Madame, you wold goo to your awne in Scotland, as it is good reason, and command there. It is true, quod she, I wold goo thither indeede, but onely to see my son, and to gyve him good counsell; but said she wold never stay long there, nor wolde govern where she hath receavid so many evell treatments; for her hart could not abyde to look upon those folk that had don her that evell, being her subjects, wherof ther ar yet many remaining.'

We have little more to say on this work, and would willingly, were it proper, leave most of that little unsaid. The papers have been very carelessly copied, and the editors have not corrected the mistakes of the transcriber. The errors of inadvertency and misreading, especially in the second volume, are far too numerous to be here particularised. We will notice a few of them. P. 60, Sheatlam for Streatlam. P. 40, Killingworth for Kenilworth. P. 165, Molstrappe for Wolstrappe. P. 371, Archbishop Douglas for Archibald Douglas, twice repeated, although we find on the same page a biographical note relative to the very man in question. P. 394, Stelandes for Oatlands. P. 398, Barnelling for Barnelms. Pp. 407-408. two letters which occur together from George Earl of Shrewsbury, are signed, the one L. Shrewsbury,' the other, I. L. Shrewsbury.' P. 491, Bandegrete for Baudesert, &c. &c. It would be difficult, as we have said before in substance, to speak too highly of the curious nature of the papers themselves. Some of them have already appeared, in a collection of Sadleir's letters, printed in Scotland in 1720, a circumstance which the editors have mentioned in their advertisement, but not in the work itself. We are, however, by no means sorry to find them here republished.

ART. X. The Question concerning the Depreciation of our Currency stated and examined. By W. Huskisson. Esq. M. P. 8vo. pp. 174. Murray, and Hatchard, London; Blackwood, Edinburgh; Mahon, Dublin. 1810.

SOME of our readers may perhaps remember that in a former

number of our Review, we contented ourselves with indicating very concisely, though, as we hope, not obscurely, our opinions on this subject; expressing, at the same time, our intention to resume it, so soon as we should have obtained that additional information which was expected from the researches of a Committee of the House of Commons. Unfortunately the report of that Committee, having found its way to the public press, before it had been sanctioned by the general approbation of the House, and unaccompanied by those farther explanations which it would have re

ceived during its parliamentary discussion, has only given fresh vigour to the dispute which it was intended to allay. We therefore still think that the time at which we might, without presumption, put in our separate claim to the attention of the public, is not yet arrived and as it is neither our duty nor our wish to take an indirect part in the controversy, we shall, for the present, content ourselves with stating, as distinctly as we can, the opinions and arguments of the contending advocates.

Of the pamphlet of Sir John Sinclair, the most distinguished adversary of the Committee, our readers will find, in another part of this number, a concise but careful analysis. To Mr. Huskisson, who, after discussing the principal question, has taken a view of its more remote relations, and examined the probable consequences of the measure recommended by the Committee, we shall find it necessary to allot a more considerable portion of our time and attention.

We have already remarked, on a former occasion, that although the disorder in the state of our currency has a very general influence, and is severely felt by all ranks in the community-yet the origin of that disorder, its nature, and its symptoms, are by no means such as to strike a superficial observer. A diminution of the value of money produced by the gradual augmentation of the precious metals; and accelerated in its progress by successive loans and taxes, the operation of which is exactly analagous to that of such an augmentation, is neither a new nor a puzzling phenomenon. A depreciation of currency arising from the debasement of coin, either by ill-advised changes in the denomination by public authority, or by the mal-practices of individuals, is a very common and intelligible evil. But on the present occasion it is notorious that our coins, up to the moment of their complete disappearance, were not debased. Our paper currency, circulating in company with coin, and received with equal confidence, performed, as effectually as the coin itself, all the offices of money. It was a substitute for money of which the imperfection, if real, was at least by no means manifest. That this substitute existed in excess, and that this excess was a principal cause of the dearness of all articles for which our currency was exchanged, had, indeed, been confidently asserted; it had even been anticipated by some opponents of the Restriction Bill as the certain and inevitable consequence of that measure, and had been admitted, on all hands, to be at least a possible consequence of it, if protracted beyond a very limited period. On this point there is scarcely a shade of difference between the opinions of Lord King, of Mr. Thornton, and of the late Earl of Liverpool. But the chain of argument followed by these writers, and indeed any chain of abstract reasoning "on subjects apparently admitting of a short

appeal to sense and experience, could not be expected to produce a very general impression, at least till such an appeal should have confirmed the truth of that reasoning.

As it was unnatural to suppose that the Bank had ever made a gratuitous advance of their notes; as each emission of such notes was preceded by a deposit of mercantile bills of exchange, or of floating Government securities, of which the solidity was unquestioned; and as such bills and securities might, by some persons, be considered as already forming a part of the circulation, it was not quite obvious that any issue of paper thus regulated was capable of being carried to excess. Again, amongst the chief indications of such excess, there were some that were not likely to force themselves into general notice. A depression of the exchange, and even a rise of the price of bullion are, when only limited and temporary, the ordinary results of the fluctuations of trade; they are circumstances of which few, excepting practical men, are likely to keep any record; and which, when their unusual duration, or extraordinary extent, should begin to create uneasiness, would possibly appear to receive an easy explanation from the convulsed state of the continent, from a supposed increase of demand for the only species of wealth capable of easy concealment; from our own subsidies to foreign powers, or from the expenditure of our armies abroad.

