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his death it was estimated, by competent individuals, to be, upon a very moderate calculation, worth L.80,000. To his eldest son he devised his estate, charged with the payment of L.10,000 to each of his six younger children: believing and intending that under this arrangement the eldest son should receive a double portion, or L.20,000. But mark the result.-Instead of selling the family estate on his father's death, the heir was advised to raise L.60,000, by way of mortgage, in order to pay off the legacies. From 1812 to 1819, things went on pretty smoothly; he continued to pay the interest of the mortgage, and a remnant was still left for himself. But in 1819, his affairs assumed a very different complexion: the alteration in the standard or measure of value having brought about a great fall in the price of agricultural produce, and consequently in the rent of land, he was no longer able to pay even the interest of the mortgagee. Hence it became necessary to sell the estate; and when put up to auction, it did not realise quite enough to satisfy the claims of the mortgagee. It is needless to add, that for the unlucky owner himself, not one shilling remained. Not many years ago, we found this unfortunate victim of the currency bill of 1819, in a little country town, retailing the milk of a few cows, depastured upon a small quantity of meadowland which he rented, not far from the splendid property which once belonged to his ancestors. The misfortunes of this individual arose from no extravagance, from no personal misconduct or indiscretion, but solely from the alteration which had been made in the standard by which his property was valued. This alteration added just twenty-five per cent. to the real claims of the mortgagee, and left the owner entirely destitute.

If any soi-disant philosopher or economist wish to see an illustration of his theories with respect to the currency, when reduced to practice, we will point out the man.

By a long course of industry and economy, an honest yeoman, on a farm which he rented, at no great distance from the metropolis, had amassed about L.10,000. In 1810, his farm was put up to be sold by auction, and he became the purcha

ser of it, at the price of L.40,000. He paid down L.10,000 of the purchase-money; and the seller, having no immediate occasion for the remaining L.30,000, allowed it to remain on mortgage. This relation between the parties subsisted until the alteration of the standard in 1819. At this period the mortgager chose to call for his money. The estate was again brought to the hammer; and the same individual who had sold it in 1810 for L.40,000, repurchased it, in the beginning of 1820, for L.30,000. Thus repossessing himself of the estate which he had sold about nine years before, and likewise putting into his pocket the L.10,000 which the old farmer had realised by a life of persevering and successful industry. This property had in no respect deteriorated since the period of its first sale in 1810; on the contrary, it is but fair to presume that its condition must have been rather improved; for it is scarcely to be conceived that the occupier bestowed less care and capital upon this farm when it became his own, than he had devoted to its tillage while it was the property of another. The reduction in the selling price sprung entirely from the alteration which had been made in the standard of value. In 1810, the pound sterling was worth about fifteen shillings, and the property sold for forty thousand such pounds; in 1819, the establishment of a metallic standard raised the value of the pound sterling from fifteen to twenty shillings, and the value of the same property consequently and necessarily fell to thirty thousand pounds.

But fatal and disastrous as the effects of the alteration in our standard of value proved to other classes, they fell with peculiar severity upon the cultivators and occupiers of the soil. This unhappy and devoted class has been not only grievously injured, but literally ruined and crushed to the ground by this cruel and iniquitous measure. It is well known, that between 1796 and 1815, the agriculture of this country flourished in an extraordinary degree; while all our other national interests necessarily participated in this prosperity. During that period, the body of British farmers not only proved excellent customers to the artisans and manu

facturers of the kingdom, but they were also enabled to save money. In 1812, they were unquestionably much more wealthy, as a class, than they had been at any previous period of our history. Encouraged by the vast profits which had been realized in agriculture, they were induced to accede to almost any advance of rent which their landlords demanded; and we have no doubt that, in 1819, twothirds of the whole cultivated surface of this country was held under leases, having terms to run of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years. But the measures which were taken preparatory to the change of the currency in 1819, brought about a tremendous reaction. From the alteration in the currency, combined with other causes which accidentally came into operation at the same period, the market price of agricultural produce fell thirty, forty, and sometimes even fifty per cent. This enormous and unexpected reduction in the value of his commodities, inevitably and irretrievably ruined every farmer who held land under lease, especially where the landlord refused to make any abatement in his rent. It gives us, indeed, much pleasure to state, that the ancient gentry of the country, the great landowners, did promptly consent to make a reduction in the amount of their rents, and thus saved their tenants from utter destruction. But unfortunately for the farmers, the change in the currency forced an immense number of the old proprietors to part with their paternal inheritances. These, together with the leases under which they were let out, came into the possession of the race of Jews, stock-jobbers, and money-lenders, who had realized princely fortunes at the expense of the community, when the standard was altered; and these new possessors of estates from which the ancient owners had been ousted, scouted the notion of abating one jot from the amount set down in the farmer's bond. When a tenant applied to any of these persons for an abatement of rent, they laughed in his face. "What," said they, "is not the number of pounds set down in the lease? that number you shall pay while you are master of a sovereign." They kept their word, and all their tenants were reduced to a state of

VOL. XXVII. NO. CLXI.

absolute beggary. As we love facts, we will state a case or two of this kind which fell under our own cognizance.

