gerates beyond constitutional defects, and which not unfrequently originate from his own irregularities, yet he expects every thing from medical aid; even to impossibilities. Just so it is with John Bull :-no sooner are commercial difficulties felt at home, owing to the state of trade abroad, or his agricultural interests affected, either by the visitation of Providence or a superabundance of produce, than Parliament is inundated with petitions, and ministers are accused as the primary cause of the evils complained of, for which they are called upon to find an immediate remedy.

If you look coolly and impartially at the present situation of the culti vators of the soil in other parts of Europe, you would hear of crops left upon the ground, because the low price does not pay the the expense of

reaping. From the same causes, the Polish farmer still has the far greater part of the last two or three years' produce stacked and unthrashed, whilst he is living upon black bread and water. In France, the same superabundance is the source of complaint. The cattle in Germany and Holland are forced into the market, and sold for what they will fetch, because they are not worth the keep. In America, the agriculturalists are equally distressed; added to which, their commerce languishes, which is not the case with you. There is nothing, therefore, peculiar in the present situation of your country, and yet you are more clamorous about it than all the rest of Europe,

From what I see of the proceedings in Parliament, it appears evident that taxation, in so far as it affects your farmers, has little or nothing to do with the present distress; and that it would be folly in the extreme to abandon the Sinking-Fund, upon the specious pretext of affording a temporary relief to the agricultural interest. It seems doubtful, also, whether little or any benefit would be derived from the measure to those whom it was intended to benefit; but there can be no doubt that it would give a severe wound to your national credit, to which, and the unexampled exertions that have resulted out of it, we, and all the civilized world, are indebted for our present peace and security! I know not whether I am authorised to say thus much, but it is the opinion of many well-informed men abroad, that to abandon the Sinking-Fund would be a breach of faith to the stockholder, who advanced his money under a persuasion that a fund was set apart for the gradual reduction of the debt.

Although placed at some distance, and yet not inattentive to what relates to England, we cannot but feel surprised to perceive, that after a war of such unparalleled exertion and so glorious to your country in its whole progress and termination, an eagerness should prevail among some of your members of Parliament to put an end to the Sinking-Fund, for the purpose of present relief. And this surprise increases when, on the other hand, such an avidity is manifested to embark, vast sums of money upon FOREIGN Securities, wholly opposite

to old English prejudices, and longtablished principles. On the wisdom or policy of this couduct I do not pretend to judge, but, amidst this great super-abundance of capital, it appears paradoxical, why any persons should wish to withhold the prospect of some reduction of a debt at home, which exceeds any thing that the world ever saw,-and which, in the highest state of national prosperity, must be allowed to contain appalling difficulties, even to so great a country

as yours.

And here I shall add a few words in reply to what you say of the decline in the Exchanges. About the middle of June last, they were at the highest, and, if I mistake not, it will be found, upon a comparative view of the rate at that time and at present, that the fall has been about four per cent. in those of Hamburgh and Amsterdam, and two per cent. in the Paris exchanges: and this, too, be it remembered during peace and a period of increasing prosperity in your foreign commerce, and at a time when you cannot have required any supply of grain from abroad; added to which, your Bank is paying in gold, and, so far from any over-issue of paper, we are told, but on what grounds has not appeared, that there is a deficiency to meet the wants of the public.

Under such circumstances, may it not reasonably be asked, to what cause can the fall in the exchanges be attributed? I will tell you our solution of this problem :-namely, the great export of British capital for investment in foreign securities: and yet, on the other hand, when we look at the evidence of some persons before your Committee, in 1819, in reference to the effect of foreign investments upon the exchanges, and the pertinacity with which those opinions were maintained, it is difficult to reconcile the doctrines then laid down with the facts before us.

I observe, that the price of sovereigns of full weight in Holland is stated to be f. 12:8, which so nearly approximates to the present rate of the exchange, that they stand a fair chance of being sent out of the country. Upon the policy of allowing a free export of your coin, it is needless to offer any opinion; but I do not hesitate to say that, under such a license, the cost of the manufacture

ought to be defrayed out of the coin itself, an axiom universally admitted to apply to every other article; while it would also operate as some security against the export; and you are the only country in Europe (may I not say in the world) which has ventured to deviate from this established usage. But there is another important fact which bears directly upon this part of the subject, and well deserves attention. The intrinsic value of the pound sterling at par, in Holland, was formerly considered as equivalent to about f. 11: 0, in current money; and that bullion might be imported with you to advantage, in time of peace, when the exchange was at or above f. 11: 10. Whence then is it, that your supply from abroad has ceased, although your exchange is f. 127, and, therefore, upwards of seven per cent. above the rate at which you could formerly import gold? Is it not, that the price of the precious metal in Holland, which, before the war, was at an agio of six to seven per cent. is now fifteen and sixteen per cent.? and, if so, may it not be necessary to consider what effect this alteration of price may produce upon the capability of keeping your currency at home?

Upon the subject of Agricultural

but, while the paroxysm rages, its effects are severely felt.