Whilst the very sudden augmentation of price in almost every article in our home markets could not escape discovery; there was still no obvious criterion which could enable the public at large to discriminate between the dearness arising from taxation, and that which was superinduced by an excessive issue of currency; or to assign to each of these conspiring causes its particular and separate effect.

Perhaps, on this very statement, it may be justly contended that here are fair grounds for a difference of opinion: and, a controversy being once excited, we are not much surprised, considering the nature of the subject in dispute, that such a controversy should be carried on, by one of the parties at least, with a good deal of heat and asperity. Some portion of sanctity is usually supposed to be attached to long-established tenets. The mercantile part of the community, accustomed to consider with reverence their ancient oracle, and to consult in every difficulty their golden balance of trade, have not, as it should seem, yet learned to meet with equanimity those objections which modern scepticism has urged against the infallibility of its responses. It might be uncandid to blame very severely, in men of grave and cautious habits, an impatience of innovation, and a fond attachment to inveterate notions; but it is necessary to hint to them that their zeal carries

them too far when it leads them, as it has done in the present instance, to change altogether the nature of the contest.

The point now at issue is, simply, whether the currency of this country is depreciated by an excessive issue of Bank paper?" Those who argue in favour of the affirmative may be right or wrong but their antagonists, it should seem, are not entitled, instead of proving that the affirmation is unfounded, to insist that it is criminal. That is a perfectly new and different proposition.

It is true that the immorality of questioning the value of Bank paper has not been distinctly asserted; nor ostensibly brought forward as a bar to the agitation of the main question: but, though too absurd to be avowed, and therefore only obscurely insinuated, it is not the less capable of acting as a powerful incentive to popular clamour.

In this way it has been successfully employed. A special Committee, appointed by the House of Commons, to inquire into the causes of the high price of gold bullion, &c. &c.' have been held out to the country at large as having misrepresented the objects of their inquiry, and as having made a report contradictory to the whole mass of evidence: because, in obedience to the orders under which they acted, they took into their consideration,' and ' reported their observations upon,' the explanatory opinions of the witnesses; whose testimony, as to facts, they implicitly admitted, and whose explanations, whether satisfactory or unsatisfactory, they faithfully recorded.

It would be unfair to assume that, a document containing this senseless and extravagant imputation, and inserted, we believe, in all the newspapers, as the speech of Mr. Randle Jackson, delivered at a general meeting of the Bank proprietors, and stated to have been received by that meeting with general acquiescence, and even with approbation, was, in fact, the genuine composition of that learned gentleman, or that such an oration was, or could be tolerated in so respectable an assembly. But it has never been formally disavowed. However obscure and contemptible may be the real source of the charge, it has been circulated through every part of the country with the assumed appearance of authority; and to meet this charge is one of the objects of Mr. Huskisson's preface.

Whether any serious vindication of the conduct of the Committee, or of the active part which Mr. Huskisson took in their proceedings, was really necessary, it is needless to inquire; but, certainly, the defence could not have been in better hands: and we are persuaded that all our readers, whatever may be their prepossessions on the subject of this controversy, will be pleased

VOL. IV. NO. VIII.

54

with the calm and temperate tone of the following observa

tions:

The question is already necessarily before thepublick. The parlia mentary discussion of it is unavoidably at some distance. It is plain that the opinion of the publick will not remain so long altogether suspended: and besides it is a subject upon which many persons would rather collect their ideas and form their decision in the leisure of the closet, than in the warmth of debate.

'I have yet another reason for avowing my opinions as openly and as early as possible. If I know my own mind, those opinions have been formed as coolly and dispassionately, as they could have been upon any point of abstract science: and I should have felt it as impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion to which I have been led upon this subject, as to refuse my assent to the demonstration of any problem in mathematicks. I say this the rather, because I see (and I see with deep regret) an attempt made to create political divisions on this subject: and to array particular parties against principles which, surely, are not to be classed among the articles of any political creed, or to be considered as connected with the separate interests of any party :-principles which, if false, may be disproved by calm argument, without the aid of influence or combination; but which, if true, cannot be refuted by clamour, and could not be overpowered by numbers or authority, without material hazard to the interests of the country.

Fatal, indeed, would it be for the country, if those who are to decide upon this question,-(a question which, while it is, on the one hand, so abstract as not to allow to error the apology of passion, yet, on the other hand, affects, in its practical consequences, the interests and the comforts of every class of society,)-could be persuaded to regulate their conduct, upon this occasion, by any feelings of political partiality or hostility. I trust that such feelings will not be allowed to disturb and exasperate this discussion: and, as to myself, I am most anxious to declare and record my opinions, while these feelings have not yet made any progress; and while the course of party politicks, (if, most unfortunately, party politicks are at any period to mix themselves with the subject,) is yet unascertained.' Pref. pp. xi, to xiv.

The remainder of the preface is occupied with an answer to the following question:

"In discussions of an amicable nature which have arisen with those for whom these observations were originally intended, I have been asked, (and the question may possibly be repeated in a less amicable manner,) "Why I did not give to the publick an earlier warning on the subject, why not, while I was myself in office, and before the evil had grown to its present height?" p. xiv.

Mr. Huskisson's answer to this question is, in substance, an avowal that he did not foresee the consequences which have since taken place that neither he, nor any person with whom he ever had any official or private intercourse, had ever appeared to consi