of d 
 (California 
 
 Sprccfeels IfTund 
 
rfcw-^7 
 
 PROSPERITY RESTORED, 
 
 OR 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSE OF 
 THE PUBLIC DISTRESSES, 
 
 AND ON THE 
 
 ONLY MEANS OF RELIEVING THEM. 
 
 Wrightson, Printer, Birmingham. 
 
1 
 
 
PROSPERITY RESTORED i 
 
 OR 
 
 OST THE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PUBLIC DISTRESSES, 
 
 AND ON THE 
 
 ONLY MEANS OF RELIEVING THEM. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF THE REMEDY, 
 OR THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT DISTRESSES. 
 
 In a general impoverishment it is therefore clear, that the burthen and 
 * f distress must ultimately fall heavier upon manufactures than upon 
 " agriculture; and although it has not yet reached all brandies of ma- 
 " nufactures, in that cruel degree, yet I think it is sufficiently evident 
 " that it will do so in a short time, and at that period the re-action in 
 " agriculture will give a terrible weight to its operation." 
 
 REMEDY, p. 42. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY j AND 
 LONGMAN HURST AND CO. 
 
 PATER NOSTER ROW 
 
 1817. 
 
 * fUNi 
 
 \ , 
 
^ 
 
 aft* 
 .# 
 
IT may be proper to mention that thU publication is intend- 
 ed as a Sequel to the second edition of the "Remedy," and 
 not to the first, because in the first edition the subjects dis- 
 cussed were passed over too lightly ;md superficially. The 
 first edition was the fourth of a series of letters, the three first 
 of which I had written about two years ago, to the editor of 
 one of our most popular journals. He appeared to me to 
 have taken a wrong view of some of the topics of the day, and 
 as he argued with a deal of skill and ingenuity, his remarks 
 had a great effect in deluding and misleading the public opin- 
 ion. I endeavoured to refute his arguments, and to shew 
 him that they were unfounded. But he naturally enough de- 
 clined printing my letters in his journal, and they have not 
 been published, 
 
 I had all along expected that the issue of either Bank 
 Notes, or Exchequer Bills, convertible into such notes, would 
 daily have taken place, because it was evident that the public 
 distress was rapidly getting ten times greater than it was at the 
 former periods when similar loans were granted, and under 
 this impression, I delayed to intrude upon the public atten- 
 tion. But when the distress had passed through agriculture 
 upon manufactures, as I had foreseen, and proved it must in- 
 evitably do in the three letters, and wheu it became universal 
 in its extent, and frightful in its magnitude ; I thought it my 
 duty to publish the "Remedy," in order to call the public 
 attention to the sole canse of all their sufferings, and to the 
 only relief which they could possibly obtaiu from legislative 
 measures. I have had no other object but that of convincing 
 the public that the whole of the national sufferings originate 
 in a pure action upon currency, which naturally arises in all 
 countries, from the depression attending the removal of taxe* 
 
VI 
 
 and oiher stimulants of war J and which might have been ea- 
 sily and safely prevented by a timely assistance to the circu- 
 lating medium. I am deeply convinced of the truth of this 
 opinion, and if these hasty publications should have the effect 
 of exciting its discussion by persons who have more leisure 
 and information to do it justice, I shall be perfectly satisfied, 
 in the hope that, if it is not attended to in the present instance, 
 it will have some effect in preventing such cruel sufferings up- 
 on any future occasions. But 1 deprecate the appeal to all 
 great authorities, such as Adam Smith, whose opinions I know 
 that I contradict in some parts of my subject, and who, large 
 and luminous as he is in his- views, is yet exposed to some er- 
 rors, which he would have avoided if he had lived to see the 
 system and the 'improvements of the present day. Great 
 names are useful in confirming truth, but they must not be 
 used in promoting error. 
 
 Some persons may think that I am influenced by Govern- 
 ment motives, or by what they call " Corruption." It is an 
 error. I care not a rush for either Ministers or Opposition, 
 nor have I any interest, whatever, in the question, excepting 
 such as is participated equally by all my countrymen, and is 
 alike common to my interests as an Englishman, and my feel- 
 ings as a man. 
 
Prosperity Restored, &fc. 
 
 WHEN 1 threw together the desultory 
 thoughts which are to be found in the Remedy, 
 I had no intention of intruding further upon the 
 public attention. The increasing misery and 
 alarming dangers of the country, with the erro- 
 neous views which prevail respecting their cause, 
 and their remedy, will probably justify me in en- 
 tering upon a few more observations. 
 
 Three years ago I contended that it was noj. 
 possible for the price of wheat to fall permanently 
 under fifteen shillings the bushell, without it's 
 taking two shillings out of the poor man's pocket 
 where it saved him one. I also contended that the 
 reduction of w.ages would not encrease the export 
 of manufactures, and 1 endeavoured to prove that 
 
if the price of wheat should fall for any consider- 
 able length of time, to a level with the prices of 
 3791, it would occasion a famine. My arguments 
 were not controverted, but they were received with 
 smiles. Where is the face that can smile now ? 
 liis heart must be made of iron and his head of 
 clay, who can smile now upon the frightful scene 
 of misery which every where surrounds him. 
 
 The hand of charity is stretched out largely 
 and liberally, but all its efforts are in vain. All 
 men either gpend or employ the whole of the 
 money which they possess. What then is the ef- 
 fect of charity, but to transfer the seat of suffering 
 from one quarter to another, to make paupers the 
 medium of expenditure instead of labourers, to 
 drive one man into misery, whilst we relieve an- 
 other. But I do not condemn charity; it is pos- 
 sibly good as far as it goes, because the positive 
 misery among beggars and paupers is greater than 
 that among labourers. The principal defect of 
 charity is its total inefficiency. It is like attempt- 
 ing to extinguish a volcano with a drop of water. 
 
 I am perfectly convinced that the public misery 
 cannot be relieved, and that it will encrease greatly 
 among the manufacturers for one or two years long- 
 er, mile s an additional circulating medium is cre- 
 ated. All other modes of relief are in vain. Eco- 
 

 
 nomy and retrenchment will but encrease our 
 misery, unless we previously place the circulating 
 medium upon a footing to resist the depression of 
 prices which they will occasion, and to give em- 
 ployment to the additional labourers who will thus 
 be thrown upon the country. 
 
 I flatter myself that I have made this part of the 
 subject sufficiently clear in the " Remedy." It is 
 not the removal of taxes which will benefit the 
 country. It is not the pressure of the taxes which 
 injures the country. It is the action upon cur- 
 rency which has depressed prices, and has thereby 
 broken up all the modes and the system whereby 
 property and industry were created and support- 
 ed. What the country wants is a good trade. It 
 is full employment and full wages that the labour- 
 ers want. It is large orders at beneficial prices, 
 that the merchants and manufacturers want. All 
 these will be injured instead of benefited by the 
 removal of taxes. They will all be created by the 
 abundant issue of money. If all the taxes of the 
 country were abolished to morrow, the impoverish- 
 ment of the rich, and the intense suffering of th* 
 poor, would be greatly aggravated thereby. The 
 man must be blind who cannot see that the sudden 
 revulsion of capital from the taxes, would not in- 
 stantly find private channels through which to 
 work its effects upon the maintenance of labourers, 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 and upon the prosperity of the country. The 
 mass of misery created by the cessation of the ex- 
 penditure of the taxes, would be sudden, grievous, 
 and universal ; but it would take at least one or 
 two years before the capitalists of the country 
 would find their property encreased by the revul- 
 sion of these Taxes, and still longer before they 
 would be disposed or enabled to encrease their ex- 
 penditure, so as to provide the same maintenance 
 for labourers as had formerly been supplied through 
 the channels of the taxes. What is to become of 
 the labourers during this period ? I repeat it, no 
 taxes can at present be removed, without the cer- 
 tainty of en creasing the impoverishment of the rich, 
 and the suffering of the poor. 
 
 A great deal has been said about the pressure of 
 taxes upon labourers. It is all a delusion. La- 
 bour paj-s no taxes. All taxes come from capital ; 
 from that capital by which labour itself is support- 
 ed. Taxes are virtually contributions of property 
 from the holders of property. Those contributions 
 are not now paid in kind, as they were in the days 
 of our Saxon ancestors, but in money; in certain 
 mortgages, as it were, or claims upon property, 
 which are understood upon the whole to command 
 sufficient proportions of the different kinds of pro- 
 perty, to answer the national purposes for which 
 they are intended. But the poor man possesses no 
 
11 
 
 property, and* consequently, can contribute none. 
 So far from being able to contribute to others, he 
 is obliged himself to have recourse to the depots 
 of the rich for his daily bread. Were it not for 
 these depots, the command of which the poor man 
 is too apt to envy, it would not be possible for him 
 to exist. He receives from these depots weekly, 
 in exchange for his labour, a certain contribution 
 of the good things necessary for his existence ; 
 but that contribution is always too scanty to en- 
 able him to re-contribute any proportion of it to 
 others. If he is by accident or convenience made 
 the medium of a re-contribution to others, it is ab- 
 solutely necessary that his wages should rise in full 
 proportion, and they are certain to do so in the 
 end. If such encrease of wages should be delayed 
 for awhile, it will naturally be the more consider- 
 able for an equal period when it does take place, 
 and thus any casual contribution of taxes by the 
 labourers is ultimately repaid. Whenever the 
 poor man is made the medium of collecting taxes, 
 his wages cannot be considered as wages to their 
 full nominal amount. That part only can be con- 
 sidered as wages which remains after deducting the 
 amount of the taxes which he pays. The labourer 
 naturally charges his taxes insensibly upon the ar- 
 ticle which he sells, viz. his labour, for he has no 
 other ; in the same manner as the maltster and glass- 
 maker charge upon their respective articles the 
 
12 
 
 amount of the taxes of which they are made the 
 medium. All taxes are collections of capital, arid 
 as far as the labourer is possessed of capital he is a 
 payer of taxes ; but not further, for he cannot pay 
 what he does not possess. 
 
 Besides we must take into account that the con- 
 tribution of good things levied in the shape of 
 taxes, is not destroyed, but applied by Government 
 to the maintenance of labourers, and to that only : 
 and consequently if the labourers did contribute 
 any part of it, they would thereby receive it back. 
 If Government were in the habit of destroying 
 the produce of the taxes without expending it, it is 
 then certain that taxes would impoverish the counts 
 ry, and the arguments against them would hold 
 good; but when we consider that Government do 
 not destroy them in.anydegree, but expend them in 
 the maintenance of soldiers and sailors, and ar- 
 mourers, and placemen, and pensioners, and many 
 other sorts of persons, useful to the power, the safe- 
 ty, the honour or splendour of the nation, w r e must 
 acknowledge that the only effect of taxes upon a 
 country is to change the character of a part of its 
 population, from * private to public dependants, 
 and to convert their powers and energies from indi- 
 vidual into national objects. 
 
 Suppose a tax is imposed upon tea, or upon 
 malt, do not the East India Company, or the 
 
maltster, immediately charge the amount of the 
 tax upon their tea or their malt ? So it is with the 
 labourer, with regard to any taxes which he pays. 
 If he possesses capital, he is in that respect a payer 
 of taxes ; but if he possesses nothing but his la- 
 bour, he is obliged to raise the price of that in pro- 
 portion as his taxes rise. The demand for his la- 
 bour is thus diminished on the one hand, by its 
 enhanced price, but the demand is equally en- 
 creased on the other hand, by the expenditure of 
 the capital of the taxes by Government; and thus 
 the poor man is neither benefited nor injured by 
 the amount of the taxes. The poor man draws his 
 weekly bread from his employer, and from that 
 small pittance he cannot afford the smallest con- 
 tribution, without an adequate encrease in its 
 amount. That encrease he naturally receives by 
 the expenditure of the taxes creating a greater de- 
 mand for his labour, which is his only property, 
 and upon which he necessarily charges his taxes. 
 
 Observe the progress of taxation in the instanct 
 of the Property Tax upon land, which will give an 
 accurate view of the general operation of all taxes. 
 
 The landlord and the farmer having a Property 
 Tax imposed, must either diminish their general or 
 family expenditure, or they must raise the prices of 
 their rents and produce. In the former case a con- 
 
14 
 
 siderable number of the persons maintained by 
 them must necessarily be thrown out of employ- 
 ment, and thus an apparent injury is occasioned 
 to the labourers, who are discharged from the mak- 
 ing of carriages, and fine clothes, and other arti- 
 cles of necessity or luxury, for the landlords and 
 farmers. But observe, an exactly correspondent 
 encrease takes place in the number of persons em- 
 ployed and maintained by Government through 
 the medium of the tax in question ; for the capital 
 so obtained by Government is not destroyed, but 
 employed and expended in some kind of purposes, 
 and thus the injury of the tax is neutralized, as far 
 as concerns the labourers, who are merely convert- 
 ed from one description of labourers into another, 
 but are not at all injured in the demand for their 
 labour, or in their comforts and happiness, which 
 continue the same. 
 
 This is the natural operation of taxes, where 
 the payers are obliged to diminish their expences 
 in order to pay them; but on the other alternative, 
 where the payers raise the prices of their articles 
 in consequence of the taxes, the operation becomes 
 even favourable to the labourers, and encreases 
 their employment, their wages, and their comforts. 
 For if the landlords and farmers, and other pay- 
 ers of taxes, raise the price of their articles in a 
 degree proportionable to the taxes which they pay. 
 
15 
 
 which is the general and natural operation of 
 taxes, in that case the payers of taxes are enabled 
 to continue their expenditure on its former scale, 
 and thus no labourers are discharged by the pay- 
 ment of the taxes, but a considerable additional 
 demand for their labour is occasioned by the Go- 
 vernment expenditure of those taxes. 
 
 It ought also to be considered, that the operation 
 of the taxes has not only a direct beneiicial effect 
 upon the situation of the labourers as here stated* 
 but also that their situation is still further improv- 
 ed collaterally, by the encouragement which the rise 
 of prices gives to production and consumption, and 
 by the confidence and stability which it gives to 
 commercial transactions, to property and to men. 
 
 The taxes which are collected through the me- 
 dium of the labourers themselves, such as the Malt 
 Tax, and others, are not different in their ope- 
 ration. The wages of the labourers naturally rise 
 with the rise of prices occasioned by the taxes, and 
 they fall in a similar degree, whenever the tax- 
 es are taken off. There cannot be a doubt that 
 the wages of labourers would naturally fall in pro- 
 portion, if the whole of the Malt Tax should now 
 be taken off. 
 
 Suppose one tenth of all the wages in the kings 
 iom should be deducted, in order to be expended 
 
10 
 
 ill taxes. The consequence would clearly be, that 
 for awhile, the whole body of die labourers would 
 be greatly distressed ; but after awhile, when the 
 expenditure of the taxes should have taken place, 
 it would, of course, have created a demand for a one 
 tenth greater number of labourers, and thus the 
 additional employment, and the efflux of these la- 
 bourers from the great body, would quickly have 
 raised the wages of the whole to their former 
 amount. 
 
 Tn fact all taxes are mere substructions of capi- 
 tal from expenditure, in one channel, to expendi- 
 ture in another. They are diversions of bread, and 
 cheese, and meat, and beer, and clothes, and other 
 good things, from individual expenditure into 
 national expenditure, but the sum total of such 
 bread and cheese, and other good things, is not di- 
 minished by this diversion, it is only changed in its 
 direction. It is thus clear that the situation of la- 
 bourers is not at all injured by taxes, and it is nearly 
 equally clear that it is improved by them, because 
 every thing improves their situation and encreases 
 their number, which encreases the demand for their 
 labour. 
 
 It is remarkable that individuals who can see 
 clearly the operation of machinery upon labour- 
 ers, either cannot or will not recognize the ope- 
 
17 
 
 ration of taxes. It is exactly similar. It takes away 
 from the labourers, expenditure in one channel 
 in order to lay it out in another. It is painful in its 
 first imposition ; but when once it has taken effect? 
 it has no injurious effect whatever upon the la- 
 bourers. It only forces a change in their habits of 
 life, which when once effected is not painful, the 
 labourer being as happy in the new mode of em- 
 ployment as he was in the old. But it is certain 
 that all these kind of changes are exceedingly pain- 
 ful to the labourers whilst they arc taking place, 
 and if they succeed each other too often, either by 
 improvements in machinery, or by the imposition 
 and removal of taxes, they have the effect of des- 
 troying the comforts of the labourers, and of break- 
 ing up their principles and their morals. There is 
 nothing good in nature, which is not connected 
 more or less closely with something evil. I have 
 no doubt that a great deal of the eacrease of mise- 
 ry which has been observed among the lower class- 
 es, however much it may have been aggravated by 
 the system and administration of the Poor Laws, 
 has been owing to the rapid improvements in sci- 
 ence and manufactures, which have been made 
 during the last twenty years, which whilst they 
 have encreased the national wealth, and the com- 
 forts of the labourers generally, have yet had the 
 effect of forcing many of them backwards and for- 
 wards, from one employment to another, and from 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 one residence to another, to that degree that it 
 has quite unsettled their habits and their princi- 
 ples, and rendered them indifferent to those per- 
 manent interests which no foresight or exertion on 
 their part could secure. As far as this goes, the 
 imposition of taxes has certainly been painful and 
 injurious to the labourers, but in this light, the 
 removal of taxes has been equally painful and 
 injurious to them, and even more so, because as L 
 have before shewn, the removal of taxes occasions 
 for a time a depression of prices, which takes away 
 the reward of industry, and throws the labourers 
 out of employment ; but the action created by the 
 imposition of taxes, shaa directly contrary effect 
 upon their employment, by raising the general 
 state of prices, and rendering it the interest of 
 the ^P:;; relicts to employ as many labourers as pos- 
 sible in producing property. 
 
 If we observe the operation of the introduction 
 of Thrashing Machines, we shall have a clear view 
 of the operation of .taxes, with the exception that 
 the former encreases ultimately the national wealth, 
 which may not be the case with the latter. The 
 farmer, we will suppose, saves twenty pounds a year 
 by the use of a Th rasa ing Machine. That twenty 
 pounds a year is of course taken out of the wages 
 paid to his labourers, and they are thereby injured 
 to that amount; but observe, the farmer does not 
 annihilate this twenty pounds a year so saved, he 
 either spends it in some other article of necessity, 
 
19 
 
 convenience, or luxury, or he invests or employs 
 it in some way or other, and thus some other des- 
 cription of labourers are certain to receive the 
 twenty pound a year which lias been so taken from 
 the farmer's labourers. These latter are thus com- 
 pelled to change their habits of life, or they must 
 be content to dee twenty pound a year taken from 
 their wages and employment, ia order to encrease 
 that much the wa/ges and employment of those 
 other descriptions of labourers, through whose chan- 
 nel the farmer directs his expenditure. But when 
 the farmer's men have changed their habits, they 
 receive just the same twenty pound a year as former- 
 ly, or if they choose rather to bear the pain of the 
 deduction than of the change, the consequence 
 is that other labourers receive it instead of them. 
 Precisely similar to this is the effect of the imposi- 
 tion of taxes. A farmer who pays twenty pounds 
 a year in taxes, is obliged to contract his expendi- 
 ture or his investments that much, and the conse- 
 quence of this is, that the labourers, through whom 
 the farmer expended his twenty pound a year, 
 lose that much in the amount of their wages and 
 
 o 
 
 .employment ; but observe, the capital so received 
 from the farmer in taxes is not annihilated. It is 
 expended by the nation in maintaining other la- 
 bourers, who thus receive back the whole of the 
 twenty pounds which has been taken from the far- 
 mer's labourers, by the reduction of his expendi- 
 
20 
 
 ture, so that the whole pressure which the impo- 
 sition of taxes occasions upon labourers, lapses it- 
 self into forcing a change in their habits of life, 
 which is indeed painful whilst it is taking place, 
 but has permanently no effect whatever in dimi- 
 nishing their wages or their employment, and which 
 in fact is exceeded in its painful consequences to 
 the labourers, by the forced change which is equal- 
 ly effected in their habits of life by the removal of 
 taxes. In this light only can the imposition of tax* 
 es be said to be injurious to the labourers, that is 
 to say, that taxes in common with improvements 
 in machinery and science, effect forced and painful 
 changes in their habits of life, but, when those 
 habits are once settled, the removal of taxes in* 
 jures the labourers, even more than their im position, 
 affects them. 
 
 I know it is said that it is the small comparative 
 number of productive labourers which makes the 
 misery of the poor, and that if the labourers W 7 ho 
 minister to pride and luxury were employed upon 
 the fields, there would be a greater quantity of 
 bread, and cheese, and other necessaries, to be di- 
 vided among the population. No such thing. All 
 labourers are productive in one way or other^ 
 Some produce agricultural, some manufactured 
 produce, and some security and splendour to the 
 nation, or luxurious gratification to individuals. 
 
21 
 
 But society produces only a certain limited demand 
 for all articles, whether of necessity, convenience, 
 or luxury. If the labourers in agriculture should 
 be encreased so far as to produce a greater supply 
 of produce than the demand requires, the conse- 
 quence is, that the price falls, and it no longer an. 
 swers the purpose of the farmers to employ them 
 until a re-action is promoted by a diminished pro- 
 duce, or by the natural encrease of the consumers. 
 This has been the case in England latterly, when 
 the exhaustion of stocks has glutted the markets, 
 and brought forward a greater produce than the 
 demand required, and in consequence, the labour- 
 ers in agriculture have for three years been very 
 generally in want of employment throughout the 
 kingdom. The number of labourers in agriculture 
 has been greater than agriculture could maintain, 
 and they have been discharged in great numbers. 
 The same effect is now produced in manufactures, 
 where the labourers are also discharged in great 
 numbers ; and to complete their distress, hundreds 
 of thousands of soldiers and sailors, and of gentle- 
 men 's servants, and other dependants, are also dis- 
 charged, and brought into competition with the 
 labourers, at a time when the labourers themselves 
 are discharged from want of employment. All la- 
 bourers are productive; some producing necessaries, 
 some luxuries, some conveniences, and some splen- 
 dour and finery ; but there is only a certain demand 
 
22 
 
 for either of these productions, and if the supply 
 exceeds the dem; nd in either of them, nothing but 
 misery can ensue So the labourers and their employ- 
 ers. In every branch of productive industry, there 
 are already a greater number of labourers than can 
 be employed, in the present state of the circula- 
 tion. If those labourers were encreased in number, 
 they \vould only add to the mass of misery which 
 now r afflicts both them and their country. Sup- 
 pose sumptuary laws were passed, prohibiting the 
 use of luxuries. The labourers who minister to 
 luxury would, of course, be thrown out of employ- 
 ment, and they would perish ; but the situation of 
 the labourers in agriculture, so far from being im- 
 proved by the misery of their neighbours, would 
 be seriously injured, by the want of an equivalent 
 demand for their produce, upon which their pre- 
 sent wages depend. 
 
 What then is it that regulates the condition of 
 labourers in society ? It is the state of the market 
 and the character of their own minds. The former 
 regulates all temporary fluctuations in their hap- 
 piness or misery, and the latter acts upon their per- 
 manent situation. It is not possible for labourers 
 to be wretched, when there is an ample demand for 
 their labour ; nor is it possible for them to be hap- 
 py when that demand is deficient. Their labour 
 is their property. It is the only property they 
 
23 
 
 have. If their labour is in request, that is to say, 
 if it answers the purpose of the capitalists to em- 
 ploy them, they are certain to obtain a sufficiency 
 of the good things ot life for their maintenance and 
 comfort; and whether these good things are grant- 
 ed under one term or another, under the wages of 
 fifteen shillings per week, or fifteen pounds per 
 week is of no consequence, to either them or their 
 country. But if their labour is not in request, if 
 the capitalists of the country, have no occasion for 
 it, or if they are prevented from employing it by 
 want of confidence in prices, or by impoverish- 
 ment or by any other means, then, the situation of 
 the labourers must inevitably be wretched, and 
 no circumstances upon earth can relieve them, but 
 such as have the effect of restoring the cofifideuce 
 or theriches of the capitalists, and thereby the de- 
 mand for labour. They are the worst enemiesofthe 
 labourers who would persuade them that their inter- 
 est is different from that of the rich. Nothing is 
 more false or more wicked. It is the riches of 
 the rich alone which enable the poor to exist. The 
 rich are the holders of the actual existing proper 
 ty which they can only expend bj distributing it 
 among labourers in a thousand shapes and ways. 
 The labourers in their turn are employed by the 
 rich, in annually reproducing the property which 
 is thus annually consumed. But were it not for 
 the existence of this property, were it not for the 
 
24 
 
 stocks of provisions, and of goods, and of other 
 good things which constitute riches, the poor 
 would perish whilst the houses were building, and 
 whilst the grain was ripening in the ground. 
 
 The more numerous and affluent are the rich, the 
 more comfortable and happy are the poor. The 
 stock of provisions, and of goods called riches, can 
 never be much more than is sufficient to maintain 
 the labourers from year to year; because, if it 
 should be so, it would naturally occasion either 
 an encrease of consumption and of population, 
 by the comforts which would be generally diffused, 
 or a diminution of production, by occasioning a 
 fall in the prices, or in those legal responsibilities 
 which the production of property requires. Thus 
 Providence has wisely ordered that the interests 
 of both rich and poor shall for ever be one and the 
 same. If the former flourish, they naturally en- 
 crease their expences, and, consequently employ 
 more labourers, and at higher real wages ; but if 
 they suffer in the smallest degree, the poor are cer- 
 tain to suffer far more severely by the diminished 
 expenditure of the rich, which throws the poor out 
 of employment, and out of bread. The poor man 
 cannot suffer unless the rich man suffers first, nor 
 can he flourish, unless the rich man flourishes first; 
 for his comforts and his existence depend upon the 
 capital of the rich. If the market for labour fur- 
 
515 
 
 nishes an encreased demand, the wages of labour 
 rise in real value, that is to say, a larger weekly 
 contribution of good things is granted to the la- 
 bourer; if the demand for labour diminishes, 
 an equivalent fall takes place in the real wages of 
 labour. Labour rises or falls like any other ar- 
 ticle, according as the market presents anencreas- 
 ed or diminished demand. Thus the state of the 
 market regulates all temporary situations of the 
 labourers ; but their permanent situation is regu- 
 lated, principally, by the character of their own 
 minds, and by that of the soil and the system upon 
 which they live. 
 
 If the demand for labour in the market is s6 
 great as to cause any considerable addition to the 
 contribution of good things which the labourer 
 receives under the head of wages, the consequence 
 is, that the improvement in his situation enables 
 him to rear more of his children than he could 
 otherwise do : it also induces him to marry earlier, 
 and more generally, and it draws a great accession 
 of labourers, not only from these sources, but from 
 others that have a more immediate operation such 
 as emigration of foreigners from foreign count- 
 ries, &c. By these means the supply of labour is 
 quickly made equivalent to the demand, and the 
 poor labourer is again reduced to his former situ- 
 ation, a situation which merely enables him to ex- 
 it 
 
26 
 
 1st, by extreme frugality and incessant labour. 
 If this does not take place, the diminution of con- 
 sumption, which the high price of labour occasions 
 quickly produces the same effect. But if the sup- 
 ply of labour becomes so great as materially to re- 
 duce the comforts of the labourer below the level 
 of his general situation, the consequence is, that 
 his children perish from want of food and care, he 
 ceases to think of marriage, or of any thing else 
 but his own miseries ; he pines and frets, and quick- 
 ly sinks into an untimely grave. If he avoids this 
 alternative, he naturally strives to relieve himself 
 by wandering into other countries, where his 
 wretched appearance makes foreigners contented 
 with their own homes. The supply of labour is 
 thus rapidly diminished, and the labourer that sur- 
 vives his distresses, again recovers his employment 
 and the comforts necessary to his existence; com- 
 forts which can never be encreased or diminished 
 without quickly encreasing or diminishing the 
 number of the labourers. 
 
 It is the character of the labourers' own mind, 
 combined with his habits and associations, that re- 
 gulates permanently his situation. If he is not 
 willing or able to exist in certain circumstances, 
 these circumstances will naturally improve by the 
 diminution of his numbers, or by the renovation of 
 the demand for labour in the markets ; and if his 
 
situation and circumstances are much improved 
 bejond their common level, they are quickly again 
 reduced by the encrease of his numbers or by the 
 diminished demand for his labour. Of course, 
 considerable variation occurs from the nature of 
 soil and climate, for there is some soil so naturally 
 barren and ungrateful, that no labour can derive 
 a maintenance from it. 
 
 It is for these reasons that in all countries and 
 ages, the situation of the labourers has been much 
 the same, encreasing in comparative comforts with 
 the progress of their own minds, and with the en- 
 crease of riches and affluence around them, but at 
 no time possessing permanently much more or less 
 of those comforts than the nature of their habits 
 and characters renders necessary for their exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Coming, therefore, to this conclusion, that it is 
 the state of the demand for labour in the markets, 
 which affects the temporary situation of the labour- 
 ers, but that it is the character of their own minds, 
 and the natural facilities under which that cha- 
 racter is developed, which affects their permanent 
 situation, and which, in fact, permanently governs 
 the state of demand for labour in the markets, 
 let us next consider what circumstances are best 
 fitted to give to the labourer a constant and steady 
 demand for his labour ; enabling him to support 
 
28 
 
 his family with comfort, and securing him from 
 those painful fluctuations, which in all ages and 
 all countries have occasionally so cruelly afiect- 
 ed his comforts and his life. 
 
 The preceding observations may tend to eluci-? 
 date this question, and it may be unnecessary to 
 say much more upon the subject. 
 
 The riches of a country do not consist of money, 
 nor of gold and silver, nor of Bank Notes, nor of 
 bills of exchange. Those are mere signs, or tokens, 
 or numbers, or terms, under which mankind agree, 
 for their mutual convenience, to arrange and to 
 measure the proportions and relations which riches 
 of on e kind shall bear to those of another. These 
 numbers or terms that we call money, and which 
 we endeavour to bind in some degree by legal en- 
 actments, in order to give them a greater perman- 
 ence and consistence than they would otherwise 
 possess, assume various shapes, and adapt them- 
 selves to the varying wants and inventions of men, 
 in all the multitudinous transactions of life. In 
 barbarous countries, shells, and stones, aud iron, 
 and copper, and, afterwards, silver, and gold, form 
 generally the sole currency or circulating medium, 
 but in civilized countries where the mind expands 
 and where credit and wealth are diffused, there 
 Bills of Exchange, transfers, and book debts are 
 
29 
 
 created ia a thousand ways, deriving indeed their 
 credit and existence from the more substantial medi- 
 um which sup ports them, but forming altogetheran 
 instrument far stronger than the prime agent, and 
 effecting a thousand times more exchanges of pro- 
 perty than ever are, or ever can be effected by the 
 heavier parts of the currency. In proof of this, it 
 may not be amiss to mention that about forty bank- 
 ers in London are in the habit of meeting together 
 daily, in order to settle and adjust their mutual 
 claims upon each other. Their clerks there pro- 
 duce, in a place which they call the Clearing 
 House, bills, and cheques upon each other, to the 
 amount of about Four Millions Sterling per day. 
 The bills and cheques which they produce have 
 probably been through the hands of four or five 
 persons each upon the average, before they reach 
 the bankers, and thus transactions to the amount 
 of sixteen or twenty millions per day, are regularly 
 wound up and cleared by these forty bankers. 
 
 Now an uninformed individual might, perhaps, 
 expect, that to effect this prodigious transfer of 
 property, Twenty Millions of guineas, or at least of 
 Bank Notes would be required. No such thing. The 
 whole is written off by the bankers among them- 
 selves, who transfer and re- transfer their mutual 
 claims upon each other, until in the course of about 
 an hour or two, the whole of these claims are liqui- 
 
30 
 
 dated and paid, probably without the passage of 
 a single thousand pounds in either bullion or Bank 
 Notes ! Thus currency or money is created to the 
 enormous amount of twenty millions sterling per 
 day, or Six Thousand Millions sterling per annum; 
 deriving, it is true, its existence from the Bank 
 ISotes or the bullion which support it, but inde- 
 pendent of either in its operation. It is a vast cre- 
 ation of the mind, created by confidence, support- 
 e d by confidence, and d ischarged by confidence ; 
 and as long as confidence exists, moving to and 
 fro the property of the nation with ease and secu- 
 rity, without the actual presence of either guineas 
 or Bank Notes, The whole of this vast machinery 
 is perpetually at w ork, and upon its free and easy 
 action depends, almost entirely, the commercial 
 prosperity of the country. If any circumstances 
 should arise to interrupt its mighty operations, 
 universal danger, and distress, and difficulty would 
 ensue. Let this mighty agent have a free opera- 
 , lion, and the loss of all the Foreign Trade would 
 I scarcely be felt ; but if its action is obstructed, 
 the foundations of property and of society tremble 
 in its agitations. But this mighty agent is not 
 riches, it is merely the medium by which riches 
 are transferred from hand to hand. It is always 
 found equivalent to its purposes, as long as gene- 
 ral confidence is supported in the general prices 
 of commodities ; because its creation is then free, 
 
31 
 
 and the state of individual credit which that con- 
 fidence occasions, facilitates the creation of the 
 bullion or Bank Notes which are necessary to sup- 
 port it. A far less quantity too of bullion or 
 Bank Notes is required to support it, when men's 
 confidence in prices and in each other is high ; few 
 people seeking to realise their transactions by the 
 absolute possession of those first agents. But when 
 any circumstances arise to depress men's confi- 
 dence in the general prices of commodities, the 
 creation of currency is arrested, and it quickly be- 
 comes inadequate to its purposes, and thereby en- 
 creases the alarm respecting prices, which being 
 thus acted and re-acted upon, necessarily sink 
 lower and lower, destroying confidence and credit 
 of all kinds, and thereby requiring a far greater 
 circulation of bullion or Bank Notes than even the 
 former state of credit created. It is possible that 
 this state of things, if left to itself, might be car- 
 ried so far as absolutely to throw out of existence 
 all the creations of credit, and in that case a cir- 
 culation of at least four hundred millions of Bank 
 Notes, or of bullion, instead of forty millions, 
 would be required to keep up the labour and the 
 existence of the population, until the restoration 
 of credit should restore the old circulation. 
 
 Considering, therefore, the nature of currency or 
 money, and considering that it acts upon such 
 
3-2 
 
 weighty and tender interests, we are not to be 
 surprised that it is subject to extreme fluctuations 
 in its exchangeable value ; but as I have stated be-' 
 fore, these fluctuations are inherent in the very 
 nature of currency, and are not more frequent or 
 severe, when acting upon a Bank Note than upou a 
 metalic surface. In proof of this we may consider 
 the action upon currency which took place in En- 
 gland at the close of the American War, at which 
 time it appears that Lord Castlereagh considers the 
 distress was greater than it is now, but which I 
 will be content to believe was not one half of what 
 it is now. We may also consider the action upon 
 the French currency, which was a main agent in 
 bringing on the Revolution, or that which now 
 exists in Spain, to the great distress of the whole 
 country, although Bank Notes 1 believe are not 
 known there. It would be well for the Spaniards 
 if they were. 
 
