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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MONEY 
 
 SHOULD BE 
 
 THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE 
 NOT THEIR MASTER. 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM LEATHAM, ESQ. 
 
 BANKER, WAKEFIELD. 
 
 BY JAMES TAYLOR, 
 
 OF BAKEWELL. 
 
 '■ That your Petitioners have reason to apprehend that measures are in con- 
 templation, with reference to cash payments by the Bank of England, which, in 
 the opinion of your petitioners, will, as they humbly submit to your lordships, tend 
 to a forced, precipitate, and highly injurious contraction of the circulatuig medium 
 of the country. 
 
 " That the consequences of such contraction will, as your petitioners humbly 
 conceive, be to add to the burthen of the public debt ; greatly to increase the 
 pressure of the taxes ; to lower the value of all landed and commercial property ; 
 seriously to affect both public and private credit ; to embarrass and reduce all 
 the operations of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and to throw out of 
 employment a great proportion of the industrious and labouring classes of the 
 community." — The [Prophetic] Petition of the Merchants, Bankers, und 
 Traders, of London, to the House of Lords, May 21s<, 1819. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR PELHAM RICHARDSON, CORNHILL, 
 
 AND 
 
 JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1842. 
 Price One Shilling.
 
 LONDON: 
 FKINTED BY JOHN WEKTHEIMEK ANll CO. 
 
 CIRCUS PiAcn, PI^sBrK\■ cikcu*.
 
 CONTENTS. \ X 1 Yr, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Possibility of interested parties obstructing the Bank of 
 England from getting a regular supply of Gold at 
 those times when she most needs it ... 1 
 
 Balance of Trade, and course of Exchange naturally in 
 favor of Britain, but liable to be rmnaturally obstructed, 
 not only by defective harvests, and a few large 
 Capitahsts, but by the cunning policy of a Foreign 
 otate ■ • « . • • . • • ^ 
 
 Premium paid to Mr. Rothschild in 1 825 for the Gold he 
 supplied to the Bank. Monopoly of the Spamsh 
 Quicksilver Mines ...... 5 
 
 " Mystery of Money," the importance of its being under- 
 stood by Statesmen ...... 6 
 
 Prophetic Warning of the Court of Bank Directors in 1 81 9 7 
 
 Difference of opinion on the effect of the Law of 1819, 
 between the late and the present Sir Robert Peel. 
 Erroneous notion of the latter, as to the cause of the 
 People's present distress . . . . .8 
 
 A Circulating Medium adequate to the Domestic Taxes 
 and Customs of every nation, is a matter of the Jirst 
 importance to its welfare. Convertibility of the Home 
 Money into Foreign Money of second importance . 10 
 
 Gold and Silver should be made subservient to the Peo- 
 ple's use ; and the people's comfort not made to 
 depend upon a supply of Gold and Silver . .11 
 
 Instance of the Money Transactions of a great Nation 
 being carried on almost without the use of Gold and 
 Silver in its Domestic Circulation . . . .11 
 
 The advice of the Bank Directors in 1819 rejected, the 
 Ministers of the Crown determining to submit the 
 amount of our Domestic Circulation to be controlled 
 by the Foreign value of Gold . . . .14 
 
 The precious metals tincoined have their value determined 
 between different Nations on the principle of Barter ; 
 in coin by the authority of the Law in each Nation . 15 
 
 No permanent benefit to be derived by any Nation from 
 deteriorating its Coined Money ; but great benefit 
 to be had from t\iQ judicious use of Paper Money . 16 
 
 Prussian Currency System . . . . . .19 
 
 9
 
 U CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Court of Bank Directors in 1827, and subsequently, 
 
 essentially altered fi'oin what it was in 1819 . . 21 
 
 The Bank of England, by the useless efforts of its Direc- 
 tors to bolster up an impracticable System, reduced 
 to a state of dependance upon the Bank of France . 23 
 
 America affords an instance of a prosperous people without 
 any National Debt, being rapidly reduced to a state 
 of extreme distress through erroneous monetary Le- 
 gislation. Her experience illustrative of the possi- 
 biUty of a Nation " buying Gold too dear " . .24 
 
 The United States Bank made the "Scape Goat" for 
 
 President Jackson's folly . . . . .25 
 
 No natural affinity between Paper Money and the Pre- 
 
 ciotts Metals : — their relative value Arbitrary . . 26 
 
 The error of those Writers, who, to avoid fluctuations in 
 the value of Paper Money, would exclude Local 
 Bankers from the free use of their own credit , . 27 
 
 Various plans for avoiding any obstruction to our Domestic 
 Circulation, at those times when the Mercantile v^Ane 
 of Gold maybe temporarily enhanced above our leyal 
 value for it ....... 29 
 
 Mr. Baring's declaration in 1828 f nine years after the 
 miscalled "settlement of the Currency Question ") 
 that Parliament had still its Lesson to learn on Cur- 
 rency and Banking ...... 32 
 
 The present Currency Law leaves the Directors of the 
 Bank a discretionary power to do mischief, but de- 
 prives them of all power to avert it when done bv 
 others ......... 33 
 
 Fluctuations in the price of Gold towards the close of the 
 last French War erroneously attributed to excessive 
 issues of Bank Notes ...... 34 
 
 Repetition of the Writer's main object. Relief to our 
 National difficulties alleged to be easily attainable 
 under a Statesman possessed of the commercial 
 Genius of the late Mr. Pitt. Reasons for appre- 
 hending a less favorable result from the ministry of 
 Sir Robert Peel . . . . . . .36 
 
 Postscript . ........ 42 
 
 Petition alluded to in the Letter, page 18 . . .45 
 
 The late Sir R. Peel's Speech in 1819, against his Son's Bill 53
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 Bakewell, March 14th, 1842. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have been much gratified to 
 find, on perusal of the pamphlets which you 
 have kindly sent me, that your view of the evils 
 which beset our credit circulation, is very similar 
 to that which I have also entertained for several 
 years past. In addition to the natural diffi- 
 culties to which our credit circulation is exposed, 
 and which are so forcibly portrayed in your 
 writings, there are some artijicml dangers which 
 are not generally noticed. Mr. Alexander 
 Baring, (now Lord Ashburton,) in his evidence 
 before the Committee on Coin, which sat at the 
 Board of Trade in 1828, alluding to the diffi- 
 culties which the Bank of England encountered 
 in 1825, from the want of an adequate supply 
 of the precious metals, said, " The wants of the 
 bank, when they occur, interest speculators and 
 jobbers of every description, and, independently 
 of operations to derive a profit from the price of 
 gold, there will be persons interested in thwart- 
 ing the bank, and preventing its supply. A 
 large capitalist might do this with effect — a 
 
 £
 
 combination of three or four might do it ahiiost 
 with certainty." I am aware that when the 
 late Mr. Rothschild was questioned upon this 
 point four years afterwards by the Bank Charter 
 Committee, he wished the committee to believe 
 the thing impossible to be done : but a chain of 
 circumstances may be adduced, commencing 
 with the early part of 1824, and ending with 
 the panic of 1825, evincing a strong probability, 
 not merely that such a speculation w^as possible, 
 but that it was then made effective. 
 
 Again, in the natural course of commerce, 
 there can be no doubt that the balance of trade 
 between Britain and the rest of the world must 
 be in favour of this country. ** You import 
 £1000 worth of iron from Sweden," said Mr. 
 Rothschild to tiie Bank Charter Committee ,> 
 '*when it is manufactured it is worth £10,000, 
 and it is then sent to all the world. You get 
 cotton from America : the cotton costs there dd. 
 or Qd. per pound, but when it is manufactured, 
 that pound of cotton is worth four times as 
 much. In the regular course of things, the 
 exchange with every country must be in favour 
 of England." And, he added, " If we had not 
 sometimes importations of corn, and sometimes 
 foreign loans, he knew not how the people on 
 the Continent could live." However true Mr. 
 Rothschild's illustration may be, in the regular
 
 course of things, your pamphlets show that this 
 just and natural effect of British skill and indus- 
 try, may, for a time, be fearfully disturbed by 
 defective harvests ; and though the specie may 
 ultimately find its way back to this country, as 
 it is now doing, yet in the mean time the 
 working population may be starved, and their 
 employers ruined. 
 
