on the high price of gold bullion and the unfavourable course of exchange with foreign countries, this price, and this depreciation, are also to be ascribed to the want of a permanent check, and a sufficient limitation of the paper currency in this country.

[To the Report is added the evidence given before the committee, of which the following are the principal passages.] A. A. Goldsmid, Esq. was examined respecting the sale and exportation of gold. He said that merchants used great caution in sending it abroad. That gold is sometimes sold to an individual to the amount of from 100 to 5000 ounces. About 50,0001. or 80,000l. sterling might be sold in a month. The rate of insurance for exporting gold was about three guineas. Previous to gold being exported, an oath must be taken before the court of aldermen that it has been melted from foreign co ́n or foreign gold in bars. Some of the articles brought home in return for gold exported were, corn from France and Flanders. There was no risk of confiscation in exporting gold; because at a trifling premium it could be insured into the hands of the consignee. An unfavourable exchange took money out of the country, as well as other circumstances. The difference between our standard gold, and bank paper, was as between Sl. 17s. 10 d. to 41. 10s. or nearly 16 per cent. With respect to the course of exchange, the case stood thus:--if a person purchased a bill at Hamburgh upon London, and received payment for it in guineas at London, he would get 16 per cent. more than if he received payment in bank notes, provided he was at liberty to export the guineas.

W. Mle, Esq. was ext examined. He said, that according to the present price of gold, a guinea was worth twentyfour shillings and a penny. No gold has been lately in circulation; and the thing was growing worse and worse every day for six months preceding the examination. As a banker, he never received gold from any quarter. Formerly the bank used to give seven shillings pieces for guineas, but they did not do so now. Silver bulion was now higher than the coinage price.

Sir Francis Baring examined. - He said the exchanges with the continent of Europe were for many months from 15 to 20 per cent. against this country; and that the market price of gold was

above the mint price nearly in the same proportion. The course of exchange has been the regulator of paper and bullion in all quiet and current times. By current times he meant times of war when there were no restrictions on trade, such as the seven years war, and the American war, during which there was no want of bullion. He therefore thought that if we could continue our payments in specie as heretofore, and there had been no restriction upon trade, the course of exchange would not be unfavourable to the country. The exchange then was affected by the restriction on trade, and the increased circulation of country paper. The increased circulation of paper conduced to the scarcity of bullion; becanse the one was issued and substituted in the room of the other, which was withdrawn, and which could not be commanded by the holders of paper. The removal of the restrictions on trade would facilitate the means of importing bullion, by causing an exportation of merchandize. In the year 1797, and some years previous to that, the issue of the bank notes was not more than eleven millions sterling; a printed paper laid be ore the house states that the circulation at present of bank notes exceeds 21 millions. This is more than can circulate with safety to the general circulation of the country.

On the subject of small notes, Sir Francis spoke thus-" The small notes add to the mass of bank notes before in circulation: they issue in the same manner in exchange for public or private securities; instead of being left out in a comparative view. I fear they rather tend to increase the difficulty more than their due proportion, because they cannot be withdrawn without an issue of specie to an equal amount, and therefore stand in the front of the battle.— Before the restriction, the experience of above a century proves that the adminis tration of the affairs of the bank has been wise and correct; the public have been satisfied, the country has flourished, and I am persuaded that the bank of England has proved a most important invaluable instrument m promoting its prosperity. This experience points out the ONLY principle on which the public can rely with confidence, namely, to return again to payments in specie whenever it shall be in the power of the bunk to do so. There are many instances of clerks not worth 1001. establishing themselves as mer

chants, and receiving (since the restriction) an accommodation from the bank, by discounting what is called good bills to the amount (probably) of 5 or 10,000!.