 It is not necessary to say any more respecting 
 this volatile and active principle called currency or 
 money, which derives its power from fundamental 
 laws and customs, and which consists of bills of 
 exchange, transfers, book debts, bank notes, gold 
 and silver, and indeed of every thing that passes 
 for money, in any shape or way. 
 
33 
 
 Riches are the stocks of cultivated land, houses, 
 goods, commodities, manufactures, provisions, and 
 all other articles of necessity or luxury, which the 
 care and providence of the past has accumulated for 
 the support of the present and the future. The pos- 
 sessors of these stocks are called the rich, and in 
 their number many labourers possessing small 
 stocks may very properly be included, and in this 
 sense they become capitalists and payers of taxes. 
 It is not often that these stocks become much great- 
 er than is sufficient to support the consumption of 
 the population during the period which is necessary 
 for their reproduction, because the consumption 
 naturally grows with the production, and the hold- 
 ers of stocks are al ways under nearly the same temp- 
 tation and necessity of expending them, which 
 they can only do by distributing them, either di- 
 rectly or indirectly among the labourers, in ex- 
 change for their labour, and this naturally increas- 
 es the number and consumption of the labourers. 
 The greater, therefore, is the accumulation of these 
 stocks, the better for the labourers and for the 
 country. If the stocks are small the country may 
 then be called poor, and if they are very small in 
 proportion to the population of the country, it is 
 then in a state of danger and distress, which proba- 
 bly terminates in famine. As long, however, as the 
 holders of stocks are.numerous and affluent in pro- 
 portion to the numbers of the poor, there can be no 
 
 
 
34 
 
 serious danger of distress, or even of inconvenience 
 to the country. The prosperity of the rich becomes 
 bread into the mouth of the poor, but if the rich 
 man loses his prosperity, the poor man loses his 
 bread. There are, perhaps, a thousand different 
 kind of manufactures in England, including agri- 
 cultural produce, as the principal of all manufac- 
 tures. There are of course a thousand different 
 kinds of stocks of produce. Now as long as these 
 stocks keep up certain relations to each other, and 
 to the currency, or legal obligations under which 
 they are reproduced, they are freely circulated 
 among the labourers, whose labour in the mean 
 while produces other stocks of similar amount; 
 but if any thing happens to break up those relati- 
 ons, the general confidence in stocks is affected, 
 and their reproduction is arrested by the fact of 
 l ts requiring more legal responsibilities than it will 
 redeem : in other words, by the reproduction of 
 those stocks requiring a greater consumption of 
 valuable commodities than they will amount to 
 when, reproduced. 
 
 For instance, suppose a ton of copper, has cost for 
 several years one hundred pounds in its production, 
 and that it has been generally sold for one hun- 
 dred and twenty pounds. As long as these terms 
 continue fixed, the prosperity of both masters and 
 workmen is secure, but if the selling price happens 
 
3* 
 
 to fall to fifty pounds, there is a loss of fifty pounds 
 per ton to the producer, and he is quickly com- 
 pelled to discharge his workmen, either by pru- 
 dential or necessitous motives. The labourers 
 being thus discharged are obliged to turn their 
 hands to other modes of employment ; but if 
 all other trades happen to be in the same situ- 
 ation as their own, there is no employment to 
 be had, and under these circumstances the labour- 
 ers are in danger of perishing for want, notwith- 
 standing any efforts on the part of the rich to re- 
 lieve them ; for when the production of the country 
 is thus arrested, the stocks are rapidly exhausted, 
 and in all probability become far too little for the 
 necessary support of the country, before the reac- 
 tion in prices promotes and enables a reaction in 
 production. 
 
 The prosperity of a country, therefore, consists 
 in the free and easy exchange of stocks for labour, 
 of consumption for production, of commodities for 
 commodities, upon certain fixed terms or relations 
 to each other, which men understand and have 
 confidence in. As long as these fixed terms con- 
 tinue permanent, or as long as they alter in fa- 
 vour of confidence by an encrease in their general 
 relative amount, the production and consumption 
 of the country are free, and all classes of society, 
 (excepting annuitants, or persons who derive the 
 bulk of their livelihood from being holders of mo- 
 
36 
 
 nied obligations,) participate equally in the gene- 
 ral prosperity. But whenever these terms or rela- 
 tions are broken up, a general want of confidence 
 is occasioned, and a general demand takes place 
 upon property, each individual seeking to lessen 
 those credits and engagements which are likely to 
 involve him in losses or ruin, and to exchange his 
 stocks for money, in order that he may become 
 possessed of greater stocks by re-purchasing at some 
 future time, or at least be enabled to meet securely 
 those monied engagements which all men are more 
 or less exposed to. 
 
 But if a disposition of this kind operates upon 
 all the holders of stocks of property Imder these 
 circumstances, it operates still more actively upon 
 those descriptions of persons who are enabled to 
 hold the whole or a great part of their stocks by the 
 monied credits \vhich they receive from others. 
 A slight fall in the monied value of stocks involves 
 all those kind of persons in losses or ruin, and in 
 order to avoid this, they rush the more earnestly 
 into the market to dispose of their stocks, whilst 
 there is a chance of their securing their credit 
 and solvency by so doing. This is a class of men 
 perhaps the most active, industrious, and enter- 
 prising of any in the nation. Possessed of little 
 capital, but their credit and knowledge, they give 
 activity to the dormant capital, of others which 
 
37 
 
 would otherwise be unemployed. They are the 
 first to suffer from the contractive action upon cur- 
 rency, but their sufferings are quickly extended 
 to their richer neighbours, and to all classes of 
 the community. 
 
 At the same time that the stocks are thus forc- 
 ed upon the markets, the consumption of the 
 markets is reduced, by the impoverishment and 
 diminished expenditure of individuals, who are 
 obliged to contract their expences within their re- 
 duced means, and it takes a considerable period 
 before the general reduction of all prices will ena- 
 ble those reduced means to consume their former 
 amount of commodities. 
 
 During this state of things, it may he observed, 
 that the situation of the labourer or of what is 
 called the Poor Man, is injured in four different 
 ways. The reduction of prices, if it happens first 
 upon provisions, dazzles his eyes and fills his 
 mind with ideas of good. Those ideas are false. 
 The reduction of prices, if those prices have once 
 become sufficiently permanent to have acted upon 
 trade, is the bitterest evil that ever the poor man 
 can experience. First, The exhaustion of stocks 
 gluts the markets, and supplies there that con- 
 sumption which used to be supplied by labour. 
 Second, The impoverishment of the rich prevents 
 
38 
 
 the markets from supplying the usual consumption 
 of goods, and thus the demand for labour is still 
 further reduced, whilst the same impoverishment 
 compels the rich to discharge their servants and 
 other dependants, and thus the supply of labour is 
 still further encreased. Third, After awhile, 
 when the stocks of both necessaries, and luxuries, 
 and riches of all kinds, are greatly diminished, and 
 when the labourers have but little employment, 
 and less wages for their subsistence, a reaction is 
 promoted by the diminution of produce, thus re- 
 storing high prices after having deprived the la- 
 bourers of the means of paying even low prices. 
 Fourth, At this period the re-accumulation of 
 stocks goes on, and thus raising prices higher than 
 even the diminution of produce would otherwise 
 require, gives a quadruple sting to the sufferings 
 of the labourers. 
 
 I will venture to lay it down as a rule, that it is 
 not possible for labourers, (I mean labourers 
 generally,) to be in want of employment, whilst 
 the circulating medium is equivalent to its pur- 
 poses, that is to say, of sufficient amount to effect 
 the exchange of property, upon the same ratio of 
 prices at which that property has been obtained. 
 Whether that ratio has become fixed at the prices 
 of fifteen shillings to the bushel of wheat, and of 
 eighteen shillings to the week's labour, which were 
 
39 
 
 about the terms of 1812, or at the prices of nine- 
 pence to the bushel of wheat, and one shilling to 
 the week's labour, which probably were about 
 the terms of 1512, is of no consequence at all. If 
 the ratio is but fixed and understood, and the 
 circulation is equivalent to effect the exchanges of 
 property upon that ratio, it is not possible for 
 the labourers and mechanics to be in want of em- - 
 ployment. 
 
 A redundant production may certainly take 
 place in particular articles, which soon rectifies 
 itself, but it cannot take place in all articles ge- 
 nerally, because the production of one man is the 
 consumption of another, and thus all trades inter- 
 changing, production and consumption, the one 
 naturally grows with the other, and no difference 
 or inequality can arise in either, so long as the 
 circulating medium is equivalent to ts purposes. 
 A thousand different kind of trades are continually- 
 producing and consuming each other's articles. 
 Local circumstances may occasionally encrease too 
 rapidly the production of some one or two par- 
 ticular trades, but if those circumstances affect 
 the production of all trades, they give the same 
 encrease to consumption as to production, by 
 encreasirig the consumption which the different 
 trades occasion in the productions of each other, 
 and by encreasing the national wealth, and the 
 
40 
 general comforts and numbers of the consumers* 
 
 But if any circumstances of depression should 
 occur to arrest the creation of the circulating 
 medium, or to require a greater quantity than 
 usual of bullion or Bank Notes to support it 9 then 
 production and consumption are thrown out of 
 their natural channels and relations, and they 
 continue to diminish alternately until the progress 
 of necessities which cannot be avoided, or the 
 the artificial creation of currency produces a re- 
 action upon both. When this reaction is produced, 
 then confidence revives, and the natural creation 
 of currency being set free, it is quickly reproduced 
 and soon found equivalent to its purposes, effect- 
 ing the exchanges of property between man and 
 man, and regulating and equalizing the relations, 
 which production and consumption bear to each 
 other. 
 
 It may, I believe, be concluded, that all general 
 rises or falls in the prices of property are purely 
 actions upon currency ; but all particular rises or 
 falls in those prices are actions upon property. 
 Thus, the late high and low prices of bullion and 
 copper were actions upon property, originating in 
 particular circumstances of supply and demand, 
 but the late general rise and fall of prices through- 
 out England and Europe, were actions upon cur- 
 
41 
 
 rency, originating in the imposition and remo- 
 val of taxes, and other circumstances of confi- 
 dence and depression. 
 
 It does not, therefore, appear possible that the 
 poor man, or labourers generally, should be inju- 
 red by the general production being too great for 
 the general consumption, whilst the circula- 
 ting medium is equal to its purposes. In fact it 
 is quite an anomaly to suppose that the encrease 
 of wealth can produce an encrease of poverty. 
 Casual bad or good harvests may occasionally in- 
 jure or benefit the situation of the labourers, by 
 reducing or encreasing the stocks and riches of the 
 affluent, but they can never generally be in want 
 of employment, whilst the circulation of the 
 country is sufficient to effect its exchanges upon 
 certain fixed and known relations. A thousand 
 trades, and a thousand kinds of labourers are con- 
 stantly consuming and reproducing property. The 
 production of one becomes the consumption of the 
 other, the greater the production, the greater be- 
 comes the consumption, and the more numerous 
 the labourers the more numerous become the con- 
 sumers. 
 
 It is the industry and system under which these 
 labourers operate, which keeps up, diminishes 
 or encre.ases the wealth of the country, and it is 
 ready and easy exchange of the product of 
 
42 
 
 one man's industry for that of .another's, upon 
 certain fixed and known relations, which consti- 
 tutes the prosperity of the country. This exchange 
 is effected in civilized countries by the invention 
 of the circulating medium, which whilst it ope- 
 rates in a healthy state, naturally affords as great 
 facilities to consumption as to production. If the 
 production is therefore encreasecl by any inven- 
 tions of machinery or otherwise, the consumption 
 is certain to encrease in proportion, because the 
 additional capital, which the introduction of ma- 
 chinery creates, enables the capitalists to encrease 
 their expences accordingly, and thus the labourers 
 who may be thrown out of employment in one 
 channel, are more than taken up in a thousand 
 others, which the encrease of capital opens to 
 them. It is useless to enumerate instances of this. 
 The invention of canals and of steam engines, and 
 their effects upon the prosperity of the country, 
 will sufficiently prove its truth. 
 
 / 
 Here then is the true secret of the wealth of 
 
 nations, which has nothing to do with foreign 
 trade any more than as foreign trade may be 
 considered as a branch of the home trade, by di~ 
 verting a certain proportion of the expenditure 
 of a country into foreign articles, for which home 
 productions are exchanged. If the labourers are 
 brought into action upon such a system, as to en- 
 
43 
 
 able them to produce, upon the whole, more of 
 the good things of life than thej consume, that 
 surplus, whatever it is, constitutes disposable funds, 
 which are called capital or riches, and which may 
 be applied either to public purposes, through the 
 medium of taxes, or to private purposes through 
 that of rents and profits. That surplus is sure 
 to be expended in some way, and whether it is ex- 
 pended in the maintenance of soldiers, and sailors, 
 and manufacturers of red cloth, or in the mainte- 
 nance of servants and coach-makers, and manufac- 
 turers of party coloured cloths, can make no dif- 
 ference to the labourers in general. For myself, I 
 confess, that I have a partiality for red cloth. I 
 had rather see the capital of my country expended 
 jn putting down oppressors, in assisting the weak, 
 in redressing injuries and avenging wrongs, than 
 in ministering to the pernicious gratifications of 
 individual luxury, and in encreasing the distinct- 
 ions between the appearances and enjoyments of the 
 rich and the poor. Let my glory be the glory of my 
 country, and L will never shrink from the personal 
 sacrifices which that glory may require. 
 
 These sentiments may possibly appear romantic, 
 but they will be found to have a strong and deep 
 foundation in the human heart. " Homo sum, et 
 ni/til humanum a me alienum puto." We cannot 
 divest ourselves of the feelings of humanity, nor 
 
44 
 
 ought we to shrink from the sacrifices which its 
 duties may require. I could even now wish to see 
 us inflict the same summary justice upon those 
 Spanish robbers, those kidnappers, and " man- 
 stealers," who desolate the West of Africa, as we 
 have lately inflicted upon their Brethren who ren- 
 dezvous in the North ! They might then go home, 
 and tell their King Ferdinand what we had been 
 doing to them, and he might tell them how he also 
 had been kidnapped by that OGRE, Buonaparte, 
 and how we had taken up the cudgels for him, and 
 killed the OGRE, and brought him back again to 
 liis own country, and how we had refused, con- 
 trary to our acknowledged interests, to follow the 
 example set us by the Spaniards, in supporting 
 the separation of their Colonies from the Mother 
 Country, aud how we had declined to act by them 
 in their adversity, as they had acted by us in our's. 
 Or if he chose, he might fume and threaten, and 
 make common cause with the Dey of Algiers ! and 
 do his worst, for all we need to care ! What have 
 we to fear from his threatenings and his folly, if 
 we have nothing to fear from our own degradation ? 
 Character is a wall of fire about a nation, w r hiclr 
 its enemies behold, and tremble as they behold. 
 What are riches to a nation, any more than to an 
 individual, without character and elevation of 
 mind ? Look at the character which Scotland 
 sustains, and that of soine other countries, Sicily, 
 
45 
 
 for instance. The one generous, courageous, wise, 
 patriotic, high-minded, loyal, frugal, industrious, 
 and free, patient of labour, and prodigal of life. 
 The other selfish, timid, weak, voluptuous, idle, 
 low-though ted, and slavish, without public spirit 
 or private virtue. And how favoured by nature 
 is the one, how fertile in every thing which ought 
 to enoble man ; yet " man is the only growth that 
 dwindles there/* And how sterile is the soil, how 
 inhospitable is the climate of the other : how frown 
 the Heavens, how " cold is her blast on the wave/' 
 But the generous high-thoughted heart is there ! 
 Let other nations waste their lives in selfish, idle 
 and voluptuous indulgences ; let them even culti- 
 vate the " Fine Arts ;" let them carve statues, and 
 paint pictures. 
 
 " Excudent illi mollius spirantia sera, 
 
 Vivosque ducent cle mar mo re vultus." 
 
 But in the march of virtue, in the battle of na- 
 tions, w r ho shall lead the van ? 
 
 "Turegere imperio populos Britlanne memento, 
 i; Haetibierintartes, pacisque iinponere inorem 
 Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." 
 
 c 
 
 1 can never believe that any nation will long flour- 
 ish, whose dominion is not conducted upon priii- 
 
40 
 
 ciples of eternal immutable justice. It behove* 
 nations, as well as individuals, to do their duty by 
 mankind in that state where Providence has plac- 
 ed them, and not selfishly to consider every thin* 
 that happens to other nations as indifferent to them. 
 Remember the selfish policy of Prussia, the athe- 
 istic arrogance, the heaven-crying injustice, the 
 diabolical cruelty and ambition of France. See 
 the finger of Providence. Read the hand-writing 
 on the wall. The voice of a Prophet cries through 
 the mouth of the Poet : 
 
 DlSCITE JUSTICIAM MoNlTI, ET NON TEMNERE 
 
 Dives." 
 
 To revert then to the circumstances which are 
 best fitted to secure and promote the comforts of 
 the labourers, I think it will be evident that the 
 labourers cannot flourish whilst their employers 
 decay, and that if their employers flourish or de- 
 cay, the labourers are certain to flourish or decay 
 in the same proportion. It will also be sufficiently 
 evident that nothing can secure the labourers 
 from occasionally experiencing the most painful 
 sufferings and privations, but the preservation of 
 certain fixed and known relations, between pro- 
 perty and money, which shall facilitate the gene- 
 ral expenditure of the country, and by preserving 
 the confidence of capitalists, shall induce them the 
 moie readily to incur the responsibilities which 
 
47 
 
 the production of property and the maintenance 
 of' labourers involve. Temporary elevations of 
 prices may be again depressed without injury, 
 in fact, they are themselves an injury, but 
 when they have once settled themselves upon the 
 wages of labour, and have acted upon all the 
 property and upon all the debts and obligations of 
 the country, they cannot be again suddenly de- 
 pressed wiihout involving the labourers in theut- 
 niost penury and distress. 
 
 Enough has been said, enough is known of those 
 terrible distresses which have been brought upon 
 the country, by the breaking up of the war prices, 
 distresses which are by no means yet at an end, 
 but which combined with the effects of an injured 
 crop of grain, threaten still more seriously to in- 
 volve the peace, the happiness, and the liberty of 
 the country. The nation has been struck with an 
 apoplexy whilst its physicians have been asleep. 
 For three years we have seen prices depressing and 
 stocks exhausting, we have seen agriculture de- 
 vastated and commerce annihilated, we have seen 
 the rich impoverishing and the poor perishing, no- 
 thing has been done to save the country, and now 
 that terrible reaction is at hand, which every wise 
 man foresaw, and every good man trembled to con- 
 template ? 
 
48 
 
 Was it thought that this state of things was na- 
 tural ? Was it thought that it was natural that a 
 great community, rich in stocks, rich in exertions, 
 rich in system, 'and in science, and inventions of all 
 kinds, should suffer the extreme of want and pri- 
 vation, almost without a cause > Will it be con- 
 tended that it is possible for a great community 
 like this, to suffer any want, or any privation, 
 whilst the earth is fruitful and the circulating 
 system is free ? If not, why have we suffered the 
 circulation to stagnate, and to shrink into a com- 
 pass unequal to continue the reward of industry ? 
 \Vhy have we suffered our lands to be devastated, 
 and our manufactories desolated? Wliy. have we 
 suffered the whole country to be converted into a 
 workhouse, and filled it with mourning and dis- 
 content, when a trifling addition to the circulating 
 medium, supplied in time, would have arrested 
 these fatal symptoms of a deficient circulation, 
 and by continuing the reward of industry, would 
 have continued consumption and production, and 
 have enabled England to enjoy without alloy, that 
 proud station to which her victories and her glo- 
 ries entitle her ? 
 
 When the circulating system began to flag from 
 the removal of the stimulants of the war, it was 
 necessary to have encreasedits quantity. When so 
 many hundreds of thousands of individuals tnain- 
 
49 
 
 tained through the medium of taxes, were to be 
 thrown upon the country, it was necessary to 
 have given a stimulus to the general industry of 
 the country, in order to have enabled it to have 
 maintained those multitudes until the revulsion of 
 the capital from the taxes should have found out 
 other means of maintaining them. Ten millions 
 of additional banknotes, supplied in the Spring 
 of 1813, would have kept up the full employment 
 of the general labourers throughout the country, 
 whilst it would have furnished ample means of ad- 
 ditional employment to the soldiers and artificers 
 discharged by the peace. There would then have 
 been no difficulty in collecting taxes, and no re- 
 pining at paying them, but when the depression 
 of property has deprived capital of its income, 
 and labour of its reward, it is no wonder that the 
 public should refuse to endure the burden of taxes, 
 which are no longer discharged out of their profits, 
 but form a grievous addition to their losses. 
 
 After a few years, when the capital expended in 
 war should have found out peace channels, 
 through which to operate its effects upon the 
 maintenance of labourers, and upon the national 
 prosperity, the addition of bank notes might have 
 been safely and easily withdrawn, without affect- 
 ing the general circulation of the country, which 
 would have possessed the same means of creation 
 
30 
 
 and support as it possessed during the war. Instead 
 of this, the whole system has been suffered to fall, 
 without an effort to support it. The farmers, the 
 landlords, and the poor agricultural labourers are 
 made the first victims, and when their distresses 
 have mainly operated the ruin of the merchants, 
 manufacturers, and mechanical labourers, this 
 frightful mass of misery is grievously aggravated 
 by the discharge of those honourable soldiers, and 
 those noble sailors, who have been fighting our 
 battles for twenty years, aud who have born the 
 British Lion over continents and over oceans, in 
 order to perish like dogs in a workhouse or a ditch ! 
 
 Can any thing be more cruel, more unjust, and 
 impolitic than this treatment of the soldiers and 
 sailors? And what is the object? Economy and 
 retrenchment ? We have no right to economize at 
 the expense of our honour. It is beneath the dignity 
 of the nation to take its defenders from social hab- 
 its, and after unfitting them for all other pursuits, 
 to turn them loose upon the public, ^without pro- 
 viding for them, at a time when they must inevita- 
 bly fall into the workhouse, or drive an equal 
 number of other persons there, by the competition 
 they must occasion among the already perishing 
 labourers. The soldiers ought not to be so treated. 
 The labourers ought not to be so treated ! Not 
 a single soldier ought to have been discharged with- 
 out his free consent, or without securing him the 
 
51 
 
 means of a suitable maintenance. The labourers 
 ought not to have been exposed to the competition 
 of the soldiers, at a time when they themselves 
 have neither employment nor bread. 
 
 It is no excuse to talk about the expense. The 
 expense would have been nothing if the circulation 
 had been free. The riches arising annually from 
 the Steam Engine alone would more than main- 
 tain the whole Army of England. What a shame it 
 is to talk of the expense of maintaining one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand soldiers, in a nation that 
 possesses more than that number of idle fellows 
 lolling behind carriages ! Is it to encrease the 
 number of these pageants that the conquerors of 
 Waterloo and Trafalgar are to be deprived of 
 bread ? I would have stripped the shirt from my 
 back before I would have suffered one of them to 
 want a comfortable livelihood. 
 
 Besides, I have shewn sufficiently that our selfish 
 objects have over reached themselves in this cruel 
 and unmanly conduct to the soldiers. We have 
 lost a great deal more in the depression of prices, 
 which the taking off of the taxes has occasioned, 
 than we have gained by depriving the soldiers of 
 their scanty maintenance. If we had done our 
 duty by the soldiers, and had maintained them li- 
 berally, until the appearance and capacities of 
 
52 
 
 society should have induced them willingly to re- 
 turn to social habits, we should not now have been 
 suffering the extremes of want and wretchedness, 
 which are brought upon us by our own selfishness 
 and folly. 
 
 One would have thought that the misery occa- 
 sioned by the discharge of hundreds of thousands 
 
 .of gunmakers and other artificers and public ser- 
 vants, by the necessary consequences of the peace, 
 
 . would have satisfied the public of the necessity of 
 maintaining the soldiers and sailors for a few years 
 longer, or until civil employments should have 
 been opened to them, instead of throwing their la- 
 bour suddenly and simultaneously into markets 
 already glutted and overflowing. 
 
 I will not discuss the antiquated notions about 
 the danger of standing armies, which, in the pre- 
 sent state of society and civilization, 1 consider 
 as perfectly visionary. 
 
 : 
 
 But what surprizes me exceedingly, I must con- 
 fess, is the hearing a cry set up in this country, for 
 disbanding that part of our army which is stati- 
 oned in France, and is both paid and maintained 
 by that country. Yet our politicians complain of 
 the great burthen which this part of our army en- 
 tails upon us, and propose that it should be re- 
 
53 
 
 called and disbanded ; that is to say, that our 
 brave and faithful soldiers should be required to 
 give up the comfortable quarters and respectable 
 situation, which they have earned in France with 
 their blood, in exchange for a workhouse or a gaol 
 in their native country. ! It is evident, that in 
 the present state of things, there will be no better 
 birth for them at home ; there will be no employ- 
 ment or bread for them at home, excepting 
 what is taken out of the hands and out of the 
 mouths of their own countrymen. And yet some 
 people are so perverse, that though they acknow- 
 ledge this truth, they had rather throw an additi- 
 onal and most partial burthen upon the payers of 
 the poor's rates of England, than continue it upon 
 the payers of taxes in France ! It is said in the 
 newspapers, that the French Government have 
 entered into a negociation with this country, for 
 the accomplishment of the same object, which 
 their friends here recommend ; and I take it for 
 granted that they will succeed, for it is certain 
 that John Bull never was a match for Monsieur 
 at a treaty. 
 
 But in truth, it moves my indignation to see 
 this inveterate enemy of the British name, whilst 
 we have got our foot upon his neck, aiming a se- 
 cret dagger at our heart. I am credibly informed 
 that, at this very time, whilst they are crying out 
 
54 
 
 against the payment of the sums which they stipu- 
 lated to pay for the redemption of their country, 
 and whilst they are representing the payment as 
 totally beyond their power; at this very time, 
 they are actually paying a bounty of half a Million 
 Sterling per annum, as a stimulus to t heir fisheries , 
 and a nursery for their seamen. ! The British 
 Government not finding itself sufficiently inde- 
 pendent in money matters, to afford the same 
 encouragement to our fisheries, as they can afford 
 to theirs, the greatest misery and distress amongst 
 cur poor fishermen are the natural consequences; 
 smd that invaluable nursery of the British Navy, 
 uhieh has flourished at Newfoundland for two 
 luiiidred years, arid that fine trade which we had 
 established in supplying the markets of the South 
 cif Europe with fish, are totally cut up, and are like- 
 ly to be lost for ever! If the French Nation is poor,, 
 Jiwd unable to pay our contributions, why is this 
 infamous bounty granted I And what has become 
 of the hundred times heavier contributions which 
 liiey have levied, in Specie^ upon Spain, upon Prus- 
 sia, upon Italy, and upon the whole of Europe, 
 for the support of their enormous armies, and of 
 their innumerable swarms of locusts and Douan- 
 iers ? The contributions that we have levied upon 
 them are perfectly trifling. Such a city as Paris 
 would have had to pay the whole, if conquered by 
 Buonaparte. And yet these small contributions, 
 
55 
 
 forsooth, are too heavy for the French Nation to 
 bear, and we are called upon to suspend their pay- 
 ments, and even to withdraw our victorious troops, 
 in order to give their deceitful banditti an oppor- 
 tunity of combining and concerting their plans, 
 and of attacking us with the more effect at some 
 future time. 
 
 Is this the treatment for the British Army, which 
 fyas conquered the inveterate enemy of their count- 
 ry? Is this the treatment for the British Nation, 
 which has been injured, threatened, and insulted 
 for twenty years ? Is this the treatment for indig- 
 nant Europe, which has been so long outraged by 
 the French Nation in every shape and way in which 
 humanity can suffer ? After having brought them 
 under our feet, we ought not to have left it in their 
 power to sting us again. Our half-brained hu- 
 manity was justly recompenced on the return frpm 
 Elba, and it seems likely that we shall shortly 
 have another recompence of a similar kind, which 
 will probably be the last that we shall ever be ca- 
 pable of receiving. After sparing these serpents 
 twice ; after charging upon them the mighty sum 
 of Five Millions Sterling, when we might have 
 compelled them to take upon themselves the bur- 
 then of our whole National Debt; it seems that 
 we are now to spare them a third time, and to call 
 upon our gallant army to evacuate the Laud which 
 
50 
 
 they have so bravely won, and to exchange their 
 honourable quarters in France for a workhouse in 
 England! I should not be surprised to find this 
 object rather more difficult of accomplishment 
 than our politicians imagine. It is possible that 
 they may yet be compelled to suffer our brave 
 soldiers to live upon our enemies abroad, or else to 
 provide them an ample maintenance at home. 
 
 But, to return to my subject, I have sometimes 
 heard it said, that any measure which might have 
 been necessary to keep up the late state of prices, 
 would have interfered with the payment in specie ! 
 
 I can scarcely govern my patience to reason up- 
 on such an argument as this ; as if the payment in 
 specie, on the old relations, were an object of vital 
 or material importance, or even of any importance 
 at all. 
 
 Will men never understand that money is not 
 wealth ; but that it is merely an invention to pro- 
 mote the exchanges of wealth ? Of what conse- 
 quence, then, is the payment in specie, if we can 
 effect our exchanges upon more easy and steady 
 relations without it ? Is it for a childish partiali- 
 ty of this kind that the great interests of the nation 
 have been sacrificed ? Will any one contend that 
 we ought to have endured a hundredth part of our 
 
57 
 
 present sufferings for an object of this kind ? Spain 
 is the poorest country in Europe, and yet Spain 
 possesses three times more gold and silver than 
 ever England possessed. But the true principles 
 of political economy have never been acted upon 
 in Spain. She has been grasping at the shadow, 
 and neglecting the substance of national wealth. 
 
 Specie has been invested for many centuries with 
 the legal power of discharging debts. Bank notes 
 have only been so invested for the last nineteen 
 years. Most of us have, therefore, imbibed with 
 our mother's milk, a vast idea of the importance of 
 specie, as if it were a far better medium of circula- 
 tion than the bank notes as they now exist in Eng- 
 land. Deprive the guinea of its legal power of 
 discharging debts, and the futility of this idea 
 would be evident. Individuals would wonder to 
 see the object of their idolatry treated with no more 
 respect than a bar of iron, or an ingot of copper, 
 or any other article of merchandize, and yet to 
 this complexion the idol would inevitably come, 
 if he were once deprived of his legal power of dis- 
 charging debts. The admiration would then be 
 transferred to bank notes, and individuals born 
 and educated under the new theology, would have 
 just the same respect for those humble representa- 
 tives of value, as their fathers have now for guineas. 
 
58 
 
 What is the real difference between guineas and 
 bank notes ; the former being dug out of the Fo- 
 reign mines, by some persons who make it answer 
 their purpose, are afterwards transferred to Eng- 
 land in exchange for a certain command over 
 English manufactures. The latter being coined, 
 or created in the Bank of England, are afterwards 
 transferred into English circulation, in exchange 
 for a similar command over English manufactures. 
 It is true, the Bank of England may possibly issue 
 them rather too freely, or finding that they come 
 cheap, they may think proper to issue them plen- 
 tifully ; but against this it is easy to guard, by 
 prohibiting or restricting their discounts, and the 
 amount of their issues, whenever they occasion the 
 general prices of property to rise beyond certain 
 levels which may be deemed advantageous. 
 
 It is also true, that an equal influx of bullion 
 may from time to time arrive from the American 
 mines, according as the natural productions of 
 those mines may be efficiently developed, or such 
 influx may arrive from other quarters, which would 
 have, arid has had the same effect upon prices as 
 might be effected by an undue issue of bank notes, 
 and this influx of bullion cannot be guarded 
 against, like that of bank notes may be. 
 
 One would, therefore, think that the possession 
 of a medium created within ourselves, and under 
 
59 
 
 our own management and controul, would be far 
 superior to that of a medium which is obtained 
 from abroad, and which is subject to the various 
 fluctuations which Foreign circumstances may oc- 
 casion. Prices may be controuled by the use of a 
 medium subject to controul ; bvit if we make use of 
 a medium beyond our controul, the state of prices 
 will vary according as Foreign circumstances af- 
 fect it. 
 
 Suppose we should now pass an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, to prohibit the importation of all Foreign 
 articles into England, except bullion. What 
 would be the effect of such a measure upon the 
 currency value of the guinea? Clearly, Foreign 
 nations presenting still a certain demand for our 
 manufactures, would occasion a great influx of 
 bullion into England, which could not be again 
 re-exported, because no return of goods could take 
 place, and thus the price of the guinea would 
 quickly be driven down to perhaps fifteen or 
 ten shillings. It is impossible to say how low 
 it might go, which would depend entirely upon the 
 amount of British manufactures which Foreign na- 
 tions would still be willing and able to consume 
 and to pay for, and this depreciation of the guinea 
 would take place, even though the issue of bank 
 notes should be doubled in the mean while. Ne- 
 vertheless the guinea being vested with the legal 
 
60 
 
 power of discharging debts at twenty-one shillings 
 of currency, would continue to exercise that power 
 as freely after the price of gold had fallen so much, 
 as to render the guinea really worth in currency 
 only fifteen or ten shillings, as it did whilst such 
 price rendered it worth twenty-one or twenty-eight 
 shillings* 
 
 Of course, whilst the price of gold was any thing 
 considerable under par, great efforts would be 
 made to get it converted into guineas, which would 
 have the same effect in raising prices and promot- 
 ing prosperity, as a correspondent issue of bank 
 notes would have, and the demand for gold to be 
 coined, would have the effect of keeping up the 
 market price of gold more near to a par with the 
 legal price of the guinea ; but if any obstacles 
 should exist to the coining of the gold into guin- 
 eas, a great inequality would be occasioned be- 
 tween the legal price of the guinea and its price as 
 bullion, an inequality in its nature and causes ex- 
 actly similar to that which took place lately, though 
 differing in its direction. The guinea, as bullion, 
 would be worth ten or fifteen shillings in currency, 
 instead of twenty-one or twenty-eight shillings . 
 but although the guinea would thus fall in its va- 
 lue, it could not, therefore, be contended that the 
 bank note had risen, nor under different circum- 
 stances, when the guinea was worth twenty-eight 
 
61 
 
 shillings in currency, could it be justly contended 
 that the bank note had depreciated. The bank 
 note cannot, in its nature, depreciate, so long as it 
 retains its legal power, for it has no principle 
 whereon its depreciation can rest itself. The 
 guinea is made of bullion, which has a metalic va- 
 lue, and may rise and fall in its price, according to 
 the supply and demand of that metal in the mark- 
 et ; but the bank note is made of paper, which has 
 no metalic value in itself, and cannot, therefore, 
 be considered as an object of rise or fall in its 
 price. 
 