 Another way in which the natural course of 
 commerce may be deranged, and to which I am 
 desirous of drawing attention, is the manner in 
 which our money may be borrowed from us by 
 foreign states, and, wuler the existing law, used 
 to our national inj ury . To illustrate my meaning : 
 suppose a foreign state in good credit. Russia 
 for instance, wants to borrow £10,000,000 to 
 clothe and equip her army, and to store her 
 military chest. England is the market for nego- 
 tiating the loan, and all the energies of some of 
 the principal loan contractors are applied, for 
 the time, to make money easy and cheap with 
 us. Through the medium of these contractors, 
 Russia obtains her loan upon favourable terms. 
 It may be that a large portion of the loan is for 
 the purchase of British commodities, and not 
 more than two or three millions required in 
 specie ; but, instead of taking the commodities 
 from us in the first instance, it is obviously her 
 policy to draw from the Bank of England in the
 
 first place, whatever gold she may want. The 
 Bank, finding two or three millions of gold 
 withdrawn from her coffers takes the alarm ; 
 and the usual discounting of bills of exchange 
 is obstructed. The more needy of the manu- 
 facturers, who are oftentimes the most enter- 
 prizing, are compelled to make forced sales of 
 their commodities. Prices are reduced. The 
 richer manufacturers and their workmen are 
 obliged to submit to a reduced market price ; 
 and Russia may then purchase or contract for 
 all her supplies upon terms far more beneficial 
 to herself, even if she paid a premium of five per 
 cent, for the gold, than if she had bought her 
 stores in the first instance. Suppose, on the 
 other hand, that the Bank of England, in order 
 to prevent this unnaiural export of gold, offers a 
 premium in addition to the Mint value for it, the 
 direct consequence is, that the gold which the 
 laws of commerce compel her to buy as an article 
 o/" MERCHANDIZE at £4 or 4 guineas per ounce^ 
 the present law of England compels her to part 
 with, as an article of money, at £3. 17. lOJ. 
 per ounce ; and, possibly, the same parties, 
 through some secret link, may sell to the bank 
 one day that gold which they take from her on 
 the nei't. In the evidence taken before the 
 Bank Charter Committee in 1832, it appears, 
 that during the pressure on the bank in 1825,
 
 Mr. Rothschild received from that establishment 
 about £100,000 in addition to the Mint value, 
 for the gold which he then supplied to her. A 
 recent number of the " Circular to Bankers " 
 states that the same gentleman*s family are now 
 deriving an enormous profit from the monopoly 
 of the Quicksilver Mines in Spain — that the 
 effect has been to withhold many millions of 
 silver from being supplied by the mines of South 
 America to the commercial world ; and that 
 thus all merchants, bankers, &c., engaged in 
 large credit transactions, the success of which 
 depends upon the regular supply of the precious 
 metals, are liable to have their best calculations 
 falsified, by the secret machinery which a few 
 individuals may set in motion. 
 
 Our dealings with America, during the last 
 eight years, afford another proof of the possi- 
 bility of the hasis of our currency being drawn 
 from us, to our extreme injury, by a nation, 
 from which, in the natural course of trade, there 
 ought to have been an uniform flow in the con- 
 trary direction. In fact, the whole history of 
 the monetary affairs of the world, so far as I am 
 acquainted with it, constitutes one continuous 
 illustration of the justness of the following- 
 remark, made by a writer more than two cen- 
 turies ago, and which I have often had occasion 
 to borrow: "Unless those advantages, which
 
 6 
 
 one country may make upon another in the 
 mystery of exchanges, be thoroughly discovered 
 and prevented by such as sit at the helm of the 
 state, it may fare with us, notwithstanding all 
 our commerce, as with some bodies after much 
 food, that, instead of growing full and fat, we 
 may pine away and fall into irrecoverable con- 
 sumption*'' The extensive use of credit money 
 which now prevails, adds greatly to the force of 
 the above remarks, when applied to our own 
 day. It is notorious, that, with us, every bale of 
 goods may constitute the real basis of a bill of 
 exchange. There is indeed no article of com- 
 merce which may not be thus represented by the 
 pou/ids, shillings, and pence, expressed in such 
 an instrument of exchange ; and thus, our credit 
 or bill currency may be co-extensive with the 
 gross nominal value of all the commodities which 
 are daily passing from hand to hand. In your 
 tables and pamphlets you have forcibly drawn 
 attention to the startling disproportion that exists 
 between these liabilities, and the legal means 
 there are of liquidating them. Unless we can 
 bring ourselves to believe the absurd proposition 
 that " a part may be equal to the whole,"" it seems 
 impossible that our credit currency, representing 
 (as it does) every other kind of property as well 
 as the precious metals, should at all times, and 
 under all circumstances of peace, war, famine.
 
 or artful speculation, be absolutely redeemable 
 in pieces of gold of a specific weight and 
 fineness. 
 
 I was no sooner acquainted with the provi- 
 sions of the law of 1819, than I became con- 
 vinced that a fearful shock awaited us, whenever 
 the market price of gold should be enhanced 
 above the mint price ; and, persuaded that pri- 
 vate speculation, as well as many natural 
 causes, might operate so to enhance the mercan- 
 tile value of gold, I submitted a paper on the 
 subject to a public meeting which was held here 
 for the purpose in March 1823. To the argu- 
 ment in that paper I obtained the assent of all 
 the gentlemen who attended the meeting. I 
 was further confirmed in my apprehensions 
 when I afterwards found that my fears were 
 very much in unison with those which the Court 
 of Bank Directors had stated to His Majesty's 
 ministers in 1819, whilst "Peel's Bill" was 
 pending. The experienced men who then 
 managed the bank forewarned the government 
 that the proposed system of cash payments 
 would, if passed into a law, probably "com- 
 promise the universal interests of the empire in all 
 the relations of agriculture, manufactures, com- 
 merce, and revenue,''^ a prediction which is every 
 day becoming more perfectly and more fear- 
 fully fulfilled.
 
 8 
 
 There are few things with which men in a 
 state of civilized society are more familiar than 
 "money;" yet few things, the real nature of 
 which has been less understood by them. Ac- 
 customed to the use of it from their childhood, 
 almost every one assumes that he has a thorough 
 knowledge of its nature and properties ; and 
 yet, when even learned and scientific men have 
 attempted to define accurately what they mean 
 by "money," — what constitutes its exchange- 
 able value, — what rules govern and regulate its 
 circulation, — they have been far more puzzled 
 to do it than to describe the essential properties 
 and working rules of the most intricate piece of 
 machinery ever invented. One class of political 
 economists thinks that the precious metals have 
 the character of money essentially in themselves. 
 Another class regards them as commodities which 
 derive their monetary character wholly from the 
 authority of the state, or some conventional agree- 
 ment among men ; — whilst the great majority 
 of the people, however well they may avail 
 themselves of the power of money to command 
 the necessaries of life, and to enrich themselves, 
 are, in reality, as little acquainted with its essen- 
 tial character, as they are with the natural prin- 
 ciples which govern the circulation in their own 
 veins. Sir Robert Peel appears to belong to 
 \\iejirst denomination of persons : his father was
 
 9 
 
 probably one of the second, which may account 
 for the very opposite opinions they entertained of 
 the effect to result from the Bill of 1819. The 
 present Sir Robert Peel anticipated national 
 prosperity from that measure — his father /ore^o/^ 
 national ruin : bitter experience has shown the 
 father to be the wiser statesman of the two ; 
 and now, when the troubles are come upon us, 
 which the late Sir Robert Peel and the Bank 
 Directors of 1819 predicted as the probable 
 consequence of "Peel's Bill;" our manufac- 
 tures, commerce, and revenue compromised ; 
 our agricultural interests placed in great jeo- 
 pardy ; we are required to believe, not that bad 
 legislation, but that the excessive skill and industry 
 of the people have produced the mischief: and 
 we are told by the present Sir Robert Peel, on 
 behalf of the Tories, and by Lord Melbourne on 
 behalf of the Whigs, that legislation can do 
 little or nothing towards our relief. If it had 
 been alleged that the distress of the people was 
 the consequence of idleness and improvidence, 
 Sir Robert might justly have said that legisla- 
 tion could not cure it; but when he accuses our 
 manufacturing population of extravagant indus- 
 try, and when he well knows that our Savings' 
 Banks show the English to be habitually a 
 provident people ; then, to tell them in their 
 long-protracted distress, that legislation cannot
 
 10 
 
 eftectually relieve them, is surely as monstrous 
 as it would have been for the Egyptian monarch, 
 after depriving the industrious Israelites of 
 " straw for their bricks," and requiring an equal 
 *• tale " at their hands, to have told those indus- 
 trious and afflicted people, that their distress 
 was beyond the reach of legislative remedy. As 
 I believe all Scripture to be given for our instruc- 
 tion, so I take it to be one of the Jirst duties 
 of every government, to secure for the people 
 '* strmviov their bricks" — the means of fulfilling 
 their tasks — or in other words, a circulating 
 mediwn adequate in amount to the payment of 
 their labour, and to the free exchange of all the 
 products of labour and of art throughout the 
 nation, on such terms, and at such rates, as 
 shall be fully equal to the money charges which 
 the ta.ves of the state or the customs of the nation 
 impose upon the people ; and that, as all addi- 
 tional wealth in the nation must be produced by 
 the skill and labour of the working part of the 
 community, it is especially the duty of the execu- 
 tive to see that this portion of the people should 
 never be forced into idleness for want of a regular 
 and sufficient ??iedium, by which their labour, or 
 the produce of their labour, may be exchanged 
 or accumulated. The ne.rt great duty of the 
 state in regard to its money, is to devise means 
 whereby the circulating medium at home may be
 
 11 
 
 equitably and freely converted into the money 
 or circulating medium of any foreig/i nation. 
 But this foreign object, though an important 
 feature in a perfect money system, is of second- 
 ary importance to the home circulation. 
 
 However much the customs of the world may 
 have used the precious metals for money, it is 
 essential to the happiness of the people in every 
 nation, that the rulers of nations should take 
 especial care that the precious metals be made 
 subservient to the comfortable enrploymeiit of the 
 people, and not that the people's comfort should 
 be made subservient to ox dependent upon a supply 
 of the precious metals : for otherwise, as we 
 have seen, a foreign state, or a combination of 
 th7xe or four capitalists, who can for a short time 
 withhold the regular supply of the precious 
 metals from an otherwise opulent nation, may 
 control the money value of the people's labour, 
 and throw all the important interests of that 
 nation into the greatest confusion and distress. 
 