I admit what you say as to the wide difference in the class of the cultivators of the soil in your country compared with the same persons abroad. But this difference has greatly increased in the last thirty years, for, although you always possessed a most useful and respectable body of what is called yeomen, yet you had a numerous class of small cultivators, whose habits did not so widely differ from many of ours. And, if I might be allowed to hazard an opinion on such a subject, I should say that, in a national point of view, you have not benefitted by the loss of that class. The encouragement given to large farms introduced a more wealthy class of occupants, and with them, perhaps, a tendency to keep up prices; whilst they, in the hey-day of prosperity, gave into an increase of expenditure which changed their habits, and, in fact, introduced a NEw class of people in the state. And what has resulted out of this important change? If an opinion is to be formed from what we hear, these men have so little benefitted by a series of prosperous times, that they are not able to stand a reverse of two or three years of low

are inclined to doubt whether its REAL causes have been hitherto accurately traced, and whether they may not, perhaps, after all, be more simple than is imagined. Be this as it may, it seems probable that little can be done by legislative interference, and it is to be hoped that nothing will tempt you into precipitate and speculative measures, the consequences of which would paralize the industry, and interrupt the prosperity of the most industrious population in the world.

The effects of scarcity or abundance have, at all times, been exaggerated by designing men; and the jealousy of your national character, which is peculiarly alive to every thing that affects the subject, aided by the facility with which the sentiments and feelings of the moment are expressed and circulated, sufficiently account for the extremes which so frequently occur in your country. They may, and perhaps do, in some measure, arise out of the nature of your constitution,

their rents, and the clergy their tythes.-Taxes must be taken off.Farms are abandoned as not worth cultivating; and, in short, consequences of the most serious nature are predicted, if immediete relief be not afforded! You could not have been in a worse sitnation had you adhered to the old system, and, perhaps, the pressure would not have existed to the same extent, if the change had not taken place.

Now, the existing difficulties are mainly attributed to the return to specie-payments, and, a few years ago, all your calamities were laid to the charge of the suspension! Which of these two positions is right still remains undetermined, and so it must continue, as long as men will attribute, for time-serving purposes, more to each of those situations than really belongs to them.

On no subject has the love of extremes, for which your country is so famed, shown itself in more striking colours than upon the question of Hh b ?

Cash-Payments. I am not going to enter upon that hacknied topic, but I cannot help saying there always appeared to me a short and obvious mode of accounting for the situation you were placed in during the war; namely, the immense foreign expenditure and the great importations of corn, which admit of no comparison with former times, or other countries, because nothing similar ever happened before, and, therefore, all conclusions attempted to be drawn from such comparisons must, at least, be problematical, and have, in many cases, proved fallacious. Whilst these united causes continued to press upon your country, no human power could have prevented the export of your last guinea, even had the Bank, in an evil and ill-advised hour, attempted the mad scheme of reducing their issues to keep down the price of gold, which, so far from arresting the evil, would have inevitably ruined your credit and commerce, and brought your country to bankruptcy in the midst of the war.

These, together with some other notions, may be traced to the exertion of a class of persons formerly little attended to by you, but who have lately been indefatigable to bring themselves into notice; I mean those who are dabbling in political economy, which has been well denominated "an awful theory," especially when the legislature is called upon to decide questions which involve the happiness, nay, the existence, of thousands of people, by the rules of a science which change every day. So that, perhaps in no instance is the truth of an observation of one of your celebrated writers more happily illustrated than in the present, that " little learning is a dangerous thing."

It might be supposed that, among the great mass of publications which issue from our prolific press, we should have a full proportion of works on political economy; this is not, however, the case, and, although we have our amateurs, it is, perhaps, altogether more suited to the genius of some of our continental neighbours. Be this as it may, to common observers it would seem, that your country, of all others, is the least in need of any such aid. You, who have given the world such undeniable proofs of what may be effected by a

right application of sound principles, reduced to practice, and improved by experience; whereas, it is difficult to obtain any precise idea of what is the object or the subject of their science, or to collect sufficient data upon which to found any certain rules. ` In proof that your proceedings stand upon a far more durable basis, we need only to look at your establishments at home and abroad, which present a picture of wealth, splendour, and prosperity, never yet attained by any other country; and thus leaving a strong practical conviction upon the mind, that there can be nothing wrong in the management, except that which must necessarily attach to the most perfect of all human institutions.

I am, and, as you well know, always have been fully aware of the essential and important differer e which subsists between your pape.. currency and that of other countries; and every attempt to draw them into comparison, for the purpose of coming to certain conclusions, would create surprize, were not the motives for so doing too obvious to be mistaken.

Whether, under a wise management, you might not, with advantage to yourselves, have continued a system, to which all transactions and habits had been assimilated, for upwards of twenty-two years, (and to the want of which many of your present difficulties may be traced,) need not now be inquired into; although many persons of no mean talents think that it might. The clamour of certain men was so loud, that to have hazarded such an opinion at the time would have been considered as an infallible proof of a deranged intellect. The thing was to be done-it was done-and what has followed? This boon so eagerly coveted is now discovered to have entailed a large portion of the inconvenience you experience; and it is marvellous to hear men of sense gravely calculating the damage sustained by it at thirty and thirty-five per cent.! One day you have too much circulation, and the next, a notable discovery is made, that there is too little! In short, my friend, “il faut finir par ou on a commencé," and consider you in the situation of a feverish patient, craving after something out of reach.

But it is time to stop, and, indeed,