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Boston newspapers in 1828, that Mr. Webster had co-operated with the individuals stigmatized as traitors by Mr. Adams, in his extraordinary publication on the eve of the Presidential election of that year-and which prosecution so signally failed.

The most efficient agency in producing this deplorable state of public feeling throughout New England, was wielded by the banks They had been established in all quarters, in imitation of the credit system of Great Britain, and had by degress been enabled to engross the control of all the currency in circulation. Their managers as fully understood the principle of "combined action" as Mr. Carey, for the purpose of obtaining power, and at the same time increasing their individual profits, through the infliction of privations upon the industrious and producing classes, and throwing the odium of the measures pursued by them upon Government. Considerations of common justice-of national honor-and of permanent security for our foreign and domestic commerce-were equally disregarded in their measures, as in those more recently pursued. To such a pitch was this policy finally carried, that the confidence of the banks in each other was finally destroyed. A degree of embarrassment was produced, which greatly exceeded that of the revulsion inflicted by the operations of the Bank of the United States, upon the Middle, Southern and Western States, in 1819, 1820 and 1821. A single instance, out of many which might be mentioned, will fully illustrate the advantages of the right of furnishing paper-currency free from all security for its redemptionwhich occurred, too in the State of Rhode Island, whose policy in regard to banking, s so extravagantly lauded by Mr. Carey, as a near approach to his beau ideal of currency. The Farmer's Exchange Bank, of Gloucester, failed early in 1809, with nearly seven hundred thousand dollars of its notes in circulation. On examination by a legislative committee, the whole amount of available assets to meet this enormous sum was found to be eighty-six dollars and some odd cents. Its currency to the amount of eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars had been exchanged for valuable property, by the individual who had obtained the control of the bank, but who was ostensibly neither president nor director. This vast issue had been made upon his obligations to the bank, which on their face left the period of payment to his option, and in fact afforded no indemnity whatever to the public. During the three or four years preceding the war, the actual loss to the industrious and producing classes in New England, from the failure of banks, reached several millions of dollars. To promote the political dissatisfaction which we have explained, the banks in the large towns had previously curtailed their issues, after having monopolized the principal amount of metallic currency-and had left the channels of circulation, throughout that section of the country, to be filled up

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with such currency as was afforded by the Farmer's Exchange Bank, the Berkshire Bank, the Hillsborough Bank, the Hallowell and Augusta Bank, and numerous other swindling institutions in each State. The banks in the large towns universally refused to receive this currency, and the principal merchants invariably declined it, because it could not be deposited with them. The losses accordingly fell almost entirely upon the industrious and unprotected portions of the community.

By the rigid system of curtailment previously adopted by the banks which survived, they were easily enabled to maintain specie payments, when the banks in every other part of the Union suspended in 1814.

The over-sight which has led to this explanation, does not call on us to expose the false facts alleged by Mr. Carey, as to the control exercised by "widows and orphans" over the banks of New England. It would be easy to shew that the seductions of this system, of which he so often boasts, are grossly exaggerated in his publica- . tion But after occupying so much space for the purpose of restoring our original statement to its integrity, and showing its bearing upon the banking system of New England, so much lauded in almost every page of the reply, we must return to Mr. Carey's suggestion that we have

"Collected a large quantity of true and false facts, and has put them together apparently without much regard to the effect they were calculated to produce, whether for or against his friends, and the consequence is much more likely to establish a conviction of the danger of increasing the power of the government over the currency, than of the propriety of yielding to it what has been so pertinaciously insisted upon.”

In another part of the reply he says:

"The Democratic Review is an advocate of an extension of the power of the government over the currency, and of a diminution of the power of the people." And again:

"It has been so uniformly the practice of governments to retain the control of the currency, that even of those who are friendly to the credit-system, a large propor tion cannot conceive of steadiness in the absence thereof. In favor of regulation there are, therefore, the advocates of Executive power, like our Democratic Reviewer, and all those who are accustomed to think because it has existed, that its continuance must be necessary."

We have placed these passages from different parts of the reply together,and but for the trouble of copying them might have collected a dozen others of similar tenor, for the purpose of requesting our readers to examine them, and ask themselves what was the object and import of the several speeches upon the currency, delivered by Messrs. Clay, Webster, Southard, Davis, Crittenden, Merrick, Bayard, Robbins, &c. in the Senate, during the special session and the last session of Congress? We cannot refer individually to the tempest of eloquence which issued from the House of Representatives, which was apparently as full of wind on this subject as the cave of Eolus of old. Did not every one of these distinguish

ed persons insist that the General Government not only possessed the power of interfering with the paper currency, but that it was its imperative duty to do so for the relief of the people? We strangely misunderstood Mr. Webster's celebrated speech which was stereotyped by the hundred-thousand, and sent into every part of the Union, at the expense of the Bank of the United States, if its whole drift was not to demonstrate this power and duty on the part of the General Government. We well remember that Mr. Clay assailed the President in unmeasured terms, during the special sessisn, for expressly disclaiming all power and jurisdiction in the General Government over the subject. In the message at the commencement of the session, it was strongly affirmed that the domestic interchanges among the people should be managed by themselves, according to their own interest and convenience. On this point the President explained his views of the Constitution at length, and with great clearness and effect. Up to the close of the ast session, the Opposition orators in both Houses of Congress were importunately clamorous for the interference of the government with the currency, as the sole means of relief for the people, from the embarassments occasioned by the suspension. Now after the firmness of the Executive has compelled the banks to resume their duties to the community, and the confidence which their profligate management had destroyed has so far returned as to produce a general revival of commerce throughout the country-there comes a juggler from the Philadelphia school, professing to be the organ of the Whigs, and with a single stroke of his magical wand, totally reverses the relative position of the parties during the last two years! Whether the distinguished leaders of the Opposition in Congress to whom we have referred, are ready to adopt the doctrines of the President, as stated in his message at the special session, has not yet appeared. The Jim Crow evolution in which Mr. Carey has with so little ceremony involved them, seems rather too quick in its movement, and the "turn about " rather too rapid to be consistent with senatorial dignity.