 That the internal monetary transactions of a 
 great nation may be carried on for many years, 
 almost without the use of the precious metals, 
 is evident from the experience of this country 
 within the last 45 years. Necessity, the pro- 
 lific parent of almost every useful invention, did, 
 during the late war, force us upon a system, 
 endowed in an extraordinary degree with the
 
 12 
 
 attributes needful for the home circulation ; a 
 system so adequate to our domestic wants, as 
 to enable Britain to surmount difficulties greater, 
 I believe, than had ever before been surmounted 
 by any nation. Under this system, the Bank 
 of England note became the practical represen- 
 tative of the pound sterling, and of the pound 
 in account throughout this kingdom, and, I might 
 add, in many other parts of the world also. 
 The bank itself was the wholesale dealer in this 
 medium of exchange ; and country bankers, in 
 a smaller way, supplied the local wants of their 
 immediate neighbourhoods. This system, which 
 the necessity of the times, and the conveniency 
 of the people, brought into active operation in 
 almost every town throughout the kingdom, 
 furnished the means whereby labour was freely 
 purchased. Labour employed, increased the pro- 
 ductiveness of the soil in agricultural districts, 
 and i\\Q productions oi i\\Q people in manufacturing 
 districts : rents were increased, not by forcing 
 the people to buy homegrown corn, but by the 
 increased means which the people had of paying 
 for and consuming that which was grown by 
 their own neighbours; and the re-expenditure 
 of those increased rents, with the expenditure 
 of all other accumulations of capital, was visible 
 in new and improved houses, new public roads, 
 canals, bridges, docks, drainages, enclosures,
 
 13 
 
 and an almost infinite variety of profitable public 
 works, which, whilst they ennobled and beauti- 
 fied the country, provided new and beneficial 
 employment for those whose former occupations 
 might perchance have been superseded by machi- 
 nery. It could scarcely be expected that a system 
 pregnant with such important and beneficial 
 effects would be entirely free from imperfection. 
 The good faith which generally distinguished 
 those whose credit supplied the medium through 
 which much of this good was produced and dif- 
 fused, was occasionally tarnished by the unwor- 
 thiness of some parties, and by the indiscretion 
 of others ; but these imperfections were every 
 day working their own cure far better than any 
 direct interference of the legislature could do it ; 
 and whatever the people can do for themselves, 
 is almost sure to be done better than by any 
 legislative enactment. Admirably as this sys- 
 tem had supplied all our pecuniary wants at 
 home, enabling us throughout the war to do 
 either with or ivithout the precious metals ; it 
 became necessary, on the return of peace, to 
 reconsider the act of 1797, under which our 
 home currency had been fostered, and as you. 
 Sir, are well aware, to adopt such a system of 
 cash payments, as, in the event of any future 
 war, should preserve us from a repetition of the 
 catastrophe of 1797, and provide means for our
 
 14 
 
 home money being at all times equitably con- 
 vertible into the money of any foreigyi country. 
 I cannot entertain a doubt that these import- 
 ant objects would have been satisfactorily 
 attained, had our rulers duly profited by the 
 counsels of the Bank Directors in 1819. The 
 plan they suggested would, with very little 
 modification, not only have accomplished these 
 objects for ourselves, but would, I believe, have 
 averted many of those calamities which have 
 since befallen the commercial and banking inte- 
 rests of many other countries also. Unfortu- 
 nately Lords Liverpool and Grenville, and other 
 noblemen, who, as ministers of the crown, had 
 gladly availed themselves of the services of the 
 bank directors during the war, thought they 
 could do without that assistance in 1819, and 
 thus the counsel of those directors was not only 
 disregarded, but — if we may believe the reports 
 of the day — was rejected very uncourteously. 
 Those noblemen, as well as Messrs. Huskisson, 
 Canning, Peel, and many other influential per- 
 sons, became converts to the new and fashionable 
 opinion, that the amount of the ci^edit circulation 
 of Great Britain should no longer be regulated 
 according to her internal taxes, rents, and other 
 credit engagements, but by the state of the 
 foreign exchanges ; or in other words, by that 
 estimate of the value of the precious metals,
 
 lo 
 
 which was to be found in the average rate at 
 which gold and silver could buy the cheap labour 
 of the poorer nations of the world. A doctrine 
 in reality not more reasonable than that a full- 
 grown athletic man, such as Jolni Bull was once 
 represented to be, should be required to have 
 his circulation regulated, not by the natural 
 wants of his own system, but by the average 
 wants of all the needy bodies around him ; and 
 that they should be allowed, like so many leeches^ 
 to borrow his life's blood from him, until they 
 could pull down his strength, and raise their 
 own to an equality, leaving poor John to bear 
 all the costly honours of his own cumbrous body, 
 with only halfh\s proper circulation. 
 
 1 fully admit that between one independent 
 nation and another, the precious metals, in an 
 uncoined state, must have their exchangeable 
 value solely determined by weight and purity, 
 upon the same system of barter as that upon 
 which all other foreign transactions are generally 
 conducted : but hence it follows, that whatever 
 nation, after well supplying the wants of her 
 own people, has the most surplus produce, or 
 manufactured commodities to part with, such na- 
 tion can afford to give the most goods in exchange 
 for gold and silver abroad, and must consequent- 
 ly, in the natural course of tilings, command the 
 largest quantity of those metals. If the rulers
 
 16 
 
 of such a nation understand the mystery of 
 money, I have not a doubt that they may deter- 
 mine the mode and the terms by which this 
 superfluity of the precious metals shall be parted 
 with to other and more needy nations, agreeably 
 to the opinions implied in the evidence of the 
 late Mr. Rothschild as quoted in the second 
 page of this letter. These remarks apply to the 
 principle which governs the exchange of the 
 precious metals betiveen different nations. 
 
 In the home dealings of any given country, 
 gold and silver are governed by another princi- 
 ple. The authority of the state, in this case, 
 determines the relative value which specific 
 pieces of those metals in coin shall possess in 
 the legal discharge of all taxes, debts, and credit 
 engagements within the realm ; but the expe- 
 rience of every nation shows, that, as the legal 
 or coined value of the precious metals is enhanced, 
 so the mercantile price of them in the same coun- 
 try has always had a tendency to advance also ; 
 and just at those times when the country could 
 least bear it, then the mercantile value has gene- 
 rally been found to exceed the coined value, 
 however much the latter may have been pre- 
 viously enhanced. Hence, a needy state has 
 never derived permanent relief, by diminishing 
 the specific weight, or deteriorating the quality of 
 its coined money.
 
 17 
 
 The issuing' however of a paper or credit cur- 
 rencij, under certain limits, has a very different 
 effect. Judiciously used by the government of 
 an industrious nation in good credit, it may be 
 made the means of controlling; the mercnjitile 
 value of the precious metals, and thereby of 
 sustainino; the intrinsic character of the coin both 
 in weight and purity. As an illustration, take 
 a supposed case from our own country. Her 
 government is entitled by the consent of parlia- 
 ment to receive from the people taxes and 
 revenue, amounting, say, to £40,000,000 an- 
 nually. She does not receive this money to 
 hoard and accumulate^ but to pay back to the 
 people for dividends, stores, services, &;c. &;c. Let 
 then the government ordain that this £40,000,000 
 of taxes shall be paid, in whole or in part, as 
 may be most convenient to the people, after 
 the following manner: either in gold, after the 
 rate of £4 per ounce ; in silver, after the rate of 
 5s. per ounce ; or in exchequer notes, each £5 
 note being deemed the equivalent for 1^ oz. 
 gold, or 20 oz. of silver. This being then the 
 lescil relative value of gold and silver to such 
 exchequer notes, there can be little doubt 
 that, whilst the amount of them was kept within 
 the average demand required for our current 
 taxes, those notes, in all domestic transac- 
 tions would be quite as valuable, though stamped 
 

 
 18 
 
 and signed on paper only, as if they were stamped 
 pieces of gold weighing \\ oz. each ; and more 
 valuable in one sense than our present gold 
 coinage, which, it now appears, may be robbed 
 of its intrinsic value to the extent of 15 or 20 
 per cent, without the public knowing how to 
 detect the fraud. 
 
 This explanation may serve to illustrate the 
 opinion 1 entertain of the nature and value of 
 credit or paper money ; but as one mode of 
 practicalli/ applying these opinions to the gene- 
 ral use of this country, I beg to refer you to 
 the accompanying petition which, in 1830, I 
 placed in the hands of Mr. now Lord Denman, 
 and Sir James Graham, for presentation. I saw 
 these gentlemen upon the subject, a few days 
 before the Duke of Wellington made those 
 celebrated remarks in the House of Lords, which, 
 acting upon the groiuing distress of the people, 
 threw the whole nation into its Reform fever. 
 There seemed then so little chance of obtaining 
 any attention in Parliament to the dry subject 
 of the currency, that the petition was not pre- 
 sented, but I printed and circulated it amongst 
 my friends in the enclosed form ; and it was 
 republished in some of the newspapers of the 
 day. I purpose also sending you two or three 
 pamphlets, reiterating, with different arguments, 
 the same sentiments which were first addressed 
 to the Bakewell meetinsr in March 1823.
 
 19 
 
 111 the year 1829 I was discussing this subject 
 in London in the presence of a Prussian gentle- 
 man, who remarked that he thought the views 
 I entertained on currency were not very dis- 
 similar to those which were acted upon in his 
 own country ; and, the next day, he sent me a 
 note, of which the following is a copy. 
 
 *' It quite escaped my recollection when we 
 conversed on the subject of Prussian currency, 
 that I could give you some information that 
 probably might interest you. » 
 
 " The Prussian government issues its gold coin 
 called Friedrich d'or, at five dollars, and com- 
 pels the people to pay their duties as follows — 
 
 *' One third in the above coin at the price at 
 which it is issued. 
 
