaimed, send us war, pestilence, and famine, rather than curse us with a military rule: and if he could then have foreseen that this execrable measure, the Sub-Treasury, would have been introduced by the influence which he then deprecated, he would then have denounced it as he did now, as not at all preferable to war, pestilence, and famine, and as not inferior to any one of them in its malign effects on the welfare and prosperity of the country."

Exactly my opinion. Give us war rather than the Sub-Treasury bill! Neither the Senator nor myself will have any thing to do with the fighting. That must all be done as in the last war, and in the war of the Revolution, by the democracy of the country: pro vided enough of them are left to do the hard work, I care not how many of them are killed. Besides this, a war would entail on the country a permanent national debt; and every body knows that a national debt is a national blessing. Funding and banking being twin brothers, only give us a sufficient national debt, and our paper money institutions will live forever. With a large and permanent national debt, we might reduce the working-men of America into as complete subjection as their brethren in England.

Give us pestilence rather than the Sub-Treasury! Yes, give us pestilence! In that event the Senator and myself would not be as far from personal danger as in the event of war. Yet we might venture on the risk. Pestilence generally spends its violence in the hovels of the poor. It might be almost as effective as war in ridding the country of those wretched vermin, the Loco-Focos.

Give us famine rather than the Sub-Treasury! Yes, give us famine! Let what will come, the Senator and I will have plenty to eat. As to the Loco-Focos, they are pretty well used to starving already, or, if they are not, it is quite time they should be.

Give us war, pestilence, and famine altogether, rather than de

prive the banks and speculators of the use of the public money. A war is, above all, specially desirable. Smart men never do so well as in time of war. What with army and navy contracts, and contracts for loans, and fluctuations of currency, and irregularity in the supply of commodities, fortunes can be made with rapidity in times of public hostility, and the sooner such times commence the better for all the Grab-alls and Gripe-alls and Grasp-alls in the whole country.

This amiable and eloquent extract proves how truly worthy this distinguished statesman is of the confidence of the Whigs. Even in his prayers and figures of speech, he never forgets our principles. The evils of war, pestilence, and famine, would fall principally on the democracy; and besides benefitting our party, would infallibly tend to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, the cardinal maxim of our political faith. This renders it indispensable, in my opinion, that he should receive the nomination of the Harrisburg Convention.

Thursday.-Heard to-day of the defeat of the Sub-Treasury bill. Glorious, glorious news indeed! Not that I concur in opinion with those who think that the passage of the bill would destroy the banks. We should still be able to levy a tax on the whole commerce of the country; and if the Loco-Foco absurdity of compelling the banks to pay specie is to be persisted in, why, perhaps, a Constitutional Treasury would only act as a balance-wheel in the machine. But then it would curtail our stock-jobbing and land specu lations. Here is the rub. But even this is not the grand evil of the Sub-Treasury system. My grand objection to it is, that it would increase executive patronage. I know not who it was that first discovered that giving the President, in concurrence with the Senate, the power to appoint some four or five Receiver Generals, and they, in their turn, to appoint some eight or ten clerks, would be conferring on the Executive more patronage than he would have, if he, or the Secretary of the Treasury under him, should have the selecting of some twenty-five banks, and thereby the power of directly influencing their numerous officers, and indirectly influencing their thousands of stockholders and debtors. I say I know not who it was first made this profound discovery. But, certainly, he must be a man of uncommon powers of mind. No one can fail to be convinced of this who reflects on the fact, that under the proposed system, the Treasury officers would be punishable as criminals if they lent or used a single dollar of the public money; and that the President himself could not touch even the amount of his own salary except on warrant, duly signed, countersigned, and registered, according to law. Now, that such a system would increase execu tive patronage, is truly a wonderful discovery. To common minds it would seem rather like an increase of Executive responsibility.

But there are, fortunately, some uncommon minds in the world, and to one of these we must be indebted for this discovery in political science, as great as the greatest of Franklin's in natural philosophy. No doubt we shall see in time to whom this great honor is due; or, as they say in French, nous verrons.

