It is a condition which we have not fulfilled. Instead of six months, more than five years intervened between the peace and the resumption of cash payments. We, therefore, have not kept faith with the fundholder. Instead of having overpaid him, we have cheated him. Instead of making him a present of a per centage equal to the enhancement of the currency, we continued to pay his interest in depreciated paper, five years after we were bound, by contract, to pay it in cash. And be it remarked, that the depreciation was at its highest during a part of that period. If, therefore, there is to be a great day of national atonement for gone-by wrongs, the fundholders, instead of having any thing to refund, must be directed to send in their bill for the principal and interest of what they were defrauded of during those five years. Instead of this, it is proposed, that, having already defrauded them of part of a benefit which was in their bond, and for which they gave an equivalent, we should now force them to make restitution of the remainder!

That they gave an equivalent, is manifest. The depreciation became greatest during the last few years of the war; indeed, it never amounted to any thing considerable till then. It was during those years, also, that far the largest sums were borrowed by the Government. At that time the effects of the bank restriction had begun to be well understood. The writings of Mr. Henry Thornton, Lord King, Mr. Ricardo, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Blake, &c. and the proceedings of the Bullion Committee, had diffused a very general conviction, that the Bank had the power to depreciate the currency without limit, and that the Bank Directors acted on principles of which that evil was the natural consequence. Does anybody imagine that the loans of those years could have been raised, except on terms never before heard of under a civilized government, if there had been no engagement to pay the interest or the principal in money of any fixed standard; but it had been avowed, that, to whatever point the arbitrary issues of the bank might depress the value of the pound sterling,-there it would be suffered to remain?

What avails it, then, to cavil about our paying more than we borrowed? Everybody pays more than he borrows; everybody, at least, who borrows at interest. The question is not, have we paid more than we borrowed? but, have we paid more than we promised to pay? And the answer is, we have paid less. The fundholder, as the weaker party, has pocketed the injury; he only asks to be spared an additional and far greater one. We covenanted to pay in a metallic standard; we therefore are bound to do it. To deliberate on such a question is as if a private person were to deliberate whether he should pick a pocket.

So much for the substance of the fraud. There is, however, no political crime so bad in itself but what may be made still worse by the manner of doing it. To rob all creditors, public and private, is bad enough in all conscience; but, for the sake of robbing existing creditors, to give to a set of bankers the power of taxing the community to an unlimited amount, at their sole pleasure, by pouring forth paper, which could only get into circulation by lowering the value of all the paper already issued; what would this be but to erect a company of public plunderers, and place all our fortunes in their hands, merely because they offer to lend us our own money, and call the twofold operation" affording facilities to trade?" It were better worth our while to settle a Blenheim, or a Strathfieldsay, upon every banker in England. Civilization itself would shortly come to an end; in a few months we should be in a state of barter.

No man in his senses would take money in exchange for any

thing, except he were sure of being able to lay it out before the next day. Each man would begin to estimate his possessions, not by pounds sterling, but by sheep and oxen, as in the heroic ages.

Mr. Attwood opines, that the multiplication of the circulating medium, and the consequent diminution of its value, does not merely diminish the pressure of taxes and debts, and other fixed charges, but gives employment to labour, and that to an indefinite extent. If we could work miracles, we would not be niggardly of them. Possessing the power of calling all the labourers of Great Britain into high wages and full employment, by no more complicated a piece of machinery than an engraver's plate, a man would be much to blame if he failed for want of going far enough. Mr. Attwood, accordingly, is for increasing the issues, until, with his paper loaves and fishes, he has fed the whole multitude, so that not a creature goes away hungry. Such a depreciation as would cause wheat to average 10s. the bushel, he thinks, would suffice; but if, on trial, any labourer should declare, that he still had an appetite, Mr. Attwood proffers to serve up another dish, and then another, up to the desired point of satiety. If a population thus satisfactorily fed should, under such ample encouragement, double or treble in its numbers, all that would be necessary, in this gentleman's opinion, is to depreciate the currency so much the more.

It is not that Mr. Attwood exactly thinks that a hungry people can be literally fed upon his bits of paper. His doctrine is, that paper-money is not capital, but brings capital into fuller employment. A large portion of the national capital, especially of that part which consists of buildings and machinery, is now, he affirms, lying idle, in default of a market for its productions; those various productions being, as he admits, the natural market for one another, but being unable to exchange for each other, for want, as he seems to think, of a more plentiful medium of exchange, just as wheels will not go with a spare allowance of oil. It was suggested to him, by some member of the committee, that a small nominal amount of currency will suffice to exchange as many commodities as a larger one, saving that it will do it at lower prices; which, however, when common to all commodities, are every jot as good to the sellers as high prices, except that these last may enable them to put off their creditors with a smaller real value. Mr. Attwood could not help admitting this; still, however, it failed to produce any impression upon him; he could not perceive that high prices are in themselves no benefit; he could not get out of his head that high prices occasion "increased consumption," "increased demand," and thereby give a stimulus to production. As if it were any increase of demand for bread to have two bits of paper to give for a loaf instead of one. As if being able to sell a pair of shoes for two rags instead of one, when each rag is only worth half as much, were any additional inducement to the production of shoes.