 ** One third in ' treasure notes,' which circu- 
 late like Bank of England notes — and 
 
 " The remainder in silver. 
 
 " If a person cannot pay the amount required 
 in gold, he is charged the agio, or the market 
 price in addition, so that if the Friedrich d'or is 
 worth five dollars and a half in the market, he 
 must pay the half dollar in addition." It will 
 be seen by this sketch of the monetary system 
 of Prussia, that provision is made for the possi- 
 bility of her " treasure notes " being at a discount 
 in the market. By providing a remedy for such 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 a contingency, I believe it will be found, that so 
 far from these '' treasure notes '' being at a dis- 
 count, tliey generally bear q. premiimi throughout 
 Germany, as being so much more convenient 
 and safe for transfer than gold and silver. Per- 
 ceiving that this plan must obtain for Prussia 
 that security for her credit circulation, which, 
 through the agency of the Bank of England, I 
 was seeking for ours, I named the subject to 
 the Duke of Wellington, in a letter which about 
 that time I had His Grace's permission to 
 address to him. I also spoke of it to an influ- 
 ential London merchant, with whom I had 
 corresponded upon the currency question ; but, 
 at that time, though England had sufl'ered 
 much, it appeared we had not suffered enough 
 to humble our pride. The latter gentleman 
 thought it an absurd thing to suppose that 
 England could possibli) derive any useful lesson 
 upon money and currency from Prussia, which 
 he then regarded as an insignificant State. In 
 the few years which have since elapsed, the 
 rapid progress which Prussia has made in the 
 scale of nations, furnishes a remarkable instance 
 of the benefit to be derived through a monarch, 
 who, having learnt wisdom in the school of 
 adversity, knew how to make money the servant 
 of his people, and not their master. The com-
 
 21 
 
 mercial code of Prussia, without her judicious 
 monetary system, would, in my opinion, have 
 done comparatively nothhig for her. 
 
 I regret to see, in your valuable pamphlets, 
 much evidence that the bank directors of late 
 year's have not manifested that commercial wis- 
 dom and practical banking knowledge which 
 distinguished their predecessors in 1819 It 
 would seem, from the evidence of Mr. William 
 Ward before the Bank Charter Committee in 
 J 832, that between the years 1819 and 1827 
 a great change had taken place in the 
 counsels which governed the bank. Mr. Ward 
 informed the Committee, that in 1819 he was 
 the youngest, and the only member of the court 
 who had adopted the then new opinion, that the 
 amount of the credit circulation of Great Britain 
 ought not to be regulated by the internal wants 
 of the kingdom, but by the state of the foreign 
 exchanges : but in the year 1827, the members 
 of the court had become so changed, that it 
 appears he had now the gratification of finding 
 a majority favorable to his views. Contempo- 
 raneously with this change in the directors, the 
 resolution appears to have been formed, that the 
 bank should always retain in her coffers specie 
 equal to one third of her liabilities : a resolution 
 which experience has since convinced them they 
 had not power to execute. It is fair to believe
 
 22 
 
 from the opinions expressed in the memorial of 
 the directors in 1819, that those gentlemen would 
 h^ve foreseen that the resolution in question could 
 not be kept under all circumstances, without 
 ruining first their customers, and afterwards 
 themselves, so long as the credit circulation of 
 the kingdom remained under the government of 
 " Peel's Bill." The same wisdom which dic- 
 tated the memorial of 1819, would probably, 
 after the panic of 1825, have prompted them 
 to say to the ministers of the crown, *' We have 
 done all in our power to support your new mo- 
 netary system. We have brought this great 
 national establishment into such jeopardy by 
 our efforts to support your views, that we are 
 indebted to the help of one man for its preserva- 
 tion. When the bank was in its extremities, 
 we were advised by an influential minister of 
 the crown, (Mr. Huskisson,) himself a distin- 
 guished supporter, if not the real author of 
 * Peel's Bill,' to close our doors to the public. 
 We are convinced that the minister who could 
 give such advice is totally ignorant of the nature 
 and value of English credit ; and, unless you so 
 alter the monetary laws, as that, for the future, 
 we can protect this establishment, without ruin- 
 ing the mercantile and banking interests of the 
 nation, we must resign the trust imposed in us." 
 But instead of addressing such plain truths as
 
 26 
 
 these to the ministers of the crown, tne directors 
 of 1827, and their successors, appear to have com- 
 bined with those ministers to obtain a selfish 
 monopoly of the whole credit currency of the 
 kingdom ; and by their unsuccessful efforts to 
 bolster up an impracticable system, reckless of 
 the ruin of the manufacturing and commercial 
 interests of the nation, have brought great 
 and bitter complaints against themselves — in- 
 volved the credit engagements of the country in 
 repeated difficulties — and, upon one occasion, 
 made the continued existence <jf their establish- 
 ment dependant upon the friendly assistance of 
 a foreign bank. How would Napoleon have 
 exulted, even in his exile, could he have beheld 
 the Bank of Ens^land — lately the Bank of the 
 World — reduced to the mortifying necessity of 
 depending for her existence upon the Bank of 
 France ! How would Mr. Pitt have mourned, 
 could he have thought it possible, that statesmen 
 professing themselves his disciples, should ever 
 allow the National Bank and national credit of 
 England to be thus humbled ! It is more than 
 probable that such repeated exposures of our 
 monetary weakness under the baneful influence 
 of " Peel's Bill," may have encouraged in the 
 more restless part of our French neighbours the 
 wish they have lately so often manifested, to 
 involve us in another Continental war.
 
 24 
 
 Tlie folly by which the credit ssystem of Eng- 
 land has been governed since 1811), great as it 
 is, is not without its parallel even in later 
 times. America has shown us that the gratui- 
 tous evils we have inflicted upon ourselves in 
 addition to our national debt, she could inflict 
 upon her people, aftlr they had cleared off the 
 national debt. General Jackson seems to have 
 had no more aflection for the Bank of the United 
 States in 1834, than some of our statesmen 
 manifested for the Bank of England in 1819. 
 Regardless of the valuable services which the 
 United States Bank had rendered to America 
 in equalizing and facilitating the exchange of 
 money throughout all her States — in raising the 
 intrinsic character of her money from the impo- 
 verished condition it was in when that bank was 
 established, — and finally in enabling the govern- 
 ment honorably to discharge the national debt ; 
 President Jackson appears to have formed the 
 resolution to annihilate that establishment, not- 
 withstanding the deserved esteem in which it 
 had been long held throughout the world. 
 Under the same popular plea which gilded the 
 poisonous pill for us in 1 8 19, of giving the people 
 a golden currency, the President was enabled to 
 carry his object by the popular voice in opposi- 
 tion to the wise counsels of more experienced 
 men. To fulfil his promise of getting gold for
 
 25 
 
 the people, he appeared to lose sight of the old 
 caution, " not to buy it too dear," for he en- 
 hanced its value about 6 per cent in relation to 
 silver, and consequently to all the internal credit 
 engagements of America. This advance in the 
 legal value of gold in America, added to the 
 high rate of interest offered to all who could bor- 
 row money in England — ^just at the time when, 
 to assist our government and Mr. Rothschild in 
 negotiating the West Indian loan, our bank 
 directors were making money cheap here — effec- 
 tually drained the gold from our circulation to 
 Jill that of America A temporary success thus 
 attended his measures, which carried him over 
 his first difficulties, and produced a gleam of 
 delusive prosperity ; but experience soon con- 
 vinced the Americans that instead of " growino- 
 full and fat" upon their golden dreams, those 
 bright visions were but the prelude to an almost 
 universal bankruptcy. Mr. Biddle and others, 
 creditably to their patriotism, but unfortunately 
 for their pecuniary reputation, endeavoured to 
 uphold the United States Bank, and the national 
 credit, until the error of General Jackson's policy 
 should be discovered, and the mischief repaired. 
 Herein, like the modern directors of the Bank of 
 England, the managers of the American Bank 
 nnscalculated their power, and, whilst they have 
 thus made themselves the " scape-goat " for
 
 26 
 
 jreneral Jackson's folly, America, notwithstanu 
 ing her wonderful natural resources, affords an 
 unhappy illustration of the mischief which may 
 be inflicted upon an industrious people by the 
 injudicious monetary measures of their rulers; 
 exhibiting, in her present condition, a striking 
 contrast to the increased domestic comfort, and 
 foreign influence, which wiser counsels have, in 
 the same time, conferred upon the people of 
 Prussia. 
 
