THE deficiency in our annual supply of corn is here stated at one-third of the usual produce; (the Committee of the House of Commons stated it at two-sevenths) and the greatest supply ever procured by importation is stated to have been 1,200,000 quarters, or sufficient for the consumption of six weeks; thus leaving a deficiency of ten weeks, or two millions of quarters. This statement is made with a view to enforce the necessity of internal economy, and the opulent are called upon to forego entirely the use of bread, in order that the poor may be supplied with it. The piety of the author is manifest in all that he says; but why, in the name of justice and common sense, when he thus appeals to the rich, and deplores the high price of provisions, does he not also appeal to the farmer and corn-dealers and call upon them to reduce its price? There is not one reason that can be fairly urged upon the former that may not be pressed with tenfold force on the latter. Besides, it should never be forgotten, that a high price has never diminished the consumption, nor will a moderate price ever increase it,

Brief Obfervations on a late Letter addressed to the Right Honourable William Pitt. The Second Edition, with additional Notes; and a Preface, contain ing Remarks on the Publication of Sir Francis Baring, Bart. By Walter Boyd, Efq. M. P.!!! 8vo. PP. 186. 5s. Wright. 1801.

WE have read the additions which Mr. Boyd has made to his letter with the fame attention which we bestowed on the letter itself; and we have found no caufe whatever to alter the opinion which we had formed of the publication, on our firft perufal of it, and which, with the reasons on which it was founded, we fubmitted at large to our readers. We ftill think that the publication can have no other good effect than to procure a favourable reception for the author in the metropolis of France, fhould he retain his difpofition to revifit it, and perhaps to obtain for him, at fome future period, the office of Miniftre des Finances to the Gallic Republic!

The preface, confifting of 56 pages, applies almoft exclufively to the pamphlet of Sir Francis Baring, over whom the author appears to us to have no other advantage than what may arife from a repetition of affertions without any additional weight of argument, or, from what, in homely phrase, is termed, having the laft word. It is but fair, however, to obferve, that Mr. B. here explicitly disclaims all intention whatever of impeaching the credit of the Bank, though we cannot but exprefs our furprize that he fhould have dif covered any inconfiftency in our remark that he had endeavoured to shake the public confidence in bank-notes, while he declared "not only that they do poffefs that confidence to the fulleft poffible extent, but that they must continue to poffefs it." The fact is, that we noticed this as an inconfiftency in Mr. B. hinfelf, the general tenour of whofe arguments feemed to us to be at direct variance with this fpecific declaration. And this is ftill our opinion of his pamphlet.

As far as we can comprehend his meaning, as detailed in his new preface, it amounts to this: that the Bank have a capital in hand amply fufficient for the payment of their notes in specie; and yet that the amount of these notes is the caufe of the rife in the price of every article of ufe or confumption. Now where the difference can be to the public-we mean as to its effect on the price of provifions between the circulation of paper to any given amount, and the circulation of fpecie to the fame amount, we confefs our total inability to discover. That either the one or the other, if dif proportionate

proportionate to the extent of our trade and manufactures, our exports and imports, would have a tendency to raife the price of provifions and of every thing elle, we are not fo weak as to deny ; but then fuch rife could only be confidered as the natural and almost inevitable confequence of the increased wealth and profperity of the country; and to impute it to any other caufe would be fomething worse than weaknefs. If then Mr. Boyd's declarations, refpecting the folvency of the Bank, be well-founded, all his reasoning on the effect of its paper must be fallacious; and if his declarations be erroneous, what credit can be due to his arguments?

In adverting to his opponents, among whom he claffes us, for he quotes us, though he do not condefcend to name us, he affumes the language of contempt, and represents them as venal. To us it is perfectly immaterial what opinion Mr. B. may entertain of us; but prudence, at least, should have led him to avoid the use of a word which might, with very great appearance of juftice, at least, be retorted upon himself. We fhall only obferve that if he means to say, that we are capable of being led by intereft to conceal or disguise our fentiments, he either infers the nature of our difpofition from a knowledge of his own, or wilfully and wantonly belies us.