Such a demand I am inclined to consider as created by the bank, and not arising out of a regular course of trade, such as would exist if the restriction was removed. This circumstance is important, in my opinion, that the circulation of the country cannot be perfectly safe until the restriction is removed, is well

founded. The circulation of bank notes

now amounts to twenty one millions; deduct from thence the bullion in its inereased extent, to which it may be supposed to amount in consequence of the restriction, it will still leave a much larger sum to be employed in public or private securities. I consider the opinion entertained by some persons, that the bank ought to regulate their issues by the public demand, as dangerous in the extreme, because I know by experience, that the demand for speculation can only be limited by want of means; and I think the bank would not be disposed to extend their issues beyond three fourth parts of its present amount, if the restriction was removed. It may prove dangerous to impose any positive restraint on the bank by law or otherwise, for cases may and will arise when an excess will be proper, and that it would be culpable to withhold it. But if the house should be disposed to entertain an opinion, and will pronounce it distinctly, I think the bank may be left with full power to act under their responsibility.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SYSTEM OF ENGLISH COMMERCE, AND PAPER MONEY.

[From the Publiciste.] Hamburgh, Aug. 3.- Since the union of Holland, the magazines of Heligoland find no longer any vent, and are quite choaked up. The quantity of merchandize which is lost is inconceivable. Every moment we sce new magazines formed, but all are full, and most of the bales remain unpacked. This example is singular, and shews to what a de

gree the distress of England extends · Under this point of view it cannot be doubted but that the union of Holland is a terrible blow to the commerce of England, and it remains to be asked, why that measure has been so long delayed? It is evident that if Holland had been formerly united, England would have sooner experienced the horrible crisis in which her commerce is now placed. Bankruptcies succeed each other in London. Her exchange loses 20 per cent. and her Bank paper has ceased to possess the character proper to that kind of paper. It is now only A PAPER MONEY, which is every day farther discredited.

Twenty vessels of war, with 600 merchantmen, have entered the Baltic, having no other object than to smuggle and deposit the cargoes of these ships on the continent. The Danes have captured 50, the cargoes of which are estimated at above 20 millions (livres). The Russians have confiscated more than 80. —These vessels sail under false colours; they have false papers, false destinations, and false French licences; they call themselves Americans, Spaniards, and Hamburghers; they have even false certificates of origin from French consuls. They stick at nothing; but all this only succeeds in part; and if, as is reported, Prussia carefully interdicts the entrance of colonial produce, and if French troops occupy Mecklenburgh, where English merchandize has had so good a market, and where the contraband trade is carried on with such activity, English commerce will experience by these measures new ob stacles.

The Wagram privateer has just been captured by the English in the port of Stralsund. This circumstance will prove still more fatal to their commerce. It affords the French the best reasons for again taking possession of the coasts of this

country, and in future the contraband traders will be pursued with more certainty and greater safety. When we hear in our commercial houses what passes in Heligoland; when we recollect that all those articles of merchandize, the one half of which must be necessarily a pure loss, and the other half of which is destined to be confiscated to the profit of France and her allies-that all those hasty shipments which remained heaped up in depots, without being able to find their way to the continent--that all those hazardous speculations are at the same time discounted by the bank of London--when one sees the vast crowd of Ottoman vessels arriving every day on the coast of France and Italy, loaded with colonial produce from Malta, to be consigned to confiscation, and to add immense resources to France; and when one considers at the same time, that those same articles of merchandize have been all discounted at London by the bank-when, I say, we consider in our counting rooms all those circumstances, we naturally ask, what is this paper of the bank of London? Is it paper that can be exchanged for cash? No; it is impossible to realize it. As a proof of this, it is here at a discount of 20 per cent. Is it a paper that can keep up commercial credit, and that has not already gone beyond its natural limits? What is money?Money is not the representative of capital, but the representative of the usufruct. If we suppose that two millions are necessary for the circulation of France, it is that the produce of the land and of the revenues in France requires the employment and movement of two millions; but if, instead of specie, we had only paper money, and instead of putting in circulation the amount necessary to represent the value of the usufruct, we would put in its room a mass of paper, representing the capital of the territorial value, this

VOL. VIII.