As to ourselves, we deny now what we denied in our former Article, the existence of the right in the General Government to interfere with any currency whatever, excepting gold and silver, the power over which is expressly granted in the Constitution. And it is a specimen of the fairness of Mr. Carey's reasoning on this subject, that while the very phrase which, by common consent, used to embody the general policy of the present Administration, in relation to the public finances, carries with it the idea of the total disconnection of the union heretofore existing between the Govern ment and the banking system, he undertakes to designate the advocates of the "Divorce of Bank and State," as the friends of a strong governmental influence and control over the business of banking, and the trade in money.

VINCENZIO THE VENETIAN.*

CHAPTER I.

You ask for a story-I can tell one which nobody else knows, and which is a very true one, too, though it may well, perhaps, produce a shudder. It relates events long ago, very long ago, past-when none of us had yet seen the light. The source from which I have derived it leaves me no uncertainty about its authenticity, and while in Venice I have visited the very spot which was the theatre of its principal occurrences.

Around

It was at Venice, on a carnival night, in the year the gigantic columns of the Buondelmonte palace were crowding a multitude of gondolas, whose sombre hue contrasted strikingly with the brilliant illumination of the peristyle. From all these gondolas sprang a stream of joyous guests, who gaily ascended the flight of marble steps; while the interior of the palace was resplendent with light and magnificence.

Within, without, all was enchantment. All that Venice contained of noble, joyous, and lovely, was collected in that assembly, where the eye was charmed with the lustrous hues of the richest silks, and the air was deliciously loaded with the most exquisite perfumes. Here, a splendidly served table extended its invitations; there, the harmonies of music and the sounds of the dance were heard in the distance. And the women!-beaming with that beauty which the pencil of Titian can alone portray, the women displayed throughout the scene the most elegant attires. Every century had contributed to their costumes. Glittering with diamonds, graceful and light in every movement as the silk that enrobed them, inspired with the triumph of their charms, they completed the brilliancy of this festal scene. Through the midst of an atmosphere of light, the crowd circulated slowly from room to room, terminating in a retired saloon which must particularly engage our attention.

This magnificent apartment was consecrated exclusively to play. The sound of the shuffling of cards was mingled with that of the dice, which were rolled from the boxes upon tables of porphyry

* This exceedingly clever tale is translated from the French, from LE PALAMEDE, a Monthly Magazine devoted to the subject of Chess, published at Paris by M. de la Bourdonnais, the most eminent known chess-player of the age. It is from the pen of Mr. G. Walker, a distinguished English player. The ingenious manner in which a number of beautiful positions in Chess (of which the solutions will be given hereafter,) are interwoven with the story, will give it a peculiar interest to all the votaries of that noble game-if we may not be permitted to call it a science; while its interest for miscellaneous readers is quite independent of that circumstance VOL. V. NO. XIV.-FEBRUARY, 1839.

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and agate, bending under the weight of the gold and jewels collected in heaps. The silence was only broken by the loud and lengthened sound of the sequins which attentive pages threw down by the handful, or which they gathered up in massive piles, to drop them into the velvet bags from which they were soon again to come forth. Such were the confusion and disorder of these riches, that Satan himself might have paused to enjoy that spectacle; and such, in a word, was the profusion spread out before the eye, that one would imagine himself transported into one of the caverns of Aladdin, or at least among the hidden treasures of some Sultan of Ind. We are votaries of Chess;-entirely devoted to that noble game, our attention ought to direct itself chiefly to one table. There, on that magnificent pedestal, inlaid with silver and ebony, upon that table of ivory and jasper, are marshalled in battlearray the silent warriors of the field. The two rival chiefs who direct the combat deserve a special examination. Let us give them a moment's attention.

That young man of twenty, who has the Black, saw the light at Venice, and his birth makes him the equal of the noblest families of the city. His name is Vincenzio di Guadagnaro. As remarkable for his elegance of mien and his careless extravagance, as for the impetuosity of his passions, he is also possessed with a desire to render himself distinguished in the science of elegant Epicureanism, gallantry, and Chess. At the present sitting, he has already lost, to the adversary with whom he is at this moment engaged, his treasures, his jewels, and his palaces. Having nothing left to stake -reduced to play on his word alone-it is his honor that he is defending; for if he has the ill fortune to lose, he will be bound tomorrow to pay a greater amount of gold than he has yet lost-and he has nothing left! If he fail to redeem that pledge, farewell for him to life and its pleasures!-and from the paleness of his brow, it is easy to guess that he is revolving the sole alternative that remains to him. Let him lose this last game, and the first ray of to-morrow's sun will not find him a living man.

But who is that mask that is playing against him? It is a woman, -a being of adorable loveliness, to judge from her arm and hand, from her rounded shoulders and her neck of ivory. Yes, it is indeed an enchanting woman, the princess Buondelmonte, the giver of the festival-in a word, the queen of fashion and of beauty. One would suppose her made but for love and tenderness, but at this moment it is with neither of these sentiments that her heart is throbbing. An impassioned thirst for vengeance, the rage of an inveterate hatred, the swelling pride of a splendid triumph-such are the emotions that are convulsing her soul, and which cause her such an agitation that her fingers can with difficulty remove the pieces from the chess-board. On both sides the sentiments are the

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