 Whatever proportion the relative quantities 
 of gold and silver in the world may bear to the 
 relative values attached to them by the mone- 
 tary laws of this or any other nation, there can 
 be no natural affinity discovered between those 
 fnetals and paper money. Some reason may 
 doubtless be given why an ounce of gold should 
 be thought of equal value with fifteen or sixteen 
 ounces of silver, but to declare that £3. 17s. lO^d. 
 in an English bill of Exchange, or in Bank of 
 England notes, shall at all times, and under all 
 circumstances, be exactly equal to an ounce of 
 gold, must be purely conventional and artificial. 
 Your Tables show that on an average ^m\\ fifteen 
 parts out oi seventeen of our paper money are not 
 at all based upon the precious metals ; and there- 
 fore, as before observed, unless we can believe 
 that the remaining two parts may be equal to 
 the whole seventeen, it is totally impossible that
 
 27 
 
 our present absolute and arbitrary arrangement 
 can stand the test of a trial when really put to 
 it. Mr. Baring, in the evidence of 1828, to 
 which I have before referred, says, " Our pe- 
 dantic attachment to the supposed perfection of 
 the standard of a single metul, and the difficul- 
 ties we make about the possible variations 
 between gold and silver of an almost impercep- 
 tible fraction, lead us to overlook the really im- 
 portant variations which occur in the value of 
 money, as composed of its two elements paper 
 and metal.'" Although a seeming uniformity was 
 preserved between bank-notes and sovei^eigns in 
 J 825, yet the premium of £100,000 at that time 
 paid to Mr. Rothschild by the bank directors, 
 shows there was really a very great difference 
 in their value, and Mr. Baring, referring to the 
 same period, says there was an actual fluctua- 
 tion "of 15 or 20 per cent in the value of the 
 pound sterling, and in many cases much more." 
 The expedient suggested by some writers for 
 avoiding a repetition of these fluctuations in 
 the value of the pound sterling, by throwing the 
 whole credit circulation of the kingdom into the 
 hands of the Bank of England, and doing away 
 altogether with the promissory notes of country 
 bankers, could have no other efl'ect than to glut 
 the heart of our political body, and to starve the 
 extremities. Besides, for such a system to be
 
 28 
 
 effective, drafts and bills of exchange must also 
 be annihilated ; for it would be preposterous to 
 allow any small manufacturer or shopkeeper to 
 circulate a draft for i.'20 or £30, promising to 
 pay at three fnonths after date, and to deny to 
 some of the richest men in the kingdom the 
 right to pay away, and to the people the right 
 at their own risk to retain in circulation, a £5 
 promissory note, payable on demand; and if the 
 right to issue a draft or promissory note at three 
 months after date be denied to the manufacturer 
 or shopkeeper, I know not upon what principle 
 it can be conceded to any body else. Ten or 
 twelve years ago it was the boast of Manchester 
 merchants and manufacturers that they managed 
 their monetary transactions without the aid of 
 local credit money, and Mr. S.J. Lloyd seems 
 to have fallen under the same delusion ; but it 
 will be found on further inquiry, that the district 
 of Manchester was really very largely supplied 
 with such local issues, the only difference being 
 that the bankers of that town supplied their 
 customers with drafts, drawn upon themselves 
 or their agents in London, payable two or three 
 months after date, whilst bankers in other parts 
 of the country supplied their customers with 
 promissory notes payable on demand. Such ex- 
 pedients as the foregoing, if acted upon, must 
 aggravate our difficulties, instead of relieving or 
 curing them.
 
 20 
 
 To avoid, for the time to come, a repetition of 
 siicli real fluctuations in the value of the pound 
 sterling- as now occur whenever the bank is 
 called u])on for two or three millions of specie 
 — to counteract the artful machinations of selfish 
 speculators - to avert the evils which may arise 
 from the mischievous policy of foreign poten- 
 tates — and, also, to provide for those occasions 
 when it may be needful or profitable to suffer 
 the precious metals to go from us for a season, 
 in extra quantities, to return with advantage 
 afterwards — the mode of determining the rela- 
 tive value of our paper money to the precious 
 metals must be rendered more uniformly prac- 
 tical than it is at present. Means of some kind 
 must be devised by which we may avoid any 
 obstruction in our domestic circulation from the 
 possible contingency of the mercantile value of 
 gold being enhanced above our legal value for it. 
 The Bank Restriction Act accomplished this 
 object ; but being unaccompanied with any 
 obligation to pay in specie, it was therefore 
 defective. The plan proposed in the enclosed 
 petition supplies that defect, and yet provides a 
 remedy for ?i possible fluctuation in the mercan- 
 tile value of gold. The Prussian system attains 
 the same object by other means ; but as the 
 power to increase the " treasure notes " is with 
 the government, and the obligation to provide the
 
 30 
 
 specie for them with the people, the system is 
 too limited, and, in the hands of an unscrnfulous 
 ministry, too liable to be abused, to suit the 
 cautious policy of this nation. The object is 
 also to be attained by another plan. Let par- 
 liament sanction the issue of Exchequer notes 
 to a given amount, say half the amount of the 
 annual revenue, but twenty or even fifteen mil- 
 lions would probably be sufficient. Let these 
 Exchequer notes be made a legal tender. 
 Instead of the government paying interest, let 
 the bank be charged a small rate of interest for 
 the use of them. This she could well afford to 
 pay, as such Exchequer notes would be more 
 efficient to the bank than a hoai^d of gold, in 
 stopping any unnatural demand which might be 
 made upon her. The chief objection to such a 
 plan would be, that for these Exchequer notes 
 there could be no parties under an obligation to 
 provide gold in exchange ; they would therefore 
 be lessjixed in their gold value, than bank notes 
 would be under the plan proposed in the 
 enclosed petition. In the latter, the bank being 
 always required to fix a price at which she will 
 give or take gold, the same steadiness of value 
 might be expected to arise from it, as would be 
 conferred upon the Stock Market, if parties 
 sufficiently wealthy and disinterested could be 
 found, to fix every day one price at which they
 
 31 
 
 would either buy or sell 3 per cent. Consols : — 
 whereas under the Exchequer note plan, the 
 public would probably have to pay the dealer in 
 them a trifling profit on the exchange. But 
 whatever plan were adopted, it would be wise 
 for the Bank of England to resume her place 
 as a wholesale establishment in the metropolis, 
 and to leave the retail business in the country to 
 those who know the parties of their respective 
 localities much better than directors in London 
 can know them ; and the sooner she can fall 
 back upon the prudential maxims which actu- 
 ated the directors of 1819, the more safe it will 
 be both for herself and the community. 
 
 By these Remarks, which, pursuant to your 
 kind invitation, I have offered very freely, you 
 will perceive that I fully agree with you, that 
 the most fearful evil with which our currency 
 system has to contend is the enormous disparity 
 which exists between our credit liabilities and 
 our legal means of meeting them ; — that bills 
 of exchange ought to be regarded as constituting 
 by far the most important part of our credit 
 circulation ; and that statesmen, political eco- 
 nomists, and committees of Parliament, by pre- 
 tending to institute an enquiry respecting our 
 systems of currency and banking, and at the 
 same time agreeing to exclude bills of exchange 
 from the question, confirm the truth of an
 
 32 
 
 observation made in Parliament by Mr. Baring 
 in 1828 ijiine years after the miscalled " settle- 
 ment" of the currency question), " that there 
 were no great questions on which persons in 
 and out of Parliament were n.ore completely 
 learning their lessons, than the question of the 
 circulation and the banking system." But 
 whilst I thus agree with you as to the main 
 characteristic of the disease which afflicts Britain, 
 you will perceive from the tenor of this letter, 
 that I entertain an opmion different from your 
 own as to the remedy. You would guard us 
 against the evil of a sudden demand for bullion 
 by the accumulation of a large stock of dor- 
 mant bullion in the Bank; I would avoid the 
 same evil by securing a uniform, active, and 
 free supply in the market. In a temporary 
 scarcity of wheat or hay, or any other neces- 
 sary, the way to prevent the natural distress 
 from being aggravated by monopoly, is, if pos- 
 sible, to discover a temporary substitute for the 
 same article. It might be difficult to find an 
 effectual substitute for wheat, hay, and many 
 other things ; but for the precious iuetals, our 
 necessities during the late war did force us 
 upon the discovery of a substitute as effectual 
 as that of steam for physical labour. The system 
 by which this was done is admitted to have 
 been imperfect, inasmuch as the substitute for
 
 33 
 
 our home circulation was devoid of the means 
 of a legal convertibility into the currency of 
 other nations, even after the cause of the 
 original scarcity had ceased ; and, to follow out 
 the simile, it resembled the steam-engine with- 
 out its regulator. To secure all the benefits 
 of the new system, and to remedy its defects, 
 should have been the object of the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee of 1819; but, instead of 
 supplying a regulator to the system, agreeably 
 to the wise suggestions of the most experienced 
 credit-engineers — men who by their firmness 
 had preserved the engine when the ministers of 
 the Crown, under the pressure of the late war, 
 would fain have overstrained its proper power 
 — they recommended a law, which, being 
 passed, leaves the Directors of the Bank a dis- 
 cretionary power to do injury, but deprives 
 them of all power to avert it when attempted 
 to be inflicted by others, and has ever since 
 kept our credit machinery vacillating between 
 the opposite extremes of being either perfectly 
 useless^ or poiverful only for mischief ; — while the 
 authors of this ill-judged law have not failed 
 to charge the mischief either upon the original 
 system, or the e.vcessive industry of the people, 
 and not, as they ought to have done, upon 
 their own obstinate and injudicious interference 
 with that credit system, which, under wiser 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 management, would have become a permanent 
 benefit to the nation. 
 