Judge Johnson of West-Quoddy Head, came in, but instead of crying "Laus Deo" or "Victoria," he shook his head gravely. As a man's shaking his head is a sure indication that there is something in it, I resolved to pump it out, and at length I succeeded. The Judge doubted if the defeat of the Sub-Treasury bill was so great a victory after all. Banks ought to cease to be political machines and become commercial institutions. As such they would be useful to the community. As at present constituted and conducted, all the advantages derived from them accrued to a few. Those few were acting very impoliticly in keeping open the Sub-Treasury question. They ought to have suffered the bill to pass without debate. By the clamor they had raised, they were provoking inquiry into the general characteristics of the banking system, which was precisely what the Loco-Focos desired.

Told Judge Johnson that I feared we had made a blunder, but it was too late to correct it now.

Friday. Like well enough a victory over the Government, but do not like one of the consequences that victory brings with it. There is now no longer any excuse for our not resuming specie payments, and with the general resumption of specie payments away go our great profits on exchanges, and may be our cotton monopoly will go with them. By an understanding with certain corporations in the South-West, our bank and certain other banks in this quarter have been doing a very snug business. Buying up Mississippi notes at a discount of thirty or forty per cent., then buying cotton with these notes, thus creating a fund for foreign exchanges, and having domestic exchanges completely in our power, was truly as pretty a mode of operating as reasonable men could desire. The profits were certainly not less than thirty per cent. per annum on the amount of capital invested. But our odious Government and the stupid people combined, are putting an end to all this. And this too, after our Whig editors and Whig orators and Whig collegians have proved as clear as day, that "the less gold and silver there is in a country, the richer that country is "-"that when the banks suspend payment their notes are actually more valuable than they were before, and only appear to fall in value," with other truths equally recondite and equally well established.

Saturday. Banking and politics have, somehow, got so strangely commingled, that both for pleasure and profit, I spend my leisure in perusing the newspapers. To-day, I read and was much pleased, with an argument from an illustrious Conservative of Virginia going

to prove that an attempt to substitute metallic for paper money in the United States, would give European powers a just cause of war against this country. The Loco-Focos say they cannot see how this could be, inasmuch as we should honestly pay in cotton or other produce for such quantities of the precious metals as we should take from Europe. They add, also, that the whole amount of gold and silver in the world is, according to the estimates of the most able authors, equal in value to not less than ten thousand millions of dollars, and that as we should require only eighty or one hundred millions, in addition to our present stock, to enable us to dispense with paper money, they cannot see how we should give offence to foreign powers by adopting this policy. But, they subjoin, as it is by gradual means that we propose to introduce solid money, if European powers object to letting us have it, we can attain our end by detaining such amounts of gold and silver as will, in the natural course of trade, flow into our country from South America. To all this, I have one short reply. The Loco-Focos are fools. None are wise but the Virginia Conservative and men of his way of thinking. An attempt to substitute metallic for paper money in this country, would undoubtedly give European powers just cause of war against us, though, for reasons already stated, I do not think war is to be deprecated.

I know not to which to give the preference, to the illustrious Conservative from Virginia, or his equally illustrious brother from South Carolina, who has proved that the addition of five millions to our metallic medium which the Sub-Treasury system would make necessary, would sink the price of cotton so low in Europe, that the Southern planters would lose incalculable sums.

Take it all together, I think Conservative wisdom preferable to even Whig wisdom. It is deeper and more ingenious. McThwackem agrees with me perfectly in this. He says that the Eng lish language is too meagre for the expression of the thoughts of either Whigs or Conservatives. The Whig speeches and essays on banks and currency ought to be turned into Latin to give them their proper effect. But Conservative wisdom is so thoroughly transcendental that nothing short of Greek is adequate to its just expression.

Sunday. Did not go to church to-day. My clerical friends, the Rev. Matthew McThwackem L. L. D. and the Rev. Jeremy Diddler D. D. are both at a watering place, and I have no disposition to be bored, as I have been of late, by discourses from strange parsons about honesty, fair dealing, and all that sort of thing.

When the pure gospel is preached, that is to say faith alone, without any reference to charity and good works, no person is more disposed than myself to pay due respect to the ministers of religion, or to be more attentive to the means of grace. No one shall ever