A farmer, possessing a capital of about L.6000, hired, in 1814,400 acres of land belonging to an ancient family in one of our midland counties: he agreed to pay 40s. per acre as rent, and took it for a term of fourteen years: a wealthy money-lender had a heavy mortgage on the estate to which this farm belonged: about 1820, the owner of this property, having been compelled to make a great reduction in his rents, found that he could no longer continue to pay the interest of the mortgage: the mortgager foreclosed and entered into possession against the tenant already mentioned, who fortunately was the only one who held under lease, he continued, notwithstanding the fall of prices, to enforce the full rent. The unhappy farmer perceived the fate which inevitably awaited him, and did every thing that industry and rigid economy could do to defer at least, if not altogether avert, the evil. He and his family instantly gave up every superfluity and indulgence to which persons of their station had been accustomed-they all lived and worked like menials-but his money-lending landlord continued to exact the full rent, which in effect robbed him of L.200 per annum; and when he came to wind up his concerns at the expiration of his lease in 1828, he found, that of the L.6000 which he possessed when entering upon this farm, he had but a small remnant still left; with this wreck of his property he has taken a small farm, on which with industry and economy he contrives to maintain his family. One other instance of a similar kind we must be permited to mention. A little farmer, who by dint of hard labour and economy had, in the course of a pretty long life, succeeded in amassing L.2000, was tempted to embark in a larger concern in 1812, he took a farm of about 200 acres on a lease of fourteen years; in consequence of the change in the currency, this farm also passed by foreclosure into the hands of a money-lender, who steadily refused every application which was made to him for an abatement of the rent: nothing would content him except

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the "pound" set down in the bond. The result need scarcely be added: the old man's capital annually diminished. At length his last shilling being gone, he was obliged to relinquish the farm some time before the term of his lease actually expired, and it is not many weeks since we saw this unfortunateindividual breaking stones upon the road, for which he received from the parish overseer one shilling per day.

abled to meet the demands of their landlords, while a small remnant of the produce was still left for their own subsistence. But the currency bill of 1819 made a vast addition to the real amount of the rent agreed upon; and wherever the landlords exacted the old rents in the new and enhanced currency, they took to themselves in many instances, not a part only, but the whole, of the produce. The effects which this must We adduce these cases as mere have produced upon the condition of samples of the ruin and misery in the Irish occupiers, and who were which the alteration of the currency not already overburdened with spare involved the farming classes; we capital, are so obvious that they need could, from our personal knowledge scarcely be pointed out; for though and experience, swell the catalogue poor when contrasted with the te a thousand fold. But although we nantry of England, still most of them could perhaps calculate the amount had, during the reign of a depreciaof their pecuniary losses, who can ted paper currency, accumulated adequately paint the mental misery some savings. To meet the addition experienced by the individuals while which the alteration of the standard they saw their hard-earned savings made to the real amount of their -the provision which, by a life of rents, these savings were first appliindustry, frugality, and self-denial, ed: but this reserved fund having they had fondly laid up for their off been exhausted, they were at length spring-thus gradually melting away? compelled to part with their stock During the progress of the crisis re- of cattle, and in some cases even with sulting from the changes effected in their miserable furniture. Their reour monetary system, we are con- sources having been thus entirely vinced that the classes immediately drained, the Irish population was left connected with land have suffered utterly destitute of any resource or distress more extensive and intense means to meet the trifling deficiency than could have befallen them from which took place in the potato crop the combined effects of all the bad in 1822; and the consequence-the measures of the worst ministers that unavoidable consequence-was, the ever were intrusted with the admi- dreadful scene of want, misery, and nistration of the affairs of the nation. suffering, which called for the symThe alteration made in the stand-pathy and liberality of England at ard of value, when the legislature instituted a metallic for a paper currency in 1819, we consider also as a circumstance which incalculably aggravated, if it did not even produce, the intense misery which went near to destroy the Irish peasantry in 1822. The Irish population was distressed at that period, not so much because the supply of food was great ly deficient, or its price greatly enhanced, but because an unusual degree of poverty had placed this food beyond their reach. Much of the poverty which then prevailed among the people of Ireland may, we think, be fairly traced to the change which had taken place in the currency. The rent of the land which they occupied had been fixed in a depreciated paper standard as long as this depreciation continued, the tenants were en

that memorable period. The subscription raised in this country in 1822 to rescue the people of Ireland from the jaws of famine, amounted to upwards of L.304,000; of this sum only L.30,882 was laid out in articles of subsistence, and about L.9000 more in potatoes for seed. The remainder being distributed in money, went for the most part into the poc kets of the landlords in liquidation of arrears of rent.