Mr. B. has alfo either wilfully or ftupidly misunderstood the author of "Brief Obfervations, on a late Letter, &c." reviewed in our Number for January, of whom he says that "the observation refpecting the increased price of bread must have been intended to prove that the increafe of price required an increase of paper," and upon this imputation, which has not the fmalleft foundation in fact, he enters into a ftrain of triumphant ridicule. We fhould have conceived it impoffible for any man of common sense, so to have mistaken that writer, whofe object in shewing the increased price of bread was 20,800,000l. and the increased iffue of bank paper 3,475,3971. avowedly. and manifeftly was to prove nothing more than that the latter could not, as Mr. B. had afferted, poffibly produce the former!

On one point we fully agree with the author-the evil confequences of exceffive speculation; and we very readily admit that no man in the kingdom is more competent to judge of that fubject than himself. Experientia docet ; but how he can reconcile this notion with his reprobation of legislative interference for checking fpeculation, we know not.

A letter is fubjoined from a most respectable correfpondent, who writes much as Mr. Tierney fpeaks, and who, of course, confiders Mr. B. as a paragon of wifdom.

It now only remains for us to fulfil our promise by making fome brief obfervations, on a letter which appeared in the TIMES of February 7, in which we are violently abused for our review of Mr. Boyd's pamphlet. In the first paragraph of this letter, which is a mafter-piece of impudence and folly, we are accused of having afferted that Mr. Boyd's misfortunes (by which we fuppofe the writer means, his bankruptcy) were occafioned by his fpeculations and unbounded expences. This is a wilful falfehood; we have no where made any fuch affertion, as our readers well know, and as any man, by a reference to the article, may eafily afcertain. We certainly faid, that Mr. B.'s fplendour was unrivalled, and his expences unbounded, and of the truth of this affertion we could, if it was neceffary, produce the moft convincive proofs, but we did not afcribe his bankruptcy to thofe caufes. How far his bankruptcy was occafioned by his fpeculations is, indeed, another queftion, about which, we apprehend, there are not two opinions in the commercial world. By one loan, the House of Boyd and Benfield cleared 380,000l, (if our memory do not

fail

fail us as appeared by their books; and fo elated were they by their fuccefs, and so much, in the true fpirit of commercial avarice, did their defire of accumulation increase with their wealth, that they took the whole of another loan on themselves, and refufed to admit any partners in it; and to this very circumstance, we believe, may the origin of their misfortunes be referred. To Mr. Benfield, indeed, this connection has proved a real misfortune, for the enormous amount of his capital was well-known; it is more difficult to ascertain the extent of M. B.'s misfortune, as the amount of his capital we do not · profefs to know. So much for the queftion of fpeculation!