paper would not acquire any greater degree of value, but would gradually lose, till it fell to the rate necessary for circulation. Such is the history of the assignats of France, and such the analysis of what is now felt at Vienna. The quantity of paper emitted does not augment the sign of the circulation, because the intrinsic value of the sign diminishes in proportion to its accumulation. This is the history also of what is now passing in London. The bank drives a bad trade. Instead of discounting bills of exchange, representing the credit of the English merchants, it is obliged to discount bills which are the equivalent of goods heaped up in warehouses and magazines, and which must remain several years without finding a market. The result of this is the deterioration of the circulating medium, the fall of the rate of exchange, and certain symptoms of decay and distress. The speculators in Europe will one day be astonished at having so long given their confidence to a nation founded on commerce, which only exists by commerce, and which, in consequence of unjust measures, is reduced to the necessity of carrying on trade by means of LICENCES only-an exemption which, depending on the caprice or partiality of ministers, is wholly at the mercy the public offices,

of

England boasts its civil constitution, the protection, and the rights which it secures to its subjects; yet a merchant, who is the most useful citizen in that nation, cannot make a shipment without the permission of the minister's clerks, without a licence, which he cannot obtain but by favour. The English, who adopted licences, have obliged France to do the same, and to substitute caprice for the general principles, which form the common rights of commerce. They have in so doing given a mest severe blow to good faith, to morals, and to the very essence of trade. Ilow have they not discovered, that

Y

the moment it was required to have licences for trading, commerce was then shut out from the common laws? Could the enemy have done them a greater evil than what they have thus done themselves? Accordingly, the most sensible men who have come from England, say, that within the last three years, that nation has completely altered; that every person but intelligent merchants, trades in merchandize; that calculations founded in wisdom have given place to inconsiderate reveries; that the practice of using false papers, false passports, and false licences, has attacked the morality of the most numerous part of the nation; THAT, IN ONE WORD, WITHIN THE SPACE OF THREE YEARS, THE PROGRESS THIS GENERAL DEPRAVATION HAS ATTAINED SUCH A POINT, AS TO GIVE REASON TO EXPECT THE SPEEDY DOWNFAL OF A POWER, WHICH WILL HAVE BEEN LOST BY THE FOLLY AND WEAKNESS SHE PERMITS TO REGULATE HER DESTINY!

OF

THE SITUATION AND PROSPECTS

OF ENGLAND.

[From the concluding Number of the ARGUS, an English Newspaper lately printed at Paris.]

At the moment when we are terminating our labours, we naturally look back upon the career we have traversed; and the changes produced in Europe in less than nine years, appear to us, as it were, the work of nine centuries.-We recollect what was the origin of this. The ultimatum that preceded the rupture of the treaty of Amiens is still fresh in our memory. The Britannic cabinet scarcely needed pretexts to break a treaty which it openly avowed to be no more than a truce. Its object and policy at that period was to reduce the power of France, by stirring up enemies against her on the Continent; but on comparing the situa

tion of the belligerent parties, and considering what they were then, and what they are now, we are struck at seeing how far England is from having realized the hopes held out to her, and how much France has surpassed even all that her most ardent friends could have conceived. On both sides, the results of this war are so many important lessons to be treasured up.

er.

To begin this picture, with an examination of the finances of England. It is known with what emphasis the ministers, every year, announce their prosperous state.Their speeches are pompous; their calculations rigorously just: but the result of their labours uniformly is, to augment the taxes, and open fresh loans ! In 1802, the general produce of the taxes, exclusive of the interest of the debt, was estimated at 34,000,0001. sterling; in 1809, it was 53,000,0001. and the expenditure of 1810 must carry it still highMen of sense are struck with this progressive augmentation, to which, if we add about 20,000,0001. sterling, for the interest of the national debt, the whole territorial income of Great Britain is scarcely adequate. These are results that speak more plainly than the hypothetical calculations of Gentz, Ivernois, &c. Though the system of the sinking fund, when subjected to mathematical examination, can extinguish this enormous debt in a given space of time, yet this certainly has, hitherto, been in the hands of the English ministry only a lure to gull the people, and to make them support, without murmuring, the oppressive weight of loans. At the creation of the sinking fund, the public debt was only 238,000,0001. What then have been the results to England of this marvellous invention? An increase of more than 400,000,0001. in twenty-four years! Either the calculations were false, or the ministers have governed ill. Mr.