Whenever we meet with any notion more than commonly absurd, we expect to find that it is derived from what is miscalled "practical experience;" namely, from something which has been seen, heard, and misunderstood. Such is the case with Mr. Attwood's delusion. What has imposed upon him is, as usual, what he would term a "fact." If prices could but be kept as high as in 1825, all would be well; for in 1825, not one well-conducted labourer in Great Britain was unemployed. Now, the first liberty we shall take is, that of disbelieving the "fact." In its very nature, it is one which neither Mr. Attwood, nor any one, can

personally know to be true; and his means of accurate knowledge are probably confined to the great manufacturing and exporting town which he personally inhabits. Thus much, however, we grant: that the buildings and machinery he speaks of were not lying idle in 1825, but were in full operation many of them, indeed, were erected during that frantic period; which is partly the cause of their lying idle now. But why was all the capital of the country in such unwonted activity in 1825? Because the whole mercantile public was in a state of insane delusion, in its very nature temporary. From the impossibility of exactly adjusting the operations of the producer to the wants of the consumer, it always happens that some articles are more or less in deficiency, and others in excess. The healthy working of the machinery, therefore, requires, that in some channels, capital should be in full, while in others, it should be in slack, employment. But in 1825, it was imagined that all articles, compared with the demand for them, were in a state of deficiency. The extension of paper credit, called forth by speculations in a few leading articles, had produced a rise of prices, which, not being supposed to be connected with a depreciation of the currency, each man considered to arise from an increase of the effectual demand for his particular article, and so fancied there was a ready and permanent market for any quantity of that article which he could produce. Mr. Attwood's error is that of supposing, that a depreciation of the currency really increases the demand for all articles, and consequently their production; because, under some circumstances, it may create a false opinion of an increase of demand; which false opinion leads, as the reality would do, to an increase of production, followed, however, by a fatal revulsion as soon as the delusion ceases. The revulsion in 1825 was not caused, as Mr. Attwood fancies, by a contraction of the currency; the only cause of the real ruin, was the imaginary prosperity. The contraction of the currency was the consequence, not the cause, of the revulsion. So many merchants and bankers having failed in their speculations, so many, therefore, being unable to meet their engagements, their paper became worthless, and discredited all other paper. An issue of inconvertible bank notes might have enabled these debtors to cheat their creditors; but it would not have opened a market for one more loaf of bread, or one more yard of cloth; because, what makes a demand for commodities is commodities, and not bits of paper.

It is no slight enhancement of the motive we have to rejoice in our narrow escape from marching to Parliamentary Reform through a violent revolution, when we think of the influence which would in that event have been exercised over Great Britain, for good or for ill, by men of whose opinions the above is a faithful picture. No man to whom we are less indebted, has it in his power to do so much mischief as these men. Their merits and services do but render their errors the more dangerous. We have no dread of them at present, because, together with the disapprobation of all instructed men, they have to encounter a strong popular prejudice against paper-money of every kind. The real misfortune would be, if they should wave their currency juggle, and coalesce with the clearer-sighted and more numerous tribe of political swindlers, who attack public and private debts directly and avowedly.

But even thus, we do not fear that they should succeed. There are enough of honest men in England yet, to be too many for all the knaves; and it is only for want of discussion that these schemes find any favourers among sincere men. The mischief, and it is not inconsiderable, is,

that such things should be talked of, or so much as dreamed of; that the time and talents which ought to be employed in making good laws and redressing real wrongs, should be taken up in counselling or in averting an execrable crime: to the injury of all good hopes, but most to the damage and discredit of the cause of Radical Reform, which is almost undistinguishably identified in the minds of many excellent, though illinformed and timid people, with the supremacy of brute force over right, and a perpetually impending spoliation of every thing which one man has and another man desires.*