 It is in this respect only that the guinea differs 
 from the bank note. It is made of a metal that 
 has an exchangeable value in itself, and is subject 
 to rise or fall in its price ; but the bank note being 
 made of paper worth nothing, cannot be made sub- 
 ject to rise or fall in its value, by any other means 
 than by an alteration in the legal power with which 
 it is invested. Its value is fixed by law at twenty- 
 shillings of currency, (which, observe, is purely an 
 ideal term) and it would not be worth more if there 
 were only One Million in circulation, nor would 
 it be worth less if there were One Hundred Mil- 
 lions in circulation. Any effect of such an en- 
 crease or diminution of bank notes would lapse 
 itself into a general rise or fall in the prices of pro- 
 perty, and in the property value of currency ; but 
 
62 
 
 it would have no effect upon the currency value 
 of the bank note. An encrease or diminution of 
 bullion, however, would not only operate a general 
 rise or fall in the prices of property, but it would 
 also have an effect upon the currency price of the 
 guinea, considered as bullion, which (if not per- 
 mitted to be coined) would fluctuate, probably^ 
 from ten to thirty shillings, and this is one reason 
 vrhy bank notes, or any kindof w r ell-regulated pa- 
 per, is a better agent in the circulation than 
 bullion. 
 
 It appears to me that a well regulated issue of 
 Bank Notes, or any other national paper, after 
 disfranchising the guinea, if necessary, so far from 
 involving any great difficulties or changes in the 
 real state of the circulating medium, would have 
 the effect of giving a permanence and consistency 
 to the state of prices, which has never yet been 
 observed in any country in the world. 
 
 But without allowing this opinion to be un- 
 founded, I will take another ground, and I will saj 
 that an encreased issue of Bank Notes might have 
 take a place three fyears ago, sufficient to have 
 counteracted the depression of prices, which has 
 created so much distress, without the possibility 
 of preventing or retarding the payment in specie. 
 
63 
 
 If the circulation of Bank Notes, is now twenty 
 six millions sterling, it would take about twenty 
 four millions of guineas to replace the whole, (that 
 is to say admitting, credit and confidence to conti- 
 nue on the same footing as they now are) and to sup- 
 port about perhaps foiu* hundred millions more of 
 bills of exchange and other credits of various kinds. 
 But if any thing should happen to shake this im- 
 mense system of credit, the sum of four hundred 
 and twenty six millions would be required in gui- 
 neas instead of twenty six millions. It may be pos- 
 sible to supply twenty six millions of guineas, but 
 there is not so large a sum in Europe as four hun- 
 dred and twenty six millions, It is therefore clear, 
 that in order to be enabled to pay in specie, it was 
 necessary for us to keep up the system of credit as it 
 formerly stood, or else the inevitable consequence 
 of such an attempt would be to bring down the 
 great mass of currency upon our heads, and to re- 
 quire a prodigious sum in guineas in order to re- 
 place a comparatively small sum in bank notes. 
 If this immense sum of guineas could not be sup- 
 plied, the prices of property must naturally de- 
 press until the system of credit revived, or until 
 those prices were brought within the range of the 
 diminished circulation. 
 
 I have already shewn that the bills of exchange 
 which terminate through the medium of about 
 
64 
 
 forty of the London Bankers alone, effect exchanges 
 of property to the amount of many Thousand Mil- 
 lions Sterling per annum, without the agency of either 
 guineas or bank notes. 
 
 Whilst credit and confidence were high, and 
 men were enabled easily to discharge their engage- 
 ments, by an abundant issue of banknotes, or of 
 country bank notes, and Bills of Exchange sup- 
 ported thereby, a very small portion of bullion 
 would have been required to enable the Bank to 
 pay in specie. Probably two or three millions 
 only would have been sufficient, for the public 
 would very generally have preferred the use of 
 bank notes ; but if the whole system of prices, and 
 of credit and confidence should be suffered to break 
 up, a demand would thereby be occasioned for bul- 
 lion, which \vould otherwise never have existed 
 even for bank notes. A demand of this kind could 
 not have been supplied by the whole of Europe 
 without twenty years of notice and preparation. 
 
 It ought not to be forgotten, that almost all the 
 monied transactions of this country, at least ninety 
 nine in every hundred pound of them, take place 
 through the medium of debts and obligations, pay- 
 able at some future period, and when that period 
 arrives, they are discharged by Bills of Exchange, 
 which are themselves discharged when they fall 
 
65 
 
 due, by mutual exchanges and transfers between 
 each other. Thus the whole is a creation of the 
 mind, depending entirely upon moral circumstanc- 
 es of confidence and depression, which act as much 
 upon the creation of the debts and obligations, as 
 upon that of the Bills of Exchange which discharge 
 them. 
 
 In these considerations I leave entirely out of 
 the question the arguments of the Bullion Com- 
 mittee, who seemed to think that the depreciation 
 of currency was a mere depreciation of the bank 
 note compared with the guinea, and not a depre- 
 ciation of currency compared with property, and 
 who had some plausible foundation for their opini- 
 on in the relative currency value, which the guinea 
 and the bank note then bore. The fact was, 
 as many persons then contended, that the guinea 
 was acted upon by foreign circumstances, which 
 did not affect the bank note, and a variation was 
 thereby occasioned between their currency value, 
 which passed for the depreciation of the Bank 
 note. Since that period, those foreign circum- 
 stances have operated at times still stronger upon 
 that variation, and the guinea has occasionally 
 passed for twenty -two shillings to twenty-seven 
 or twenty-eight shillings in currency, until the 
 present time, when those foreign circumstances 
 having ceased to affect it, it is nov failea to about 
 
66 
 
 twenty-one shillings, whilst the system and the 
 modes of issuing bank notes have continued much 
 the same as before. 
 
 If any proof were necessary that the late high 
 price* of bullion were not occasioned by a depre- 
 ciation or redundant issue of bank notes, it may 
 be derived by observing the variation which took 
 place in those high prices, according as particular 
 foreign circumstances affected them. During the 
 years 1811, 1812 and 1813, when immense pur- 
 chases of bullion were made by Government, in or- 
 der to be converted into foreign coins, wherewith to 
 pay foreign subsidies, and when a considerable ex- 
 portation of guineas was occasioned by Buonaparte 
 opening his ports to sell grain for guineas, but not 
 for manufactures, and when we had occasion for 
 large quantities of bullion to maintain our armies 
 in Spain, and to purchase naval stores and various 
 other purposes, and when indeed all foreign ports 
 were shut against our manufactures, at that time, 
 the prices of bullion were so far advanced by these 
 circumstances, that the value of the guinea rose 
 to twenty-eight shillings, and that of the dollar to 
 six shillings in currency; but when the first Peace of 
 Paris, in 1814, put an end to these circumstances, 
 the prices of the guinea and the dollar immediately 
 fell down to twenty-two shillings and four shillings 
 and six-pence, and at those prices they continued 
 
67 
 
 until Buonaparte* 8 return from Elba, in the Spring 
 of 1815, by re-occasioning the former demand for 
 bullion, instantly raised the guinea to twenty- 
 seven shillings. I forget to what price the dollar 
 was then raised, but it is well known that immedi- 
 ately on the second Peace of Paris, in the Autumn 
 of 1815, the guinea and the dollar again fell to 
 par, or even under par, for I believe the guinea 
 is not now worth more than twenty shillings and 
 six-pence in currency, nor is the dollar worth more 
 than four shillings, which is twelve and a half per 
 cent under par. That -is to say, at present, eighty- 
 seven pounds ten shillings in bank notes will pur- 
 chase one hundred paimcb in silver. 
 
 During these fluctuations, however, the issue of 
 bank notes, and their legal powers, have continued 
 the same as before, which is sufficient proof that 
 they were not occasioned by any fall or rise in the 
 value of bank notes. 
 
 These fluctuations happening too at the particu- 
 lar periods when they did, is sufficient proof that 
 they were occasioned by the particular foreign 
 circumstances affecting those periods, which was 
 a fact well known and acknowledged by all the 
 bullion dealers in the kingdom. If no foreign cir- 
 cumstances had affected bullion it is more than pro- 
 bable that we should never have found any differ- 
 
68 
 
 ence, however temporary, in the currency value 
 of the guinea and bank note.* 
 
 The bank note and the guinea being clothed 
 \vith the same legal power, and being obtained by 
 the same assignments of command over property 
 became virtually the same object, and operated 
 
 * I remember a whole host of guinea buyers become busy in- 
 stantly on the landing of Buonaparte from Elba, and I knew 
 one who informed me then that he hail bought fifty thousand 
 guineas in a few weeks, at from twenty-two shillings to twenty,, 
 seven shillings, for a Jew broker in London. Indeed I think I 
 may say that all the Coachmen and Mail Guards in the kingdom 
 had a commission for this purpose, for they were all as busy as 
 humble bees in this ' laudable vocation." , 
 
 I had myself at the time a considerable quantity of those 
 things called guineas, and I was of course desirous of getting 
 twenty-seven shillings for them instead of twenty-one shillings* 
 but upon enquiry I found that it was FELONY to stll them for 
 more than twenty-one shillings ! My lawyer, however, gave me 
 some satisfaction by informing me that I might lawfully sell the 
 light ones for as much as I could get, and I accordingly sold 
 them for twenty -seven shillings each, and my heavy ones slum- 
 dered in my chest for a long time, very much to my inward dip- 
 satisfaction, until one of the buyers very kindly told me that I 
 might exchange the heavy ones for tight ones, and then sell 
 the light ones, which I accordingly did, and so assisted in putting 
 clown Buonaparte, at the same time that I put thirty per cent 
 into my own pocket! I merely mention this to show the futility 
 of those antiquated laws which interfere with individual right 
 >vithout useful object or effect, 
 
G9 
 
 jointly to the same purpose in supporting the cur- 
 rency or circulating system of the country. But 
 the bank note being an internal creation, and hav- 
 ing no metalic value, was not operated upon by 
 external circumstance, and consequently preserved 
 an equal currency value, whilst that of the guinea 
 has fluctuated from twenty-one shillings to twenty 
 eight shillings, and clown to twenty-one shillings 
 
 again. 
 
 The copper guinea, however, during this state of 
 things continued as much under par, as the golden 
 one had been above it, for I think it generally 
 passed for about fourteen or sixteen shillings in 
 currency. The diminished consumption of cop- 
 per, in the manufactories, or its diminished expor- 
 tation, or its redundant produce, had caused that 
 article to fall in currency value, whilst contrary 
 circumstances had caused gold to rise in about an 
 equal degree ; but if one of these circumstances 
 was to be taken as a proof that the bank note had 
 depreciated, the other might with full as much pro- 
 priety be assumed as a proof that it had increased 
 in value, for I believe that copper has formed a part 
 f the lawful coin of the realm about as long as gold. 
 The price of the silver guinea is now I believe not 
 more than eighteen shillings and six-pence in cur- 
 rency, and yet bank notes have been issued the 
 same as formerly. 
 
70 
 
 In short, if \ve would have a correct idea of the 
 nature of currency or money, we must consider it 
 principally as a creation of the mind, as a set of 
 terms and figures, invented and tacitly agreed upon 
 by society as the measures of comparative value, 
 but which society endeavours as far as possible, to 
 make subject to legal obligations. \\ hilst con- 
 fidence is high, society never thinks of exacting 
 these legal obligations, which is instanced by the 
 creation of currency to the amount of perhaps 
 Ten Thousand Millions Sterling per annum, withs 
 out the present agency of either guineas or bank 
 notes, but when depression succeeds to confidence, 
 alarm follows depression, and panic follows alarm, 
 until a general disposition is excited to exact their 
 fulfilment, although more gold would be required 
 for that purpose than perhaps exists in Europe. 
 
 It may be objected that an encreased issue of 
 bank notes would have raised the price of bullion 
 above par, and, consequently, that no payment in 
 specie could take place, whilst that was the case, 
 on account of the certainty of its being melted 
 down as soon as issued. But I contend that such 
 an issue would not have raised the price of bullion 
 above par. It would not have encreased the de- 
 mand for bullion. It would only have preserved 
 the demand for property and industry, which it 
 would have kept up at par, without raising bullion 
 
71 
 
 above par. Bullion was not raised above par 
 during the years 1S07, 1808, and 1809, when the 
 bank note circulation was large, and when the 
 amount of the general currency in circulation was 
 probably double what it is now. How, then, 
 could keeping up that currency, or the means of 
 its creation, at its former amount, have raised the 
 prices of bullion. It could not have been raised 
 much beyond par for any length of time, because 
 such addition of price would quickly have been 
 reduced by the importation of bullion which it 
 would have occasioned, in exchange for our manu- 
 factures, at a time when the whole of such import- 
 ation would have been applied in reduction of those 
 prices. No one would have sent guineas abroad 
 which had cost twenty-five shillings in England, 
 in order to sell them abroad for twenty-one shil- 
 lings ; and no one would have sent them abroad 
 at twenty-five shillings to the guinea, in order to 
 purchase foreign produce, when that foreign pro- 
 duce would have sold in England for only twenty- 
 one shillings to the guinea, whilst British manu- 
 factures might have been exported at par for the 
 same foreign produce. The exportation of guineas 
 would have involved a loss in British sterling of as 
 
 o 
 
 large a sum as the price of the guinea exceeded 
 par, and, consequently, no one could have export- 
 ed them, until their price in British sterling was 
 reduced to par, which would quickly have been 
 
7*2 
 
 the case, by the premium which the high price 
 would have given for its importation. In fact, the 
 premium upon the guinea would have constituted 
 a premium of exactly the same amount upon the 
 exportation of British manufactures in exchange 
 for bullion, and thus the price of the guinea would 
 have been quickly reduced. It is the legal power 
 of discharging debts which constitutes the main 
 value of both guinea and bank note, and as long 
 as their power in that respect continues equal, 
 their currency value will be equal, unless some fo- 
 reign circumstances affect the price of bullion. 
 Of course, these considerations apply only where 
 the foreign circumstances affecting bullion and ma- 
 nufactures are mutual, and not where the export- 
 ation of manufactures is virtually prohibited, whilst 
 the exportation of bullion is encouraged and forced 
 by the necessary importations of foreign produce. 
 
 It appears evident, therefore, that if an encreased 
 issue of bank notes had taken place three years ago, 
 whilst it would have had the effect of keeping up 
 the system of prices and of credits, it would not 
 have retarded the payment in specie, bnt rather 
 have facilitated it by diminishing the quantity of 
 specie which the public would have required. If 
 it should have been possible however for the bank- 
 potes to get into public discredit, (which 1 believe 
 was not possible whilst their issues were confined 
 
73 
 
 to such a system as should merely have kept up the 
 old state of prices,) their credit might have been 
 safely and effectually restored by disfranchising the 
 guinea, which being once deprived of its power as 
 a legal tender, would have left the bank note too 
 powerful to suffer any disparagement* 
 
 I ought to apologise for having wasted so much 
 observation upon specie, whilst I have little doubt 
 that most men of business will be of opinion that 
 the recurrence of payments in that article, so far 
 from being an object of any importance, is positive- 
 ly worth less than nothing. 
 
 I have stated in the " Remedy/' that the break- 
 ing up of the war relations between property and 
 money ; or, in other words, the reduction of that 
 state of prices which had become fixed during the 
 war, and had acted equally upon labour and pro- 
 perty of all kinds, is the main cause of our present 
 distresses. It may be proper to say a little more 
 upon this subject. , 
 
 If the ratio of prices so become fixed, had been 
 kept up by a little temporary addition to the bank 
 note circulation, the natural effects of the change 
 from war to peace, originating in the discharge of 
 soldiers, and other persons maintained by the 
 taxes, would scarcely have been felt ; because the 
 
 K 
 
74 
 
 4 
 
 capital expended through the medium of the taxes 
 would have passed directly into the hands of the 
 payers of taxes, without depressing the value of 
 their property, and thus the payers of taxes would 
 have taken up the new labourers, and have main- 
 tained them easily by the expenditure or employ- 
 ment of the new capital so placed at their disposal. 
 But the action upon currency not being relieved 
 by any assistance of this kind, depressed the value 
 of property generally, to the probable amount of 
 One Thousand or Fifteen Hundred Millions sterl- 
 ing, whilst the legal obligations, private and pub- 
 lic, which liad been charged upon that property , 
 continued the same ; thus confounding all the re- 
 lations of debtor and creditor, and not only disabl- 
 ing the capitalists from taking up the new labour- 
 ers, but absolutely compelling them to discharge 
 their former labou rers in immense numbers through- 
 out the whole country. 
 
 If the whole mass of the property of England was 
 valued at Four Thousand Millions sterling four 
 years ago, which is perhaps a moderate calculation 
 at the prices then established there has been a 
 loss of full One Thousand Millions sterling, sus- 
 tained by some persons or other, by the reduction 
 of prices in these four years; a loss, which was a 
 mere nominal or monied loss at the first, but which 
 has become a real loss in the end. But whilst this 
 
75 
 
 lo>>s has been sustained upon property, there has 
 been no diminution of the engagements or debts 
 to which ail property is more or less subjected. 
 Those debts have, in fact, nearly doubled in their 
 value in the meanwhile, and have given the creditor 
 generally the command of nearly double the pro- 
 perty which he ever advanced to the debtor. The 
 debtor has found his debts doubled whilst he has 
 been thinking that he was paying them off, and all 
 his efforts to accomplish that object have been in 
 vain, for they have grown under his exertions, and 
 have encreased faster than his exertions could re- 
 duce them. If they bore any considerable pro- 
 portion to his property at first, say one half or two 
 thirds, it would have been much better for him to 
 have relinquished the whole of his property to his 
 creditors three years ago ; for all his efforts to dis- 
 charge debts of that amount must generally have 
 proved in vain, and must now have left him no bet- 
 ter consolation than the conviction of having done 
 the most in his power for his creditors, without 
 the prospect of saving himself from bankruptcy 
 and ruin. 
 
 The situation of the nation, considered as a debt, 
 or, has been the same, and this is the true cause of 
 the pressure of taxes. The national debt, three 
 months ago, would have commanded double the 
 quantity of the good things of life that it uoukl 
 
76 
 
 have commanded four years ago, and yet while the 
 taxes thus became virtually doubled, the means of 
 the payers became diminished in the same propor- 
 tion. The payers of taxes had to contribute double 
 the quantity of good things of life in the shape of 
 taxes, whilst the amount of the good things of life 
 in their possession was diminished every day, by 
 the stagnation of industry, and the diminution of 
 production, which was occasioned by the same de- 
 pression of prices, which had occasioned the saine 
 doubling of the real amount of their taxes. 
 
 Here is the true cause of the pressure of taxes, 
 which does not lie in their nominal amount, but 
 in the action upon money, which has given a 
 quadruple weight to their operation. The real va- 
 lut of the taxes has been doubled, whilst the real 
 property of the nation has been diminished in 
 nearly the same degree. For three years the la- 
 bourers generally have not had more than one half 
 or two thirds of full work, arid thus the productive 
 powers of the country have been stagnant, whilst 
 its necessary consumption has been going on, and 
 whilst all the debts and engagements, both public 
 and private, have become virtually doubled. 1 hus 
 a nominal loss of One Thousand Millions sterling 
 has become a real loss of that enormous sum to the 
 nation. 1 do not hesitate to say, that whilst the 
 relations between property and money were fixed 
 
77 
 
 on the same scale as they were four years ago, there 
 was no difficulty at all in the payment of seventy 
 millions per annum in taxes. i\or do I hesitate to 
 assert, that the country could have horn to have 
 had those taxes raised to one hundred and forty 
 millions per annum in the last four years, with far 
 less injury than it lias born the action upon cur- 
 tency, or what is called the depression of prices. 
 
 But it may be said, how can the depression of 
 prices produce such an immense loss, when I, my- 
 self, allow that it is of no consequence upon what 
 terms the relations between property and money 
 are fixed, provided they are fixed and understood. 
 
 I have endeavoured to shew in the "Remedy" 
 that it is the action of this depression whilst in pro- 
 gress that creates the evil, and not the depression 
 itself when once fixed and understood. Whilst the 
 action is taking place the principles of production 
 are arrested; for since almost all the transactions of 
 life take place through the medium of debts or ob- 
 ligations, and more of them through that of cur- 
 rency or money invested with legal powers and 
 privileges, those transactions can no longer be car- 
 ried on when the legal responsibilties which the 
 production or purchase of property incurs, are 
 greater than that property will redeem when pro- 
 duced. 
 
78 
 
 When prices have only risen for a short time, 
 they may be reduced without injury, because they 
 have not operated upon the debts and obligations 
 under which property is held, nor upon the labour 
 and system under which it is obtained. Such a 
 rise of prices as this, is a mere monied profit into 
 the hands of the property holders whilst it con- 
 tinues, and when it falls, it occasions no loss to 
 the property holders, because the state of prices 
 only returns to what it was when their property was 
 obtained. Of course, there is nothing here to ar- 
 rest production and consumption, or to interfere 
 in any serious way with the prosperity of the count- 
 ry : but when prices fall after having been long 
 fixed and understood, and after having operated 
 upon all debts and obligations, and upon the 
 production and consumption of property, they 
 cannot be reduced without breaking up the chan- 
 nels and the systems through which society is sup- 
 ported, and without discharging the great body of 
 the labourers, and reducing the whole population 
 to a state of penury and distress. 
 
 If prices were to fall suddenly, and generally, 
 and equally, in all things, and if it was well under- 
 stood^ that the amount of debts and obligations were 
 to fall in the same proportion, at the same time, it is 
 possible that such a fall might take place without 
 arresting consumption and production, and in that 
 
79 
 
 case it would neither be injurious or beneficial in 
 any great degree, but when a fall of this kind takes 
 place in an obscure and unknown way, first upon 
 one article and then upon another, without any 
 correspondent fall taking place upon debts and 
 obligations, it has the effect of destroying all con- 
 fidence in property, and all inducements to its 
 production, or to the employment of labourers in 
 any way. 
 
 Many persons object, however, that the late high 
 prices, as they were called, were unnatural, and 
 could not exist without involving the necessity of 
 a reaction. Those persons say that it is necessary 
 to go back to the prices of 1791, and that the 
 sooner this is done the less painful it will be. The 
 idea is delusive. The late high prices were not 
 more unnatural than the former low prices. They 
 were not in reality higher in 1812, at eighteen 
 shillings per week for the wages of labour, than 
 they were at nine shillings per week in 1791, 
 or at one shilling per week five hundred years 
 before. They were not the consequence of di- 
 sease, but of health. They were merely the 
 developement of principles, which have been at 
 work from the beginning of our history, and which 
 will continue to be at work until our national 
 prosperity is no more. Those principles operate 
 naturally in all countries, as they encrease in 
 
so 
 
 riches, civilization, and science. Thus in England 
 the price of the bushel of wheat has risen regularly 
 from about six-pence per bushel in 1254, to se- 
 ven shillings per bushel in 179J, and so onward 
 to fourteen shillings per bushel in 1801 and 1811, 
 whilst at the same time the wages of labour rose 
 from about six-pence per week to eight shillings 
 in 1791, and to fifteen shillings and eighteen shil- 
 lings in 1811, It is just as easy and as reasonable 
 to go back to the prices of 1154 as to those of 
 1791, and if the one is beneficial, the other must 
 certainly be far more so. But there is no retrograde 
 in these kind of things, or if there is it is attended 
 not with utility and prosperity, but with misery 
 and ruin. Every thing is good that is fixed and 
 understood, or that encourages industry and pro- 
 duction, by encouraging confidence and consump- 
 tion. But industry and production are seriously 
 injured when the relations of property become 
 loose and unsettled, and still more so when those 
 relations are broken up, and settling upon lower 
 grounds. \\ hilst a reduction of this kind is taking 
 place, it is naturally attended with universal mi- 
 sery, and when it is effected, no good object is 
 accomplished, for all things have fallen in a simU, 
 lar degree, and society is only thrown back a feiv 
 years in order to re-advance with more effect on 
 the same road. So far from its being necessary to 
 go back, I contend that it was not possible to g@ 
 
81 
 
 back without involving us in a reaction, which 
 would ultimately hare the eifect of throwing us 
 mare forward on the same road. This is the 
 course of all nations on their advance from barba- 
 rism to civilization. 
 
 We Cannot go back to the use of bars and coins. 
 We cannot go back to the prices of 1154, of 1791, 
 nor if we could should we accomplish any thing 
 but our own ruin, by reducing the wages of labour 
 from fifteen shillings to fifteen-pence per week. 
 I wish to be fully understood. It is of no conse- 
 quence whether we pay fifteen shillings or fii'teeu 
 pounds per week to our labourers, provided the 
 system is once fixed and understood. It will have? 
 no injurious effect upon our commerce, our riches 
 or our happiness. It will only injure annuitants, 
 \\hoforma very small proportion of thecommunity. 
 But the wages of labour cannot be reduced from 
 fifteen shillings to ten shillings per weok, without 
 producing and being produced by the greatest 
 misery and distress to all classes of tire com muni tv, 
 and without exposing the vital interests of all to 
 serious danger, and the very annuitants themselves 
 to utter ruin. This is the situation of the country 
 now, whilsthundredsof thousandsof mechanical la- 
 bourers are absolutely perishing, and the whole of 
 the others are alienated from their comforts, their 
 
 affections and associations ; the invention of all U 
 
 K 
 
racked to discover the cause of so much unexpected 
 misery and distress, and it is not to be wondered 
 that a thousand visionary principles present them- 
 selves to distressed minds, whilst the real cause is 
 either too deep and secret for their observation, 
 or too much mortifies their pre-conceived notions 
 and prejudices to be believed or regarded. 
 
 If it is considered, however, that the prices of ag- 
 ricultural produce fell suddenly nearly one half in 
 their established value, and that this immense loss 
 amounting, perhaps, to One Hundred Millions 
 Sterling per annum, which was thus forcibly de- 
 ducted from the regular expenditure of the agri- 
 cultural interest, after driving the agricultural la- 
 bourers out of employment, w r ould fall ultimately 
 and entirely upon the consumption of manufact- 
 ures, we shall readily account for the extreme dis- 
 tress to which the manufacturers are rapidly verg- 
 ing, without having recourse to visionary notions 
 about Parliamentary Reform, or about Foreigners 
 depriving us of foreign markets for our goods. 
 The fact is, that the depression of prices has arrest- 
 ed the creation of currency, and the diminution 
 of currency has encreased the depression of prices ; 
 both principles have acted upon each other, and 
 whilst this fatal system has been in progress, the 
 only classes of society that can possibly have flou- 
 rished, have been the money-holders, or those who 
 
83 
 
 bad the good fortune to convert their property into 
 money a few years ago. The poor man has been 
 mocked with a fictitious plenty, and whilst his in- 
 dustry has been cramped, the stocks of the rich 
 have been exhausted and unrenewed, and thus 
 both are injured and endangered. What they have 
 mistaken for a redundance of produce, and for an 
 action upon property, has been purely a diminu- 
 tion of currency, and an action upon money. 1 he 
 contractive action of currency has appeared to be 
 an expansive action of property. 1 he delusion is 
 now past. It is now seen and acknowledged that 
 money has really risen in value, but that property 
 has not really fallen. It still costs the same quan- 
 tity of the good tilings of life to produce or obtain 
 property as formerly, but it takes far more of those 
 good things to obtain money. Money has, there- 
 fore, risen in value ; it commands a greater pro- 
 portion of the good things of life than formerly, 
 but it is its own diminution in quantity which is 
 the cause of this, and not the encrease of the good 
 things of life. Were it the encrease of these good 
 things which has occasioned the fall in their mo- 
 nied value, the public would have had so much the 
 more money in their pockets, after having pur- 
 chased the usual articles of their consumption, but 
 so far from this being the case, the public have 
 not the money wherewithal to purchase their usual 
 good things, or to support existence, even at ihe 
 
84 
 
 reduced prices. What they mistook for a plentj 
 of property, was a scarcity of money, and their 
 sufferings have scarcely roused them from this de- 
 lusion, before the diminished production of pro- 
 perty produces a reaction of prices, which cruelly 
 aggravates their sufferings. When wheat was sold 
 a few months ago at seven shillings per bushel, 
 1 have no doubt that it was then dearer to the la- 
 bourer than it was at fifteen shillings per bushel 
 four years ago; because the labourer could then 
 gain more than doable the money that he can gain 
 now. The bad harvest bus row given an action 
 to principles which have been at work for three or 
 four years, and the price of wheat is no~.7 raised to 
 seventeen shillings per bushel, which is dearer to 
 the poor man, taken generally, than it would have 
 been at forty shillings four years ago. If the price 
 of wheat had never been suffered to fall below 
 fifteen shillings, there would not have been a poor 
 man in the kingdom out of employment, and his 
 wages would have varied from fifteen shillings to 
 fifty shillings per week. But the temporary re- 
 duction of the fixed prices of the war, from fourteen 
 shillings to seven shillings, has broke up the sourc- 
 es of the poor man's prosperity, who found that the 
 seven shillings was far more difficult for him to ob- 
 tain than the fifteen shillings was formerly, and 
 when he thought his sufferings were at their height, 
 they were suddenly doubled by the natural recur- 
 
85 
 
 rence of high prices, which take place upon agri- 
 cultural produce a year or two before they begin 
 to act in raising his wages accordingly. 
 
 We now look for our stocks and we look in vain. 
 Those stocks have been exhausted in producing the 
 very evils that we now suffer, and we have no hope 
 left but in stimulating the circulation and in en- 
 couraging importations of grain from all foreign 
 parts. It may be objected that the late temporary 
 reduction of one hundred millions per annum, in 
 the value of agricultural produce is not sufficient 
 to account for the present depression of trade. 
 If properly considered it is fully sufficient, for the 
 whole of it or nearly so, would be taken from the 
 consumption of manufactures. The landlords, the 
 farmers, and the agricultural labourers, being 
 obliged to reduce their expenditure one hundred 
 millions psr annum, will not eat much less of their 
 own produce than usual. The growth of agricul- 
 ture is not a produce to be dispensed with. But 
 they will cease to purchase new manufactures, and 
 they will wear their old ones, or they will contrive 
 to do without them for awhile, but they cannot do 
 without agricultural produce. They will also do 
 without foreign wines, and other luxuries, w ; hich 
 are only obtained in England by the foreign sale 
 of English manufactures. It is therefore clear that 
 the internal consumption of manufactured goods 
 
86 
 
 must have fallen off one hundred millions per an- 
 num or thereabouts, until the prices of these ma- 
 nufactures should have been reduced within the 
 limited means of the agricultural interest, or until 
 the prices and confidence of agriculture should 
 have revertedto their former level. The total loss of 
 all our foreign trade, would not have affected the 
 country to one fifth of this amount, not even if all 
 foreign countries had been swallowed up in the 
 sea.* 
 
 * Many persons have been in the habit of saying that our 
 distresses are owing greatly to the loss of the foreign trade which 
 \ve possessed during the war. They say that during the war, we 
 had all the trade of the world, but that now the Americans con- 
 tend with us and divide it with us. What are the facts ? During 
 the war we had not so much foreign trade as we have had since* 
 The carrying trade was a perfect trifle at the bet-r. Almost 
 all foreign countries were shut to our commerce, but we had an 
 immense internal commerce, and the demand which we presented 
 for foreign articles still occasioned foreign nations to buy our 
 manufactures in a limited way. And what is the fact with res- 
 pect to America? She has not contended with us in peace nor 
 injured us at all. She is suffering under the very same calamity 
 which afflicts ourselves, and but that the division of labour is not 
 carried to the same extent there as it is here, her distresses would 
 be, at this moment, nearly as great as our own. The depression 
 of the price of ships for instance, in the United States is as great 
 as it is in England, and as ruinous to the ship-owners, and build- 
 ers, and all their dependants. A ship that four years ago, would 
 have cost in Philadelphia forty thousand dollars, will not now sell 
 for ten thousand. There is nothing worse than this in England. 
 How then can the American shipping have injured us. America is 
 
87 
 
 But the foreign export was last year, 1815, greater 
 than ever it hasbeen before. The sudden opening of 
 the foreign ports, combined with the revulsion of 
 the home consumption, occasioned an immense 
 exportation of manufactures, which have never 
 yet been paid for, and never will ; because the 
 same internal impoverishment which forced out this 
 immense export, prevented foreign nations from 
 being enabled to pay us for even our usual export. 
 
 injured like ourselves, purely by an action upon currency, 
 and is now foolishly encreasing her own sufferings by encreasing 
 the very evil under which she suffers ; that is to say, by endea- 
 vouring to restore the former property value of currency. She 
 has had many Bank Restriction Acts, and has stimulated the 
 creation of currency, and encouraged and forced her national 
 prosperity even more than we have, and now she is overthrow- 
 ing all, by endeavouring to go back to the point from which 
 she started, in substituting a metalic for a paper currency. 
 
 The frogs in the fable had lived happily and prosperously un- 
 der their king Log, and yet they were not contented until Jupi- 
 ter sent them a Stork for their king. 
 
 So these Americans have flourished and encreased under their 
 paper system more than any other nation recorded in history, 
 and yet they are not contented, but, they must have recourse 
 to payment in specie ! 
 
 The STORK will teach them wisdom. It will not be long before 
 they will recall their old friend Log, and it is probable they will 
 never part with him again. Then they will be able to consume 
 ur manufactures and to pay for them as heretofore. 
 
88 
 
 The country has no longer supplied the same con- 
 sumption of foreign wines, teas, sugar, and other 
 foreign luxuries, which she formerly supplied, and 
 whatever has been substracted from this consump- 
 tion of foreign luxuries, has been deducted from 
 the foreign export of British manufactures, or at 
 least from that part of them which can ever be 
 paid for, and thus the reduction of prices, whilst 
 it has prevented foreign nations from being ena- 
 bled to pay us for the usual amount of our exports, 
 has forced out an unusual amount of those exports, 
 in order to regurgitate misery and ruin upon the 
 exporters and their creditors. 
 
 These exports, however, had the effect of keep- 
 ing up the spirits and the nominal prosperity of 
 the manufacturers, a few months longer than would 
 otherwise have been the case, but after awhile it 
 was found that the exports might as well have been 
 cast into the sea, for neither principal or inte- 
 rest have ever returned. The manufacturers and 
 merchants being thus impoverished, are also oblig- 
 ed to reduce their expenditure, and they also very 
 naturally reduce it principally in manufactured 
 goods, and in the foreign articles for which those 
 goods are exchanged, without materially reduc- 
 ing their consumption of agricultural produce. 
 Thus nearly the whole of the One Hundred Mil- 
 lions per annum, which had been lost by the agri- 
 
89 
 
 cultural interest, falls ultimately upon the manu- 
 facturing and commercial interest, and sufficiently 
 accounts for the state of distress into which this lat- 
 ter has fallen, at a time when the agricultural inte- 
 rest has entered upon a rapid and rigorous reaction. 
 