We are next told by the Letter-writer, that "the article on which the ANTI-JACOBIN principally refts to prove that Mr. Boyd has published his Letter as an enemy to his country," is the anecdote refpecting the House of Walquiers at Hamburgh. Now, in the first place, we profeffed to prove no fuch thing as is here imputed to us; in the fecond, we laid no stress whatever upon that anecdote, as proving Mr. Boyd's intent in publishing his pamphlet; and, thirdly, we never connected the anecdote at all with Mr. Boyd. Nay, after relating the anecdote, we exprefsly faid (and this blundering blockhead even quotes our words though they prove his own folly and his own falfhood) " we are well convinced that even Mr. Boyd himself would condemn a Speculation of this nature, and deem it a proper object for the cognizance of the law." Yet his fagacious friend immediately adds" This article from beginning to end is falfe," which is to fay, that Mr. B. would not condemn fuch a fpeculation. We fhall leave the two friends to fettle this point in a tête-à-tête. But fill, blundering on, the Letter-writer concludes by obferving, that in faying what we never did fay, we "published a very infamous falsehood." As to the anecdote itself, which he states to be false, and which he defies us to produce any authority for, it may be found almost totidem verbis, in the True Briton of April 29th, 1796. We are aware of the contradiction of fome part of it in the fame paper of the Monday føllowing, May 2; but, knowing that that contradiction proceeded from a party interested in the fuppreffion of the truth; and who betrayed his intereft by the very mode which he adopted for procuring its fuppreffion; and knowing alfo, that the ftatement itself was made on the authority of a British merchant, of andoubted veracity, who was at Hamburgh at the time when Walquiers failed; we fhall ftill continue to believe the fubftance of that article to be true. At all events, the writer of the Letter has himself been guilty of "a very infamous falsehood" in afferting that we had not any authority for pubthing it. The fame attention to truth is displayed in the affirmation of this man, that " Walquiers never established a house at Hamburgh;" for the person who fupplied the contradiction in the True Briton, whom he muft know, expressly faid that Walquiers had formed an establishment at Hamburgh; and it will Scarcely be denied that, in the language of the commercial world, a house and an establishment are the fame thing; and indeed they are used by this very perfon as fynonimous terms, for, fpeaking of this establishment of Walquiers, and two other establishments of the fame name, he calls one of the latter, third Houfe." We could expofe many other paltry evafions, and wilful perverfions of this doughty champion of Mr. Boyd; but we are fenfible that fome apology is already due to our readers, for having faid even thus much on a matter of this nature, and we shall, therefore, not trefpafs farther on their patience, A Twelvepenny Answer to a Three Shilling and Sixpenny Pamphlet, intitled, "A Letter on the Influence of the Stoppage of fues in Specie at the Bank of England," &c. 8vo, PP. 30. Richardfon, 1891,

a

IN

IN this twelvepenny answer, which Mr. Boyd treats with fovereign contempt, there is much more plain fenfe, and plain truth, than in his own three and fixpenny, or even in his five fhilling, book. We do not, indeed, precifely agree with the author in his ideas respecting the cause of the prefent high price of provifions, because he leaves avarice, extortion, combination, and monopoly, entirely out of the queftion; but we think him fully fuccefsful in fhewing the fallacy of thofe of his opponent, of whom he fhrewdly obferves, that "the Bank had no share in his ruin; on the contrary, the opinion of the commercial world, we believe to be, that his ideas were fo wild, fo monftrous, so unfolid, that if fufficient power (Archimedes like) could have been fuppofed, he would have overturned the Bank. He certainly began his mercantile career in the two great capitals of Europe, under the moft aufpicious circumftances. The expectations of his friends have been blafted. He feems ftill to dream that his opinions are buoyed up by their partiality, and by the applauses of admiring parafites. Let us pity him.”

*

The author truly accounts for the reftriction impofed, by Parliament, on the Bank, in the iffue of fpecie, on the cause of which Mr. B. obferves a filence which is fomewhat more than suspicious.

"Amidst many disastrous events of the present war, the impreffion of that momentous crifis, when the fucceffes of our enemies abroad, and the difpofitions of their partifans among ourselves, had alarmed the nation, and filled it with the horrid dread of a revolution, remains in full force on our minds. At that period, when the state of the Exchange afforded no temptation to export gold and filver, the coin of the country was rapidly difappearing. It became neceffary to invent fome powerful means of anticipating and preventing the ruin with which we were threatened from the want of a circulating medium. This is acknowledged to be the reason of the restriction then impofed on the Bank."

Whoever reads Mr. Boyd's tract should read this alfo. We have faid nothing of either one or the other confidered as literary compofitions ;they are both of them defective in correct phrafeology and grammatical accuracy, but where the matter of difcuffion was fo important, we deemed the manner almost unworthy of notice.

