the English Government will soon be led to make such concessions toward Ireland, and to secure such a reformation of existing abuses, as will everywhere gain the approbation of the friends of good government.

FIELD, DAVID Dudley, D. D., an American Congregational clergyman and author, born in East Guilford (now Madison), Conn., May 20, 1781; died in Stockbridge, Mass., April 15, 1867. He was a son of Captain Timothy Field, an officer of the War of the Revolution. He was fitted for college under the instruction of Rev. Dr. John Elliott, pastor of the Congregational Church in Guilford, and one of the most remarkable men of the last century in New England, and entered Yale College at the age of seventeen, graduating in the class of 1802. He prosecuted his theological studies under Dr. Backus, of Somers, one of the most eminent New England divines of his day, and was licensed to preach by the New Haven East Association, in September, 1803. He was soon invited to preach as a candidate at Haddam, Conn., the result of which was that, after a few months, he received a call, and was ordained and installed there on the 11th of April, 1804. Here he remained til 1818-just fourteen years-and then resigned his charge, and spent the next five months on a missionary tour in Western New York. On his return to New England, he accepted a call from the Congregational Church in Stockbridge, Mass., then lately rendered vacant by the death of the venerable Dr. Stephen West, and was installed as its pastor on the 25th of August, 1819. With this church his connection continued nearly eighteen years, when, owing to a singular concurrence of circumstances, he received and accepted an invitation to return to his former parish in Haddam, and was actually installed there the second time on the 11th of April, 1837, just thirty-three years from the date of his first settlement. That year the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by Williams College. In 1844 the parish which he had served, being very large, was divided, and he took charge of the new society formed at Higganum, two miles north of the old church, where he continued to preach some years longer. During his residence here, in 1848, he crossed the ocean with one of his sons, and spent several months, much to his satisfaction, in Great Britain and France. In the spring of 1851, having reached the age of seventy, he yielded to the wishes of his children that he should retire from public labor and return to Stockbridge, which they regarded as the family home. Here he lived in dignified retirement for sixteen years. During the greater part of this time, his faculties, mental as well as bodily, continued in a good degree of vigor; but for some time previous to his death there had been a gradual waning of the powers of his mind, and his memory particularly had become well-nigh a blank. On the day on which he died (the

15th of April), he rode out and called upon several of his old parishioners, and to one of them who said, "Dr. Field, I am glad to see you so well," he replied, "I was never better in my life." He had a little great-granddaughter on the seat with him, and had his arm around her, as he drove through the village to his home. On entering his room, he took off the scarf from his neck, and, on sitting down, his head fell back, his body and limbs became rigid, and the next moment he was dead. Dr. Field had a natural fondness for historical research, and, notwithstanding his manifold professional engagements, he found considerable time to devote to it. He published a “History of Middlesex County;" a "History of Berkshire County," in a volume of nearly 500 pages; an "Historical Address" at Middletown, forming, with its appendix, a book of 300 pages; and a "Genealogy of the Brainerd Family," of about the same size with the last-mentioned volume. A considerable number of his occasional sermons have also been published. Dr. Field was married in October, 1803, to Miss Submit Dickinson, of Somers-a lady of highly respectable parentage, and every way worthy of the place she was designed to occupy. The relation thus formed continued fifty-seven years. They had ten children, of whom seven were born in Haddam, and three in Stockbridge. Two sons and two daughters have died. Six sons are now living. David Dudley, the oldest son, is one of the leading members of the New York bar, and author of the "Revised Codes of Law of the State of New York," a work on which he was engaged for nearly twenty years. Matthew D. is an engineer, and has been a member of the Senate of Massachusetts for Hampden County; Jonathan E. has been repeatedly a member of the same Senate, and was three times chosen its president; Stephen J. is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States; Cyrus W. has a worldwide fame as the originator of the Atlantic Telegraph; and Henry M., the youngest son, is the editor of the New York Evangelist, and the author of several books. One of his daughters married Rev. Josiah Brewer, a missionary in the East; and the other, Mr. Joseph F. Stone, a partner of her brother Cyrus. Dr. Field occupied a prominent place among the excellent ministers of the last generation. With a mind naturally vigorous, clear, and exact, and withal trained to diligent and patient research, and with the most scrupulous regard to order and principle, he united a kindly and generous spirit, and with it a tone of vigorous and elevated piety. In all his relations he was a model of firmness, conscientiousness, discretion, and punctuality. As a preacher, he was eminently judicious and instructive; and his manner, though calm and deliberate, was evidently marked by great sincerity. He had uncommon executive power and was always ready to exert it in helping to carry out every benevolent project that came in his way. Wherever

one country and the gain by another produce the natural results upon industry and production. Thus coin is not only the regulator of commerce, but the great stimulator of industry and enterprise. The same may be said of a convertible paper currency, but is rarely if ever true of an inconvertible currency, which is necessarily local, and would not be likely to be inconvertible if it were not excessive; and, by being excessive and inconvertible, is fluctuating and uncertain in value. No matter what laws may be enacted to give credit and value to it, an irredeemable currency must, unless limited, always be a depreciated currency. The Secretary, in presenting the importance of contraction, urged the following among other remarks:

The United States notes were made a legal tender and lawful money because it was thought that this character was necessary to secure their currency. By reference to the first debates of Congress upon the subject, it will be noticed that those who advocated their issue justified themselves on the ground of necessity. No one who spoke in favor of the measure favored it upon principle, or hesitated to express his apprehensions that evil consequences might result from it. But the Government was in peril, the emergency was pressing, necessity seemed to sanction a departure from sound principles of finance, if not from the letter of the Constitution, and an inconvertible currency became the lawful money of the country. While the action of Congress in authorizing the issue of these notes seemed necessary at the time, and was undoubtedly approved by a large majority of the people, there can now, in the light of experience, be no question that the apprehensions of those who advocated the measure as a necessity were well founded. Had they not been made a legal ten

der, the amount in circulation would not have been excessive, and the national debt would doubtless have been hundreds of millions of dollars less than it is. The issue would have been stayed before a very large amount had been put in circulation, not because the notes would have been really more depreciated by not being made lawful money, but because their depreciation would have been manifest. By being made lawful money they became the legalized measure of value-a substitute for the precious metals-which, as a consequence, were at once demoralized and converted into articles of traffic. Made by statute a legal tender, they were, of course, popular with those who had debts to pay or property to sell; costing nothing, and yet seemingly adding to the value of property, supplying the means for speculation and for creating an artificial and a delusive prosperity, it is an evidence of the wisdom of Congress that the issue was stopped before the notes had become ruinously depreciated, and the business of the country involved in inextricable difficulties. But although the issue of these notes was limited, and we thus escaped the disasters which would have overwhelmed the country without such limitation, it can hardly be doubted that the resort to them was a misfortune. If this means of raising money had not been adopted, bonds would have undoubtedly been sold at a heavy discount, but the fact that they were thus sold, without debasing the currency, would have induced greater economy in the use of the proceeds, while the discount on the bonds would scarcely have exceeded the actual depreciation of the notes below the coin standard. As long as notes could be issued and bonds could be sold at a premium or at par, for what the statute made money, there was a constant temptation to liberal, if not unnecessary, expenditures. Had the specie standard been maintained and bonds been sold at a discount for real money, there

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would have been an economy in all the branches of the public service which unfortunately was not witnessed, and the country would have escaped the evils resulting from a disregard of the great international law, which no nation can violate with impunity, the one that makes gold and silver the only true measure of value. The financial evils under which the country has been suffering for some years past, future, are, in a great degree, to be traced to the to say nothing of the dangers which loom up in the direct issues by the Government of an inconvertible currency with the legal attributes of money.

Upon the demoralizing influences of an inconvertible Government currency it is not necessary to enlarge. They are forced upon our attention by every day's observation, and we cannot be blind to them if we would. The Government is virtually repudiating its own obligations by failing to redeem its notes according to their tenor. These notes are payable to bearer on demand in dollars, and not one of them is being so paid. It is not to be expected that a people will be more honest than the Government under which they live, and while the Government of the their tenor, or at least as long as it fails to make United States refuses to pay its notes according to proper effort to do so, it practically teaches to the people the doctrine of repudiation.

On the other hand, those who were opposed to these views, urged that, as the credit system had been very much curtailed since 1861, and sales were made chiefly for cash, a much larger amount of currency was required than formerly for the convenient transaction of business; that there was, in fact, no excess of money in the United States, but, on the contrary, an increase was required to move the crops, encourage enterprise, and give activity to trade. As an evidence of the correctness of this view, reference was made to the "tightness of the money market" in the commercial cities and the scarcity of money in the agricultural districts.

In reply, it was urged that its apparent scarcity in the United States was attributable to high prices, to its uncertain value, and to its inactivity. Money by no means becomes abundant by an increase, or scarce by a diminution of its value. It was now in demand not so much to move the crops, as to hold them; not to bring them at reasonable prices within the reach of consumers, but to withhold them from market until a large advance of prices could be established. Let the great staples of the country come forward and be sold at market prices, remunerated, will increase consumption and at such prices as, while the producer is fairly exports; let capitalists be assured that progress toward a stable basis is to be uninter

rupted,-and money, now considered scarce, will be found to be abundant. The business of the country was estimated to be no larger than in 1860, when three hundred millions of coin and bank-notes were an ample circulating medium, and when an addition of fifty millions would have been excessive. There was a lack of products in the best growing sections of the country to exchange for money, which was the cause of the complaint of scarcity of money in those quarters. Other considerations relative to the depreciation of the currency and its consequences, which have been already noticed,