 An alleged depreciation of bank notes from 
 excessive issues, and the desire to prevent a re- 
 petition of the evil, was the popular plea for the 
 passing of Peel's Bill. Many of the Political 
 Economists of that day assumed that the Direc- 
 tors of the Bank had been foolishly anxious to 
 FORCE their notes into circulation, and that the 
 high price bullion attained towards the close of 
 the war was to be attributed to their indiscre- 
 tion ; but the ministers of the crown could not 
 be ignorant of the fallacy of the charge — they 
 must have known, from their own correspond- 
 ence with the bank, since published, that the 
 managers of that establishment had been most 
 RELUCTANT to part with their notes even to the 
 government ; and facts on record show that the 
 high price of bulliott towards the close of the war 
 ought to be attributed to the watits of our armi/ 
 abroad, rather than to any e.vcess of bank notes at 
 ho??ie. In the year 1813, such was the demand 
 for specie for the army in Spain and Portugal, 
 that our government was compelled to buy it at 
 almost any cost ; and at one time gold was esti- 
 mated, relatively to the pound sterling, at£5. 12s. 
 per ounce. When our troops began to return 
 home, and our own government ceased to be 
 buyers, the price rapidly declined to £4. 5s. per
 
 35 
 
 ounce. No doubt, in the natural course of 
 things, the mercantile value of gold would soon 
 have fallen to our legal value ; for no nation be- 
 sides Britain had aught to give in exchange for 
 it ; but no sooner did Napoleon make his re-ap- 
 pearance in France, than a necessity was again 
 imposed upon our government to become buyers, 
 and the price immediately got up to £5. 6s. per 
 ounce. Alter Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, 
 the price declined almost as rapidly, until in 
 the month of May following it stood at £4. per 
 ounce, which, allowing for the worn state of 
 the old guineas, was probably as low as the 
 legal value attached to it in our present coinage. 
 No corresponding change in the amount of bank 
 issues can be found to justify this varying price 
 of gold ; and that those sadden variations were 
 totally uninfluenced by the amount of bank 
 issues, is farther evident from the following 
 facts: — Gold is quoted at £5. 10s. per ounce to- 
 wards the close of 1813; and the amount of 
 bank notes in circulation at the same time was 
 only £23,844,050. At the end of 1814, the go- 
 vernment demand for gold having ceased, the 
 price of it had declined to £4. 6s. 6d. per ounce, 
 and yet, in the mean time, the amount of bank 
 notes had increased to £28,232,730. Again, in 
 1817, when the price of gold had declined nearly 
 to par, bank notes had further increased to the 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 sum of £29,543,780. These facts are so incon- 
 sistent with the assumption that the high price 
 of gold was occasioned by an excessive issue of 
 bank notes, or that the price of gold should be 
 taken as an inde.v of the depreciation of bank 
 notes, that, surely, no impartial person, having 
 access to these facts, can remain under such 
 a delusion. 
 
 You, Sir, I have no doubt, will well re- 
 member that, during the whole course of that 
 time, when such great fluctuations were con- 
 tinually taking place in the price of gold, our 
 home monetary transactions went on uninter- 
 ruptedly — the bank-note was the uniform repre- 
 sentative of the pound sterling ; and scarcely 
 one person in a thousand, except bullion dealers, 
 knew, or cared to know, how much the market 
 price of gold was constantly varying. This happy 
 ignorance is worthy of the special observation of 
 statesmen : and though I hope similar circum- 
 stances may never again cause the like fluctua- 
 tions ; yet, as you have shown, and this letter 
 is intended to show, that other circumstances may 
 produce great and sudden changes in the value 
 of gold, so every statesman would do well to 
 profit by the e.vpedient which was at that time 
 forced upon us with such beneficial effects. 
 
 I beg then to repeat, that the main object I 
 have in view, is to obtain, for our domestic use.
 
 37 
 
 a CREDIT circulating medium, as free from 
 foreign control as that which existed during 
 the late war, and yet that this medium shall 
 always be equitably convertible into specie, and 
 consequently into the currency of any foreign 
 country. A British credit currency possessed 
 of these properties, and relieved from those 
 sudden and frequent checks to which it must 
 ever be liable under our present impracticable 
 system, would not only be quite as valuable as 
 gold in our home circulation, but would be pos- 
 sessed of an equal value in many cases abroad. 
 For instance, where foreign states have divi- 
 dends to pay for loans contracted in England 
 — where foreigners want to transmit money 
 for purchases made in this country — where 
 Custom House duties have to be paid on foreign 
 merchandize brought into our ports j — in fact, 
 with the balance of trade in our favour to the 
 degree which British skill, capital, and industry 
 ought to make it, and would make it, under a 
 statesman endowed with the genius of com- 
 merce like the late Mr. Pitt, — British notes, no 
 matter whether they were called *' Treasury,'''' 
 ''Exchequer,'' or ''Bank of England"" notes, 
 would constitute a medium of exchange for 
 almost every part of the commercial world, 
 not less valuable, and sometimes more so, than our 
 best gold money. Under this, system it would
 
 38 
 
 cease to be in the power of three or four 
 capitalists, for their private gain, to control and 
 derange the bullion market : that control would 
 then be vested in the whole body of British 
 merchants, as the natural consequence of this 
 nation being able to export a larger portion of 
 valuable commodities than any other country. 
 
 But I fear Sir Robert Peel is not the states- 
 man under whose ministry this great good for 
 Britain can ever be accomplished. To effect 
 the desired object. Sir Robert must admit that 
 he did wrong in not following his father's 
 counsels, and those of the Bank directors, in 
 1819; and therefore his prejudices are against 
 us. His notions, too, of manufactures and 
 commerce must be radically defective, or he 
 never could have attributed the distress of this 
 nation, in any degree, to an excess of its manu- 
 facturing power. Last year, in his speech on 
 the Sugar Duties, he stated our Exports— 
 
 For 1839 to have been £97,000,000 in ojficial 
 value, and .£52,700,000 in declaimed \2i\ne. 
 
 For 1840 to have been £102,000,000 in official 
 value, and £51,000,000 in declared value. 
 
 Thus showing that in the latter year we had 
 exported about ^ve per cent. 7nore goods and 
 realized three per cent, less money for them : and 
 upon the strength of this statement he is repre-
 
 39 
 
 sented as saying, that " he certainly entertained 
 undiminished hopes of the revival of our trade." 
 Neither Sir Robert's father, nor the late Mr. 
 Pitt would have been deluded into such a belief. 
 They would have thought that a nation thus 
 progressing backwards, rather resembled those 
 tradesmen whose case appeared in the papers a 
 few weeks ago. The parties had been three or four 
 years in business, selling goods all the time for 20 
 or 30 per cent, less than they cost, and, as a 
 natural consequence, finished their commercial 
 career by appearing in the Gazette. In parlia- 
 ment the other evening, Sir Robert, in replying 
 to another member, said he had been thirty 
 years a member of that House, but had never 
 before heard that commerce could be carried on 
 without profit to somebody. If he were a 
 tradesman he would find it difficult to discover 
 how either individuals or states can ever derive 
 profit from a foreign or a home trade, carried on 
 upon such principles as the above. 
 
 Sir Robert, in his interviews with commercial 
 men, seems more alive to their ignorance of the 
 art of logic and the skilful use of words, than to 
 t\\e\x practical knowledge in matters of business. 
 On the other hand, Mr. Pitt, in similar cases, 
 appears to have been regardless of the imper- 
 fections of the parties, intent only upon extract- 
 ino- from them whatever information their station
 
 40 
 
 in life might have titibrded them, probably not 
 expecting any man to know every thing. There 
 is a story toid of Mr. Pitt, in his younger days, 
 that an eminent tea dealer, as one of a de- 
 putation, having had an interview with him, 
 was asked by a friend, what he thought of their 
 young minister. " Thought of him!" said the 
 old tea dealer; "why, if I could get such a 
 young fellow into my counting-house, 1 could 
 afford to give him a thousand a year.'' I ques- 
 tion whether Sir Robert Peel's commercial 
 talents would ever have called forth such a 
 remark. His talents, great os they unques- 
 tionably are, are quite of a different kind. They 
 evidently belong to the bar, rather than to the 
 Exchange or to the merchant's counting-house. 
 In a difficult law case, Sir Robert's services 
 would be pre-eminently valuable ; and, could he 
 have another Pitt at all times for his guide and 
 counsellor, on manufacturing, commercial, and 
 monetary affairs, his talents would be most 
 valuable in the government of a nation ; but 
 without a thorough revolution in his opinions upon 
 those branches of the public service, and espe- 
 cially the hist, I fear, nay, I am fully satisfied, 
 it will never be in his power to extricate this 
 nation from her present difficulties. 
 
 It is evident that Sir Robert has not faith to 
 believe that legislation can remedy the distress
 
 41 
 
 of the people ; and therefore no great good can 
 be expected from his prescriptions, although he 
 has been " feeling the nation's pulse " for seve- 
 ral months, and no doubt deeply investigating 
 his patient's condition. Were his remedies 
 deserving his confidence, he would doubtless 
 have more faith in their virtue than he manifests. 
 The "Great Western " would never have crossed 
 the Atlantic, if the projector of that magnificent 
 steamer, and the captain who commanded her, 
 had not felt perfect confidence in their power to 
 execute their respective tasks. Neither can 
 our vessel of state ever be carried safely through 
 the rocks and breaJiers with which she is at 
 present beset, unless a pilot can be found, who, 
 having caught the mantle of our immortal Pitt, 
 clearly perceives the course he ought to steer, 
 and has faith to believe he can bring her safely 
 into port; but Sir Robert's hopes appear to 
 extend no further than keeping the vessel afloat 
 by increased taxation, trusting to time and acci- 
 dent for the effectual relief and final deliverajice of 
 the people from their distress. 
 