 This view of the subject will be confirmed by 
 considering that according to the reports made to 
 House of Commons, the population of England 
 consists one half of agricultural individuals, and 
 the other half of manufacturing, mercantile, and 
 professional individuals. Of course one half of 
 the produce of agriculture is consumed by the 
 manufacturers, and one half of the produce of 
 manufacturers is consumed by the agricultura- 
 lists. Now one half of the income of agriculture 
 being thus expended in the consumption of manu- 
 factured goods, it is clear that upon that income 
 being reduced one half, the dificiency of expen- 
 diture must be felt somewhere, and the reasons 
 which I have before urged respecting the relative 
 nature of agricultural and manufactured produce, 
 render it sufficiently evident that it will be felt 
 ultimately more severely upon mannfactures than 
 upon agriculture. 
 
 It may be asked, "How is the money created 
 "to enable the farmer and manufacturer to pay 
 "the former high prices for each other's produce? 
 I answer, the money creates itself, and exists ac- 
 
90 
 
 cording to the state of prices which exists. The 
 fanner consuming one half of the manufacturer's 
 produce, and the manufacturer consuming one 
 half of the farmer's produce, each is enabled to 
 pay the price required, by the price he obtains, 
 in fact, the whole becomes merely a barter which 
 is effected by means of certain terms or figures 
 called money and which are only useful in forming 
 certain relations between different kinds of pro- 
 perty, which the different parties may understand> 
 and upon which they may act with confidence. 
 Thus one half of the produce of each being con- 
 sumed by each, the other half of the produce of 
 each is consumed within itself, and no difficulty is 
 experienced in effecting the mutual exchanges, as 
 as long as nothing happens to break up the relati- 
 ons nnder which they are effected; that is to say, 
 to reduce the state of prices of either agricultural 
 or manufactured produce, which necessarily in- 
 volves a correspondent reduction in the other.* 
 
 * It may be asked, " But how can you make a DEMAND ? 
 ** the state of prices depends upon the demand which the mar- 
 ** kets afford. " I answer, the general rise of prices creates a 
 general demand in all trades, by the general reward that it 
 affords. A thousand trades being once set in activity by the 
 rise of prices, which an addition-nil issue of money must either 
 occasion or remain unemployed, the consequence is, that they 
 necessarily produce a correspondent demand for the goods of 
 
91 
 
 I dwell the more upon this part of the sub- 
 ject because it is an object of importance to 
 the happiness of the country, to understand 
 that any depression of the prices of agricultural 
 produce which have once become fixed, will cer- 
 tainly prove more injurious to the manufacturers 
 and mechanics than to the farmers and agricul- 
 tural labourers. Not that I mean to contend that 
 any rise in the prices of agricultural produce is 
 beneficial, nor that any fall is injurious, whfn 
 the rise or fall takes place from relations which 
 have been merely temporary, but I mean to con- 
 tend that no breaking up of the fixed and perma- 
 nent prices of agricultural produce, of those prices 
 that have had time to act upon trade, can take 
 place without injuring trade and without injuring 
 the prosperity of all classes of the community. 
 
 each other. The rise of prices created generally upon property 
 by the issue of money, acts generally upon all kinds of traces, 
 and thus a thousand trades being set in an accelerated motion, 
 the additional production of one is consumed by the encreased 
 means of consumption of the nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 others, creating an ample demand for the productions of each ; 
 which is also continually encreased by the necessary activity of 
 the money so issued, until that money is withdrawn fiom the 
 markets, which it ought never to be, unless the state of the 
 currency has previously acquired a sufficient consistency to 
 Maintain the relations between property and money without it. 
 
02 
 
 If it is yet doubted that the depression of agricul- 
 tural prices, however occasioned, is the main cause 
 of our present distresses ; I will take another mode 
 of illustrating it, from the many which croud 
 upon my mind. It is well known that the usual 
 way of calculating produce among farmers, has 
 been to reckon it equal to four rents, that is to say, 
 that the produce of the farm must sell for four 
 times the amount of the rent, in rder to enable 
 the farmer to exist, The way in which it has 
 been usual to reckon these four parts divided, is 
 one to the landlord, one to the farmer, one to the 
 labourer, and one for the taxes and rates. Now 
 in this way of reckoning, when the price of wheat 
 had long been fixed at about fifteen shillings per 
 bushel, it gave three shillings and nine-pence each 
 to the four above-mentioned purposes. But when 
 the price of wheat suddenly fell to five shillings and 
 seven shillings and six-pence, the necessary conse- 
 quence must be, either to reduce the portion ofeach 
 to one shilling and ten-pence half-penny, or to re- 
 duce the portion of some two or three of the shares 
 in a greater proportion. The taxes and rates, how 
 ever, where obligatory and coercive and could not 
 be escaped or diminished, in anyway, in less than 
 two or three years, and probably not in that time, 
 nor ever when taken off could they revert into the 
 pocket of the farmer in less than two or three years 
 more, as I have shewn in the observations respect- 
 
93 
 
 ing taxes. There was therefore no diminution in the 
 proportion of three shillings and nine-pence ap- 
 propriated to taxes and levies, out of the fifteen 
 shillings at which the bushel of wheat had been 
 accustomed to sell. The whole of the reduction 
 of seven shillings and six-pence per bushel must; 
 therefore, have fallen vipon the other three parts 
 or proportions. For these three parts, the reduc- 
 tion of price to seven shillings and six-pence per 
 bushel, left but three shillings and nine-pence to 
 divided among them all, which is but one shilling 
 and three-pence each instead of three shillings 
 and nine-pence each. It is evident that the agri- 
 cultural labourer could npt have supported his 
 existence upon a sudden reduction of this kind, and 
 to this amount, nor indeed has he been called upon 
 to make it, but by the operation of the greatest mi- 
 sery and laceration of mind it is probable that his 
 proportion has been reduced one half, that is to 
 say, from three shillings and nine-pence to one 
 shilling and tenpence halfpenny, which is about 
 the reduction which has taken place in the real 
 value of his labour. Now if we add this one shil- 
 ling and tenpence halfpenny, which the agricultu- 
 ral labourer still continued to receive from the 
 the price of a bushel of wheat, to the three shillings 
 and nine-pence, which still continued to be appro- 
 priated to taxes and rates, it amounted to five shil^ 
 lings and seven-pence halfpenny, and left one 
 
94 
 
 shilling and ten-pence half-penny to be divided be- 
 tween the landlord and the farmer, and to make 
 up the reduced price of seven shillings and six- 
 pence to which the bushel of wheat fell* 
 
 If -ye consider on the one hand the obligatory 
 character of rent, the generality of leases, and the 
 considerable capitals which must generally have 
 been possessed by the farmers, and on the other, 
 the extreme difficulty of drawing rent out of the 
 farmer's capital, when his prices will no longer 
 afford it, and the great number of poor farmers, 
 and of rack rents, and other circumstances of a si- 
 milar kind, *re shall probably not be much in er- 
 ror, if we consider this remaining sum of one shil- 
 ling and ten-pence halfpenny to have been divided 
 pretty equally between the farmer and the landlord, 
 leaving eleven-pence farthing each, instead of three 
 shillings and nine-pence, as the contribution which 
 they must have latterly been in the habit of receiv- 
 ing from every bushel of wheat that has been 
 grown. Thus a loss has been sustained of one shil- 
 ling and ten-pence halfpenny to the labourer, and 
 of two shillings and nine-pence three farthings 
 each, to the farmer and the landlord, making in 
 all seven shillings and six-pence, which was the 
 whole loss sustained by the Agricultural Interest, 
 on the fall of the price of wheat from fifteen shil- 
 lings to seven shillings and six-pence per bushel. 
 
95 
 
 Now upon what branches of human expenditure 
 will this loss so divided ultimately fall ? It is clear 
 that the labourer will not eat a great deal less than 
 formerly ; for if he does he must perish ; the whole 
 of his loss will, therefore, shew itself in crippling 
 the comforts of his humble cottage, and in con- 
 tracting his moderate purchases of manufactured 
 goods, purchases which are indeed moderate when 
 considered separately, but which, like grains of 
 sand forming the earth, make an immense con_ 
 sumption of manufactures when considered in the 
 aggregate. 
 
 But If this view of the subject holds good with 
 respect to the labourer, it is far stronger with res- 
 pect to the farmer and the landlord, who are botli 
 acted upon by the same principles, and whose ex- 
 penditure, in fact, forms the sole foundation of the 
 existence of the manufacturers and mechanics. 
 The farmer and the landlord and all their servants 
 and immediate dependants will still eat and drink 
 pretty much the same as before, but they will ne- 
 cessarily cease to purchase manufactured goods, 
 and to consume those wines and other foreign lux- 
 uries, for which alone the manufactures are ex- 
 changed abroad. Thus the whole loss of seyen 
 shillings and sixpence per bushel upon wheat, or 
 of One Hundred Millions Sterling per annum, 
 after pressing most severely upon the landlord,, the 
 
96 
 
 farmer, and the agricultural labourer, falls ulti- 
 mately and certainly upon the commercial interest, 
 and crushes the merchants, manufacturers, and 
 mechanical labourers in its fall. Here is the 
 mighty evil which has torn out the vitals of English 
 prosperity, which after lacerating, ruining, de- 
 stroying the farmer, now commences its natural, 
 but most cruel reaction, and tortures and agonizes 
 the mechanic, and grinds him into the earth. !t 
 is this terrible calamity that has covered England 
 with poverty and distress, that has broken up the 
 comforts of twenty thousand villages, whose exis- 
 tance depended upon the agricultural consumption 
 of their manufactures, and has even destroyed the 
 prosperity of the great manufacturing and com- 
 mercial towns, of the great depots of foreign com- 
 merce, by destroying the foudations upon which 
 all foreign commerce depends ! * 
 
 * The great towns that represent the manufacturing interest 
 in influencing the legislature on the subject of manufactures, 
 seem to have entirely overlooked the coblers, and tinkers, and 
 taylors, and blacksmiths, and other humble artificers, who live 
 by the direct expenditure of the agricultural part of the com- 
 munity, in every corner of the kingdom, and who if they were 
 collected together would form an immense multitude in the 
 aggregate. What have these honest men done that they should 
 be forgotten ? They may be said to be as ranch the servants, 
 and as much dependant upon the prosperity of the farmer, as 
 his thresher or plough boy. These poor mechanics are the first 
 
97 
 
 Many persons seem to think that if foreign na* 
 tions would take One Hundred Millions of our 
 manufactures, it would be possible for us to get 
 paid for them, although we should import only 
 ten millions of produce in return. The fact is im- 
 possible. The same quantity of British Currency 
 which is consumed in the produce of manufact- 
 ures for foreign exportation, must be produced by 
 the sale of the foreign importations in England, or 
 the difference will never be paid for at all, and of 
 course, such excess of the exports cannot be long 
 continued. It is of no use to say that foreign na- 
 tions will pay us in bullion.* Foreign nationshave 
 
 to suffer by the ruin of their employer, who if he can rro longer 
 afford to maintain them as labourers, Is yet obliged to maintain 
 them as paupers, until he becomes a pauper himself, which is 
 quickly the case. 
 
 *I often hear people talking about forming Commercial Trca* 
 ties, and about the necessity of seeking foreign markets for oup 
 manufactures, as if we had some great gain in these kind of 
 things, and as if they were some of the easiest tilings in the 
 world. Heaven and earth ! Does the prosperity of England 
 rest upon the patronage of foreigners'. What a shop-ketpirg 
 notion is this ! Do we not give to foreigners as much sis they gi ,e 
 to us? What then have we to gain from them? "lean call spir- 
 its from the vasty deep," says Owen Glendower. " But will 
 they come when thou dost call them," says Hotspur. So I would 
 ask our politicians who instruct us so cheaply in the laws tht 
 govern human affairs. ** Will foreign nations pay for our 
 fuctures when we have exported them ?" 
 
 M 
 
9$ 
 
 not the bullion to spare, and if they had, it would 
 be re-exported from England in the place of Brit- 
 ish manufactures, in exchange for foreign imports, 
 
 It seems never to have entered into their heads that it was ne- 
 cessary for f -..reign nations to pay us for our goods when they 
 have tiot them. We have proof enough that they will gladly 
 take them, for they have suffered us to inundate all the markets 
 in the world, to our own ruin, but we shall wait till Doomsday 
 before they will ever pay us ! 
 
 *'Oh yes ; they can pay us very well if you will let us have their 
 Corn/' What, will you have thtir Corn and the English farmer's 
 too ? Or will you sell the same goods twice over, first to the 
 English farmer, and then to the French farmer? For every 
 bushel of wheat that the English fanner sells you at fifteen shil- 
 lings, he pays you in return just fifteen shillings for your manu- 
 factures. Will the French farmersell you wheat at seven shillings 
 and take in return fifteen shillings worth of your manufactures, 
 and if he does, what will you gain by that ? Or do you think 
 that he will realty give you his bushel of wheat for half the quan_ 
 tity of your manufactures which the English farmer takes ? Do 
 Tou not see that if you get W'heat cheap your manufactures 
 must necessarily be sold cheap also ? Or perhaps you think that 
 the French farmer will sell you grain at a low price, and at the 
 same time buy your mannfactures at a high price, and so you 
 will have a great balance to rereive ! or probably the French far- 
 mer will be content with half the manufactures that the English 
 farmer requires, and so leave you at liberty to send the other 
 balf to South America, or El Dorado, or to the Great South 
 Sea! Upon my word! I never thought of this! This is 
 fine reasoning indeed ! But I will give you the benefit of it 
 all. Let us leave the English farmer to shift for himself* 
 
99 
 
 as soon as ever its price was so far reduced as to 
 make it answer the purpo.se of the merchants to 
 export it; and even if it should not be exported, 
 it would have no other effect than that of contrib- 
 uting to the depreciation of currency, which is an 
 object that might be just as well effected by bank 
 notes. 
 
 If 1 am rightly informed, when the dollar was 
 lately at its pur of four shillings and six-pence, in 
 
 and let him eat and drink as much of his own produce as he 
 pleases, and let him sell the rest in exchange for such ma- 
 nufactures as he wants wherever he thinks proper, and I will 
 answer with my life that you shall soon come to him again, and 
 humbly implore of him that he will chop and change with you 
 on the same terms as before ! You will sooa find that the fanner 
 has as much ingenuity as yourselves, and that he is as far before 
 other nations in the manufacture of Wheat and Barley, and Beef 
 and Mutton, as you are in the manufacture of' Luces and Button*, 
 or any other kind of soft or hard goods, 
 
 You will please to recollect that he has just as good a right to 
 use foreign Manufactures as you have to consume foreign Coin. 
 And that if the foreign farmer is to have the same taxes and poor 
 rates charged upon his corn that the English farmer has, his 
 corn Will not be found quite so cheap as at first sight it may ap- 
 pear, and if he sends it into this country unincumbered wiih 
 those charges, you will also please to recollect that they will 
 then be all to be paid out of your owa pockets ! Or if you could 
 even fall prices as low, and sell your manufactures to foreigners at 
 as cheap a nominal price as your hearts ':ould wish, yet you would 
 
100 
 
 New York, it brought six shillings in England, and 
 of course large payments from America were then 
 made to England in dollars, but the course of trade 
 has since changed, and the price of the dollar has 
 risen in New York, at one time to five shillings and 
 six-pence, whilst it has been reduced in England 
 to about four shillings. The former of these cir- 
 cumstances operated as a premium upon British 
 exports, and the latter as a drawback upon these 
 exports. The rate of exchange upon Bills between 
 America and England, presented similar features, 
 at one period, producing a premium, and at the 
 other a discount upon exports of British manu- 
 factures, which 1 have stated more fully in the 
 " Remedy." 
 
 It is thus that the Exports and imports of all 
 countries regulate and equalize themselves. Tem- 
 porary inequalities may arise from temporary 
 causes, but these inequalities cannot become per- 
 manent, because tliev carry with them the princi- 
 ples of their own reduction. 
 
 It is of no use to say, that the carrying trade is 
 certainly beneficial, and that Venice, and Genoa, 
 
 even then be enabled to pay foreign nations owty a correspond- 
 ing low price for their produce which you take in payment for 
 your manufactures, so that you would be just where you were 
 before, and the thing would be just as broad as it is long. 
 
101 
 
 and other small States rose into opulence by its in- 
 fluence. There is no doubt that the carrying trade 
 is beneficial, like other trades, and that persons re- 
 siding in Venice and Genoa, realized large capitals 
 by trading between foreign countries, which ca- 
 pitals they gradually invested in their native places^ 
 But the remittance of those capitals could only be 
 made in two ways, viz. by importations of goods 
 or of bullion. If made in the former way, they 
 would have had the effect of preventing other im- 
 portations of a similar kind, which would other- 
 wise have been made ; and thus still the exports 
 and imports would have been equalized, and if 
 made in bullion, they would have had no other ef- 
 fect than that of encreasing the depreciation of 
 money, which would have been just as well effect- 
 ed by issues of paper ; or if the bullion had been 
 re-exported for goods, that re-exportation of bul- 
 lion would have prevented the exportation of an 
 equal amount of produce, and thus again the ex- 
 ports and imports would have been equalized. 
 
 But in truth it is a mistake, to attribute much of the 
 wealth of the commercial states to their carrying 
 trade, or indeed to any kind of foreign trade. A more 
 probable cause was the early institution of Banks 
 which brought dormant capitals into action, and 
 promoted an early depreciation of money.* Their 
 
 * I ought probably to have enlarged upon the benefits of a 
 gradual and general depreciation of money. It is certain that 
 
102 
 
 tvealth originated 4 in the active, industrious, aiul 
 intelligent character of their population, and would 
 
 society may flourish uponjfaerf relations, between property and 
 money ; but it is also certain, that it will flourish still more, that 
 is to say, the population will encrease faster and be better pro- 
 vided for, as long as those relations are varying in favour of pro- 
 perty, by the gradual depreciation of money. By this means, 
 the continued production of all trades is promoted and encreused* 
 and the necessary consumption of all trades, and the general 
 prosperity of the country, is end-eased accordingly. The great 
 object of currency legislation should therefore be, to secure 
 and promote this gradual depreciation, and to arrest any 
 sudden changes to which it may naturally be exposed ; and when 
 once this system, was fully understood, it would be attended with 
 no injustice to annuitants, because they would realize their pecu- 
 niary accumulations, subject to the rate of depreciation which 
 they knew to be existing. I do not know that it would be de- 
 sis able to promote any very rapid depreciation of money, because 
 that would involve difficulties respecting annuitants, and might 
 have the effect of exciting, too strongly, the human mind; but a 
 gradual and general depreciation, would naturally have the effect 
 of continuing the stability of general transactions, and of promot- 
 ing a healthy and vigorous activity in the different channels of 
 commercial and agricultural industry, which would materially 
 promote the riches and the happiness, the population and 
 power, of the country. Thus, the wages of the labourer might 
 be beneficially encreased to probably ten pounds per week in the 
 course of the present century, and to tweuty pounds, or one 
 hundred pounds per week in the course of the next century ; 
 and to any other extent that the convenience and interest of 
 the public should require. 
 
 It is certain that this would promote the real comforts of the 
 labourers. If this be doubted, let the situation of the labourer* 
 
103 
 
 have been just as great without any foreign trade, 
 provided their mental qualities could have been 
 equally excited, and their country had been suf- 
 ficiently extensive to maintain them. As far as 
 foreign trade may expand and stimulate the mind, 
 by luxurious gratification, or by the collission 
 with foreign manners and scenes, 1 am prepared to 
 allow that it may encrease the wealth of a nation ; 
 but, excepting in this respect, I cannot perceive 
 that foreign trade has any effect whatever, in either 
 encreasing or diminishing the general trade of a 
 nation. 
 
 The Venetians and Genoese did not fall by th 
 loss of their carrying trade ; but they fell from the 
 natural change which took place in their own 
 minds ; and the loss of their foreign trade was a con- 
 sequence not a cause of their fall. When they be- 
 came too indolent and prodigal to carry on any 
 business with success, their foreign trade left them, 
 simultaneously with their home trade. The former 
 fell into the hands of more frugal and industrious 
 competitors, and the latter ceased to exist. 
 
 in those trades where low prices are obtained, be compared with 
 that of those where high prices are obtained, and it vriii readily 
 be seen, that the labourers certainly and largely purtake of the 
 prosperity of their employers. 
 
104 
 
 If the Venetians had retained their energy, their li- 
 berty, their prudence, their frugality, and industry, 
 they would have retained and encreased their wealth 
 and prosperity, whether they retained their carrying 
 trade or not. Foreign trade was however to a certain 
 extent, necessary for them, on account of the small 
 extent of their country, which could not have pro- 
 vided them the necessaries of life. The effect of 
 foreign trade upon them was, therefore, to employ 
 a great part of their population in the manufactur- 
 ing of goods for foreign consumption, and in the 
 navigation of shipping for the service of other 
 countries, in order to employ a similar quantity of 
 foreigners abroad, in the production of agricul- 
 tural articles for their home consumption. But it 
 is clear that the Venetians would have been still 
 richer and stronger than they were, if the nature 
 of their country had enabled them to supply the 
 whole of their agricultural and manufactured arti- 
 cles among themselves. They would then have 
 had no foreign trade, for all would have been con- 
 verted into home trade ; but the amount of their 
 foreign trade, thus converted into* home trade, 
 would evidently have become double what it was, 
 for it would have comprised within their own 
 country, the production and consumption of both 
 exports and imports. 
 
 I cannot help saying a few words more on the 
 subject of economy and retrenchment, public and 
 
10,5 
 
 private. I insist that all attempts at either, for the 
 present, will materially encrease our distresses, with- 
 out the possibility of relieving them in any way ; 
 unless an expansive action upon currency is pre- 
 v iously promoted. I do not speak of family eco- 
 nomy in the use of bread, which being now at too 
 high a price, maybe saved with much benefit to 
 the public, but I speak of a general diminution 
 of family expenditure, and of Government expen- 
 diture. The Newspapers are perpetually recom- 
 mending both as great means of relief to the coun- 
 try. Let us suppose, now, that the whole dp the 
 capitalists of the country should come to a resolu- 
 tion of acting upon this advice, and should accord- 
 ingly all of them agree to diminish their expencfs 
 one half. It is the whole of their expenditure 
 which at present constitutes the whole trade, and 
 maintains the whole population of the country, 
 and of course if that expenditure should be dimin- 
 ished one half, one half of the population would pe- 
 rish, or be driven abroad. It is in vain to seek after 
 visionary means of relief. All relief is in vain that 
 has not the effect of keeping up family expendi- 
 ture, or of encreasing national expenditure to an 
 equal amount. Every shilling that is substracted 
 from family expenditure, is substracted from the 
 maintenance of the poor, who must perish when 
 the rich cease to dispense their capital in their 
 usual way. Not only would aa additional climi- 
 
 M 
 
106 
 
 nation of family expenditure encrease the miseries 
 of the poor, but it would also encrease the impover- 
 ishment of the rich, instead of encreasing their pro- 
 perty. The diminution of industry and produc- 
 tion, which would be the consequence of such a 
 diminution of consumption, would diminish the 
 capital of the capitalist, rather faster than his re- 
 trenchment encreased it. His necessities would 
 grow with his exertions to reduce them ; and if he 
 should have the folly to persevere in this system 
 long, he would soon find poverty left him in the 
 place of riches, and would be obliged to cultivate 
 his own fields, and to bear there those miseries and 
 privations from which death had relieved his unfor- 
 tunate labourers. This would be the inevitable 
 consequence of any general and persevering system 
 of retrenchment in family expenditure, but it would 
 of course be different if adopted only by a few 
 families, who. by such timely economy, would be 
 enabled to throw upon their country an additional 
 share of those difficulties which ought equally to 
 be borne by all, but the whole country making the 
 same efforts at the same time, would prevent any 
 individual from experiencing the benefit of them. 
 It may beset down as a rule that all family re- 
 trenchment is injurious to the country, unless it 
 takes place only upon articles of which there is an 
 absolute scarcity, and a retrenchment in those 
 articles would tend to bring their prices more 
 
107 
 
 within the reach of the poor, without throwing 
 any of the poor out of employment, and without 
 materially arresting the creation of the articles in 
 question, but any retrenchment in articles that 
 are not sold at a much higher price than they have 
 cost, ean have no effects but those of throwing the 
 poor out of employment, and of reducing the 
 rich to the situation of the poor. 
 
 The same arguments hold good against national 
 retrenchment. It cannot take place suddenly or 
 generally, without producing far greater evils than 
 it relieves. In the first place, the diminished ex- 
 penditure throws hundreds of thousands of labour- 
 ers, and artificers of all kinds, out of employment, 
 who cannot find employment in other channels, 
 unless the state of production and consumption 
 is so free as to furnish a demand for them ; and in 
 the next place, the action upon currency, and the 
 depression of prices, occasioned by the removal of 
 taxes, obliges the capitalists to discharge their pre- 
 sent labourers and mechanics, instead of being en- 
 abled to give employment to those hundreds of 
 thousands of others, who are discharged by the ces- 
 sation of the expenditure of the taxes. It is, there- 
 fore, clear that the sudden reduction of taxes is 
 productive of far more evil than good, and ought 
 not to be attempted, without proper measures hav- 
 ing first been taken to counteract the depression of 
 
108 
 
 prices which is its consequence, and to stimulate 
 the circulating system sufficiently, to give employ- 
 ment to the labourers, artificers, and soldiers, 
 who are thereby discharged, until the returning 
 of the capital from those taxes into family expen- 
 diture, shall have had time to provide employment 
 for them in other channels. Unless measures of 
 this kind are previously taken, the call for reduc- 
 tion and retrenchment of taxes, if acceded to, will 
 be the cause of en creasing the general distress.* 
 
 o O 
 
 The rich will precipitate their own impoverish- 
 ment, and the poor their own rain, 
 
 * I have endeavoured to show in the ^ Remedy, 7 ' that the im- 
 position of taxes, naturally raises the monied prices of property; 
 or, in other words, encreases the depreciation of money ; and 
 that the removal of taxes depresses those prices, in at least an 
 equal degree, and has thus the effect of shaking confidence in 
 property, and of checking the disposition to produce it, although 
 the welfare of society depends upon its production. This rise 
 or fall in prices too is not local or particular upon the particular 
 articles through which it acts, but it is ultimately general, and 
 equal in its effect upon all descriptions of property. If a nevr 
 tax should be imposed upon malt, for instance, the price would 
 necessarily rise in proportion, or it could not be grown. 
 
 This rise of price would require an equal rise in the price of 
 labour, and of other articles, or the malt could not be consumed. 
 This iise in the price of labour, would tnke place naturally, or 
 else the malt could not be consumed, and then the price would fall, 
 and the malt could not be grown, which is contrary to our experi- 
 ence of the effect of taxes. If the rise in the price of labour should 
 
109 
 
 The general call of the country for the removal 
 of the taxes, reminds me of an Eastern tale, wherein 
 a poor man is represented as petitioning for the 
 Ganges to be diverted through his grounds. But 
 no sooner were the mounds of the Ganges broken, 
 than the unfortunate petitioner was swept into the 
 sea. So it is with the great river of capital, which 
 flows through the channel of the taxes. It cannot 
 be suddenly arrested, or diverted without devastat- 
 ing the country in its course. Such mighty waters 
 canno tbe moved without previous preparations and 
 precautions. If their mounds a,re touched by a 
 rash hand, the devastation of the country is the 
 inevitable consequence. 
 
 Look at the vast aggregate of taxes discharged 
 into Birmingham, London, Portsmouth, and vari- 
 ous other places, and at the immense encrease of po- 
 pulation which it has called into, and produced in 
 
 not takeplace,the situation of the labourer would be injured, which 
 would quickly diminish his numbers, and his labour, or the rise 
 would at last take place from'the additional demand for labour 
 which the expenditure of the tax in question would occasion. 
 Thus, the rise in the price of malt, would soon lapse itself into a 
 general rise in the prices of property of all kinds: and when the tax 
 which occasioned the rise was removed, or about to be removed, 
 it would naturally effect a correspondent fall on those prices, un- 
 less arrested by an artificial creation of money. The overwhelm- 
 ing evils attendant upon any general fall of prices, are suffi- 
 ciently felt, and J have before sufficiently enlarged upon them. 
 
110 
 
 those places. This population does not consist merely 
 of the persons Who receive the taxes, in (he first 
 instance ; but of the trades people, and servants, 
 and mechanics of a thousand descriptions, who have 
 depended and existed on their expenditure, It is 
 true that, in justice, these people, perhaps, have 
 not much ground for complaint. But still we 
 must consider their situation ; and they have a right 
 to expect that other sources of employment shall be 
 open for them. They could not provide against 
 such a time as is come: it was inconsistent with 
 their nature, and with their habits* It is cruel to 
 drive them out of employment before we have 
 opened a demand for their labour in other pursuits. 
 If the means of getting a livelihood, were open to 
 them in their native places from whence they were 
 transplanted, they might then, perhaps, be told to 
 go back to them, and their former pursuits, how- 
 ever unqualified they may be to exercise the call- 
 ings to which they were bred, or however small 
 the opening there might be for them. But when 
 every channel, by which existence can be support- 
 ed, is filled to excess in everyplace ; and when the 
 country offers nothing but a workhouse or a grave 
 as the reward for industry and honesty, how cruel, 
 how deplorable is the situation of that numerous 
 part of the community, who have been maintained 
 through the expenditure of the taxes ! These men 
 are all left to perish from the want of that state of 
 
Ill 
 
 prices which should occasion a demand for their 
 labour. 
 
 The Gun Makers of Birmingham, for instance, 
 are thus served ; after having formed, in such pro- 
 digious numbers, the good English weapons which, 
 huve hurled the Conqueror of the world from his 
 Throne! Place them upon Salisbury Plain, or 
 upon the most barren rock that ever grew a blade 
 of grass, and leave them there unaided by any 
 thing but their own energies, and the small accu- 
 mulations of their prosperity, and they will even 
 there, be in afar better situation than they are now 
 left in, by their improvident and neglectful coun- 
 try ! It is not that these men are not willing to 
 work. It is not that they are not able to work, 
 and to make an ample production of the good 
 things of life, in exchange for those which they 
 consume; but it is, that the depression of prices, 
 and the want of an equivalent circulating medium, 
 has arrested production and consumption, and has 
 broken up all the motives which animate, and 
 all the means which conduce to the employment 
 of labour.* 
 
 * The lower classes of a country are generally pretty well 
 satisfied with their Government as long as they have plenty of 
 food and .of employment, and it is not reasonable to expect 
 they should be so, when they hare neither. What made the 
 Parisians so much attached to Buonaparte? Principally tKe 
 
112 
 
 And what an abundance of disaffection has this 
 stale of misery occasioned. Never were the Eng- 
 
 great expenditure 'of money in Paris levied upon France in the 
 shape of taxes, and upon foreign nations in the shape of contri- 
 butions. The cessation of the chief part of that expenditure 
 there by the Government of Louis XVIII, naturally makes all 
 descriptions of its inhabitants less comfortable in their situation?, 
 and of course more desirous of the return of the Golden Days 
 of Buonaparte. Golden days they were for Paris, and indeed 
 for the greater part of the Frenchmen generally who were left 
 alive, and it is no wonder that the Parisians should be so pleased 
 with the author of them. If Louis XVIII, had increased hi 8 
 taxes, and his national expenditure, instead of diminishing 
 them, he would then have hacl nothing to fear from Buonaparte or 
 from any other quarter. The French soldiers would have been 
 true to him, if he had kept them all embodied, and had raised 
 their pay, and so would the Parisians, and all the hosts of la- 
 bourers, who have been discharged from his employ by the 
 effect of the peace. 
 
 So also the expenditure of so large a proportion of our taxes 
 in London, caused a kind of golden age there ; for the profits 
 which it made out of that expenditure, counterbalanced the pay- 
 ment of its share of the taxes, probably many times over. Look 
 at the multitudes of public servants; and at the thousands of 
 shopkeepers, and trades people, and labourers, and artificers, 
 and mechanics, of innumerable descriptions, who were main- 
 tained all over London, through the expenditure of Government; 
 at Somerset House, at the Tower, at the Admiralty, at the Office 
 of Ordnance, at the Horse Guards, at the Dock Yards on the 
 Thames, and at a hundred other places. Many millions sterling 
 per annum are lost to the inhabitants of London, by the cessa- 
 tion of this expenditure; and, unfortunately for the country, 
 
113 
 
 lish people better affected to their Government, 
 than about the conclusion of the war in 1813 and 
 1814 ; and never had they more occasion to be so. 
 But by the neglect of necessary measures to pro- 
 vide for the maintenance and support of the popu- 
 lation, all this fine spirit is changed, and the coun- 
 try is become a prey to anarchists and visionary- 
 reformers, who instead of relieving its distresses, 
 would encrease it a hundred fold. The lower 
 classes are deceived and deluded ; and it is no 
 
 wonder that they are deceived. It is clear that 
 something is wrong, that something wants reform ; 
 and they think it is the Government. If the Govern- 
 
 / 
 
 ment was administered by an Angel of Light, it 
 would not mend their situation, unless his measures 
 had the effect of encreasing the circulating medi- 
 um ; and thereby the productive principle of the 
 country* 
 
 It may not be improper to draw here an instruc- 
 tive parallel between the circumstances of this 
 country now and of France in 1789. 
 
 these millions, are as yet, so far from having reverted into the 
 pockets of the nation at large, that the taking- off of the taxe>s has 
 positively contributed to impoverish the payers of them, by re- 
 ducing the prices and exchangeable value of their property, 
 whilst their debts and obligations, both private and public, have 
 continued the same. 
 
 O 
 
114 
 
 The expences of the American war had embar- 
 rassed the French finances, and every measure 
 which had been adopted to relieve that embarrass- 
 ment seemed to have encreased it. 
 
 The French people called for national retrench- 
 ment, and the Government yielded to their re- 
 quest. They discharged the soldiers, they dis- 
 charged the pensioners, they reduced some taxes, 
 and removed others, but all their efforts were in 
 vain. The greater their efforts the greater became 
 the public misery. If they could have reduced 
 their whole national expenditure to a single Louis, 
 they would only have encreased the general dis- 
 tress, and have precipitated the melancholy catas- 
 trophe which followed. 
 
