LXIV. 1811. CHAP. for, not in the relative value of the metallic and paper currency, but in the diminished value of the whole currency, gold, silver, and paper, when compared with that of all other commodities. And the proof of that was to be found in the fact, not that gold was at a premium of 25 per cent, but that wheat had, on an average of ten years preceding, advanced 100 per cent, and was then selling at 110 shillings the quarter, whether paid in bank-notes or gold. The high premium on gold, on which so much stress was laid, was evidently owing to the political or natural causes which at that period caused the precious metals to be all drained out of the country; and we who have seen the bank of England reel, and the United States bank of America fall,* under the effects of the drain of £6,000,000 sterling from the vaults of the former of these establishments to purchase grain from continental Europe in 1839, for the consumption of the British islands, and the Bank Charter Act suspended, and a commercial crisis, of unheard-of severity, induced in 1848, in consequence of the drain of gold to buy the grain imported to meet the failure of the potato crop in the preceding year, can feel no surprise that gold was at an extravagant premium in 1810 and 1811 in London, when £4,171,000 was, in the former of these years, sent out of the country for grain alone; and in both years, above £6,000,000 was annually remitted to the Peninsula, in specie and bullion, for the service of the English and Portuguese armies. It is remarkable that a measure fraught, as every one, unbiassed by party feeling or interest, now sees, with such obvious and utter ruin, both to the nation and the individuals of whom it is composed, was at that period * In Mr Biddle's able paper on the causes of the suspension of cash payments by the United States Bank in October 1839, the principal reason assigned was the drain upon the Bank of England during the preceding year, from the vast importation of grain, in consequence of the bad harvest in Great Britain in 1838, and the consequent contraction of the British circulating medium and pressure upon the money market of America. LXIV. 1811. 88. tinued pub on this supported by the ablest men in parliament, and many of CHAP. the profoundest thinkers in the country; that the report which recommended such a perilous and destructive change was for above twenty years held up as the model of poli- Long-contical wisdom; and that the ministry who, by resisting it, lic delusion saved their country from destruction, more perhaps than subject. by any act in their whole career, incurred the imputation, with the great bulk of the succeeding generation, of being behind the lights of the age. It is the more inexplicable, that the general delusion should so long have prevailed on the subject, when it is recollected, not only that the true principles of this apparently difficult but really simple branch of national economy, which are now generally admitted by all impartial thinkers, were at the time most ably expounded by many men both in and out of parliament; but that, in the examination of some of the leading merchants of London before the parliamentary committees on the subject, the truth was told with a force and a precision which it now appears surprising any one could resist. This memorable example should always be present to the minds of all who are called upon, either theoretically or practically, to deal with so momentous a subject as the monetary concerns of a nation; and, while it is calculated to inspire distrust in abstract or speculative conclusions, when unsupported by facts, it points in the clearest manner to the wisdom of adhering to those common-sense views which experience has suggested to * Particularly by Sir John Sinclair, whose sagacious mind early and clearly perceived the fatal effect of the proposed resumption of cash payments at that critical period, especially on that great national interest, agriculture, to the support and improvement of which his long and useful life was devoted.-See Life of Sir John Sinclair, ii. 268, by his son, the Rev. John Sinclair, chaplain to the Bishop of London-a work full of valuable information both historical and political, by an author who unites to the talents and industry hereditary in his family, the accomplishments of a scholar, the learning of a divine, and the philanthropy of a Christian. + The following was the evidence given on the subject of the high price of bullion by Mr Chambers, before the Committee of the House of Commons. In the examination of Mr Chambers, a gentleman who deservedly enjoys the reputation of great intelligence and extensive information in the commercial LXIV. CHAP. practical men, and which, however apparently irreconcilable at the moment with theoretical principle, will 1811. generally be found to emanate from it in the end, and to have arisen from some unobserved element acting, with a force imperceptible to the theorist, but most cogent to the practical man, on the great and complicated maze of human transactions. 