 Though I believe the counsels of Sir Robert 
 Peel have contributed greatly to bring the nation 
 into its present perils, yet I can assure you, my 
 dear Sir, that there is no one that would rejoice 
 more than myself to behold Mr. Pitt's mantle 
 descend upon Sir Robert Peel, and to see him
 
 42 
 
 enjoy the distinguished honour and happiness 
 of extricating the British nation from all those 
 troubles with which she is, and has so long 
 been, needlessly surrounded. 
 I beg to remain, dear Sir, 
 
 Your faithful and humble servant, 
 
 James Taylor. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Since writing the above, I have seen Sir 
 Kobert Peel's speech on the introduction of 
 a property or income tax ; and it must be con- 
 fessed, that however inferior to the late Mr. Pitt 
 Sir Robert may be in devising means for the 
 people wherewith to fulfil their tasks, he is quite 
 equal to his great predecessor in his ability to 
 add to their burthens. The public are justly 
 alive to the unfairness of taxing an income of 
 £200 a-year, whether derived from land worth 
 thirty years'* purchase, or from the casual profits 
 of a trade not worth three years' purchase, or of 
 a profession not worth one years purchase, at the 
 same rate; but this inequality is a trifling 
 grievance, when compared with the hateful 
 inquisitorial power which must attach to this 
 tax, if enforced upon professions and trades. 
 And for what is all this additional burthen 
 and cruelty to be inflicted upon the people ? 
 For what, after twenty-seven years of peace.
 
 43 
 
 are three or four millions of additional taxes 
 required ? Why, truly, as a further expedient 
 to bolster up Sir Robert Peel's currency 
 blunder of 1819 ;— to patch up a system which 
 requires the people to make " bricks ivithout 
 straw ;" — to give a temporary prop to our 
 7iatioual revenue, which, as we have seen, Sir 
 Robert was forewarned would probably be 
 ruined hy his oivn injudicious monetary measures 
 
 The same indiscreet boldness which prompted 
 Sir Robert Peel to legislate upon the Currency 
 Question in 1819, in opposition to the admoni- 
 tions of his own father — of the counsels of 
 many of the oldest and most wealthy bankers 
 and merchants of London — and of the expe- 
 rienced men who at that time governed the 
 bank— appears to have prompted him, upon the 
 present occasion, to set the opinions of the 
 great body of the English people at defiance. 
 He has scarcely announced this most impor- 
 tant tax, before the resolutions founded thereon 
 are to be proposed for adoption. The resolu- 
 tions being adopted, the people are told their 
 petitions against the tax cannot be received. 
 This mode of stifling the voice of the British 
 people is so utterly at variance with the spirit 
 of the British constitution, that if Sir Robert 
 wished to increase the power of the Chartists, 
 he could scarcely have taken a more effectual 
 way of doing it.
 
 44 
 
 At the end of this pamphlet will be found the 
 late Sir Robert Peel's speech against his son's 
 '* Bill" in 1819. The son seems fully alive to 
 the weight which ought to attach to his own 
 opinion on matters of finance, in consequence 
 of the eight or ten hours' daily study he has 
 given thereto. By the same rule the counsels 
 of his father, who had spent a long life in the 
 successful prosecution of financial matters, and 
 had been for forty years experienced in parlia- 
 mentary affairs, were doubtlessly entitled to 
 greater deference than they received from thai 
 son, who was, comparatively, beginning his 
 parliamentary career. But let Sir Robert now 
 realize his father's fond hopes — let him return to 
 the ** path of propriety," from which he unhap- 
 pily deviated in 1819, and he will soon find an 
 abundant revenue without any additional taxes. 
 By a judicious currency system, the interest on 
 Exchequer Bills, amounting to about £800,000. 
 annually, might be immediately saved to the 
 Government ; but this would be a trivial gain 
 compared to that which would soon arise from 
 the increased means the people would enjoy of 
 consuming taxed commodities.
 
 October, 1830. 
 
 TO THE HONORABLE THE COMMONS OF THE 
 UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 AND IRELAND: 
 
 The Petition of James Taylor, of BakewelU 
 in the County of Derby ; 
 
 HUMBLY SHEWETH, 
 
 That it was stated in the last Session of 
 Parliament, by the Lord High Chancellor, that Credit 
 Engagements to the amount of Five Hundred Millions 
 of Pounds Sterling had been liquidated in the course 
 of one year by only four London Bankers, and that the 
 further amount of One Thousand Millions of Pounds 
 Sterling had in the same time been liquidated by twenty 
 others of the London Bankers, making a total of nearly 
 double the gross amount of our National Debt; from 
 which statement some idea may be formed of the very 
 great amount of the money transactions of this 
 country. 
 
 That these transactions, though by courtesy gene- 
 rally liquidated in Bank Notes, or Balances of Credit, 
 are legally payable in the Gold Coin of the Realm 
 only. 
 
 That the amount of this Gold Coin in active circu- 
 lation bears so inadequate a proportion to the Credit 
 Engagements which are constantly in course of payment, 
 that a sudden demand in the market for Two or Three 
 Millions, places in jeopardy the credit of many other- 
 wise trustworthy individuals; and experience has re- 
 peatedly shewn, that the Abstraction from Circulation
 
 46 
 
 of Six or Eight Millions of this the only legal 
 Money, imposes such a restraint upon the issue of Bank 
 Notes, as to create a general Panic through the country, 
 and a Ruinous Depression in the money-value of every 
 species of property. 
 
 That, in addition to the natural causes, such as a 
 Failing Harvest, or Foreign Wars, which occasionally 
 produce large demands for Specie, it is apparent to your 
 Petitioner that the same effect may be produced by a 
 few speculative men of large capital, whose object shall 
 be, in the first place, to withdraw capital from the Funds, 
 and for a time to employ that capital in Bank deposits, 
 or in taking up such other securities as shall give to the 
 holders a legal right to make an Absolute Demand for a 
 specific quantity of Specie at their pleasure — then to 
 apply the power thus obtained in giving a check to Credit; 
 and when, by this course, they have restrained the cir- 
 culation, and, as a consequence, greatly depressed the 
 value of Government Securities, then to re-invest the 
 capital in them. Supposing an operation of this kind to 
 have preceded the panic of 1825, a reference to the 
 prices of Government Securities at that time will shew, 
 that the Speculators would, in the course of a few 
 months, have added Twenty per Cent, to their Annual 
 Income. 
 
 That there are times when it is in the power of a few 
 individuals to monopolize Specie, and to produce the 
 effects here described, is further confirmed by the Evi- 
 dence of Mr. Baring, before the Committee for Coin 
 at the Board of Trade, 26th of April, 1828, who having 
 stated, that there are persons interested in thwarting 
 the Bank, and preventing its supply of Gold, says : — 
 " A large Capitalist might do this with effect ; a Combi- 
 " nation of three or four might do it almost with cer-^
 
 47 
 
 ** tainty ; and it should be here stated that the Banks of 
 " France and Amsterdam both make advances at a very 
 " low rate of interest, on the deposit of Gold: I believe, 
 " they advance the value less 10 per Cent. By this 
 " means ;£ 100,000 would lock up a Million, and One 
 " Million would lock up Ten." Mr. Baring adds — 
 " It will easily be seen what advantage this circumstance 
 " affords for the Combination I have mentioned." 
 
 That, under these cii'cumstances, and with recent 
 facts before them, it is to be expected that Bankers 
 generally, and such Capitalists as are averse to specu- 
 lation, should feel it needful constantly to keep a large 
 Balance of Credit in the Bank of England ; and that the 
 Bank of England, for its security against these demands, 
 should likewise feel it needful to keep constantly in store 
 a large quantity of Specie ; and that thus, whilst Dormant 
 Money abounds, the Circulation should languish, and the 
 able-bodied labourer and ingenious artisan be left to pine 
 away for want of employment. 
 
 Your Petitioner therefore humbly prays, that 
 your Honourable House would be pleased to 
 take this subject into your serious consider- 
 ation, with a view to devise some means by 
 which the continuance of Cash Payments 
 may be secured, and yet the nation be 
 relieved from that unfair and unnatural 
 control to which its Credit Engagements 
 are now liable. And as one mode of attain- 
 ing so desirable an end. Your Petitioner 
 respectfully submits the following Plan to 
 the consideration of Parliament,
 
 48 
 
 THE PLAN. 
 
 First, That Bank of England Notes be made a legal tender 
 for all payments of the value of one pound and up- 
 wards. 
 
 Secondly, That the Bank Directors be required to pay 
 their notes, on demand, in Gold, at the market price. 
 And in order to ascertain and publish the market 
 price — 
 
 Thirdly, That the Directors be required to give periodical 
 notice of the price at which they will exchange their 
 Notes for Gold ; and whatever price they fix, at the 
 same price they be required to give Gold for their 
 notes, or receive Gold in payment for the varioug 
 debts owing to them. Such notice to continue in 
 force till the stated period for its renewal. 
 
 Fourthly, That the Public be always entitled to take Gold 
 to the Mint, there to be coined for them, agreeably 
 to the present standard, and that a Sovereign of due 
 weight be always deemed a legal tender for an en- 
 gagement of one pound sterling ; so that Foreigners, 
 as well as Englishmen, may at all times calculate 
 upon Gold brought to England being at least ade- 
 quate to the payment of credit engagements after 
 that rate. 
 
 Fifthly, That in order to save a needless waste of the 
 labour of coinage. Bars of Gold, duly assayed and
 
 49 
 
 stamped at the Mint, be allowed to constitute the 
 medium of cash payments for all sums above one, 
 two, or three hundred pounds, as may be agreed 
 upon ; and that such Bar Gold be estimated at such 
 a given rate per ounce less than coined Gold, as may 
 be equivalent to the cost of coinage. For example, if 
 coined Gold were SI. 17 s. lOld. per ounce, let Bar 
 Gold be 3/. 17s. 6d. per ounce. 
 
 Sixthly, That the same regulation be applied to large pay- 
 ments of Silver, supposing it should, on inquiry, be 
 deemed expedient to adopt the use of Silver as well 
 as of Gold in large payments. 
 