Financial Facts of the Eighteenth Century; or, a Curfory View, with comparative Statements of the Revenue, Expenditure, Debts, Manufactures, and Commerce of Great Britain. 8vo. Pr. 92. 2s. 6d. Wright,

London. 1801.

WHOEVER wishes to form an accurate judgment of the real fituation of the country, and of its ability to maintain the arduous contest in which it is engaged, fhould read with attention the pamphlet before us; in which he will find no declamatory rant; no fulfome flattery; no vague fpeculations; no abstract reafoning; no loofe arguing from effects to imaginary caufes; no wicked appeals to popular paffions; but folid calculations, juft inferences, and incontrovertible facts; facts that must make every British heart beat high with honeft fatisfaction, and every British mind regard with contempt the impotent efforts of the combined hoftility of our numerous foes. This tract ought to be tranflated into all foreign languages, and circulated throughout Europe, that

*This is not strictly correct: Mr, Boyd began his commercial career in the little town of Oftend, REV,

1

the

the extent of our wealth, and the fertility of our resources may be made apparent to all the nations of the Continent; and teach them the value of the homely maxim; honefty is the best policy..

The author thus ftates the object of his publication.

"The public mind has been long distracted with accounts of our paft difafters, and predictions of even greater evils; mifcarriages which human forefight could not provide againft, have been moft unkindly and unfairly attributed to want of ability in the planners, and want of conduct in the executors of our feveral enterprifes. The tranfient fucceffes of an enemy have been exaggerated, and even applauded, by men, who forget, while they are indulging in party, that they are in effect the greatest enemies of the ftate. Το play upon the popular prejudices of mankind, to deprefs the fpirit of those who have not the means of contradicting fallacious accounts, to make gloomy impreffions on the multitude, inter vulgos fpargere voces, and thereby to give lite and encouragement to the enemy, are acts unbecoming the true character of a patriot. When parties run high, the calm, independent, and dispaffionate man, like the mathematician in his clofet, will confider subjects of a political nature, by fearching for the truth between the two extremes. When the paffions and interefts of men are fo copiously mixed in the ftream, the water cannot remain pure and undisturbed; it is therefore of ufe to an unbiaffed writer, in imitation of the experienced chemift, to analyze the properties of matter, and, as it were, decompofe the various particles. Without following Junius in charging politicians with having loofe principles, the writer of the following fheets has had caufe to know, that the accounts of men in power are not always to be relied upon, nor are their reafonings always well-grounded. He is alfo perfuaded that conviction is not conftantly produced by mere arguments, and will therefore reft fatisfied with giving strong facts and accurate calculations, tending not only to fhew, but to prove, the real fituation of this country, with refpect to its relative power and financial ability for a conti nuation of the conteft, and how far it is adequate to the purposes of meeting the extraordinary hoftile confederacy formed againft our naval ftrength and independency as a maritime nation. All the writer requires is, that the reader will bring with him, to the perufal of the following theets, a mind free from bias and prejudice; and that he will fufpend his judgment, until he has gone through the whole.”

No reader whofe mind is " free from bias and prejudice" can fail to be convinced by the facts here adduced of the folly or the profligacy of those who represent the nation as tottering on the brink of deftruction. The author traces the ftate of the revenue, and commerce of the country, from the revolution to the present period, derived from authentic documents, and clearly establishes this conclufion.

"That our exports now, compared with thofe in the beginning of the eighteenth century, have, from the most accurate computation, increafed nearly in a twelvefold proportion; that the aggregate amount of exports and imports has increafed in a tenfold proportion; and that the apparent balance of trade in our favour at this period, compared with it a century ago, is augmented in the incredible proportion of one hundred and forty fold. It is to be obferved, that the annual public fales of teas by the Eaft India Company, did not, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, much exceed 50,000 pounds weight: the Company's annual fales now approach to 20 millions of pounds weight, being an increase of four hundred fold in one hundred years. It is alfo worthy of remark, that the late tax on imports and exports alone,

is