 The action upon currency became more and 
 more distressing, impoverishing the rich and de- 
 stroying the poor. Retrenchment which was first 
 forced upon the Government, soon became' neces- 
 sary in private families, and thus the national 
 misery was encreased and encreasing in a geome- 
 trical ratio. The Noblesse discharged their ser- 
 vants and broke up their establishments. Mer- 
 chants, farmers, and tradesmen ceased to consume 
 their usual quantity of manufactures, and the 
 labourers and artificers were very generally dis- 
 charged throughout the country. The discharged 
 
115 
 
 soldiers sought their native homes and found no 
 employment there. They crowded to Paris, and 
 encreased there the misery and discontent already 
 so much aggravated by multitudes of discharged ser- 
 vants, and artificers, and labourers, who had flocked 
 from the departments. There they became the 
 prey of agitators, fertile in schemes of blood and re- 
 form. At that fatal period, the terrible hurricane oc- 
 curred, which devastated the fields of France, and 
 produced there that reaction in agriculture, which 
 continued rains have produced now in England. 
 The unfortunate populace, perishing under the ope- 
 ration of natnral causes, which neither Government 
 nor people understood, were easily persuaded that 
 all their sufferings were owing to the crimes of their 
 rulers. Then began the harvest of violence, 
 vanicy, and ambition, of those ruthless sangui- 
 nary men, who started up by thousands to de- 
 ceive, culumniate, and destroy, until their short- 
 lived objects were obtained, and other ruffians 
 made use of the same weapons against themselves 
 which they had first used against their innocent 
 King. Each ruffian had his nostrum, his panacea 
 for every evil under heaven, but when the unfortu- 
 tunate populace discovered that poverty and mise- 
 ry still existed and encreased, he was precipitated 
 from his guilty elevation to make room for other 
 wretches with other nostrums, who again in their 
 turns fell sacrifices to that popular excitement which 
 
116 
 
 they had been powerful to rouse, but which they 
 were utterly unable to controul. 
 
 It is painful to observe how nearly this state of 
 things resembles the situation of England now. 
 We every where perceive the impoverishment of 
 the rich, and the intense suffering of the poor. We 
 every where perceive wretchedness, and misery 
 and discontent, and alienation of mind. Soldiers, 
 sailors, servants, and labourers, artificers, mechan- 
 ics, all are alike discharged, and all are suffering 
 the extremes of want and distress. Reformists are 
 every where starting up with their nostrums, and 
 are every where persuading the populace that their 
 miseries are the consequence of the crimes of their 
 governors and their friends. Wretched, miserable 
 nonsense, indeed, but such as distressed, despair- 
 ing minds eagerly grasp at in the absence of better 
 information. A general clamour is thus excited 
 for reform ; as if reform would create money, and 
 restore confidence, and revive consumption and 
 production, and give back cultivation to the land, 
 and arrest the effects of exhausted granaries, and 
 of devastated harvests. As if reform would pre- 
 vent actions upon currency, which have been oc- 
 casioned by natural causes, or prevent wars and 
 expences, which have been demanded by the whole 
 Cation, and by the vital interests of all ! 
 
117 
 
 Thepopular mind is thus deceived, excited, and 
 inflamed, and under pretence of " allaying irritated 
 feelings ," the Prince Regent is invited by the City 
 of London to add fuel to the flame, and flame to 
 those fiery principles which, if they once explode, 
 are certain to bury the Constitution in their ruins. 
 Let us not deceive ourselves. A period of popular 
 excitement and distress is not a period of reform. 
 A real and beneficial reform of Parliament is the 
 last object that can ever be effected by popular ex- 
 citement. Innocent, well- meaning* enthusiasts 
 begin this excitement, and when their objects are 
 effected, they wish to go no farther, but it is far 
 easier to walk upright on level ground, than on 
 the side of a precipice.* The worthy Lord Mayor 
 of London would find this to his cost, if the Prince 
 Regent should yield to his request, and grant a 
 reform in Parliament. He would then be carried 
 away in the torrent of popular passion, or he would 
 be covered withr obloquy and contempt, to make 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon had but a low opinion of these 
 gentlemsR: Hear his words. It is those weak and infatuated 
 " men, who, seeking to force human nature to their own arbi- 
 * tary principles, insUad of accommodating those principles to 
 ' the lessons of history, and to the knowledge of the human 
 < heart; have been the cause of all the sufferings that Europe 
 "has endured." Hear also his words upon another occasion. 
 6 Every thing should be done for the people but nothing by 
 them." This man was certainly no friend to the reformists, and 
 yet they seem great admirers of his; if they had couie undtr 
 his cluti hes, he would soon have clapped them into one of hig 
 S:ate Prisons, 
 
us 
 
 room for bolder spirits who would start forward by 
 thousands in the race of ambition, and who would 
 still find ends to answer and passions to gratify, and 
 who would still find out that hunger, and poverty, 
 and misery existed, and that they could only be 
 remedied by carrying reform to its only rational 
 object, and placing themselves at the head of af- 
 *airs ! Let us hope that the firmness and wisdom 
 of the British Government wiil prevent their yield- 
 ing to delusive representations of this kind, or if it 
 should be deemed adviseable to make alterations in 
 the return of members to Parliament, let Govern- 
 ment first " allay the irritated feelings" of the popu- 
 lace, by restoring their trade, and by filling their 
 pockets with money, their houses with ^comforts, 
 and their children with bread. 
 
 When these great objects are accomplished, the 
 Government may proceed to make quiet and gra- 
 dual alterations in the system of representation, 
 not that those alterations can ever be productive 
 of any good effects to the circumstances of the 
 people,* or to the administration of affairs, but 
 
 * In the reports to the American Legislature, I perceive 
 that their expences last year amounted to Five Millions Sferlingt 
 which is about one fourth of our expences, after allowing the sunig 
 necessary for the interest of the National Debt and for the sink- 
 ing fund. Now if it is considered that their population is not 
 
110 
 
 that it is possible they may have the effect of pre- 
 serving the pride of the English oiitid, and of coim- 
 
 equal to one half of ours, and that their wealth is probably not 
 equal to one fourth of ours, it will appear that the relative cur- 
 rent expences of their Government are about equal to those of 
 our own. IJut suppose their wealth to be the same as our's in 
 proportion to their population, yet even then, their expences are 
 afterthe race of ten millions sterling per annum for our population, 
 whilst our expences amount to only about twenty millions per an- 
 num, and yet we have had to maintain a thousand ships of war, and 
 an army of five hundred thousand men ! What would the Ame- 
 rican expences have been, if they had just emerged from such a 
 conflict as we have been victorious in? And had as many colo- 
 nies and garrisons to maintain in every quarter of the globe, , and 
 were as closely surrounded on every side, by nations but lately 
 hostile and still to be guarded against? There is no question 
 but if England was on the other side of the Atlantic, and the 
 United States on this, that the unavoidable expences of each 
 would be greatly eucreased aud diminished. 
 
 After all, if we deduct the expences of the national debt, our 
 whole national ex peaces are not more than one pound per head 
 per annum, say eighteen millions ; which as I have shewn, does 
 not at all affect labour, and is a perfect trifle in comparison with 
 the wealth of the country. By the depression of prices we 
 have lost five hundred millions per annnm. The taxes of the 
 country used to be paid out of its income, but latterly the nation 
 hasfostits whole income, and a great part of its principal, by the 
 depression of price* ! I should like to see the face of that land- 
 lord, merchant, or manufacturer, whose capital has turned out a 
 much better income than my poormineral estate in the last two* 
 r three years ! 1 apprehend that most of their Employee? aV 
 
120 
 
 teracting principles of decay, which, for all w 
 know, may be at silent work in undermining- the 
 liberties of the country. Manchester, and Sheffield 
 and Birmingham, may thus receive representatives 
 in the place of Old Sarum, and Newton, and other 
 rotten Boroughs, although I am strongly inclined 
 to think that ail the former places would refuse 
 representatives if offered them, when trade was 
 good: and I am by no means certain, that the persons 
 who buy old Boroughs, or who are chosen by fami- 
 ly influence, are not just as likely to be honourable, 
 useful, and upright Members of Parliament, as 
 those who are chosen by a large population, and 
 who have innumerable interests to attend to, which 
 are often different or hostile to the interests of the 
 country. 
 
 The citizens of London, like the Boy in the Fa- 
 ble, have killed their Goose>* or at least they have 
 
 pretty much in the same situation as my tenant's poor workmen, 
 who were but lately dragging waggons loaded with coals all over 
 England, and I am afraid have not much better employment 
 now. 
 
 If any landlord has done better than I have, his income has 
 been drawn out of the capital of his tenant instead of his profits, 
 and even then he has lost treble the amount in the depression of 
 his principal ! ! 
 
 * The boy had a goose that laid Golden Eggs. The boy 
 tore out i*s vitals in order to gain more than nature would 
 How, and lost all, in consequence of his folly. 
 
121 
 
 assisted in preventing its being supported, and 
 now they go complaining to the Prince Regent, 
 and crying for Parliamentary Reform. Good God t 
 What has Parliamentary Reform to do with their 
 distresses ? A man, dying of a mortal disorder? 
 might just as well attribute his sufferings to the 
 want of a new coat. Will reform give wisdom to 
 dull heads, or will it counteract the laws of nature, 
 and rescue ignorant men from the effects of their 
 own folly ? Will it restore rents to the landlord, 
 profits to the farmer, and wages to the mechanic? 
 W r ill it restore stocks to exhausted granaries ? 
 Will it restore cultivation to devastated lands ? 
 Will it restore capital to ruined capitalists ? Will 
 it bring back thousands of ruined farmers from the 
 workhouse to the plough ? Will it restore the con- 
 sumption of One Hundred Millions per annum of 
 manufactures among the agricultural population^ 
 before the means of the purchasers areencreased to 
 their former amount, or the prices of those manu- 
 factures are fallen within those reduced means? 
 In short, will it restore food, employment, habits, 
 affections, associations, to an alienated,, dislocat- 
 ed, lacerated, perishing population ? 
 
 The citizens of London have mainly contributed 
 to bring down this heavy affliction upon their 
 country, and they must not now be suffered to 
 throw tfre blame upon the Government. The Go- 
 
122 
 
 vermnent is no more to blame than the rest of the 
 nation. 1 he whole nation is to blame for the cri- 
 minal ignorance which blinded it to a sense of its 
 interest and its danger, The Government opposed 
 the torrent of popular prejudice and passion. They 
 even succeeded in passing a Corn Bill, which if it 
 was not efficient in keeping up the price of wheat 
 at ten shillings per bushel, has at least had some 
 effect in keeping up the broken spirits of the farm- 
 ers, and the partial cultivation of the land, and 
 thereby of breaking, in some degree, the terrible 
 weight of the reaction under which we now suffer. 
 
 That terrible reaction which I represented in the 
 "Remedy" as certain to arrive some time, is now 
 arrived. The citizens of London have assisted in 
 promoting that state of prices which has produced 
 it, and they must not now shrink from their share 
 of responsibility. If they had preserved the pros- 
 perity of the farmer, they would have preserved 
 their own. They would have preserved the afflu- 
 ence of the rich, and the comforts of the poor, 
 But the Agricultural Interest has been suffered to 
 fall, and it has crushed the merchants and manu- 
 facturers in its fall. Wheat would now be dearer 
 at five shillings per bushel, to the poor man, than 
 it was at fifteen shillings four years ago, and yet the 
 reaction being precipitated by a deficient harvest, 
 v- o now find the poor man compelled to pay seven- 
 
123 
 
 teen shillings per bushel for liis wheat, at a time 
 when his wages and employment will riot enable 
 him to pay five shillings. This is all brought upon 
 us by the breaking up of the fixed relations between 
 property and money, and has no more to do with the 
 want of a reform in Parliament, than it has with the 
 want of repairs or alterations in Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 I wish not to be understood as having any object- 
 ion to the diminution of taxes, or to a reform of 
 abuses in the management of public affairs, or even 
 in Parliament, provided such diminution and re- 
 form can be conducted with perfect safety and ad- 
 vantage to the country. I am as desirous as other 
 people to get rid of taxes, as far as the national in- 
 terest and honour will permit. All I contend for, 
 is the necessity of guarding against the fall of prices, 
 which the removal of the taxes is certain to effect, 
 unless prevented by an encrease of the circulating 
 medium. I had myself a mineral estate which 
 brought me in fifteen hundred pounds a year, and 
 1 thought it a very hard thing to pay one hundred 
 and fifty pounds of it for Property Tax ; but lo ! 
 since the removal of the Property Tax, 1 have lost 
 the whole income by.the depression of prices !* IVJy 
 
 * The situation of the poor Colliers was the first symptom of 
 the general dibtress of trade. Their distress followed quickly 
 
124 
 
 tenant is ruined by them, and his workmen are now 
 begging their bread. Of what use is the removal 
 of the Property Tax, if people are to lose the in* 
 come from which it arose ? It is this depression that 
 1 wish to guard against, which has affected the 
 whole nation in common with myself, and which 
 must continue to lacerate and destroy the great 
 body of the labourers, until prices again assume that 
 state which shall give the capitalists of the country 
 an interest in employing them. The more corn, 
 and cloth, and houses, and meat, and other good 
 
 upon the agricultural distress. Whilst the state of the circulating 
 medium was such as to give them facility of exchanging the fruits 
 of their labour for those of other laboures, they were happy. 
 They readily exchanged the riches produced in the bowels of the 
 earth for those produced on the surface, and though their lives 
 were passed in danger and incessant labour, far removed from 
 the light of day, in digging and delving like the mole, many 
 fathoms under the ground, yet they were a cheerful and con- 
 tented race of men. They worked hard and fared hard, but they 
 had plenty of food and plenty of employment, and they would 
 have fought Buonaparte and his banditti if he had invaded their 
 country, with the same constancy and fury which animate their 
 clogs against the Bull. They were honest too. They were as good 
 Englishmen as ever walked upon English ground. It has cut me 
 to the heart to see the firmness, the patience, the fortitude, with 
 which these men have bten sinking into their graves, never com- 
 plaining, never injuring, but silent, suffering, endunng, forbear- 
 ing, feeding their children at the expence of their owa lives ! Is it 
 
125 
 
 things the country contains, the greater and hap- 
 pier the population will be. But " hunger knows 
 " no laws/' There is no arguing with it, It must 
 be satisfied. Whilst the populace are only half em- 
 ployed and half fed, they will necessarily be ripe 
 for any mischief to which weak or wicked peopfe 
 may instigate them, and no reform in Parliament* 
 110 reform in the administration of affairs, will ever 
 satisfy them, until their lives are made comforta- 
 ble, until their passions are made controulable by 
 reason. Then you may safely meet them on the 
 
 not a monstrous state of things to see these men in want of em- 
 ployment ? Why should their country be deprived of the riches 
 which their labour proc ured ? And why should they be deprived 
 of the bread which other labourers, as distressed as themselves, 
 would gladly have produced for them ? It cannot be said that 
 the produce of their labour is not in reality as much wanted as 
 ever it was. It cannot be said that the country is overstocked 
 with coal and iron, any more than it is with food and clothing-. 
 The demand for each of these articles would be as great as ever, 
 provided there was as much money as ever, wherewith to effect 
 the mutual exchanges; wherewith a certain quantity of bread, 
 and meat, and clothes could be exchanged for another certairv 
 quantity of iron and coal. No deficiency could ever have been 
 experienced in either the demand or consumption of good things, 
 as long as the production of those good things had afforded as 
 great a quantity of money or currency as had been expended in 
 such production ; as long as the legal obligations and responsibi- 
 lities which the producer of good things incurs, could be dis*. 
 charged by those good things when produced* 
 
126 
 
 subject of Parliamentary Reform, if they should 
 think proper to trouble their heads about it, and 
 then, what is the wish of the country, and may ap- 
 pear best for the country, may, with proper pre- 
 cautions, be safely attempted. 
 
 To say no more on the subject of economy and 
 retrenchment, and reform in Parliament, and the 
 parallel between France and England, I will pro- 
 ceed to enquire more particularly into what is the 
 best kind of circulating medium for the Nation to 
 issue, either in the shape of loans to individuals, or 
 in theexpeaces or purchases of Government. 
 
 As the circulation of the country now exists, it 
 Evidently depends for its amount and extent upon 
 very precarious circumstances. The issue of bank 
 notes, upon which the whole circulation rests and 
 depends, is affected only in two ways, viz. by ac- 
 eomoiodations to individuals by way of discount, 
 or to Government by way of loan. Caprice or alarm 
 in the Directors of the Bank of England, or errone- 
 ous or speculative views on their part, may from time 
 to time, produce effects upon the circulation, far 
 more injurious to the country, thai}, the quadrup- 
 ling of all the taxes, or than the sudden invasion 
 of the most numerous and formidable armies. Si- 
 milar circumstances may operate severely through 
 the medium of the Country Bankers and othc* 
 
127 
 
 capitalists, though certainly in a more confined 
 degree. Bat it is not only on the part of the bank 
 and of bankers generally, that the circulation is 
 at present liable to be interrupted by the crippling 
 of the usual accomodations to the public. The 
 alarm which the public itself is naturally exposed 
 to, respecting circumstances affecting such weighty 
 and tender interests, may from time to time pro- 
 duce a diminution of the confidence and frequen- 
 cy of commercial transactions, and thus diminish- 
 ing the amount of the njumber of bills created, must 
 necessarily occasion a diminution of demand for 
 discount. An evil sufficiently great in itself, in- 
 stead of being counteracted by judicious legisla- 
 tive provisions, is thus left to act upon its own en- 
 crease, and to snperadd other evils f;tr more severe^ 
 by diminishing the circulating medium, and break- 
 ing up the relations which have become fixed be- 
 tween property and money, and which must ne- 
 cessarily govern the transactions and the prosperity 
 of the country. The imposition of heavy stamp 
 duties, and other circumstances, must also act in 
 arresting the creation of bills, and in diminishing 
 the demand for discount. But the circulating 
 medium of the country ought not to be dependant 
 upon discount. It ought not to be dependant upon 
 the hopes and fears, upon the confidence or alarms, 
 of either Bankers or the public. The prosperity of 
 commerce, the stability of riches, and the bread of 
 
128 
 
 the poor, I will venture to add, the strength of* 
 the Government, and the liberty of the country, 
 all depend upon the free and equal action of the cir- 
 culating medium. Slight inequalities in that ac- 
 tion may be endured, but any serious and sudden 
 changes carry with them too much misery and dis- 
 tress to allow any security for Government or for 
 liberty. 
 
 It is necessary that the circulating medium should 
 be issued upon more fixed and permanent grounds, 
 and that it should be protected by legislative pro- 
 visions from any serious contractive actions. The 
 expansive actions may also be arrested, if no better 
 means can be devised of protecting the interests of 
 annuitants and money-holders, who must other- 
 wise be seriously injured by any rapid depreciation 
 of money. 
 
 It is in vain to look to gold as a means of pro- 
 moting these great objects. 1 have before shewn 
 that to make gold the basis of the currency, will 
 not protect currency from ebbs and flows in its va- 
 lue. Portugal and Spain have never known a 
 Bank Restriction Act, and yet they are now suffer- 
 ing, in common with all Europe, from the same 
 action upon currency which afflicts ourselves. 
 Portugal is a country filled with the precious me- 
 tals, and yet, if I am rightly informed, the depre- 
 
129 
 
 ciation of money has been in Portugal ten time* 
 greater than it has ever been in England, where 
 the precious metals have for a century had but 
 very little to do in the circulation of the country. 
 
 If gold therefore is not efficient to protect the 
 circulating medium from fluctuations, and if it 
 is difficult and expensive to obtain, and if Bank- 
 notes are objectionable on account of the modes 
 in which alone they are issued, what then is the 
 kind of money which it is proper for the legislature 
 to issue for the present relief of the country, and 
 for its future protection ? It appears to me that 
 national paper ought to beissued, being first cloth- 
 ed with all the powers which are invested in the 
 lawful coin of the Realm. In fact, it must be the 
 lawful coin of the Realm, a cheap, secure, and ma- 
 nageable medium* far superior to gold for every 
 purpose of practicable utility. The National Debt 
 furnishes a ready and safe means of issuing this kind 
 of money, in any quantities which the interests of 
 the country may require. It also furnishes the 
 means of effecting this object, without encreasing 
 in any way the influence of the Crown, from which 
 we apprehend so many evils, which are indeed vi- 
 sionary from this quarter, but which are too like- 
 ly to be realized from other quarters towards which 
 our alarms have been too little directed. The Lords 
 of the Treasury or the commissioners of the Sinking 
 
130 
 
 Fund are probably the most proper bodies of men, to 
 be intrusted with the issue of the national paper, 
 so proposed to be issued, which should consist of 
 an assortment of ail sizes of notes, from One Pound 
 to One Thousand Pounds, and which should be li- 
 able to be exchanged as the convenience of the 
 holders might require. 
 
 If the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund were 
 empowered by Act of Parliament to create Twenty 
 Millions of this kind of money, and to issue it in 
 the purchase of an equivalent portion of the Nati- 
 onal Debt, there is no doubt that it would effectual- 
 ly and rapidly restore the prosperity of the country. 
 But it would probably be adviseable, in the first 
 instance, to issue this money in loans to the mer- 
 chants and manufacturers for three years, prepara- 
 tory to its being invested in the purchase of the Nati- 
 onal Debt, when repaid by the parties borrowing it. 
 The use of this mode of issue would be that it would 
 act more immediately and directly upon commerce 
 a id manufactures, and by precipitating the reaction 
 in those two branches of national wealth, would en- 
 able them the more easily to support the reaction 
 which has already taken place upon agriculture. 
 The farmer has now but little need of assistance 
 compared with the manufacturer. He has been 
 suffering for four long years. The depression of 
 his property has mocked his labours and mortified 
 
131 
 
 liis hopes. His sufferings are now at an end. The 
 day of his prosperity is at hand, and it is beyond 
 the power of man to arrest that prosperity with- 
 out encreasing threefold the sufferings of the poor. 
 The fanner, I repeat it, has now but littJe need of 
 assistance, unless it is necessary to enable him to 
 maintain the manufacturing poor. He has waited the 
 course of nature, and nature has granted him an 
 ample indemnity. The cultivation of the land 
 has received an injury which will secure to him 
 enormous prices for many years, notwithstanding 
 any importations that can possibly be obtained. But 
 what is to become of the poor mechanic ? I see 
 him perishing in the streets wherever I move, iiis 
 pallid face, his hollow eyes, his down-cast anxious 
 looks, too plainly express that hunger, and grief, 
 and death are in his heart. Nothing can save him. 
 Nothing can enable him to support the reaction 
 upon agriculture, but an immediate issue of a 
 sum of money to his employers, which shall occa- 
 sion an immediate and correspondent reaction in 
 manufactures and commerce, without waiting for 
 the tedious operations of nature, which will in- 
 deed bring his relief in the end, but ere it arrives 
 he will find his grave. It is to assist him that I 
 would recommend the proposed issue of national 
 paper to be made to his employers, because it will 
 then act directly in restoring his prosperity, before 
 it acts upon agriculture, but if it is issuetl in the 
 
132 
 
 immediate purchase of the National Debt, or in 
 the current expences of Government; it will act 
 simultaneously upon agriculture, manufactures, 
 and commerce. 
 
 Another reason why this mode of issue would 
 be most proper at first is, that the measures which 
 have been already taken have thrown a vast acces- 
 sion of capital into the money markets of the 
 metropolis, which has arrested the depression of 
 property there, and is now gradually beginning 
 to extend its beneficial influence throughout the 
 country. Now an immediate issue of money * 
 through the medium of the National Debt, would 
 tend for a few months to encrease, rather injuri- 
 ously, the inequality between the money markets 
 of the country, and of the metropolis; because it 
 would be found that the purchases of the National 
 Debt would be made principally from the London 
 capitalists, whose residence and local knowledge 
 would enable them to take advantage of such 
 purchases more generally than could be done by 
 the capitalists scattered throughout the country. 
 By this means, for a short time, a more than use- 
 ful abundance of money would be found to exist 
 in the metropolis, which would be a considerable 
 time in finding out channels of investment or em- 
 ployment ; but if the proposed issue should take 
 place at first, through the medium of a general 
 
133 
 
 loan to merchants and manufacturers, it would 
 act immediately and universally upon the general 
 property of the country, restoring the reward of 
 industry and the employment of labourers, and 
 promoting a general and equable prosperity 
 throughout all ranks and descriptions of men. 
 
 Some persons may say that the influence of the 
 Crown would be encreased by this measure. If 
 that influence should be encreased ten fold, it is 
 no reason why a whole population should be suffer- 
 ed to perish, in order to avoid an uncertain con- 
 tingent evil of this kind. But it is not in a culti- 
 vated nation, like England. It is not in a nation 
 of the most free, enlightened, and honourable men 
 that ever existed, that any evil is to be apprehend- 
 ed from the influence of the Crown. The Crown 
 is dependant upon the public opinion. It cannot 
 outrage that opinion without being instantly cor- 
 rected. It cannot act permanently against the in- 
 terest and the will of the people, without the cer- 
 tainty of having its influence and its power scat- 
 tered to the winds. In speaking thus of the influ- 
 ence of public opinion, I allude to that of the great 
 body of the capitalists of the country, whose in- 
 terest always involves equally the interest of the 
 lower classes, and whose opinions in a healthy state 
 of society, always regulate and form the opinions 
 and conduct of those classes. To suppose thai 
 
134 
 
 these latter can have any interest separate from 
 that of the former, or that they can have any opi- 
 nions different from those of their employers* 
 which can possibly do good eitherto themselvesor 
 their country, is perfectly incredible. All the good 
 or evil that can possibly happen to the labourers 
 and mechanics, can only happen through good or 
 evil first happening to their employers, and if these 
 latter are in doubt respecting the cause, or the 
 remedy of their distress, it is not likely that their 
 workmen will be able to assist their judgment. 
 
 The public opinion which coerces the Crown, 
 is that of the capitalists of the country, supported, 
 as 1 have before mentioned, by the rest of the com- 
 munity ; and although casual circumstances of dis- 
 tress or enthusiasm may, at times, produce a dif- 
 ference of opinion on the part of the labouring 
 classes, yet that difference can never be of long 
 duration, because it is contrary to nature and ta 
 common sense, and can be productive of nothing 
 but inconvenience and distress. 
 
 There is some doubt, however, whether the state 
 of depression and reduction into which the concerns 
 of the merchants and manufacturers have now been 
 reduced, would not prevent their supplying a de- 
 mand for procuring loans, sufficient to restore ra- 
 pidly the prosperity of the country. In this case> 
 
1535 
 
 it will be proper to extend the accomodation ta 
 capitalists generally, and I should imagine there 
 can be no doubt that the landlords alone would in 
 that case furnish ample security for loans sufficient 
 to repay their own debts, and thereby to restore the 
 general prosperity around them. , 
 
 After the expiration of the three years, or other 
 limited time for the repayment of the loans so pro- 
 posed to be granted, I would recommend that the 
 amount so repaid, be re-issued as fast as it is re- 
 ceived, in the purchase of the National Debt, pro- 
 vided the average price of wheat is under fifteen 
 shillings per bushel; but if the price should then 
 exceed that sum, there would be no occasion to re- 
 issue the money so repaid, because after three years, 
 the prosperity of agriculture would naturally have 
 operated in promoting an equal prosperity in ma- 
 nufactures and commerce. If the price of wheat 
 should be under fifteen shillings at the proposed 
 period of repayment, the re-issue of the money in 
 *the purchase of the National Debt, would prevent 
 any additional depression of price, and would, at 
 the same time, preserve the equable state of the 
 circulation, and thereby enable the merchants and 
 manufacturers to effect their repayments without 
 iajury or inconvenience. If the price of wheat 
 should be above fifteen shillings at the period of 
 repayment, a certain portion of the money, or the 
 
136 
 
 whole of it, may be withdrawn from the circulatiori 
 without injury, and the period of its re-issue be 
 postponed until the reduction of prices within the 
 fifteen shillings, should render the re-issue neces- 
 sary. The parties to be entrusted with the issue, 
 should be instructed and obligated to re-issue it 
 or withdraw it, according as the state of prices 
 should render adviseable, or as the wisdom of the 
 legislature should see occasion to direct, after the 
 present inequality between the prices of agricul- 
 tural and manufactured produce shall have ceased 
 to exist. But, I repeat again, that the manner of 
 getting this money into circulation is but of little 
 consequence in comparison with the fact. By some 
 means or other it ought to be immediately issued, 
 and as soon as ever the state of the currency will 
 admit it, it ought to be made permanent as a du- 
 lable basis for the currency, and its encreased or 
 diminished issue ought to be regulated by the gene- 
 ral rise or fall in the prices of commodities, so 
 as to keep those prices as permanent and regular 
 as possible. 
 
 Whenever a system of this kind shall be establish- 
 ed, the country may become in a great degree in- 
 dependent of discount, and of all casual and un- 
 certain accomodations. In proportion as the Bank 
 of England, or other capitalists should withdraw 
 their medium from the circulation, so as to fall the 
 
137 
 
 state of prices, the encreased issue of national pa- 
 per, through the medium of the National Debt, 
 would correspondent^ renew the circulation, and 
 keep up the state of prices to any level that the in- 
 terests of the country might require, and no higher. 
 The power of the Bank of England would then be 
 nullified. Its profits' and its general utility would 
 be secured, but its dangers, and the perversions to 
 which it is exposed, would be totally counteract- 
 ed. The country being thus protected from actions 
 upon currency, its prosperity would be only liable 
 to be injured by simple actions upon property, 
 that is to say, by accidental scarcity or famine, 
 from which, our accumulated stocks and our natu- 
 ral wealth would protect us. 
 
 It is useless to enlarge further upon this subject. 
 Every reflecting man must be convinced that, al- 
 though bank notes are probably the best kind of 
 circulating medium to issue immediately, yet ul- 
 timately a new species of money ought to be ere 
 ated, and to be issued upon new regulations, for the 
 purpose of more effectually securing the country 
 from those sufferings and dangers to which the pre- 
 sent and the former system have exposed it. 
 
 Some persons talk of Government borrowing a 
 loan, in the usual way, from the capitalists of the 
 country in order to lend it to individuals who may 
 
138 
 
 want it. It will do no good. It is (lie creation of 
 money that is wanted, not the diversion of its chan- 
 nels. A loan of that kind will create just as much 
 misery on one hand as it relieves on the other. It 
 will be like paying off the National Debt on one 
 hand by borrowing funds for the formation of a 
 sinking fund on the other. Nothing can serve the 
 country but the positive creation of either Bank- 
 notes or national paper. 
 
 If the Bank of England is permitted to become a 
 subscriber to such a loan, or to make equivalent pur- 
 chases of the National Debt, it will of course pro- 
 duce the effect desired. 
 
 I have spoken very decisively in the " Remedy," 
 respecting the certainty of the reaction in agricul- 
 ture, whir.h has since taken place. Its weight is, 
 indeed, severe, but it would have been far more 
 cruel, had not its pressure been arrested by the 
 issue of the Nine Millions of Bank Notes, in the 
 current expences of the Government, in the last 
 year, and by an extended system of accommoda- 
 tion and indulgence upon which the Bank Direc- 
 tors seem latterly to have acted. But the general 
 sufferings, though insensibly materially relieved 
 by the present means of issue, are not likely to 
 terminate in less than two years, unless those means 
 of issue are continued and enlarged. Unless those 
 means of issue are continued and extended in some 
 way or other, the sufferings of the manufacturer^ 
 
1S9 
 
 will inevitably encrease for a considerable pe- 
 riod, until the renewed expenditure of the agri- 
 cultural interest shall have occasioned a demand 
 for manufactures and for foreign imports, and shall 
 thereby have enabled the manufacturers themselves 
 to consume a greater quantity of their own pro- 
 duce than they now do. For as 1 have stated be- 
 fore, agricultural produce is not of a nature to be 
 dispensed with like manufactured produce, and, 
 therefore, we may be assured that the dimi- 
 nished expenditure, even of the manufacturing 
 interest, will exhibit itself in diminishing the con- 
 sumption of manufactured goods, far more than 
 in diminishing that of agricultural produce. Three 
 years ago, Nine Millions of Bank notes issued in 
 any way, would have been sufficient to have re- 
 stored and to have preserved the prosperity of the 
 agricultural interest and of the whole community. 
 But that sum is by no means sufficient now. 
 The evil has taken deep root, and though it is 
 certain that it will produce its own remedy in the 
 end, in the same way as agriculture has done ; yet in 
 the mean while, hundreds of thousands of mi- 
 serable individuals will inevitably perish, unless 
 an efficient assistance is given to the circulating 
 medium, in order by acting principally upon ma- 
 nufactures, or perhaps nearly equally upon agri- 
 culture, to reduce the inequality which now sub- 
 sists between those two great branches of national 
 wealth and subsistence, and to enable tke media* 
 
140 
 
 nic, by the encrease of his wages and employ- 
 ment, to bear up against the evils of the scarcity 
 which has at length been occasioned, partly by 
 the action upon currency, and partly by an unfa- 
 vourable season. 
 
 It is perhaps worth while to enquire what part 
 of the present high prices of grain is owing to the 
 unfavourable season, and what to the action upon 
 currency. Many persons who take a cursory view 
 of the subject, imagine that the whole is owing to 
 an unfavourable season. 
 
 If it is considered, however, that the present 
 price of eighteen shillings per bushel of wheat is 
 fully equal to forty shillings per bushel four years 
 ago, reckoning money as it was then obtained by 
 the labourers and mechanics, I think it will be 
 evident, that the late rise which has taken place is 
 far too great to be occasioned by any injurious 
 effects of the season, unless those effects were 
 backed by some other circumstances. Those cir-- 
 cuinstances are to be found in the exhaustion of 
 stocks, in the devastation and injured culti- 
 vation of the land, and in the renewal of stocks, 
 which is now rapidly taking place. To either 
 of these circumstances I will venture to attri- 
 bute as great an effect upon the present state 
 of the prices of grain, as lias been occasioned by 
 an unfavourable season. Small facts some times 
 
141 
 
 speak volumes, A little Shopkeeper, who occasi- 
 onally supplies my family with flour, informed me 
 three months ago, that she never ventured to keep 
 more than two or three sacks of flour by her at a 
 time, although four or live years ago she never 
 kept less than eighteen or twenty. Upon my en- 
 quiring the reason of this reduction, she said, 
 " that it would be madness to keep more than was 
 ** sufficient for her daily supply, seeing that 110- 
 " tiling but loss had attended her doing so for seve- 
 " ral years, and that all her neighbours were ven- 
 " turiug upon no greater stocks than Lerself." 
 Since the rise has taken place in the price, however, 
 I find that this good woman's confidence is revived, 
 and that she has encreased her stock to ten or 
 eleven sacks, which she has been partly enabled to 
 do by the rise which induced her to it. 
 
 Let any one enquire in his neighbourhood and 
 he will find that all the little hucksters and dealers 
 have been acting upon this system, and the larger 
 dealers have been animated equally by the same prin- 
 ciples. Indeed, the greater number of these latter, 
 who would formerly have held among them many 
 millions of quarters of grain, have latterly become 
 bankrupts through the depression of prices, or 
 have otherwise been forced or induced to throw 
 up their stocks. The same has been the case with 
 the farmers very generally throughout the country. 
 