89. Birth and early his WILLIAM HUSKISSON, who first rose to great and deserved celebrity in the course of these important distory of Mr cussions, was a statesman whose career belongs to the Huskissou. pacific but momentous period which intervened between the close of the war and the passing of the Reform Bill. But he was too eminent a man, and exercised too powerful an influence on the fortunes of his country, to be passed over without remark in the annals of Europe during the French Revolution. He was descended from a family of ancient standing but moderate fortune in Staffordshire, and received the elements of education in his native county. He was early sent over to receive the more advanced branches of instruction at Paris, under the direction of Dr Gem, physician to the British embassy at that metropolis; and he arrived there in 1789, just in time to witness, and in some degree 1 Huskis share, the enthusiasm excited by the capture of the Bastile in that year. The intimate acquaintance which at this period he formed with Franklin and Jefferson, as well as the popular leaders in the Club of 1789, of son's Speeches and Life, i. 1, 49. world, we find the following evidence :-" At the mint price of standard gold in this country, how much gold does a Bank of England note for one pound represent?"—" Five dwts. three grains."-" At the present market price of £4, 128. per ounce, how much gold do you get for a bank-note of one pound?” "Four dwts. eight grains."-" Do you consider a Bank of England note for one pound under these present circumstances as exchangeable in gold for what it represents of that metal?"-I do not conceive gold to be a fairer standard for Bank of England notes than indigo or broad cloth." Question repeated, "If it represents twenty shillings of that metal at the coinage price, it is not.' -HUSKISSON'S Life, i. 36. Mr Huskisson adds, in these answers this leading doctrine is manfully and ingenuously asserted and maintained; and all who stand up for the undepreciated value of bank paper, however disguised their language, must ultimately come to the same issue.—Ibid. which he was a member, had a powerful influence on his character, which was never obliterated through life, and eventually exercised no inconsiderable effect on the fortunes of his country, to the chief direction of the commercial concerns of which his abilities ultimately raised him. CHAP. 1811. 90. entry into, ment. He was first brought into parliament in the close of the year 1796, for the borough of Morpeth, under the His first nomination of Lord Carlisle; and was about the same and career time appointed Under-secretary of State for War and in parlia the Colonies, in which laborious and important situation his business talents were speedily discovered, and he enjoyed the intimate friendship, and was often called to the private counsels, both of Mr Dundas and Mr Pitt. He retired from office with Mr Pitt in 1801, along with Mr Canning, with whom, throughout life, he maintained the closest intimacy; but was reinstated in the situation. of Secretary to the Treasury on Mr Pitt's return to power in 1804; which important trust he continued to hold, with the exception of the brief period when the Whigs were in power, down to the retirement of Mr Canning from Downing Street in September 1809, when he withdrew from government with his brilliant friend, and became a leading member of the liberal section of the Tory party, now in avowed hostility to the administration. In 1814 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Woods and Forests, and from that time till his appointment to the important office of President of the Board of Trade in January 1823, he devoted his attention almost exclusively to subjects of trade, navigation, and political economy, in which his information gave him great weight, and of which, even before he became a cabinet minister, he had acquired almost the exclusive direction. The return to cash payments, by the celebrated bill of 1819, the reciprocity treaties, the partial abandonment of the navigation laws, Speeches and the free-trade system, were mainly occasioned by vol. i. his influence;1 and he continued, whether in or out of 1 Huskis son's Mem. i. 235; and Life, LXIV. 1811. CHAP. office, almost entirely to direct the commercial concerns of the nation, till the time of his death, which was occasioned by the frightful accident of the railway train passing over him on the 15th September 1830, the day on which the line from Liverpool to Manchester was opened. 91. ter and great abilities. He was the first of that class of statesmen who have His charac- arisen with the prodigious increase in the commercial transactions and industrial activity of Great Britain in later times, and whose attention is chiefly devoted to the material interests and statistical details of the nation. He was not endowed by nature with any remarkable oratorical abilities; he had great powers of thought and application, but neither the fire of genius, the gift of original thought, nor the soul of poetry, in his character. And though in the later years of his life he was listened to with profound attention on both sides of the house, yet this respect was owing rather to the vast stores of varied information which he never failed to bring to bear upon the subject of debate, and the luminous views which he advanced regarding it, than to any faculty of captivating a mixed audience with which he was gifted. His reasoning faculties were of a very high order; and there is no statesman of that period to whose arguments the historian can now so well refer for an exposition of the principles which, during the interval between the peace and the Reform Bill, governed the commercial and maritime policy of England. first brought to bear upon legislative measures the resources of statistical research; and, to the industry and perseverance requisite for such an undertaking, he united the rarer faculty of philosophic reflection, and the power of deducing general principles from an immense detail of particular instances. He was never taken unawares on any subject of that description; the details of the parliamentary returns were ever present to his memory; and, by the skilful use which he made of them He |