 Seventhly, That Country Bankers, &c. be always required 
 to meet their issues and other engagements, either in 
 coined Money or Bank of England Notes. 
 
 Your Petitioner, conceiving that the foregoing 
 Plan, or such other plan as the wisdom of 
 Parliament may devise, having for its basis the 
 establishment of an Agio, for the perpetual ad- 
 justment of our Credit Money with Specie, 
 would essentially conduce to the permanent 
 welfare of this country, implores the attention 
 of your Honourable House to the subject : 
 and your Petitioner, as in duty bound, will 
 ever pray, &c. 
 
 [This Petition, with the following "Observations" 
 upon it, was published in the Manchester Courier of Novem- 
 ber 27, 1 830, and in several other Papers about the same 
 time.] 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 The success of the proposed Plan rests on the assump- 
 tion, that SELF-INTEREST is the primum mobile of human 
 action. The argument against the existing system is, that 
 it offers a temptation to the individual to seek his private 
 profit by measures eminently injurious to the community ; 
 whilst the argument in support of the proposed plan is, 
 that the individual pursuing his own interests would simul- 
 taneously promote and secure the public good. 
 
 The chief Objections to be anticipated against the plan 
 are, that it would give to the Bank — 
 
 1st. Too great a control over the circulating medium; and 
 
 2ndly. A power of depreciating the value of their own 
 Notes. 
 
 To the first Objection it may be replied, that the Bank 
 already possesses sufficient power over the circvdation to 
 do mischief, if such were the object of the Directors; but 
 not sufficient power to avert it, if attempted to be done by 
 others. The same effect which it has been shewn might 
 be produced upon the money value of Government Secu- 
 rities, &c. by a few speculative capitalists, might even noio 
 be much more easily produced by the Bank ; but the 
 Directors, being responsible to the country for the fair 
 exercise of their power, and, moreover, the majority of 
 them being, in their private capacity as citizens, more 
 interested in the general good than in the private profits of 
 the Bank, it would be unreasonable to fear such a wilful
 
 51 
 
 abuse of their power. The case is quite ditfereut with 
 private speculators, citizens of any country to which they 
 may choose to transport their gold. Comparatively un- 
 known, and too often insensible to public censure, where 
 the acquirement of great wealth is concerned, they may 
 attain their end in defiance of the Bank ; and yet through 
 its instrumentality. It is true, the Directors have the 
 power of averting ruin from their own Establishment; not, 
 however, by causing it to recoil upon the speculators, but 
 by throwing it upon the community ; and thus the public 
 are made to bear the loss, whilst the Bank bears the odium, 
 and the speculators carry off the profit. 
 
 By the proposed plan the Bank would have the power 
 of thwarting the speculators, and thus of protecting itself 
 and the public at the same time ; so that, if the plan gives 
 any increase of power to the Bank, it is merely power to do 
 good in addition to the power it already possesses of doing 
 evil. The control of the Bank over the circulating medium 
 would however be always subject to the influence of 
 Merchants importing the precious metals, getting them 
 coined at the Mint, and paying them away as money — an 
 influence sufficient to make it the interest of the Bank to 
 withdraw its notes, and to use gold whenever the precious 
 metals should flow in too abundantly ; or otherwise to 
 accumulate the gold in their coffers until it were wanted : 
 and when any extraordinary export of specie should take 
 place, whether for warlike purposes or for corn, then to 
 supply the chasm with Bank Notes until the natural course 
 of Trade should bring the gold back again, so as at all 
 times to keep the circulating medium as steady and uniform 
 as possible. 
 
 The second Objection is founded upon a mistaken view 
 of the interests of the Bank — a mistake sanctioned by the 
 authority of Mr. Ricardo. The Bank Directors, under the
 
 52 
 
 proposed plan, would undoubtedly have the poicer of de- 
 preciating the value of their own notes, but would they 
 have the inclination ? Certainly not. For to depreciate 
 the value of Bank notes, would be to depreciate the value 
 of the Bank Capital, inasmuch as the engagements due 
 to the Bank exceed those due from it ; so that it would 
 be as rational to suspect the manufacturer of a design to 
 diminish the value of his own productions, as to suspect the 
 Bank Directors of a wish to diminish the value of Bank 
 notes. Circumstances like those which occurred during 
 the late war, might, contrary to the interests of the Bank, 
 compel a diminution in the metallic value of the note, or in 
 other words, a rise in the value of Gold relativelv to Bank 
 notes ; but this, supposing it to be the case, would be 
 infinitely better than a Bank restriction ; and every one, at 
 all conversant with the money question, knows that this 
 must be the alternative to the present system^ if a war 
 were to break out before an alteration were effected. To 
 permit a possible rise of the price of gold in Bank notes, 
 would secure the country against an inconvenient efflux 
 of the precious metals, and encourage, in lieu thereof, an 
 exportation of the products of British Industry.
 
 53 
 
 The LATE Sir Robert Peel's Speech on pre- 
 senting the petition of the Merchants^ Bankers, 
 and Traders of London to the House of Com- 
 mons, May 19th, 1819, against his Son's '"'Bill.'' 
 
 " Sir Robert Peel said, that he now stood in a situation 
 which he had never experienced before, although he had 
 sat in that House forty years. The petition which he was 
 about to submit to the House was from a body of men 
 entitled to the very first consideration — a body of men 
 who, in the time of public distress and pecuniary want, were 
 the very first to come forwax'd and relieve the government. 
 He should wish to call to the recollection of some members, 
 who he believed now heard him, whether they did not re- 
 member a meeting of the merchants and bankers called in 
 1797 ? At that time the Bank Restriction Act was pro- 
 jected, and could not have passed if that very meeting of 
 the merchants, manufacturers, &c. had not expressed them- 
 selves strongly in its favour. He begged the House would 
 pay particular attention to the petition which he now held 
 in his hand. It was one of no common character, but that 
 of a great and important body, all of the first respectability, 
 praying that those resolutions which were intended to be 
 submitted to the House might not be carried into effect. 
 He begged leave to state his opinion, that the petitioners 
 were the best judges of such a measure. He would add 
 also, that although they were intimately connected with
 
 54 
 
 all that concerned the welfare of the country, the most 
 experienced men, and the best qualified, from their con- 
 nection with our manufactures and commerce, yet they 
 had not been examined by the committee ; he hoped, 
 therefore, that before a measure so destructive of the com- 
 mercial interests of the country was passed (and when he 
 said that, hon. members would conclude every other 
 interest to be combined with those, and to go along with 
 them), the House would pause awhile, in order to collect 
 that information which they so particularly wanted. In 
 looking at the reports which had been published on the 
 subject, he must say, that the witnesses were not men likely 
 to give any information to government, not men acquainted 
 with the state of the country ; the last men who should have 
 been questioned if government wanted to arrive at the 
 merits of the case. In attending lately a meeting in 
 London, he begged it might be understood that that 
 was the only one he was ever interested in, except the 
 meeting of 1797, and the latter one was considered of con- 
 sequence enough to have saved the country. If, then, that 
 was a meeting which deserved the attention of the House, 
 he hoped the present one, which originated this petition, 
 would be considered as equally entitled to it. He hap- 
 pened on that occasion, however, to be in company with 
 some whom he could not deem the best friends of their 
 country ; but he should not do justice to two persons who 
 attended there, Messrs. Wooller and Hunt, if he did not 
 say that they behaved in a manner the least disorderly in 
 the world, which he attributed to their new and singular 
 alliance with His Majesty's ministers, for they supported 
 the measure in question : they inveighed against any 
 attempt at deferring the period of resuming cash pay- 
 ments. He must confess that the circumstance, so new, of
 
 65 
 
 tliese men being supporters of the administration, consti- 
 tuted the outline of a very good caricature. To see the 
 noble lord and his hon. friends on the one hand, and 
 Messrs. Hunt and Wooller on the other, united in their 
 attempt to pull down the mighty fabric erected by the 
 immortal Pitt, was at once ludicrous and painful. He 
 would implore the House to pause before any rash step 
 was taken which might forward such an attempt. He 
 really thought the resolutions were of a very extraordinary 
 character. It was true that he should have to oppose a 
 very near and dear relation. But while it was his own 
 sentiment that he had a duty to perform, he respected 
 those who did their's, and who considered them to be para- 
 mount. The gentlemen who opposed him at the meeting 
 of which he had spoken, were rather indignant at his men- 
 tioning the name of Mr. Pitt. His own impression was 
 certainly a strong one in his favour ; he always thought him 
 the first man in the country. All of us had some bias, and 
 he should not quarrel with those who preferred some other 
 name. He well remembered, when that near and dear 
 relation was only a child, he observed to some friends who 
 were standing near him, that the man who discharged his 
 duty to his country in the manner in which Mr. Pitt had, 
 did most to be admired and was most to be imitated : and 
 he thought at that moment, if his own life and that of his 
 dear relation should be spared, he would one day present 
 him to his country to follow in the same path. It was very 
 natural that such should be his wishes, although those who 
 did their duty might at once be contented with their con- 
 duct. He was well satisfied that the head and heart of 
 that relation were in their right place ; and that though he 
 had deviated a little from the path of propriety in this 
 instance, he would soon be restored to it. He had entered
 
 56 
 
 more largely into the subject than he had intended; any 
 other observations he should reserve to a future oppor- 
 tunity, and conclude by moving that the petition be 
 brought up." 
 
 [The two clauses which are given in the title page of 
 this pamphlet contain the essence of the petition.] 
 
 Prinffd by J. Werllieimer nnd Co., Circus Tlace, Finsburj Circus.
 
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