142 
 
 .!T. .' 
 
 Either necessity or policy lias forced their stocks of 
 grain to the market, and they are now seeking to re- 
 new them by all the means in their power. At a time 
 when the neglected cultivation of the land has 
 produced a deficient crop of grain* that deficiency 
 is encreased by an unfavourable season, and at 
 this very period, instead of possessing stocks to 
 have recourse to, we find that our stocks have been 
 exhausted in destroying the prosperity of the 
 country, and we are now necessarily re-accumulating 
 them out of the scanty supplies which au exhausted 
 agriculture produces. It was a day of misery for 
 England when the relations between property and 
 money were suffered to break up. It was a day 
 of suffering to the rich, and of ruin to the poor, 
 when the prices of agricultural produce were suf- 
 fered to fall ; those prices which had regulated the 
 debts and obligations of the public, and of indi- 
 viduals, and which had acted upon rents and 
 expenditure, upon production and consumption, 
 upon commerce and manufactures, upon wages 
 and profits, and upon everything else upon which 
 the interest and welfare of society depends. The 
 Citizens of London, whose public spirit and patri- 
 otism are undoubted, but whose views and habits 
 are frequently partial and confined, were the first 
 to assist in drawing down this heavy affliction 
 upon our country. They clamoured against the 
 Corn Bill, they clamoured against the Property 
 
143 
 
 Tax It would have been well for them and for 
 their country if their clamourings had been disre- 
 garded. Their wishes could in no way have been 
 gratified, without producing the utmost misery 
 and distress, unless a previous addition had been 
 made to thecjirculatittg medium. It is true the Corn 
 Bill was inefficient. * It has had no effect what- 
 ever upon prices, unless it has had an effect in re- 
 ducing t'heir present amount, by keeping up the 
 spirits of the farmer, and thereby preserving, in 
 some degree, the cultivation of the land. But the 
 principle of the Corn Bill was good. Its object 
 was to keep up that state of prices upon which the 
 welfare of the country was fixed and depended. 
 
 *I am aware that in the evidence respecting the Corn Bill, the 
 farmers generally acknowledge^! that ten shillings per bushel 
 would enable them to continue the cultivation of their land. 
 That evidence was taken principally from the agricultural dis- 
 tricts, where Wheat is grown much cheaper than in the manu- 
 facturing counties, in which, however, a large quantity of Wheat 
 is necessarily grown, and where probably at least fifteen shillings 
 would have been required to inaintain the agricultural system 
 and thereby to support the manufacturers and ar.tizans who are 
 maintained through the medium of the expenditure of rents 
 and farmers' pro its. I am acquainted with manufacturing pa- 
 rishes where the poor rates alone amount to thirty shillings and 
 forty shillings per acre, which is of itself from two to four 
 shillings per bushel upon the Wheat. If evidence had been 
 examined from the manufacturing counties of Staffordshire, 
 Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Lancashire, I am conviuc. 
 edit would have appeared, that Wheat could never have been 
 
144 
 
 If the Corn Bill had succeeded in keeping up the 
 price of wheat at fifteen shillings per bushel, in- 
 stead of ten shillings, which it purposed, or instead 
 of six shillings to which the price afterwards fell, 
 there would not, at this hour, have been a single in- 
 dividual in England, that was willing and able to 
 work, who would not have possessed an ample de- 
 mand, and an ample reward, for his labour. We 
 should never have known -what it is to see an ho- 
 nest man begging his bread. We should never have 
 known what it is to see the labourers and mechan- 
 ics of England dependant upon charity for their 
 support ! The grand error of the Corn Bill was in 
 seeking to arrest a great action upon currency, by 
 arresting a trifling action upon property. SMany 
 persons are at a loss to understand the difference 
 between an action upon currency and an action up- 
 on property. An action upon currency is the ef- 
 fect which circumstances have upon the produc- 
 tion and activity of currency; and an action upon 
 property is the effect which circumstances have 
 upon the production and supply of property. 
 They are both intimately connected, and strongly 
 act upon' each other, although they are perfectly 
 separate in their nature. Thus injurious or favor- 
 able seasons, or other circumstances of supply or 
 
 grown in those counties at less expence than fourteen shillings 
 per bushel* without impoverishing the land, or breaking up the 
 maintenance of the labourers and mechanics* 
 
145 
 
 demand, promote actions upon property. They 
 encrease or diminish the creation and supply of 
 property in the country. So also an alteration in. 
 the modes of issuing bank notes or bullion, or 
 other circumstances of confidence or depression 
 in the public mind, promote actions upon currency. 
 They encrease or diminish the creation and supply 
 of currency in the country. Both these actions 
 equally affect the state of prices. A great contract- 
 ive action had taken place upon currency, which 
 nothing but an encreased issue of bank notes or 
 of money of some kind, could counteract or reme- 
 dy. The Corn Bill sought to relieve this action, 
 by arresting a trifling action upon property which 
 was occasioned by foreign importations of grain. 
 An extra issue of five or ten millions of bank notes, 
 would have kept up the prices of grain, and the 
 prosperity of the country, notwithstanding any im- 
 portations which could possibly have arrived from 
 all the countries of the world. 
 
 Another error, also, in the Corn Bill, was the 
 Minister seeking to keep up the price of corn in an 
 open and undisguised way, against the decided 
 opinion of the commercial part of the community, 
 when the same object might probably have been 
 obtained by other means, without interfering with 
 public opinion, which ought always to be consult- 
 ed and regarded, however erroneous and ill-fonnded 
 
146 
 
 it may be. Thus foreign corn might have been sub- 
 jected to the same Poor's Rates and taxes which 
 British -grown corn is subject to, which would have 
 amounted to, perhaps, four shillings per bushel 
 and the reasonableness of this would have been 
 acknowledged by all, if brought forwards as a finan- 
 cial measure for the benefit of the whole com- 
 munity, and not of the Agricultural Interest 
 alone. 
 
 If this, however, had been objected to, other 
 means might easily have been devised to keep up 
 the high state of cultivation of the land, and the 
 stocks of grain and cattle which were necessary for 
 the protection of the people : and then how would 
 it have been possible for the distress of the present 
 time to have occurred, when the nation would have 
 possessed within itself more food than it could pos- 
 sibly have consumed, and a surplus of manufact- 
 ures, with which it -would have had nothing to do 9 
 but to exchange them for foreign luxuries ? 
 
 To revert to the question of the relative effect 
 which the action upon currency, and the unfavour- 
 able season have had upon the present state of agri- 
 cultural prices, J think it will not be denied that 
 we could have borne the evil of the unfavourable 
 season fouryearsago, with one fourth of the posit* 
 ive suffering which it now occasions. We had then 
 
ur immense and universal stocks to rely upon, 
 We had then ample employment and full wages for 
 our workmen. We had then the whole country 
 under a state of high cultivation, and exhibiting a 
 greater productive power, by probably of at least 
 one fifth more than it now exhibits. The product- 
 ive industry of the country has been arrested. The 
 creation of property has been diminished. Thus 
 the action upon currency has produced an action 
 upon property. The wealth of the country has 
 rapidly dwindled away, and whether the late un- 
 favourable season had happened or not, it w r ould 
 soon have been found far too little for the necessary 
 support of its population. 
 
 If the unfavourable season had happened four 
 years ago, we should have rested upon our stocks, 
 (as we have done in several years before) without 
 producing any serious rise in the prices of grain. 
 Wheat would probably have risen from fifteen shil- 
 lings to eighteen or twenty shillings per bushel, 
 (but not to forty shillings, which it is equal to now) 
 and the state of the currency, and the full employ, 
 ment, and the high wages of the population, would 
 have enabled them to endure an evil of that des- 
 cription, until foreign importations, or another 
 harvest should have restored the usual state of 
 prices. I think it cannot be doubted that three 
 fourths of the present misery are owing to the ac- 
 
148 
 
 tion upon currency, which has devastated agricul- 
 ture, and destroyed trade, and that about the other 
 one fourth is owing to the unfavourable season, 
 which has diminished the crop of grain, and has 
 called principles into action, which might otherr 
 wise have slumbered for a few months longer, but 
 which sooner or later would inevitably have acted, 
 and the longer they had been delayed, the more se- 
 vere would have been their action. 
 
 Nearly the same proportions may be observed in 
 the relative effect which the action upon currency 
 and the unfavourable season have had upon the late 
 rise of the prices of grain. I am disposed to thin^ 
 that full two thirds of this rise are oving to the 
 former of these causes, and only one third to the 
 latter* 
 
 Since I published the "Remedy, 3 * I have heard 
 it said that the issue of bank notes is merely a sti- 
 mulus which may arrest our sufferings for awhile, 
 but cannot restore us to health, the only road to 
 which, being through the payment in specie, and 
 and the spunging away of the National Debt. 
 1 maintain that the spunging away the National 
 Debt, even if the fund-holders would consent to 
 it, would do far more injury than good to all 
 classes of the community, fora long time to come, 
 excepting money-holders and creditors ; but 1 have 
 not room to discuss this question now. I have 
 
V 
 
 
 149 
 
 said enough respecting payment in specie, and a* 
 for the subject of an issue of bank notes being a 
 stimulus, I answer that it is not more so than bread 
 is to an hungry man, wealth to a poor man, or life 
 to a dying man. But should we think a man in 
 his senses who, having a friend struck with a mor- 
 tal apoplexy, should refuse to let the surgeon bleed 
 him, or the apothecary administer a dose of calo- 
 mel, on the ground that such things were stimu- 
 lants ! What is it to him, whether they are stimu- 
 lants or not, if they have the effect of saving the 
 life of his friend ? This is the situation of our 
 country now. It is madness to refuse remedies 
 within our own power, and to prefer absolute, real, 
 and intolerable evils, unparalleled in the history 
 of the nation, in the vain hope of avoiding some 
 trifling inconveniences, to which the use of these 
 remedies may possibly subject us ! It is mad- 
 ness to rush into real, in order to avoid imaginary, 
 evils. 
 
 Talk of the evil of stimulants indeed ! Talk ra- 
 ther of the mischief of eating and drinking, and of 
 keeping poor folks alive ! and of the evil of main- 
 taining and employing them ! The one is tanta- 
 mount to the other. i\o matter how justly or un- 
 justly, wisely @r foolishly we had acted, we had 
 got into a war of above twenty years duration, and 
 during this time society with us had got into quite 
 
150 
 
 a new situation to what it was before the war be- 
 gan. The population had been brought forwards 
 in a hot bed, as it were ; the habits and pursuits of 
 a very great proportion of it had been totally chang- 
 ed, and we were got into quite an artificial state. 
 What we had to do upon the return of peace, was 
 to go back into a natural state, if that state was deem- 
 ed the best, slowly and cautiously, and to beware of 
 a sudden change from an artificial to a natural 
 state. Sudden changes are as fatal in the moral 
 as in the natural world. The gentleman takes his 
 Imnter from the bleak and frozen plain, he covers 
 him with clothes, and shields him from the elements 
 in his stable. All this is artificial. The horse* 
 no doubt, would havalived very well and comfort- 
 able in his natural state, and would even return to 
 it again by degrees. But suddenly strip him of his 
 clothes, and turn him out into the fields in the 
 depth of winter, and he is dead. Just so it is with 
 man, both in his natural and moral state. The war 
 made an opening, or he found one himself, to en- 
 crease and multiply, and to find food and raiment 
 for himself and his children, and now we are clos- 
 ing up those sources of supply, and those means of 
 existence, and before any other will be open to him, 
 hunger, and nakedness, and misery, and disease 
 will cause them to be no longer wanted, 
 
 I have stated in the "Remedy," that the judicious 
 issuing or withdrawing of the bank note circula- 
 
151 
 
 lion would probably have the effect of neutralizing 
 in a great degree the effects of bad harvests, and of 
 preserving an equable state of prices, for as many 
 years as might be thought expedient. 
 
 It may be objected that we cannot controul na- 
 ture, and that a forced action upon currency in- 
 tended to force out the stocks of grain in years of 
 scarcity, will have the effect of operating equally 
 upon manufactures, and thus reducing the general 
 quantity of money, will reduce the value of labour 
 as much as that of grain, and will create as much 
 .misery as it relieves. To controul the course of 
 nature is certainly rather more than I will under- 
 take for the Bank of England to be able to effect, 
 and 1 allow that there is great difficulty in bringing 
 the produce of agriculture and manufactures to 
 certain fixed and never-varying relations, because 
 the produce of the one is liable to fluctuations from 
 the varying character of the seasons, whilst that of 
 
 the other is not affected by the seasons. What I 
 
 * - * 
 
 undertake for the Bank to be able to do, is to relieve 
 the public from the effects of actions upon curren- 
 cy, and riot from those of actions upon property. 
 
 mi 
 
 I will suppose, however, certain permanent r^r 
 lations to have existed with a greater or less degree 
 of occasional variation, which are at last interrupt- 
 ed by a deficient harvest, occasioning a scarcity, 
 
152 
 
 and raising the priceof wheat from fourteen shillings 
 to twenty-one shillings per bushel, whilst the 
 prices of manufactures and of labour continue the 
 same as before. Here is a particular action upon 
 property promoted. It appears to me, that by a 
 judicious withdrawing of Bank Notes, at such a 
 period, an action ma.y be created upon currency, 
 which would have the effect of forcing out the 
 stocks of grain, and of reducing the price to four- 
 teen shillings, without affecting the stocks or pri- 
 ces of manufactures, or labour, in any considerable 
 degree. It is true that the diminution of real agri- 
 cultural wealth by the bad harvest, will prevent the 
 possibility of wheat being sold so cheap as for- 
 merly, if the subject is to be viewed as relating to 
 this one year only, but this is not a just or correct 
 view of the subject, for in a rich nation, the agri- 
 cultural stocks of the capitalists are always of such 
 a magnitude, as to render a deficiency of one third 
 or one half in a single crop, of but little conse- 
 quence to the general capital of the country. If 
 the stocks of the capitalists are not kept up to this 
 magnitude, it is owing to the prices of grain having 
 been kept lower by adventitious circumstances than 
 the interest of the country required. It is the in- 
 terest of the country to throw upon the farmer the 
 burthen of his own misfortunes and bad harvests, 
 and in order to effect this, it is necessary in common 
 years to allow him rather a greater price for his 
 
153 
 
 articles than his absolute necessities require, and 
 thereby to enable and induce him to accumulate 
 such stocks as shall enable him to supply the usual 
 consumption of the country, upon the usual terms* 
 in years of scarcity ; in the same manner as 
 merchants are enabled, by charging insurances, to 
 sell their articles abroad at regular prices, without 
 making any extra charges for any extraordinary 
 losses which they may sustain at sea. If the agri- 
 cultural stocks of the country are kept up at this 
 magnitude, which they ought always to be, and 
 which in rich countries they naturally are, unless 
 interfered with by foreign competition, there can 
 be no doubt that an action upon currency would 
 affect these stocks sufficiently to bring them into 
 the market without having a correspondent effect 
 upon manufactures, of which similar stocks have 
 not been accumulated, nor are necessary to be ac- 
 cumulated. 
 
 A small action upon money creates at such a time 
 a great action upon stocks, and forces them into 
 the markets in large quantities, occasioning a great 
 reductionin their prices, without coming into con- 
 tact with the prices of labour or of manufactures; 
 for the prices of agricultural produce being still 
 preserved at a ratio sufficient to encourage and re- 
 ward the farmer's exertions, and not being reduced 
 so low as seriously to injure the Agricultural In- 
 
154 
 
 terest, the landlords and farmers are enabled to 
 rest upon their capitals, and are not compelled to 
 discharge their servants or labourers, or to reduce 
 their purchases of manufactured goods. 
 
 We have seen in the year 1813, that the action 
 upon currency affected agricultural produce about 
 one or two years or more before it acted seriously 
 upon manufactures. If this fall upon agricultural 
 produce had taken place from unusually high to 
 common relations, it would have had none but be- 
 neficial consequences ; but as it took place from 
 common to unusually low relations, and as no steps 
 were taken to counteract it, it produced the most 
 fatal effects upon the prosperity and happiness of 
 the country. But if the late contractive action up- 
 on currency struck agriculture one or two years 
 before it acted upon manufactures, even when agri- 
 culture and manufactures had long been upon a 
 par of prices, and when there was no reason to ex- 
 pect that greater stocks of agricultural produce 
 had been accumulated than of manufactures, it 
 may be reasonably concluded that agricultural 
 produce is more immediately exposed to the ope- 
 ration of such an action, and that a considerable 
 interval is thus allowed before it is felt upon ma- 
 nufactures, and during this period the evils of any 
 casual deficiency of crop are arrested, by the forc- 
 ing out of stocks, and when the contractive action 
 
155 
 
 should be about to take place upon manufactures, 
 it may itself be arrested by renewing the issue of 
 bank notes. Upon the whole, I do not think there 
 is much doubt that, in common times, a very trifl- 
 ing reduction of the circulating medium will have 
 the effect of neutralizing, in a great degree, the 
 effects of a deficient harvest, and of keeping down 
 the prices of grain to their usual level, without ma- 
 terially interfering with the prices of labour or of 
 manufactured goods. 
 
 Before I conclude, it maybe useful to recapitulate 
 some of the principal conclusions which I draw from 
 the Various considerations contained in this pamph- 
 let, and in the "Remedy/* I will endeavour to 
 do so in as concise a way as possible. First, Labour 
 pays no taxes.* 
 
 * If I had time I should like to shew more fully the operation 
 of taxes upon labour. At first sight it would appear, that the 
 tax upon salt, leather, beer, and other necessaries of life con- 
 sumed by the labourer, are really paid by him as the consumer. 
 But the fact is not so. Take off all those sorts of taxes, and lay 
 them upon articles consumed by the rich, upon coaches, and 
 muslins, and silks, and sattins, and wines, and such kind of 
 things. What would be the result? The poor man would re- 
 ceive in the shape of wages just as much less as the rich man 
 would have to expend. Suppose the poor man may at present 
 pay one fifth part of his wages in taxes. His wages are there- 
 b y apparently reduced one fifth part, but observe, they are also 
 
156 
 
 The labourer is injured by the imposition of 
 taxes, because it forces a change in his habits of 
 life, which can only be effected through the pres- 
 sure of distress, but when the taxes have settled 
 themselves, their removal is equally painful to the 
 labourer, in the same way as their imposition, 
 
 raised one fifth by the demand for labour, which the expenditure 
 of those taxes by Government occasions, and thus his situation 
 continues the same. Suppose then his taxes so expended by 
 Government were taken off, and transferred entirely to the rich. 
 The rich man would have just an equal sum less to expend than he 
 expended before, and consequently the poor man's wages would 
 full in a similar amount. AH the difference would be, that the 
 capital of such taxe* would go direct from the capitalists to the 
 Government, and from thence to be consumed by the labourers, 
 instead of going circuitously into the hands of the labourers^zrsf, 
 ill order to be contributed to Government, and then to revert 
 into their hands for consumption at last. The taxes are now ex- 
 pended by Government, and the labourers thereby receive them 
 again. If ihey were levied upon articles consumed by the rich 
 only, they would also be expended by Government, and the la- 
 bourers would also receive them again, but in this case they 
 would receive just so much less from the diminished expenditure 
 of the rich, and they would therefore gain nothing by the remo- 
 val of the taxes from themselves to the rich. 
 
 The whole burthen of taxes falls ultimately upon the capital- 
 lists of the country. To raise them through the medium of the 
 labourers is invidious and liable to misconstruction. I should 
 therefore much wish to see all taxes that bear apparently upon 
 the poor taken off and laid upon the rich. The result would 
 be the same in the end, and a great ground of discontent would 
 ' te remoTed. 
 
157 
 
 and far more cruelly so, by the depression of pri- 
 ces which it occasions, unless judiciously guarded 
 against. 
 
 It is not possible for labour to be in want of 
 employment, as long as the circulating medium 
 is equivalent to its purposes, any general com- 
 plaint of a difficulty in getting employment, (how- 
 ever trifling that difficulty may be,) is evident 
 proof that the circulating medium ought imme- 
 diately to be encreased by artificial means. 
 
 The labourer is certain to have full employment, 
 and the usual comforts of his situation, as long 
 as the circulating medium is equivalent to its pur- 
 poses, and it is of no consequence either to him 
 or bis country whether his comforts are adminis- 
 tered through the sign or wages of twenty shillings 
 per week, or twenty pounds per week. 
 
 The interests of the labourer are altogether 
 identified with those of his employer. The la- 
 bourer cannot flourish unless his employer flourishes 
 first, nor can he .suffer unless his employer suffers 
 first. Good or evil can only happen to him 
 through it first happening to his employer. The 
 rich and the poor cannot be separated in their 
 interests. * 
 
 * I wonder what the Fund Holders begin to think of the pre- 
 ent state of things. 1 mean those Gentlemen who were se 
 
158 
 
 Taxes do not diminish the wealth of a nation, 
 they only divert it, by changing the direction of 
 part of its expenditure from private into national 
 objects. 
 
 forward two or three years ago in hallooing the populace agains t 
 the Landlord. I remember I stated at the time it would not 
 be long before they would repent their conduct, before they 
 would come cap in hand to the Landlord, and humbly beg of 
 him to protect them against that popular excitement which they 
 had raised against himself! Before they consented to act so 
 weakly and unjustly by the Landlord, they ought to have re- 
 collected that, in a general scuffle, it is " the weakest that goes 
 to the wall ! " If they escape, they will have the best luck that 
 ever such busy meddlers had before, and they will owe their 
 escape to the redundant issue of Bank Notes, which can alone 
 prevent their being swept away in the tempest of their own raising. 
 
 These Gentlemen headed the " Hue and Cry," against the 
 Landed Interest, against their own debtors, against the very peo- 
 plewhoowed them such a prodigious sum of money! And whom 
 they erroneously thought had been doing too well in the world ! 
 As if the whole rent of the Land Holders had not been expend- 
 ed in the payment of taxes, and in the purchase of agricultural 
 and manufactured goods ! As if it wer6 possible to diminish 
 the rent of land without ruining the labourers and mechanics, 
 and taking the ground from under their own feet ! They had no 
 consideration for the landlord, none for the farmer, none for the 
 agricultural labourer! They excited the public malevolence 
 against the best friends of their country, against the proprietor* 
 and natural defenders of the soil ! And now, 
 
 __ Even-handed Justice 
 
 " Returns the ingredients of their poisoned chalice 
 " To their own lips." 
 
 Aye, and that " Poison " will b6 three times envenomed, if it 
 has not an antidote in the legislative measures of the very men 
 against whom it was intended ! 
 
159 
 
 Taxes are painful on their imposition, but when 
 they have once settled themselves upon the property 
 and currency of a country, their burthen is com- 
 paratively but little felt. 
 
 What is now mistaken for the burthen of taxes, 
 is solely the action upon currency, which gives a 
 quadruple weight to their operation. 
 
 The removal of taxes is more painful to a count- 
 ry than their imposition, unless it is effected very 
 gradually and cautiously, or unless the circulating 
 system is previously stimulated. 
 
 The present distresses are entirely owing to the 
 depression of prices, or, in other words, to the action 
 upon currency.* 
 
 They thought to bear down the landlord, and the farmer, and 
 the agricultural and mechanical labourers, and to engross 
 all the riches of the land, as if England was their patrimo-. 
 ny. They thought to receive back two men's labour and twa 
 bushels of wheat where they advanced one ! Their cupidity is 
 disappointed. The country is crushed, and they themselves must 
 inevitably be ruined if they receive back the measure which they 
 intended for others. " Le pain derobe par le mechaut remplit 
 " sa bouche de gravier." 
 
 *It is singular that the public have all of them long been con^ 
 vinced that the great evil in the country, was the want of an addi- 
 tional circulation, and yet that none of them ever thought of en- 
 creasing the circulation, when a single Act of Parliament would 
 have created a thousand millions in an hour* 
 
160 
 
 The depression of prices has occasioned a dimi- 
 nution of the circulating system, which has again 
 acted in depressing prices. 
 
 Nothing has been so common as to hear all descriptions of 
 persons complaining of the scarcity of money, which one would 
 have thought was a sufficient evidence that it ought to have 
 been created. For these three years past one cannot have passed 
 through the streets, on a market day, without hearing some ex- 
 pression or other from the little dealers and trades people, about 
 "money being so unaccountably scarce.'* In fact, the real state 
 and cause of the distress might have been seen in a thousand 
 ways, if men would but have opened their eyes. I have now 
 a newspaper before me containing the following paragraph, 
 wherein three parties are inconvenienced and injured, by the 
 mere want of a medium wherewith to discharge their mutual 
 obligations* 
 
 "TuE STATE OF THE TIMES. At Lord Coventry's last rent 
 day, Mr. A. one of the principal tenants, could not pay his 
 rent; the reason given was that he had sold his barley to Mr. B. 
 the maltster, for which he was not paid: the Steward in anger 
 said, You must insist on the payment. At this moment Mr. B; 
 entered, who said he could not pay for the barley, having sold 
 the malt to Lord Coventry, for which he could not get the mo- 
 ney.'* 
 
 If Mr. Pitt had been alive, we should never have seen such 
 a state of things as this ! Without any disparagement of the 
 present ministers, it may be truly said that they have not the 
 grasp of mind which he possessed, and in their justification it 
 may also be remarked, that they have not the weight and influ- 
 ence which his talents commanded, and which enabled him to 
 carry any measures which his own large mind deemed essential 
 for the public good. 
 
161 
 
 If the general state of prices had been kept up 
 on the old relations, the country would have ex- 
 perienced no distress from the removal of the taxes, 
 nor in any other way, excepting only the inconve- 
 nience of a part of its population being forced to 
 change its habits ; for the capital revolving from 
 the taxes would then have passed directly into the 
 hands of the capitalists of the country, whose im- 
 mediate expenditure or investments would have 
 burnished just the same additional amount of em 
 ployment in civil affairs, as Government had for- 
 merly furnished through the military expenditure. 
 In other words, when the military trades ceased, or 
 fell of, a correspondent encrease would necessarily 
 have taken place in all other trades. 
 
 Prices might have been kept up by the addition 
 of a few millions of bank notes to the circulation 
 in 1812 and 1813, and thus the present distresses 
 would have been prevented, and the country 
 would have been preserved and secured in a high 
 degree of prosperity and happiness. 
 
 The depression of prices having long continued 
 and having effected a great diminution of currency, 
 and a geneial want of confidence in property and in 
 men, it will take many millions more of additional 
 bank notes to restore the system now, than would 
 have been necessary to have preserved it three or. 
 four years ago. 
 
162 
 
 Prices will, however, restore themselves in a year 
 or two, by the operation of natural causes, without 
 any assistance of additional banknotes, but in this 
 case, the period in question will be a season of 
 dreadful distress ! 
 
 The rise of prices will call into action as many 
 bank notes as may be necessary to support them* 
 unless counteracted by an alteration in the powers 
 or system of the Bank of England. 
 
 The rise of prices having already taken place up- 
 on grain, will naturally take place upon manufact- 
 ures and all other articles in a year or two, without 
 any assistance of bank notes in an unusual way. 
 
 During this period, however, the prices of agri- 
 cultural produce will be exceedingly high, whilst 
 those of manufactured produce will be exceedingly 
 low, unless some addition of bank notes is made to 
 the circulation ; because the exhaustion of stocks 
 and the diminution of production have been in ac- 
 tion upon agriculture, two or three years longer 
 than they have been in action upon manufactures. 
 
 An issue of additional bank notes is necessary, 
 in order to reduce, in some degree, the inequality 
 between agriculture and manufactures, but no as- 
 
163 
 
 sistance can prevent agriculture from being com- 
 paratively more prosperous than manufactures, for 
 the next few years. 
 
 The depreciation of currency is a natural conse- 
 quence and cause of national prosperity. 
 
 The depreciation of currency would perhaps be 
 retarded in some degree by the payment in specie, 
 but it would not be permanently arrested. 
 
 The depreciation of currency continues natu- 
 rally as long as a country continues to flourish; for 
 as long as there are more men getting rich than 
 are getting poor, there are more buyers than sellers 
 in the markets, and, of course, property rises in 
 monied value. 
 
 The depreciation of currency is beneficial to a 
 country in every way that it can be considered, 
 It is only injurious to annuitants, and holders of 
 monied obligations, who ought to be bought up, 
 or compromized with, by the public, rather than 
 suffer the national welfare to be arrested by a crip- 
 pling of the circulation. 
 
 It is easy, however, and safe, to prevent the de- 
 preciation of money, and to preserve prices upon 
 certain fixed relations ; not by Jaws of maximum 
 
164 
 
 and minimum, but by judicious legislative opera- 
 tions upon the issue of bank notes, or other na- 
 ional paper. 
 
 The state of prices cannot be controuled and 
 regulated whilst we allow the use of gold arid silver, 
 or of any other medium dependant upon foreign 
 circumstances, in preference to bank notes ; but the 
 state of prices may be controuled and regulated in 
 a great degree by the use of bank notes, or of any 
 other medium created within ourselves, and de- 
 pendant upon our own legislative measures with- 
 drawing it or supplying it, as the state of prices may 
 require. We may, at least, controul actions upon 
 currency in this way, and probably in a great der 
 gree any casual actions upqn property. 
 
 Moral circumstances of confidence or depression 
 act principally upon the state of prices, and they 
 carry with them the encrease or diminution of cur- 
 rency necessary to effect the rises or falls of prices 
 which they operate; that is to say, confidence in 
 raising prices, creates the currency necessary to 
 support such rise; for when an article produces a 
 high price to a first party, the party paying it, is 
 enabled to do so, from the high price which he him- 
 self receives in return, and the parties paying it to 
 him, are enabled to do so, by the same high price 
 >v hich they themselves receive for the same, or other 
 
165 
 
 articles, from the first party above mentioned, or 
 from some other parties who are enabled to pur- 
 chase by the means of their receipts from the first 
 party, whose expenditure or investments are en- 
 creased by the additional price which he receives, 
 and thus the whole business of a rise or fall of 
 prices becomes a mere question of barter, and 
 lapses itself into a mere alteration of the terms or 
 numbers under which different articles shall be 
 compared with and be exchanged for each other. 
 
 But these terms or numbers, though created or 
 diminished in this w r ay, yet involve certain legal re- 
 sponsibilities in their results, and they command 
 certain portions of the good things of life, at all 
 times, by the general custom and consent of the 
 country ; and therefore no one is willing to un- 
 dergo those responsibilities, or to give up such 
 command over the <mod things of life, unless he 
 
 o O ' 
 
 is pretty sure to find himself indemnified in the 
 one respect, and repayed in the other. In other 
 words, falls of prices are injurious, because no 
 one will give more for the production of an arti- 
 cle than that article will redeem when produced, 
 and thus production is arrested and labour thrown 
 put of employment, but on the other hand, rises 
 of prices are beneficial, because every one is wil- 
 ling 'to undertake the production of aa article 
 
166 
 
 when lie thinks he can gain by it, and thus pro- 
 duction is encouraged and labour receives employ* 
 ment and ample reward. 
 
 When moral circumstances of depression act in 
 the falling of prices, and in arresting the necessary 
 creation of currency, they may be counteracted 
 by an artificial issue of currency, which by mak- 
 ing money cheap will necessarily make property 
 dear. 
 
 Prices may fall from temporary elevations, with- 
 out injury, but they cannot fall from permanent 
 elevations, without producing the greatest misery 
 and distress to all classes, particularly to the la- 
 bourers. 
 
 Falls of prices occasioned by actions upon cur- 
 rency, are more injurious to a country, than the 
 rises of prices which are occasioned by actions 
 upon property ; in other words, a deficient liar* 
 vest is a less evil than a deficient circulation. 
 
 Rises of prices occasioned by actions upon cur- 
 rency are more beneficial to a country, than falls 
 of prices occasioned by actions upon property, in 
 other words, the depreciation of money, and a 
 plentiful circulation, are greater blessings than a 
 plentiful harvest. 
 
167 
 
 In all the transactions of buying and selling, the 
 state of currency affects prices just as much as that 
 of property affects them. In other words, money 
 is as necessary in a market as property. 
 
 The nature of currency has been far too little 
 attended to by Government and by the nation. 
 
 It is necessary that currency should be regulated 
 by legislative provisions, and that its equable and 
 efficient state, should be constantly guarded and 
 natched over by a legislative commission. 
 
 The state of the currency does not affect the 
 exports and imports, excepting only as its depreci- 
 ation may encrease them by encreasing the natio- 
 nal wealth, and the consequent consumption of 
 foreign articles. 
 
 There is no way of encreasing our exports, but 
 by encreasing our internal riches and population. 
 Without this, all commercial treaties are in vain, 
 and with it, they are useless; because if u e have a 
 demand for foreign produce, foreign nations will 
 be sure to take our's in return, to an equal amount 
 in our currency, either directly or indirectly, and 
 if we have not such a demand, they cannot pay us 
 for out- produce in any way, and whether they take 
 it or not makes no difference. v 
 
163 
 
 The exporis and imports, on an average! of yea*rs, 
 must inevitably equal each other in the currency 
 value for which the one is bought and the other is 
 sold, including as an import such amount of bulli* 
 on as may be necessary to supply the annual con- 
 sumption of the country. 
 
 The exports are not encreased by lowering the 
 wages of mechanics, but rather diminished 
 thereby, because it diminishes the internal con- 
 sumption of foreign articles, which is the only 
 means of our being paid for our exports. 
 
 Foreign trade is no addition to our general trade, 
 it is merely a branch of our home trade. It is prin- 
 cipally beneficial in forming a naval population, 
 in promoting the use of luxuries, and in stimulat- 
 ing industry and mind; by the gratifications of 
 luxury, and by the collision with foreign manners 
 and scenes. 
 