THE moment that she looked up from her drawing, I remembered her at once by her eyes. It was full three years since I had seen them, during a tour in vacation, on entering the diligence from St. Omer to Paris. She was then a mere girl in her teens, but far more interesting than misses generally are at that dubious period; a curly-headed, rosy creature, arch and good-natured, with a pair of blue eyes which I must describe, for they were absolutely unique. Their colour was extremely full and deep; the outline that of a prolonged oval; and usually seeming half shut, and shaded with dark eyelashes, they gave a sly or pensive expression to the curl of a red upper lip; but if aroused by surprise or mirth, they opened out beneath her arching brows with such a brightness of blue as was quite dazzling. They were eyes to sit and gaze upon, as you gaze upon the sky, for hours. She was travelling, under her father's escort, to Paris, to enter a pension there; and as there were no passengers in the diligence besides ourselves, before nightfall I was already on good terms with both. The sire was a gentlemanly old militaire, on half-pay, as I conjectured, from his style of travelling. As it grew dusk, the shyness of the little maid gave way to the vivacity of her spirits; and as papa already gave tokens of drowsiness, she gradually addressed herself to me, in that vein of innocent communicativeness which flows so beautifully from young lips, and which is one of the first of their utterances that the world perverts. I listened as though I had been a friend of ten years' standing, while she prattled on of her school friends, of her flowers and pigeons at home in Leicestershire, of her joys and sorrows upon leaving it, of her curiosity as to her new companions, &c., so that in a very short time I knew most of her little his tory. When it grew chill at night, I folded my gay travelling cloak around her, and observed, almost with fondness, her little head begin to

*That our opinions may not be misunderstood, we think it right to explain that, while we object decidedly to any legislatorial depreciation of the currency, we advocate free frade in banking, as in everything else, and the unrestricted issue of bank notes, convertible on demand into the precious metals; in short, the Scottish system of Banking, as explained in our article on The Bank Charter, in Magazine No. III. And while we maintain that the restoration of the currency to a sound state, gives us no right to deprive the fundholder of any part of his stock, we by no means contend that the huge debt shall be allowed to paralyze the national strength for ever. How it is to be disposed of, with the nearest possible approximation to exact justice to every person, must be the subject of future articles.

nod, and her narrative to falter; until at length, quite wearied, she fell into a slumber, so deep, that it was not disturbed when, at the first jolt which occurred, I laid her head on my shoulder, and, passing my arm around her, kept it in that position. I could never sleep in a stage. In those days, moreover, my imagination was in great force; so as we lumbered along, and I sat listening to the queer cries of the conducteur and postilion, and the gentle breathing of my young fellow-traveller, to which the paternal snore furnished a very tolerable counterpoint, I amused myself with various reveries concerning the destiny of the pretty creature then slumbering on my bosom. Sometimes, a fanciful idea arose, that our intercourse, so recently begun, and so soon to terminate, might be resumed on a future day; and I busied myself with imagining the lively girl expanded into the loveliness of womanhood, and again crossing my path by some accident, such as had already brought us together. There is, I am persuaded, a truth of prediction in these impressions, especially in those which visit us in the night season. "Dreams," says a great poet, "come from God." When day broke, the girl looked so beautiful and quiet, nestling in my cloak, that I could not abstain from impressing a morning salutation upon her brow; so lightly, however, as not to disturb her slumber; nor did she awake until the rattling of the vehicle along the pavement approaching the Barrière de St. Denis, announced our proximity to Paris. When the diligence stopped in the Rue de l'Enfer, I felt quite sad at parting from my charge; and as I lifted her down the clumsy steps, I asked her to tell me her name, and not to forget me. She told me that she was called Isabel Denham, and said that she had a good memory: but I little expected, on giving her the farewell au plaisir, that I should ever see her again.

Trifling as was this adventure, I was, at my then age of nineteen, so full of the dreamy visions of youth, and so great a stranger to the better part of her sex, that during my short sojourn in Paris, and long after returning to Oxford, the picture of those rich black curls waving on my shoulders, and the pair of blue eyes that opened on mine when she awoke in the diligence, perpetually recurred to my imagination. How angry was I at my stupidity in neglecting to "ask of the whereabouts" of her Leicestershire home! Indeed I tormented all the men from that county with whom I had any acquaintance, with inquiries concerning the name of Denham, until silenced by the ridicule they excited. The dissipations and studies of college life did not, however, impair my memory; although, when I revisited the Continent, after taking my degree, it was only at leisure moments that I would ask myself,-" I wonder what has become of that pretty Isabel; by this time she must be full woman, and, I doubt not, a fair one? I should like to know if she recollects her com.. panion of the diligence."

A delightful summer ramble had terminated amongst the slopes and vineyards of the Pays de Vaud. On the afternoon of a day too sultry for walking, I was descending, on mule-back, a steep hill in the neighbour.. hood of Vevay, by an unfrequented road which overlooks the lake. The clouds began to creep heavily upwards from behind the western Alps ; and I urged my lazy beast, in the hope of regaining my quarters before the storm should break. But mules are impracticable animals; and mine, upon a smart application of the whip, came to a full stop at the angle of the road; and began to indulge himself in one of those intolerable howls which none but mulish organs can perpetrate, to the great alarm of a