 If any excess should ever take place in the amount 
 of either exports or imports, it must prove a total 
 loss to the parties concerned, unless either they, or 
 other parties should choose to retain or re-invest the 
 excess in the country to which it is sent, and in that 
 case such excess has merely the effect of effecting 
 transfers of property from one country to another, 
 which may probably make animal returns in the 
 
]9 
 
 shape of rents , and in this way English capitalists 
 may, if they please, invest their capitals in the 
 purchase of the lands or of the National Debt of 
 the United States, which will have the same effect 
 upon the prosperity of England as lending that 
 capital to their own Government for foreign subsi- 
 dies, but not a better effect, 
 
 The wealth of England is self-existent, and de- 
 pendent upon causes, resting and acting entirely 
 within herself. It is not at all encreased by foreigners, 
 nor can it be at all either benefited or injured by 
 any efforts of foreigners, either for or against us.* 
 
 * lam often disgusted at hearing even Englishmen, as well as 
 foreigners, alledge that foreign trade forms the strength and the 
 wealth of England. Man and steel form the strength and the 
 wealth of England. It was the hearts, and heads, and weapons 
 of her sons that caused her prosperity. If other nations had 
 possessed those heads, and those hearts, they would have pros- 
 pered like us. If other nations had encountered their enemies 
 with the same resolution and intrepidity, that our soldiers and 
 our sailors met them in battle, the French must have been content 
 to prey upon one another, or upon the good things that their own 
 industrj* and ingenuity produced them ; they must have stuck to 
 their " frogs and soup maigre," Other nations could match 
 them at times in point of number, much better than we ever 
 could, but they wanted the heart, and the head, and the system 
 \Vhere would have been our trade and commerce, if the heait s 
 and the weapons of Englishmen had failed them at Waterloo and 
 Trafalgar? Where? Why, where the trade and commerce of the 
 Carthaginians were, when their hearts and their weapons failed 
 
 X 
 
170 
 
 The wealth of England is dependent upon the 
 system, skill, and industry of her population, and it 
 is sure to be found efficient for the ample employ- 
 ment and maintenance of that population, as long 
 as the currency is equal to its purposes. 
 
 them at the battle of Zama ! The French would have put as 
 complete a finish to our " trade and commerce,'* as we call them* 
 as ever the Romans did to the trade and commerce of the Car- 
 thaginians, Buonaparte, tdo, would have paid just as much re- 
 spect to our liberties, as Xerxes would have paid to those of 
 Greece, if he had conquered that country. He would hare 
 quartered a standing army of three hundred thousandybm'gners 
 upon us, and then, who would have dared to talfc to him about 
 reform and retrenchment, in the style that we talk to our Prince 
 Regent? What dolts those mu&t be, who could think that he 
 would have paid more respect to the riches of England, than he 
 did to the poverty of Switzerland, such aGHENGis KHAN as he 
 was ! H would have been a fool indeed if he had not fleeced us 
 when he had got us. Call soldiers and sailors unproductive la- 
 bourers indeed ! All the productions of England, would have 
 gone to feed and fatten foreign nations, if they had not produced 
 us safety and security. We should have had DEMAND enougli 
 then, whether we had any foreign trade or not, for the LOCDSTSi- 
 would have consumed all the productions that we could produce,, 
 and a good deal more ! I warrant they would never have suffered 
 our circulation to stagnate, nor our prices to fall, from the want 
 of DEMAND, they would have demanded in one year, as much as 
 we could produce in three, and they would have compelled us to 
 pay it too, or they would have had it out of our blood ; there 
 would have been no danger of Englishmen being unemployed* 
 they would all have been hard at work we may be sure, and when 
 they had produced a bullock, or a bushel of wheat, the French 
 robbers would have Condescended to throw them b^ck the prfotl 
 
171 
 
 Nations cannot go back in the value of currency, 
 because it then no longer answers the purpose of 
 the capitalists, to employ the labourers in pro- 
 ducing property, which will not repay them so 
 much as it has cost them. 
 
 It is the nature of currency to accommodate its 
 amount to the state of confidence or depression 
 which exists in the markets ; thus when men hava 
 confidence in any particular article, its price rises ; 
 the parties paying the first rise, are enabled to do so, 
 by the rise which they themselves receive immedi- 
 ately afterward from other parties, who are again 
 enabled to pay it by the correspondent advance 
 which they also receive for other articles, from the 
 parties who received the first advance above alluded 
 to, for it must be remembered, that these latter 
 parties immediately employ or invest their profit, 
 in some way or other, so that a correspondent ad- 
 vance is forced upon some other articles, by pur- 
 
 and the chaff ! The soldiers have produced us security from sucfr 
 a horrid state of things as this, without our being obliged to fight 
 for seven years upon English ground, and without our scarcely- 
 feeling the pressure of the expence which their maintenance oc- 
 casioned. They have produced us honour too, and national 
 glory, which are at least, some comfort to us in the miserable 
 state, to which our own improvidence and ignorance have re- 
 duced us ! They have convinced the world where the superiority 
 of Englishmen lies; not in sucking blood from others^ but in q. 
 lavish effuiion ofbloodand wealth fur their support, *ud it) a prc, 
 
172 
 
 chases be insj made of them, which otherwise could 
 not have been made. The same process occurs in a 
 depression of prices, say vice versa. This operation 
 is alluded to before, but not quite so fully. 
 
 The whole of the rents and profits, which the 
 manufacturers enable the landlord and farmers to 
 receive, revert to the manufacturers in the con- 
 sumption of their manufactures, so that any de- 
 duction in those rents and profits, is certain to 
 produce an equal, or greater deduction in the 
 profits and wages of the manufacturers and me- 
 chanics. In fact, it is upon the amount of these 
 rents and profits, that the very existence of the 
 manufacturers nnd mechanics principally depends. 
 To remove or diminish them, is positively to take 
 the ground from under the feet of the labouring 
 mechanics. 
 
 The soldiers and sailors ought not to be dis- 
 charged, until the state of demand for labour in 
 the markets, shall furnish full employment for 
 
 dominance of every principle that dignifies and enobles man. 
 No ! no ! we owe nothing to foreigners, and we want nothing that 
 foreigners can give us; all that we want is the facility of ex- 
 changing the productions of our mutual industry among each 
 other, and then, if we have got any surplus, we have no objection 
 to giving it to foreigners, in exchange for the luxuries which their 
 countries produce. 
 
173 
 
 them. It is admitted on all bonds that they can- 
 not find employment at present, and that they must 
 not be suffered to perish for want. It is better to 
 maintain them as soldiers, than as paupers. It is 
 better to maintain them out of the taxes, than out 
 of the poor rates. 
 
 The payment in specie might have taken place in 
 seven or ten years, without difficulty or injury to 
 the circulation, and without affecting the state of 
 prices. 
 
 The payment in specie could not suddenly take 
 place, without occasioning a great revulsion in the 
 state of prices, driving the labourers out of employ- 
 ment, and producing the greatest distress to all 
 classes. 
 
 The payment in specie, considered as a beneficial 
 or innocent measure, would not have been retard- 
 ed, but rather facilitated by an encreased issue of 
 bank notes, sufficient to keep up the old state of 
 prices and credit. 
 
 The payment in specie is not necessary to na- 
 tional security or prosperity, nor will it in any way 
 secure a greater steadiness or regularity in the state 
 of prices, but rather the contrary. 
 
174 
 
 The late high prices were not occasioned alto- 
 gether by the encreased issue of bank notes, but 
 principally by the effect of taxes, and the natural 
 tendency to a rise which a state of confidence and 
 fixed relations occasions. 
 
 If the Bank Restriction Act had never taken 
 place, it would not have prevented, though it would 
 have retarded, the late high prices, which would 
 naturally have arisen from the moral causes ope- 
 rating upon the creation of the great mass of cur- 
 rency, and would naturally have been subjected to 
 a severe revulsion, on the removal of these moral 
 causes. 
 
 If the Bank Restriction Act was repealed, it 
 would not prevent the ultimate use of bank notes 
 to their present amount, or nearly so, nor would it 
 prevent the existence of the great mass of currency, 
 nor the progressive depreciation of money, when- 
 ever the country should have recovered its prospe- 
 rity and confidence. 
 
 The repeal of the Bank Restriction Act would 
 not prevent fluctuations in prices^ which would be 
 better effected by continuing the Bank Restriction* 
 Act permanently, and judiciously regulating the 
 
175 
 
 jssue of bank notes, or by acting on a similar plan 
 with regard to national paper, f 
 
 f It may possibly be desirable that such an encvease of bank 
 notes should take place as silently and imperceptibly as possible, 
 in order the better to support the credit of the Bank. When 
 the credit of the Bank stands high, it may commence payment 
 in specie, with one twentieth part of the bullion in its coffers, 
 that it can when its responsibility is suspected. 
 
 If the encrease is made by vray of loan to individuals, it is no- 
 thing more than has, till lately, been generally done all over the 
 kingdom by the country Bankers, who were in the habit of accom- 
 modating persons, whom they deemed safe and substantial, with 
 loans of money. The depression of prices, an J the change of the 
 limes have broken up the credit and the prosperity of all des- 
 criptions of persons, and, of course, the country Bankers hare 
 withdrawn their accommodations, or if they .have not, it is now too 
 late. When these accommodations were withdrawn by the country 
 Bankers, the prosperity of the country required that they ehould 
 have been granted by the Bank of England, who being protect, 
 .ed by the Restriction Act, have not had the same necessity for 
 curtailing their issue of notes as the country Bankers have been 
 under. When credit, and confidence, and prosperity are restor- 
 ed, there is no doubt but the country Bankers will extend their 
 accommodations as before, and that alone would afford the means 
 of enabling the Bank of England to withdraw their encreased 
 circulation. It is no use saying that such accommodations of 
 the country Bankers did harm by encouraging wild speculations 
 and adventures. The country Bankers were not generally quite 
 so blind to their own interests. They took rather better care of 
 themselves than that. But whether they did that or not, it i* 
 quite certain that they encouraged the fertility and production of 
 $heseil, and the enurease of ail kinds of manufactures. They 
 
176 
 
 An issue of bank notes sufficient to restore th 
 former state of prices and of trade, might take place 
 without occasioning any permanent rise of the price 
 of bullion beyond par. 
 
 Such an issue would prevent bullion from being 
 depressed below par, and would draw it from for- 
 eign countries, and prevent it from being exported, 
 
 encouraged, also, the encrease of population, and of all the com- 
 forts and necessaries of life which such population required. If 
 an encreasing population, well fed, well clothed, well housed, 
 and fully employed, is not a good thing for a country, I do not 
 know what is. If it is not, why were the causes suffered to ope- 
 rate which produced it ? Why did we bring men into the world 
 in order to drive them out of it again ? Was it to encourage a 
 swifter destruction of the human race in peace than in war? 
 During the war, our population encreased in spite of the ravages 
 of the sword. It is now eridently and rapidly diminishing. 
 Want, and hunger, and nakedness, and misery, and disease, will 
 destroy life faster than cannon balls ! No! No ! It is not that 
 any thing was wrong in our former system, but it is that we hare 
 been fools enough to surfer it to fall, and we nd*r throw the blame 
 upon the system under which we flourished, rather than upon 
 our own blindness and folly ! It we had continued that system 
 we should have encreased the demand for labour for ever. We 
 should have encreased our individual and national wealth. W r e 
 should have encreased the population, and the strength, aud the 
 happiness of the country. How was it possible for us to have 
 fcnown want and distress, whilst our whole population was em. 
 |>loyed in producing food, and clothing, and all the necessarie* 
 which support, and all the comforts which sweeten, life ? 
 
177 
 
 and in restoring credit and confidence would lessen 
 the demand for bullion, and would thereby facili- 
 tate the payment in specie. 
 
 The circulation of bank notes is now Twenty-six 
 Millions, and yet gold is under par, and silver is 
 much under par. There is no reason can be given 
 why the raising of that circulation to Forty Mil- 
 lions should raise the price of bullion beyond par. 
 Twenty-six Millions are sufficient to employ two 
 thirds of our population, and Forty Millions would 
 be sufficient to employ the whole, and it would not 
 be more for the whole, than Twenty -six Million* 
 is for two thirds, but if bullion should rise beyond 
 par, it would be quickly reduced by the importa- 
 tions which its high price would occasion, in ex- 
 change for manufactures. At present the low price 
 of bullion creates its exportation^ instead of its high 
 price producing its importation; and thus, though 
 the price of bullion is low, we are still so much the 
 farther removed from any practicable plan of pay- 
 ment in specie. 
 
 Since the Bank was first opened, the payment in 
 specie could never have been fulfilled during a pe- 
 riod of public mistrust and alarm, without encreas- 
 ing the evil a hundred fold, and tearing up the pros- 
 perity of the country. 
 
178 
 
 The idea about guineas being unwilling to cir- 
 culate with bank notes is a delusion. They will 
 always circulate with bank notes, to as great an ex- 
 tent as the public require them, unless counteract- 
 ed by foreign circumstances. 
 
 If it should be possible that an encrease of bank 
 notes should raise the price of bullion above par* 
 the evil arising from that circumstance w 7 ould be 
 nothing at all, or at any rate would be perfectly 
 trifling in comparison with the sufferings which 
 the country has undergone, and is now under- 
 going. 
 
 If it should be possible, however, that a double 
 state of prices should arise, viz. one of bullion, and 
 one of bank notes, the inconvenience would yet be 
 nothing in comparison with the present distress, 
 and might be safely and easily counteracted by 
 disfranchising the guinea, which being deprived of 
 its power as a legal tender, would no longer inter- 
 fere with the prosperity of the country. 
 
 The late high prices of gold and silver bullion, 
 were in no respect owing to the redundant is- 
 sue of Bank INotes, but were occasioned solely 
 by casual circumstances of supply and demand, 
 in the same manner as the low prices of copper 
 and iron were occasioned, and as the present low 
 
179 
 
 prices of gold and silver are occasioned, at a period 
 when the issue of Bank Notes continues as liberal 
 as ever, and even more so. * 
 
 A national paper ought to be created in or/Ier 
 to remedy the inconvenience to which a circu- 
 lation dependant upon discount, or upon foreign 
 circumstances, is liable. 
 
 The best way of speedily restoring the efficient 
 state of the currency, is to extend the Bank Re- 
 striction Act for, say, ten years, and then for the 
 Bank of England to issue a quantity of additional 
 bank notes, upon bonds, notes of hand, and other 
 securities, to individuals for three years, at five per 
 cent interest, to be repayed by annual instalments 
 
 * I understand tha steam engine is beginning to do wonders 
 in South America. If it should have the same effect upon the 
 minerals of that country as it has had upon those e.f our own, 
 what would our Bullion Committee tay then ? What would 
 they say if they saw a Pound Note buy a pound weight of Gold? 
 Would they say that the paper Found was depreciated then? 
 I verily believe that these Gentlemen have done more mischief 
 to Old England than ever Buonaparte did. Seriously speaking, 
 I believe that the Bullion Report, by its influence upon Govern- 
 ment and upon the Bank of England, has done more injury to 
 the country, and caused far more distress, than were ever occasi- 
 oned by the imposition of all the taxes during the war. 
 
180 
 
 after the expiration of the three years, or at any 
 earlier period that may suit the borrowers. * 
 
 * It cannot be said that this paper would be intrinsically worth 
 nothing, merely because it would cost nothing in the making, 
 It would cost just as much in obtaining as if it was gold. It 
 would have a legislative value in its power of discharging debts, 
 and breaking open prison doors, and a real value in the assignment 
 of command orer property, which would be necessary to obtain it. 
 The people who borrow it would give security for it in lands, 
 goods, and chattels to double or treble the amount that they bor- 
 row, and it would therefore, represent such good things of 
 Jife, in the same manner as a guinea or dollar represents the good 
 things consumed in digging them out of the earth, and it would 
 represent them just as fully and really as the guinea and dollar 
 themselves, whose value is, in truth, all ideal, and depends 
 far more upon the assignment of command over the good things 
 of life, necessary to obtain them, than it does upon any real 
 value which they possess intrinsically within themselves. 
 
 The same would be the case with regard to the National Papejr 
 issued through the medium of the National Debt. It would 
 still represent a certain portion of real capital as effectually and 
 truly as so many guineas. The only difference would be that 
 the good things of life which obtained it, would have be^n con- 
 sumed by ihe British soldiers and sailors instead of being con- 
 sumed by Slaves and Spaniards* labouring in the American 
 mines. 
 
 Why are these guineas- obtained ? Not because we can ea t 
 them or drink them ! But because they cannot be obtained 
 without a great consumption of good things of life, and because, 
 when they are obtained, they answer the purpote of ceitain 
 tigns or tokens, by which the products of one man's industry, 
 
181 
 
 As these instalments are paid up, the Com- 
 missioners of tlie Sinking Fund, or some other pub- 
 lic body, might be prepared with national paper 
 which they should issue or not through the medium 
 of the National Debt, according as the state of 
 prices may require. If the price of wheat should 
 be above fifteen shillings per bushel, none need be 
 
 may be measured with and exchanged for those af another's* 
 Both these objects are just as efficiently answered by bank notei 
 as by guineas, and others also, which give bank notes a great pre- 
 ponderance over their cumberous and gaudy rivals, 
 
 It is true that this kind of issue may be carried to almost an 
 unlimited extent, so much so, as to raise wages to ten pounds 
 per week in a very short time, which would be too great a de- 
 preciation of money, but I beg it to be understood fully that I 
 do not propose to depreciate money at all. I only propose to 
 preserve it in the same state and value as it had maintained on 
 the average of several years preceding the year 1813. An issue 
 of bank notes might take place to this extent without the possi- 
 bility of going further, because immediately ou wheat rising 
 above fifteen shillings per bushel, from the action upon money, a 
 sufficient part of the proposed issue may be readily withdrawn, 
 so as quickly ro reduce the price of wheat to that level. It must 
 *be recollected that the present price of seventeen shillings to the 
 bushel of wheat, is owing to an action upon property, produced 
 by the action upon currency, that is to say, it is owing to a 
 real scarcity of wheat produced by a real scarcity of ^aoney com- 
 bined with an unfavourable season. But the scarcity of proper- 
 ty, has only shewn itself in the prices of agricultural produce as 
 yet, in the same manner as the action upon currency shewed it- 
 self upon that produce first ; aud there is therefore a great and 
 
182 
 
 re-issued until it falls, but if it should be belotv 
 that sum, a sufficient quantity ought to be issued 
 in, order to raise it to that sum, and thus the repay- 
 ment of the instalments would' be effected without 
 inconvenience either to the borrowers or to the 
 country, 
 
 painful inequality in the present state of agricultural and manu- 
 facturing prices. Of course, whilst this inequality continues no 
 part of tha proposed issue could be withdrawn, without encreas" 
 ing it relatively, and thereby encreasing the general distress. As 
 soon as ever this inequality is reduced, however, by time or im- 
 portations, or other circumstances affecting either agriculture or 
 manufactures, then anypriees that agricultural produce may bear, 
 will be formed upon certain relations which will be in common 
 with manufacturing prices, and at that time, they may be taken 
 as a sure guide to determine the state of the currency, and whe- 
 ther any part or all of the currency so proposed to be issued, 
 hould be withdrawn or be encreased. If the price of wheat 
 should continue as high as fifteen shillings, after three years ex- 
 perience, it will be clear evidence that it is then kept up at that 
 price by the efficient state of the currency, because the natural 
 reward of industry which that price now covers, will prevent the 
 possibility of any real scarcity of agricultural produce continu- 
 ing for three years. I mean to say, that if it preserve that price 
 for three years, it can only do so from the efficient state of the 
 circulation, which will by that time have acted equally upon 
 manufactures as upon agriculture, and consequently, the price 
 of wheat may be taken as a safe standard whereby to judge of the 
 state of the currency, and to know whether it will be adviseablc 
 to withdraw or re-issue the currency now proposed to be issued. 
 
183 
 
 No local assistance will do much good, To en* 
 able one particular trade to continue to maintain 
 its workmen for a few months longer, would only 
 have the effect of encreasing the'p reduction of that 
 trade, without having any effect in encreasing the 
 consumption of its articles, and, consequently, Ji 
 great stock would be created at one time, in order 
 to interfere with labour at some other time, so that 
 the misery of the labourers would not be removed* 
 it would only be extended in its duration. But a ge- 
 neral assistance afforded to all trades throughout 
 the country, would operate just as much in encreus- 
 ing general consumption, j as it would in encreasing 
 
 I should think, however, that it ought to be re-issued under any 
 circumstances, because it will contribute to cncrease the gradu. 
 al depreciation of money, which naturally produces and is pro- 
 duced by national prosperity, and it will also tend to diminish 
 the National Debt, and to save the expence of its interest ; but 
 this may be a subject for future consideration. 
 
 It may safely be taken for granted, that whenever the scarcity 
 of currency is so great that money is not readily to be had upon 
 good security, at five per cent interest, an additional issue is ne- 
 cessary* When money is to be had generally at three per cent, it 
 is probable that such additional issue may be safely withdrawn 
 The rate of interest is perhaps as good a criterion as the bushel 
 of wheat. Five per cent interest per annum, which has so long- 
 been established by law, and approved by universal custom and 
 consent, seems now to have become a kind of par in ihcjralue 
 fcf money, by the means of which we may at all times judge of 
 the efficiency of the circulating medium. 
 
184 
 
 general production ; because all trades are consum- 
 ers of each others articles, and if there are a thous- 
 and different trades, a thousand consumers Mould 
 
 But there is another kind of "par" which it would, per- 
 haps, be more advisable to adopt in deciding upon the re-issu- 
 ing of the money as above proposed, than either the par which 
 is formed by the bushel of wheat, or that formed by the rate o 
 interest. I mean the par of labour, which would, probably, 
 Ije a more certain guide than the rate of interest, and would not 
 be so obnoxious to popular prejudice as the bushel of wheat. 
 Suppose we take the average wages of an agricultural labourer, 
 to have been eighteen shillings per week four years ago, we may 
 safely adopt that sum as the par of labour, and we may be guid- 
 ed by it in the issue and re-issue of money as I have proposed 
 before to do with regard to the bushel of wheat. At the end of 
 three years if we find that the wages of agricultural labour are less 
 than eighteen shillings per week, we may be certain that an ad- 
 ditional creation of mone) is necessary in order to raise them up 
 to that level, and to support the circulating system, but if those 
 wages should then be above that sum per week, it may not be 
 necessary to create or re-issue any additional currency, because 
 that price of labour would take under its range the whole sys- 
 tem of rents and profits, debts and credits, and of agriculture, 
 commerce, and manufactures, us they existed during the latter 
 years of the war, and of course there would be no occasion for 
 any additional stimulus or assistance to support the state of high 
 prosperity, which such a system would occasion. The par of 
 labour would be a better guide than the par of wheat, because 
 it would associate the passions and prejudices of the populace 
 with their own interests, and with those of their country; but 
 the par of wheat might possibly be made obnoxious to those 
 prejudices, without being in itself a better guide than the par 
 f labour. 
 
185 
 
 i 
 
 thus beset instantly at work in consuming the pro- 
 ductions of a single producer* 
 
 But the main deduction which I would wish to 
 draw from all I have said is, that of all the things 
 we have to do, the first and most important is to 
 find food and employment for the population. If 
 we had attended to this in time, we should not, at 
 this time, have known the want of either, and if 
 we take the proper steps, even now, much may be 
 done. 
 
 The imposition of taxes encreases the deprecia- 
 tion of money, and their removal restores the value 
 of money. In other words, taxes occasion an 
 expansive action upon currency, they raise the 
 prices of property generally, and their removal oc- 
 casions a contractive action upon currency ; it falls 
 the prices of property generally, unless counter- 
 acted by legislative measures. 
 
 It is surprising the pertinacity with which peo- 
 ple still attribute their distresses to the pressure of 
 the taxes. If the taxes were collected in kind % 
 (which is their only real value) 1 insist upon it that 
 their burthen would be little or nothing. The ww- 
 employed labourers alone, if they had been kept at 
 work for the last four years, would have produced 
 more than enough to pay all the taxes twice 
 
186 
 
 And why have they not been kept at work ? Why 
 because circumstances of moral depression reduced 
 the fixed state of prices so low, that it no longer an- 
 swered the purpose of the capitalists to employ 
 them. And thus they are thrown out of work un- 
 til new relations become fixed, or until the old re- 
 lations are restored by an additional issue of mo- 
 ney. Let this issue take place, and the burthen of 
 the taxes will not be felt, it will not exist. The 
 unemployed labourers alone will not only dis- 
 charge it twice over, but they will quickly create 
 a production of good things, which of itself alone 
 would enable us to resume the payment in specie, 
 if such payment is deemed of any consequence to 
 the prosperity of the country. Labour is the foun- 
 dation of wealth. By suffering it to remain un- 
 employed, we have sustained a loss of more than a 
 Thousand Millions Sterling, of real property, in 
 the last four years, but we have sustained no loss 
 at all by the payment of the taxes. In the latter 
 we have only diverted the channels of part of our 
 wealth, in the former, we have cut up its principles, 
 and positively annihilated its existence. It is a 
 monstrous sight to see a large population of indus- 
 trious and intelligent men in want of employment. 
 It is a sight which never did exist, and never can 
 exist in any country where the circulating medium 
 is equivalent to its purposes. 
 
187 
 
 It is of consequence to have a clear view of the 
 operation of all taxes in raising the value of pro- 
 perty generally^ however partially they may be im- 
 posed. Suppose a tax of five shillings per bushel 
 is imposed upon malt, producing Six Millions Sterl- 
 ing per annum. Now to accomplish this object, 
 it is necessary for the malt to rise in proportion, or 
 it cannot be grown. It is also necessary for the 
 wages of labour to rise generally, or it cannot be 
 consumed, and of course if there is not an ample de- 
 mand for it, it will not long be grown. This ge- 
 neral rise of wages occasions a general rise in the 
 prices of all property, or no property could be pro- 
 duced. Thus a tax imposed upon malt, and pro- 
 ducing Six Millions per annum, acts partially > in 
 raising the price of malt equivalently, in order to 
 enable the maltster to pay the tax, and generally 
 upon all prices, in order to enable the consumers 
 to pay the price which the maltster requires. The 
 exchangeable value of all property rises Six Mil- 
 lions 'per annum, in order to cover the additional 
 legal responsibilities which are thus imposed upon 
 it. After awhile, the Six Millions so raised, is 
 brought into action against property, by the ex- 
 penditure of Government ; and here again the 
 prices of property are necessarily raised in propor- 
 tion, so that, in fact, a rise of Twelve Millions takes 
 place in the monied value of the annual sales of 
 property, to cover a tax of Six Millions ; or, at 
 
 . 
 
188 
 
 least, this expenditure tends to confirm and make 
 certain the first rise of Six Millions, which I have 
 shown naturally takes place by the mere imposition 
 of the tax. 
 
 When a tax is imposed upon malt, or any other 
 article, the price must rise in proportion, or the 
 malt will not be grown, and in that case the tax 
 will produce nothing, and if the price of general 
 labour does not rise in proportion, the malt will 
 not be consumed, and then also the tax will pro- 
 duce nothing, and at the same time the labourers 
 generally will be injured in their comforts and 
 numbers, all of which circumstances are contrary 
 to experience; for we have seen the labourers ge- 
 nerally encreasing rapidly in numbers, and, of 
 course, in prosperity, during the last twenty years, 
 whilst all manner of taxes have been imposed. ~~ 
 Taxes have been imposed upon malt, and yet no 
 one will pretend to say that less malt was grown 
 or consumed in consequence, and it could not be 
 consumed without wages being raised generally in 
 proportion, which would naturally occasion a ge- 
 neral rise in the prices of all property. 
 
 Where then does the ultimate payment of all 
 taxes rest, since one thing involves another in this 
 way, and since every one seems enabled to pay them 
 by the rise of prices which his particular property 
 experiences ? It is certain that the ultimate pay- 
 
189 
 
 in e, nt of all faxes rests upon capitalists generally, 
 who find their capital sucked from them, or as it 
 were,, evaporated in a thousand imperceptible 
 ways, in order to be diverted from the maintenance 
 of private dependents, into that of public de- 
 pendents, 
 i 
 
 , Forced contributions of money being levied upon 
 property, the consequence is that property rises in 
 monied value, .in order to discharge them, but the 
 general profits and rents of the country, are not 
 raised by the imposition of these monied contri- 
 butions, because they cannot in their nature be 
 subjected to them. All taxes rest upon consump- 
 tion, and consumption itself rests upon capital, for 
 where nothing exists, nothing can be derived. The 
 operation of taxes is [therefore to raise the monied 
 priies of property generally, without raising cor- 
 respondently the rents and profits of a country, 
 because these latter are merely the annual income 
 in money, which is derived from the use of capital, 
 and have no existence until they are realized at the 
 end of the year, when they become subject to tax- 
 ation in their expenditure ; for the prices of all pro- 
 perty being raised by taxation, those rents aiul 
 profits, (or monied income,) do not cover or pro- 
 duce so great a quantity of good things as formerly, 
 because a certain portion is abstracted by the Go- 
 rernment expenditure of the money raised by the 
 
190 
 
 taxes, which at the same time that it contributes to 
 raise prices, sucks up the capital of the country, to 
 be applied to national instead of individual purposes. 
 1 say that capital rises in monied price, by the impo- 
 sition of taxes, but the rents and profits of capital 
 do not rise thereby, and, therefore, inasmuch as 
 those monied rents and profits become unequal to 
 embrace or purchase the whole produce of the 
 country, beyond the consumption of the labourers 
 employed in producing it, in that very proportion 
 \vifl be the amount of the good things of life, con- 
 tributed to Government in the shape of taxes. But 
 no alteration is made in the wealth of the country, 
 or in the permanent happiness of the people. The 
 capitalists are deprived of the power of maintaining 
 say one-fifth of the whole population, and the 
 Government receives that power. The power and 
 the riches still exist, but they are diverted into 
 different channels, and one-fifth of the population 
 is forced to change their habits of life, becoming 
 soldiers and sailors, and ministers of national glory, 
 instead of continuing coach makers, and lace 
 makers, and ministers of individual ostentation, 
 and of low and selfish indulgence and gratification. 
 
 Since then we must acknowledge from argument, 
 and from experience, that all taxes act generally in 
 promoting an equivalent rise of prices upon all 
 property, or in other words, act generally in en- 
 
191 
 
 creasing the depreciation of currency, we cannot 
 but be sensible that the removal of all taxes, acts 
 in a similar way, in depressing generally the prices 
 of all property, and in recovering the value of cur- 
 rency ; and if we acknowledge this, and if we un- 
 derstand how ruinous to all classes is a depression 
 of prices, or a recovery of the value of currency, 
 we shall then also acknowledge, that the removal 
 of taxes is a far greater evil than good, unless it is 
 effected very gradually and cautiously, or unless it 
 is guarded against by a previous issue of money, 
 sufficient to keep up the state of prices, and to 
 enable the capitalists to find themselves in posses- 
 sion of the capital of such taxes upon their removal ; 
 we shall acknowledge that it is better for the rich, 
 and far better for the poor, to have the taxes con- 
 tinued for ever, than to have them removed sudden- 
 ly and rashly, and without making previous dispo- 
 sitions to counteract the action upon currency 
 which their removal occassions. 
 
 I am as confident of the truth of this opinion, as 
 1 am of any thing in my existence. The experience 
 of history confirms it ; reason proves it, and the 
 universal sufferings of the country declare it. If 
 men will never learn to look beneath the surface of 
 things, they will never understand the nature of 
 things ; they will mistake good for evil, and evil 
 for good, aud all their efforts to relieve themselves 
 
from suffering, will but encrease their misery ! 
 This is our situation now. When the revulsion of 
 capital from the taxes, lias thrown MILLIONS of in- 
 dividuals out of bread, those perishing MILLIONS 
 are doubled by the depression of prices, which such 
 revulsion has occasioned. It is true they will have 
 other openings for them some time, but the wants of 
 nature are not to be procrastinated, and before 
 those openings of existence are found, multitudes 
 will have found their grave. 
 
 If the Bank Restriction Act had never passed, it 
 would not have prevented this fatal state of things, 
 nor would it have made much difference in the 
 amount of bank notes in circulation ; as long as the 
 country continued to prosper, currency to the 
 amount of Ten Thousand Millions per annum would 
 have floated over a met alic surface, just as readily 
 as over a bank note surface, and when circum- 
 stances of depression arose, that volatile medium 
 would have experienced just the same contractive 
 action as it has now experienced. ]\o efforts could 
 have prevented this, but such as had the effect of 
 turning the current of the public fears, and of 
 preserving confidence in property, by diminishing 
 confidence in money. 
 
 Economy and retrenchment of all kinds, instead 
 of relieving our distresses in the smallest degree, 
 will positively encrease them for two or three 
 
193 
 
 years, and after that period, the poor people who 
 are left alive, will not be at all benefited by them. 
 Retrenchment can never take place with advantage 
 to a country, unless a previous stimulus be given to 
 the circulating system. 
 
 It seems that the price of agricultural labour, 
 is the best standard or par whereby to regulate the 
 issue of bank notes, or national paper, because it is 
 more deeply connected with national prosperity, 
 and is less exposed to foreign influence than any 
 other that can be devised. We may be quite 
 sure, from reason and experience, that if we issue a 
 sufficient sum of bank notes, to raise the average 
 price of agricultural labour to eighteen shillings 
 per week, that standard will cover under its range, 
 so great a degree of national prosperity, as will 
 prevent the possibility of any kind of labour being 
 unemployed or unrewarded. It' bullion is made a 
 standard or par whereby to regulate the issue of 
 bank notes, nothing but irregularity and distress 
 can arise from it, because it is perpetually acted 
 upon by foreign circumstances, and will at one time 
 produce a withdrawing of bank notes, when in fact 
 they ought to be encreased, and will at another, 
 produce an encrease of bank notes, when in fact 
 they ought to be withdrawn. Thus if the par of 
 gold is taken at twenty one shillings to the guinea^ 
 foreign circumstances of demand may raise it to 
 
 A A 
 
194 
 
 twenty eight shillings, as we have seen in the year 
 1815, without at all effecting a rise in the price of 
 labour or commodities ; and at this time to reduce its 
 price by withdrawing the bank notes, would be to 
 place the nation within a double kind of exhauster y 
 which would quickly reduce it to death. So also 
 foreign circumstances of supply, either from the 
 opening of the American mines, or from other na- 
 tions presenting occasionally a greater demand 
 for our manufactures, or from the revulsion of the 
 home consumption into foreign trade, may at times 
 reduce the price of the guinea to twenty shillings, 
 ore ghteen shillings (which is nearly the case now) 
 without at all effecting a correspondent reduction 
 in labour, or in commodities, and at such a time to 
 raise the price of the guinea to par, by an issue of 
 bank notes, would be to effect a correspondent rise 
 in labour and commodities, which would thus be 
 thrown above par without occassion, and the na- 
 tional prosperity would thus be thrown back- 
 wards and forwards with every change of those 
 foreign circumstances, over which we have nocon- 
 troul, and which are of no consequence at all to 
 our welfare, unless we choose to make them ruinous 
 to it by endeavouring to follow them. The stand- 
 ard of agricultural labour would be perfectly free 
 from all those kind of changes and fluctuations, 
 and as far as I am able to judge, would be the best 
 standard to adopt in regulating the issue of bank 
 notes, or national paper. 
 
193 
 
 Of coarse, the above objection to an issue of bank 
 notes does not apply to the present period, when 
 labour and commodities of all kinds are reduced 
 far more under par than the guinea. It is useful to 
 bear in mind that when the guinea rose suddenly 
 in 1815, from twenty-two shillings to twenty-eight 
 shillings, no correspondent rise took place upon 
 grain, or upon labour or any other articles, all of 
 which indeed continued to depress in price, until 
 the Nine Millions of bank notes came into action 
 last year, and the unfavourable season promoted a 
 reaction in agriculture. The guinea afterwards 
 fell to twenty-one shillings, and 1 believe it is only 
 about twenty shillings and six-pence now, so that 
 its price has not been raised above par by the issue of 
 Nine Millions of additional bank notes, nor do 1 be- 
 lieve that it would be raised above par by the issue 
 of Twenty Millions more, unless those Twenty 
 Millions should have the effect of raising the ave- 
 rage price of agricultural labour above eighteen 
 shillings per week. But whether an additional 
 issue of banknotes would have the effect of raising 
 the guinea above par, and of creating a double state 
 of prices or not, is no argument at all against such 
 issue, provided such an issue is necessary to restore 
 the prosperity of the country, which I think must 
 be sufficiently evident. The guinea was made for 
 man and not man for the guinea. If the guinea, 
 therefore, is not sufficiently ample in its capacities 
 
396 
 
 to meet the wants of man, it must be enlarged and 
 extended, but man must not be contracted and 
 crippled, in order to accommodate his dimensions 
 to the guinea. A great nation of industrious and in- 
 telligent men must not be sacrificed to this idol. 
 They must not be forced " through the fire to Mo- 
 loch," nor will they be forced. The cup of their 
 bitterness is full. It must not be suffered to overflow. 
 
 I have thus thrown together a variety of thoughts 
 and opinions, desultory indeed, but such as I have 
 neither leisure or disposition to economize and ar- 
 range. They would, indeed, have been somewhat 
 better arranged, had not the urgency of the occa- 
 sion, and the writing for the press, prevented my 
 introducing in their proper places matters which I 
 thought it necessary to introduce, in addition to 
 what I originally intended. For four years they 
 have been the constant subject of my conversation 
 with my friends, and during this period I have had 
 the painful satisfaction of seeing confirmed all the 
 dismal anticipations which they led me to form. 
 
 I could have wished to have avoided the trouble 
 and the unpleasantness of committing them to the 
 public, but they are wrung from me by the suffer- 
 ings of my country, and by those greater dangers 
 which are yet to be apprehended, unless the circu- 
 lating system is speedily replaced, in that ample 
 
197 
 
 and efficient state from which it ought never to 
 have been suffered to fall. It has been suffered to 
 fall, and it has crushed the national happiness in 
 its fall. Whilst the natural energies of England 
 were developed by an efficient circulation, her 
 strength astonished and overpowered the world.* 
 But when this life-blood of her glory has been 
 withdrawn, her energies have withered within her t 
 and her giant strength has shrunk into the weak* 
 ness of an infant. This mighty nation, the great, 
 the good, the redresser of injuries, the avenger of 
 wrongs, whose wisdom has enlightened, and whose 
 strength has shielded the world, this mighty na- 
 tion, prodigal of her unbounded wealth, and pro- 
 digal of her generous blood, is fallen from her 
 palmy state. Her wealth is vanished, and her spi- 
 rit humbled. The nations who formerly wondered 
 at her riches, now wonder at her poverty. They 
 contemplate her sufferings with doubt and alarm, 
 uncertain whether they will terminate in the reno- 
 vation of her health, in a premature old age, or 
 in the terrible agonies of convulsions and death. 
 
 But this heavy calamity cannot have happened 
 without a cause, and all causes must have been in- 
 efficient to produce it, unless they have acted upon 
 the springs of individual industry, which are the 
 only fountains of national wealth. It is in vain to 
 attribute it to the pressure of taxes, or to the change 
 
198 
 
 from a state of war to a state of peace. We might 
 as well attribute it to the prevalence of luxury, or 
 of the Eastern Wind. It is entirely owing to a con- 
 tractive action upon the circulating system, which 
 has depressed prices, and arrested the reward of 
 industry, and crippled the efforts of individual en- 
 ergies throughout the million channels through 
 which those energies operate to the creation of na- 
 tional wealth. 
 
 : 
 
 Let the circulation of the country be set free, let 
 it be restored to its former amount, and the nation 
 shall awake, as from a frightful dream. Her suf- 
 ferings shall pass away, and theday of her prospe- 
 rity shall return. Comfort shall revisit the cottage 
 of the labourer, and the humble mansion of the 
 mechanic ; the merchant shall again cover the sea 
 with his ships, and the farmer shall clothe the 
 earth with plenty. In short, England shall again 
 develope the energies with which Nature has en- 
 dowed her, and her Genius shall again astonish the 
 nations by the wisdom and justice of her institu- 
 tions at home, and by the strength and magnificence 
 of her operations abroad. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ALTHOUGH I have drawn out this pamphlet to a 
 tedious length, and have encumbered it with many 
 notes, yet as my Printer gives me an opportunity 
 of saying a little more, i shall, perhaps, be excused 
 for entering a little farther into the subject. 
 
 Supposing we determine to go back to the pay- 
 ment in specie, let us consider what will be the 
 mere expence of our so doing, without reference to 
 its consequences. 
 
 We can only obtain bullion by giving to Spain 
 and other foreign countries, as much of our manu- 
 factures as they will be willing to take in exchange, 
 that is to say, by giving them as much ale, and 
 porter, and cloth, and cottons, and other good 
 things of life, as it has cost them to dig the bullion 
 out of the mines ! Thus to get one single guinea 
 
200 
 
 from abroad, we must send the produce of the la- 
 bour of an able-bodied Englishman for fourteen 
 days, or two weeks, reckoning wages at their pre- 
 sent distressing depression of about ten shillings 
 and six-pence per week. That is to say, we must 
 make an Englishman work two weeks to get one 
 single guinea from abroad, and he must work forty 
 weeks for twenty guineas, and forty thousand weeks 
 for twenty thousand guineas ! Let us go on a little 
 farther. Before we can get one hundred thousand 
 guineas, he must work two hundred thousand 
 weeks, and before we can get one million of guin- 
 eas, he must work two millions of weeks, and be- 
 fore we can get twenty millions of guineas into 
 England, we must give the work of an English la- 
 bourer for forty millions of weeks ! Or, in other 
 words, we must give the labour of EIGHT HUNDRED 
 THOUSAND ABLE ENGLISHMEN FOR A WHOLE YEAR, 
 
 BEFORE WE CAN GET TWENTY MILLIONS OF GUIN- 
 EAS IMPORTED INTO ENGLAND ! ! ! Gracious Hea- 
 ven ! Are we to buy gold at this rate ? Are we 
 to give such a property as this for a metallick basis 
 for our circulation, when we have got a better ba- 
 sis within ourselves at no expence at all ? One 
 would think that Gentlemen would have the good- 
 ness to point out to us some wonderful advantages, 
 before they propose to us such an enormous sacri- 
 fice as this ! There is positively no advantage at 
 all, and I defy all the theorists in England to prove 
 that there is. 
 
201 - 
 
 How will they prove it ? From reason, and 
 experience, and the evidence of facts. I allow that 
 they may thus prove the superior utility of a golden 
 currency to an iron currency, if the value of each is 
 measured by the weight, without being coined ; 
 but if iron was as difficult to be procured as gold, 
 it would then be equal to it in utility for currency, 
 or nearly so. The great advantage the scarcity of 
 gold gives it for currency, is, the enabling a pound 
 \veight of that metal to pass for as many good 
 things as a ton of iron, and so on, that is to say, 
 the ton of iron and the pound of gold cost about 
 the same expenditure of human labour, and of 
 the good things of life, to procure them ; and 
 they would pass one as current as the other if they 
 were equally bulky or equally portable, and the 
 law so directed. Oa the Coast of Africa and in the 
 Islands of the South Sea, iron is still the money 
 of the country, and is likely to be so for many agts 
 yet, on account of its scarcity. 1 do not see, indeed, 
 why it may not be coined for currency in this 
 country, and become equally valuable and useful 
 as the guinea, provided it is made equally porta- 
 ble, and equally secure from being counterfeited, 
 and is made obtainable when coined, only, by giv- 
 ing the same valuable consideration for itas is given 
 for the guinea. 
 
 ; 
 
 B B 
 
But allowing that there may be some difficulty 
 in introducing an iron circulation, yet how can 
 it be argued from reason and experience, and the 
 evidence of facts that a gold currency is of more 
 service to a nation than a paper currency, as esta- 
 blished by us, or even than a coined iron cur- 
 rency, if made equally secure from counterfeiting. 
 1 mean a paper currency that represents real value, 
 that is not issued but for a bona fide undeniable 
 security, or lien upon an equivalent amount of 
 property and good things of life, and not in the 
 way that the French Assignats were issued by their 
 tottering, tumbling, ephemeral Governments, 
 without any limitation, or any adequate security 
 upon the good thisigs of life. Facts are on our 
 , side here. No man will pretond that this nation 
 could have made such gigantic efforts in the last 
 twenty-five vears, and have flourished besides, 
 faster, or even so fast as it has, without our paper 
 system. And if we can flourish under it in 
 war, I should like to hear a sufficient reason 
 assigned for our not flourishing under it in peace, 
 for I can see none myself. But 1 can see plainly 
 that a paper currency of this kind, after disfran- 
 chising the guinea, and leaving gold to find its own 
 level, as an article of merchandise, will identify 
 the general interests of all individuals, and unite 
 them the more cordially in resisting foreign ene- 
 mies, without at all altering the relations which the 
 
203 
 
 Covrn- and people now bear to each other. If, 
 however, we must have a me tallick basis for our 
 currency, why not give the cloth, and cotton, and 
 hardwares, and goods of every description to our 
 own people, for working our own metals, until they 
 become as costly as gold, instead of giving them 
 to foreigners for that article, to use as currency. , 
 Steel, for instance, is sometimes wrought by our 
 artizans, until it becomes an hundred times as va- 
 luable as the same weight of gold. We might 
 still buy gold from foreigners, as an article of mer- 
 chandise, and we might sell it to them again, both, 
 wro ught and unwrought as our interest might re- 
 quire : but if we substitute some other article that 
 will answer as good a purpose as gold for exchang- 
 ing our commodities amongst ourselves, what us* 
 will there be in keeping it at home for that purpose, 
 and why not change it with foreigners, for those 
 luxuries and comforts that our own climate denies 
 us. Whether this operation is carried to the full 
 extent that a restriction on the Bank of England 
 from paying in Specie would permit or not, 
 it will certainly be parried to* a very considera- 
 ble extent by the country .Bankers, and by the 
 
 - v .. , \ t ; f , .> J T _ . J 
 
 Bank of England^ whenever credit and confidence 
 run high ;, for at such times they will find, that a 
 very small quantity of gold in their chests will qn- 
 able them to support a very large circulation of 
 notes ; and at such times too, >yhen,^>s^$le ijidivi- 
 
204 
 
 dual finds a more than ordinary demand upon him 
 for gold, he will be enabled easily to borrow or 
 sell, or otherways procure the quantity he has 
 occasion for, from his friends and neighbours, if 
 his property is of sufficient amount. Paper mo- 
 ney will, therefore, under any circumstances* 
 in times of prosperity, be sure to form the chief 
 part of our circulating medium, 1 mean of that 
 part of our circulating medium that does not con- 
 sist of bills of exchange ; 'our cash notes, however, 
 are nothing else but bills of exchange if traced to 
 their roots. 
 
 But in a time of general distress like the present, 
 every banker must look at home, and whether he 
 depends upon guineas or upon the notes of the 
 Bank of England, to discharge all demands that 
 may be made upon him , he will take care to keep 
 them within his reach, and will break up the 
 prosperity of all the country around him before 
 he will break himself. 
 
 The only possible way to counteract a general 
 depression of this kind, is not by changing the 
 paper circulation into a gold circulation, which 
 is, in fact, to encrease the evil a hundred-fold ; 
 but to create an additional issue of money , which 
 by making money cheap necessarily makes proper- 
 ty dear, and thus in an instant turns the current 
 
05 
 
 of the public fears, and restores confidence, and 
 credit, and production, and consumption, and 
 every thing else upon which commercial pros- 
 perity depends. This was the case in the year 
 
 1797. 
 
 
 It is of no use to say that the Bank of England 
 may fail, and that country Bankers may fail, and 
 a great deal of distress be occasioned thereby, per- 
 haps equal to one thousandth part of that which 
 has been occasioned by the action upon currency. 
 If the Bank of England is not upon a proper foot- 
 ing, let it be placed on a proper footing, and let it 
 be rendered incapable of failing, or in any way of 
 misapplying the prodigious powers which are iu- 
 trusted to it. When the circulating system is re- 
 stored, let the issues of the Bank be confined under 
 rigid obligations. Let it never issue its notes but 
 for good bills of exchange, which are as much the 
 representatives of value, as gold itself. Let the 
 Bank manage its business with as much discretion 
 as any prudent individual tradesman, and then 
 whether it can pay its notes in gold and silver or 
 not, it will always be able to pay them in as much 
 bread, and cheese, and porter, and ale, as the 
 holders gave for them, and surely they cannot for 
 shame ask for more. And as for the country Bank- 
 ers, what have we to do with them, any more than 
 with the country merchants and traders of a thous- 
 
206 
 
 and descriptions, who are also liable to fail, and 
 to injure their unsuspecting creditors in their fail- 
 ure ! Let their creditors be more cautious, or let 
 them take the consequences of their own credulity. 
 Their capital is not lost to their country, if it is to 
 them; nor is it devoured by the Banker, or other 
 insolvent ; it is gone to the maintenance of labour- 
 ers, just as effectually as if they had spent it them- 
 selves. But if the country Bankers are not safe, 
 let them give security for their issues, and I suppose 
 they" will be safe then. They have done more for 
 their country; and less for themselves than any 
 other description of men, excepting only the soldiers 
 ancl sailor's. r f heV fiaVe'al much right to issue their 
 notes for One Pou'artW Ten Founds, asoiher peo- 
 ple : have to i'ssise their billsand notes for One Thou- 
 sandor Ten 1 'housaiidlWnds, and if we are weak 
 riougli to think this state of things injurious, we 
 had better crush the whole circulating system at 
 once, and go back to the barbaVism of our British 
 ancestors, who bartered a bow or a spear for a 
 sheep's head or a bAllocli's livery Without the inter- 
 vention^kriy kind of money. 1 i Irtish that the ad- 
 vocates of guineas \rofre obU'ge^t^p'b'^cU to barter 
 for afew mon^hs^ r BaVtelr fa'ther^terfectibti of their 
 system, and a blessed pe^femidttiiis'. 1 ^ 1 apprehend 
 *hW would soon' fcelaise -tci* ^11 bank notes "dirty 
 & tags/' which is, in fact, a foolish kind of bariter- 
 ing, flrat might with just as much propriety be ap- 
 
207 ' 
 
 plied to a bill of exchange, or a Death Warrant.- 
 Bank notes have the power of discharging debts 
 and of breaking open prison doors, and of feeding 
 the hungry, and clothing the naked. \V hat an ab~ 
 surdity it is, to call these kind of things "dirty 
 41 rags, 5 ' merely because they have not the gloss and 
 the colour with which "dirty" minds are so much 
 charmed in gold. They have every useful purpose 
 whirh gold has, and many more which that bauble 
 never possessed, and never can possess. 
 
 Let us examine a little closer the nature of our 
 paper, and of our metallic currency.. A man gt'ts 
 into his possession a quantity of any kind of good* 
 or merchandise; suy coul or iron, by. giving for it 
 bread arid cheese, and porter, and ale, and other 
 good things, which are deemed equivalent to the 
 coal and iron in value. He sells this iran*orcoal to 
 a merchant, and receives back a biH of /exchange, 
 say for one thousand pounds, or any other sum; 
 he takes this bill of exchange, or some other mer- 
 chandise which he buys with it, or perhaps? the 
 aforesaid iron and coal, and gives, or exchanges 
 them with France or Spain, or some other fqreiga 
 country, for the precious metals* as they are cajled, 
 that is to say, for certain sorts of squids metals,; he 
 takes his precious metal to the mint, an$jH*s it 
 stamped with the king's image and superscription, 
 andlo! it becomes money ! Or, on the other hand, 
 
208 
 
 he takes his bill of exchange to the bank of England, 
 andsajs, "Give me a certificate in your hand writing, 
 that I have deposited this good bill, this truerepre. 
 s entative of real value in your custody/' and behold ! 
 a bank note is created, which answers the same pur- 
 pose as metallick money, and is just as good for all 
 purposes, and rather better for many. All the 
 difference in fact, being, that in this case, he has de- 
 posited his merchandise in his native land, instead 
 of in a foreign country. 
 
 We thus perceive that to obtain a bullion basis 
 for our circulation, a certain quantity of porter'and 
 ale, and cloth, and iron and coal, and other good 
 things, is required to be given to foreign nations be- 
 fore we can obtain it ; and what is the difference if 
 we think proper to make use of our own money, 
 created within ourselves, and consisting of bank 
 notes, or coins of copper, iron, or steel? Why 
 clearly there is no difference at all, excepting only 
 that we keep the cloth and cotton, and porter and 
 ale, and other good things to be consumed among our- 
 selves, instead of giving them to foreigners in ex- 
 change for an article which we have no occasion for, 
 We give the command over exactly a similar quan- 
 tity of good things of life to the Bank of England, 
 or other bankers, instead of giving it to foreigners, 
 and in return, the bankers give us certain signs or 
 tokens called bank notes, which pass current among 
 
209 
 
 us as the representatives of value, and answer the 
 purpose of giving to us the command over a quan* 
 tity of the good things of life, equivalent to that 
 which we had advanced to the bankers. And 
 thus we get a circulating medium founded upon 
 real value, just as effectually as gold, without any- 
 national expence, and it is at all times equivalent to 
 its purposes upon certain fixed and secure relations, 
 provided proper legislative provisions are made to 
 encrease or diminish the basis upon which it is 
 formed, accordingly as moral circumstances of 
 confidence or depression may require. 
 
 It is surprising how the wealth, the strength, and 
 the resources of England have continually de- 
 veloped themselves more and more since the Bank 
 Restriction first took place, encreasing almost in a 
 geometrical ratio every year during the war, al- 
 though the Bullion Report shook the foundations 
 of confidence in the year IS'.O. If that system had 
 been kept up as it might have been, our National 
 Debt now, would have been scarcely felt. The 
 annual accumulation of surplus capital which 
 would have continued to take place under that 
 system, as heretofore, would not only have sufficed 
 to pay the interest, but probably a great part of 
 the principal of the debt, by enabling us to en- 
 crease the Sinking Fund. To be sure, if the enemy 
 ||ad gotpossesaion of our metropolis, he would have 
 
 c c 
 
210 
 
 shaken our circulating- system to its centre; but 
 that system combined with our national energy 
 has hitherto enabled us to maintain a sufficient 
 number of soldiers and sailors to put that danger 
 aside. Other nations never having had the energy, 
 or the ability, to keep him at arm's-length, may 
 have been one cause why they could not establish 
 a paper system on such a firm foundation as we 
 have, and our edifice of credit and of confidence 
 was not erected in a day. But only compare the- 
 attitude in which we stood at the return from Elba, 
 with the situation of all the other nations of Eu- 
 rope. They all lay panting, breathless, prostrate 
 upon the ground, utterly exhausted with their late 
 conflict, and unable to send any army at all beyond 
 their own frontiers. We had but just emerged 
 from another most expensive conflict carried on 
 beyond the Atlantic, and we were not only able to 
 march forward the first to meet the foe, but we 
 heaved up all Europe, and whirled it against 
 France. What might we not have expected this 
 system to do for us in peace, if it had been con- 
 tinued in action with all its vigour ? And why not 
 continueit for ever? Why should not credit and con- 
 fidence be as good in peace as in war ? Everyyear of 
 the ,var, it was most solemnly prophesied, that our 
 credit and our wealth must come to an end by the 
 next, and yet so far from that being the case, every 
 si jn of encreased prosperity and abundance shewed^. 
 - - 
 
211 
 
 itself every year. Our population, our agriculture, 
 our commerce, our manufactures encreased annu- 
 ally. Partial distress in one place, was counter- 
 balanced by increasing prosperity in another. 
 
 It is true our National Debt encreased ; but all 
 magnitude is relative. When we talk of the com- 
 parative magnitude of our National Debt now, 
 and thirty years ago, we should take into account 
 the comparative magnitude of the productive pow- 
 ers of the country at both periods. When we de- 
 duct from the amount of our National Debt the sum 
 redeemed by the Sinking Fund, and make allow- 
 ance for the depreciation of money, and consider 
 theencrease of our population, and of our skill and 
 science, the new canals, and steam engines, and 
 manufactories, and new inclosures, and the innu- 
 merable improvements that have taken place in all 
 the arts of life, we shall certainly find that we have 
 not so heavy a burthen round our necks now, as 
 we had thirty years ago, by many a degree* Sup- 
 posing we turn our National Debt into goods, at a 
 fair valuation, and reckon it equivalent to so many 
 hogsheads of sugar, so many bushels of wheat, 
 so many stone of beef, and so on, which is merely 
 reducing it to its first principles. Is there any 
 doubt but we could produce all these goods, where- 
 with to discharge it, if we set ourpopulation stead- 
 ily to work, instead of letting it consume its time 
 
in indolence and inactivity ? I repeat it, the tin. 
 employed labourers alone would repay the whole 
 National Debt in a few years, if they were set to 
 york in their respective employments, with their 
 accustomed activity ; to which there is no obstacle 
 but the want of an equivalent circulating medium* 
 Only let this medium be created, and in a very few 
 years we shall look in vain for our National Debt, 
 particularly if we advance in the arts of life as ra- 
 pidly as the experience of the last thirty years gives 
 us reason to expect. And it will be very strange 
 indeed, if we do not advance, if the human mind 
 should stand still. The soldiers, and the sailors, 
 and other public servants, who have been employ* 
 ed during the war in producing national honour 
 and safety, will now be employed in producing 
 goods and merchandise, wherewith to discharge the 
 demands of our national creditors. One thousand 
 jnen under arms will, in all probability, produce 
 us as much national security in peace, as twenty 
 thousand did during the war, What will be the 
 productive powers of the country, when the sold* 
 jers and sailors, and the hundreds of thousands of 
 mechanical and agricultural labourers, are all 
 brought into action in producing property, which 
 they will necessarily be, by an encreased issue of 
 money ? Reckoning the National Debt at fifteen 
 shillings to the bushel of wheat, and Other articles 
 in proportion, if we have a ten years peace, it 
 
213 
 
 tainly does seem probable that this mighty burthen 
 may be reduced full as fast as it was accumulated. 
 
 I perceive by the Reports o^f the House of Com- 
 mons, that my Lord Castlereagh perseveres in re- 
 presenting the present distress as not greater than 
 that which succeeded the American War. It is 
 surprising how the Noble Lord can suffer his mind 
 to be so deceived. 1 know that the distress was 
 very great and very general after the American 
 War, and that it originated in the same circum- 
 stances as the present distress. But although there 
 was a general depression of all property, and a ge- 
 neral stagnation of all trade, which lasted for about 
 two years, and then \vas succeeded by seven years 
 of greater prosperity than England ever knew be- 
 fore, yet I cannot conceive how it can be thought 
 possible that the distress was equal to what it is 
 now. Elderly men, who remember well the period 
 in question, all agree that the distress was very 
 great and universal in all parts of the country, and 
 in all descriptions of industry, but as to magnitude, 
 it was not to be compared with the present distress 
 in any of its features. Besides, the taxes or forced 
 monied contributions levied upon property, during 
 the American War, were not equal probably to one 
 fourth of those which have been levied and taken 
 off during and since the late war. How then could 
 the depression have been equal ? Our national ex* 
 
214 
 
 penditure has lately been curtailed half a million 
 per week. Alter the American War, it was not cur- 
 tailed one-fifth of that amount. How then could 
 the revulsion have been equal ? Reckoning One 
 Pound per week for the maintenance of a family, 
 half R million of families are thrown out of bread 
 by the present revulsion, and probably another half 
 a million of families are also thrown out of bread 
 by the depression of prices which that revulsion has 
 occasioned. How is it possible that any thing like 
 this can have happened after the American War > 
 Or after any war in which similar taxes had not 
 been raised, and similar excitements had not been 
 given to the circulating system ? We had then no 
 Bank Restriction Act, and the inventions and cre- 
 ations of credit in all their shapes, were probably not 
 equal to one half of what they are now. How then 
 could the revulsion of that system be equal to that 
 of the present ? It is not possible. But although 
 the distress was not equal in its a mount, yet it was 
 similar in its nature, and therefore we may derive 
 some consolation from the knowledge that our pre- 
 sent distress is merely temporary, and that those 
 who survive their sufferings, will find some recom- 
 pence in the extent of their future prosperity. We 
 have, it is true, about two years' famine to contend 
 with, but after that period the laud will produce 
 enough -for our support, and we shall have nothing 
 to fear. If we had taken the precautions of tha 
 
Patriarch Joseph, we should have preserved the 
 cultivation of our land, and the extent of our trade, 
 and we should also have preserved our immense and 
 universal stocks, which would have enabled us to 
 bid defiance to any calamities that fall within the 
 course of nature. 
 
 The National Debt has been called " a millstone 
 * round the neck of England. " I trust the pur- 
 port of what I have said will have a tendency lo 
 shew that its burthen is but trifling in itself, and 
 that what we mistake for its burthen is merely the 
 action upon currency, or the depression of prices, 
 which has given a quadruple weight to the pres- 
 sure of the taxes. So far from its being any very 
 serious burthen in itself, reckoning it at the same 
 number of days' work, and of bushels of wheat, 
 and tons of iron, and other good things as we have 
 received for it, 1 am persuaded that it will be re- 
 duced easily, as fast as it was accumulated, as 
 soon as ever we have placed our circulation upon 
 a proper footing. In effecting this great object, 
 and in securing its safe and permanent operation, 
 the National Debt itself furnishes us with a medi- 
 um of action, which, if judiciously used, will more 
 than counterbalance the weight of its burthen, 
 and render it of essential service to the whole coun- 
 try, instead of being any injury at all. I mean, 
 that the National Debt of about Six Hundred 
 
Millions Sterling, furnishes us with a medium 
 through which we may act upon the circulating 
 system, and govern it to our purposes just as we 
 please. 
 
 Whenever the price of agricultural labour, for 
 instance, falls below eighteen shillings per week, 
 we may instantly raise it to that par by investing 
 bank notes, or national paper in the purchase of the 
 National Debt ; and whenever it rises above that 
 par^ we may instantly reduce it again, by with- 
 drawing such bank notes or national paper, which 
 the re-selling the National Debt so bought w ill 
 effect. Provided we think it necessary to confine 
 the circulating system within the par of eighteen 
 shillings to the week's labour. The National Debt, 
 instead of being a " millstone" about our necks, 
 becomes thus a great lever of national strength and 
 prosperity, whereby we are enabled to act upon 
 the circulating system, and to render it at all times 
 equivalent to the purposes of giving ample employ- 
 ment and ample maintenance to the whole popu- 
 lation, however numerous and diversified that po- 
 pulation may be. It becomes a great Regulator 
 in the machinery of circulation, whereby it is al- 
 ways preserved in an ample and sufficient action ; 
 and is totally secured from the possibility of those 
 painful changes and fluctuations to which it is sub- 
 ject in its nature, whether the basis on which it 
 
217 
 
 operates is either that of bank notes or of bullion, 
 or of both. This, I repeat it, is an advantage 
 in the National Debt, which, if we judiciously u.se 
 it, will counterbalance the weight of its burthen 
 and make it even beneficial to the country. 
 
 We were prevented from reverting to payment 
 in specie during the war, by the pressure of Buona- 
 parte and his hosts of Myrmidons ; this reason was 
 sufficient. But we have still a stronger reason 
 now on the return of peace, in the universal 
 misery which the reduction of Government ex- 
 penditure, and the depression of prices, caused by 
 the removal of the taxes have occasioned. Hunger, 
 and nakedness, and poverty, and wretchedness, and 
 disease, are now thinning our numbers faster than 
 a bloody contest upon English ground would have 
 thinned them, and yet at this fatal period, forsooth, 
 we must revert suddenly to a measure which we never 
 dared to undertakeduring theheight of our prospe- 
 rity ! I repeat, that currency was made for man, and 
 not man for currency ; the great interests of life and 
 death, of prosperity and adversity, must not be sa- 
 crificed in order to gratify a prejudice, or partiality 
 for a gold currency. Or if this partiality must be gra- 
 tified, we must wait until we can gratify it without 
 injury and ruin, until the natural course of trade 
 has brought a sufficient quantity of gold within our 
 reach \ or if we can neither give up this partiality, 
 
 p D 
 
218 
 
 nor wait till a proper season for its gratification, 
 we must enlarge, and extend, the powers and capa- 
 cities of the guinea, and make it worth thirty or 
 forty shillings in currency, instead of twenty -one 
 shillings; we must diminish the size and weight of 
 the guinea, or we must mix it with more alloy, 
 but we must not attempt impossibilities, and en- 
 deavour to revert to the payment in specie on the 
 old relations, before the course of trade can bring 
 into our country a sufficient quantity of bullion to 
 enable us to do so, without diminishing the amount 
 of our circulating medium ; nor must we revert to 
 the payment in specie, at any time, if such a 
 measure is to have the effect of restoring the value 
 of currency to what it was in 1791, before the Na- 
 tional Debt is reduced to the same amount. That is 
 an object which I do not hesitate to assert, it is ut- 
 terly impossible to accomplish, without the cer- 
 tainty of producing a Revolution The nation will 
 not consent that the whole National Debt shall 
 thus be doubled at once, for the benefit of the 
 Stockholders. The nation is willing that the 
 Stockholders shall be repaid in the same amount 
 of the good things of life which they con- 
 tributed, but if they attempt to receive more, they 
 will certainly lose the whole. So also the private 
 creditors of individuals throughout the country 
 have advanced their property at fifteen shillings 
 to the bushel of wheat,and eighteen shillings to the 
 
219 
 
 week's labour. It is not just that these debts 
 should be repaid at seven shillings to the bushel of 
 wheat, and at nine shillings to the week's labour* 
 What is this but to throw all the property, and all 
 the prosperity, and all the active and vital ener- 
 gies of the country, prostrate at the feet of the 
 monied interest ? What is this but to sacrifice the 
 strength, and the health, and the blood of the na- 
 tion, in order to accomplish the object of repaying 
 licice^ what we have borrowed once, when the same 
 unjust and criminal object, might be accomplished 
 in ayr easier and shorter way, by passing an Act of 
 Parliament to double all debts at once. We should 
 know the worst of this, and we should be able to 
 meet it; but we can neither see the length, or the 
 breadth or the depth of a recovery of currency. 
 It is in vain to reason upon this subject. It is suffi- 
 cient to assert that the value of currency ought not 
 to be restored, and that it cannot be restored but in 
 proportion as the national debt is reduced^ and even 
 then, it seems probable, that it could not be restored 
 without a total sacrifice of the national prosperity. 
 
 After all that can be said or done, the payment 
 in Specie, when it takes place, will be but a de- 
 lusion. We shall be able to pay gold as long as 
 nobody requires us to do so, but as soon as ever any 
 serious general demand takes place, it will be 
 qaite impossible to answer it, and we shall be re- 
 
220 
 
 duced to the alternative of either again having 
 recourse to a Bank Restriction Act, or of suffer- 
 ing the whole country to be torn to pieces by the 
 sudden withdrawing of one circulation, before it 
 is possible to get possession of another. All that 
 we can attempt, with any possibility of success, 
 is to keep our bank notes on a par with specie in, 
 value, that is to say, to make twenty one pounds 
 in bank notes, pass current for the same quantity 
 of good things of life as twenty guineas in gold ; 
 and thi s I am convinced that we might have effect- 
 ed without reducing the price of agricultural la- 
 bour under eighteen shillings per w r eek, and with- 
 out reducing in any way the state of prices, which 
 had become fixed during the war. Those prices 
 might have been kept up by an issue of bank notes, 
 and the natural course of trade would have pre- 
 vented the possibility of the guinea bringing more 
 than twenty-one shillings, which is its par as fixed 
 by law, or if it did not, the legal par of the guinea 
 might very easily have been altered accordingly 
 almost without injury, or injustice to any one f 
 and all the sufferings that we have endured might 
 thus have been prevented. Why may not the gui- 
 nea pass current for twenty-eight shillings, just as 
 well as for twenty-one shillings ? All this is amere 
 question of convenience, to which we should force 
 the capacities of the guinea to accommodate them- 
 selves, instead of attempting to force the wants and 
 
221 
 
 operations of man into the narrow confines of the 
 guinea. The guinea has no feelings. It may be en- 
 larged or contracted in its metallick weight. It 
 may be dilated or confined, in its legal powers and 
 capacities, It may be tortured, twisted, diminishr 
 ed, enlarged, coutrouled ; but jf we torture man, 
 he dies. 
 
 It will never be possible, and never was possible 
 for the Bank of England to pay its notes in gold 
 upon any general demand, w ithout tearing out the 
 vitals of the country. As long as the country pros- 
 pers, such payment will never be required, but if it 
 ever is required, it will always be necessary to 
 guard the country from its fatal effects, either by 
 a Bank Restriction Act, or by a correspondent issue 
 of national paper, equal in amount and in power t? 
 the bank notes, which the demand upon the bank 
 will withdraw frpm circulation. The bank can 
 pay gold, with perfect ease in times of confidence 
 and prosperity, vyhen little or none is demanded ; 
 but no power upon earth can compel or enable it 
 to pay gold when the enemy is at our door! At 
 such a time, the whole circulation of notes, would 
 be required to be paid in gold, when perhaps, there 
 would not be a tenth part of such gold in the coun- 
 try, and after that payment, the bills of exchange, 
 and all other credits, would also be called on for 
 payment in the same way, to the amount of, perhaps, 
 
twenty times the amount of the bank notes. It is 
 morally impossible for the country to keep within 
 it a sufficient quantity of bullion to pay all the 
 notes, bills of exchange, and other obligations 
 which are kept constantly afloat, to transact the 
 business which the trade and existence of the coun- 
 try require. As long as there is no danger of a re- 
 volution, or of foreign invasion, the Bank of Eng- 
 land, and all private bankers and tradesmen, who 
 possess an ample amount in property though not in 
 bullion, to discharge all demands upon them, will 
 easily be enabled to get possession of bullion suffi- 
 cient to meet any common occasion. There is no 
 danger but there will always be sufficient bullion 
 in the country for this purpose. But at a time 
 W 7 hen every body is quite certain to be getting into 
 his possession, for the purpose of hoarding, all the 
 bullion that he possibly can, and all other commo- 
 dities that contain a large value in a small com- 
 pass, at such a time, nothing but a Bank Restric- 
 tion Act can cause Government to goon, and pre- 
 vent society from being turned upside down. The 
 payment in specie then, will be just as easy as 
 flying in the air ! 
 
 WKICHTSON, TTF. BIRMINGHAM, 
 
 " 
 

 
Y'g I835i