The greater part of the mischief occasioned by the alteration of the standard has no doubt been completed. The whole class of occupying farmers have been robbed of the hard and painful savings of many years: they are utterly ruined, and their families are all beggared. Of the old gentry of the country-the possessors of estates derived by de

scent from a long and honourable line of ancestors-a very considerable number have also disappeared from the scene. Instigated by the rational and laudable desire of improving their patrimony, many of them were tempted in an evil hour to mortgage their lands. These encumbrances, contracted in a depreciated paper currency, they have been called upon to liquidate in a metallic standard, which has added at least twenty-five per cent to their real amount. This iniquitous measure has thus dispossessed a great number of them of their patrimonial inheritances, which have passed into the hands of usurers and money scriveners, or cottonspinners. But notwithstanding the wide ruin which this act of enormity and oppression has spread amongst the agricultural classes, we have good ground for thinking that numerous cases still exist, in which the interference of the legislature might afford the aggrieved parties some portion of the relief to which, on every principle of justice, they are entitled. We entertain no doubt, that of the encumbrances which in the form of mortgages and annuities were imposed upon estates during the depreciation of the standard, a considerable mass remains still unliquidated.

Now, no principle of moral equity entitles a creditor to expect in repayment more than he actually lent, or an annuitant to claim more than the granter of the annuity intended he should receive. Bare and tardy justice would therefore only be done to this most injured class of his Majesty's subjects, if the legislature were to pass an act enabling the owners of real property encumbered by mortages or annuities, to make a deduction from the amount of these encumbrances equal to the difference between the present standard and that in which these liabilities were contracted. It would be no more than an act of common honesty to protect this class of debtors from the palpable injustice of being called upon to pay in pounds sterling, each weighing one hundred and twenty grains of gold, debts which were originally contracted in paper pound notes, each of which represented no more than ninety-six, or perhaps ninety grains of that metal. It is very possible that those who will

listen to no reasons except such as favour their selfish interests-that greedy band of jobbers, who lent money in pounds intrinsically worth no more than fifteen shillings, and have, since Mr Peel's ever-memorable bill in 1819, received interest for it in pounds worth twenty shillings, would raise a loud and vehement clamour against such a measure. But the clamours of selfish and interested men must not be permitted to defeat an act of strict and impartial justice. We would, therefore, earnestly advise the owners of estates which happen to be encumbered by mortgages or annuities granted in a depreciated paper standard, to apply to Parliament for the relief to which, on every principle of equity, they are entitled; and we call upon every lover of fair and honest dealing, to back them in such an application. An application so perfectly just and reasonable in itself, would unquestionably obtain the concurrence and support of every man who does not hold the opinion of the proverbially wise assembly, which, in 1811, voted for Mr Vansittart's famous resolution, "That a pound note and a shilling were, in public estimation, equivalent to a guinea," at a period when it was nótorious that to purchase a guinea, it required a pound note and six or seven shillings.

To the principle of the measure of relief here suggested, no objection can be opposed which is worthy of the slightest consideration. No class of injured and oppressed constituents could present themselves before the legislature with a clearer and more forcible claim to relief. Against this plan of redressing the wrongs and grievances of the great body of debtors who borrowed money and incurred liabilities in a depreciated standard, might perhaps be urged the practical difficulty of ascertaining the amount of the depreciation which, at the period of any given transaction, had taken place in the actual and exchangeable value of the paper onepound note; but we see no reason to conclude that this difficulty would be found insurmountable. The difference between the market and mint price of gold, together with a reference to the rate of foreign exchanges at the period when any encumbrance was imposed upon real property,

would, we apprehend, furnish a basis of calculation sufficiently accurate and equitable for an adjustment. Even this mode of ascertaining the metallic value of paper-money engagements would operate greatly in favour of the creditors; for we are to recollect, that the cessation of all demand for gold to be used as current coin had, during the suspension of cash payments, produced a positive reduction in the exchangeable value of that metal as a marketable commodity. Nothing appears more clear, than that all persons possessed of estates encumbered with mortgages borrowed, or annuities granted, while the currency was depreciated, are entitled to call upon the legislature to relieve them from the gross injustice which, for upwards of ten years, they have suffered. The weight of gold represented by the paper money then lent on mortgage, or by the annuities then granted, should be ascertained, and the payment of that weight by the owner of the encumbered estate should, in all fairness, be declared a full acquittance of the original debt.

But if it be equitable that all private debts of a date anterior to 1819 should be thus adjusted according to the intrinsic, and not nominal value of the currency in which they were contracted, is it not equally just and right, that the same principle should be applied to the debts of the public, andthat the dividends of the fundholder should be reduced in proportion to the augmentation which has taken place in the value of the currency in which they are now paid? With that graceful self-confidence which so well becomes him, Mr Cobbett assures his readers, that he is the only man in this country who understands the subject of the currency; no great compliment, by the way, to the subscribers to his Register, on whom he has inflicted dissertations on this subject almost weekly, for these last ten years. This would seem to prove either that he is a very inapt instructor, or that they are a very unpromising race of pupils. On the ground that a great proportion of the national debt was contracted in a depreciated currency, he contends that the dividends of the public creditor ought to be reduced. In 1819, he began to ad

vocate this "equitable adjustment!" In 1829, he continues the same hebdomadal croak. Had such an adjustment, not only of the public, but also of private debts, of all debts of every kind contracted in a depreciated paper currency, been effected in 1819, contemporaneously with the establishment of the present standard, we freely acknowledge that it would have been no more than an act of pure justice. No party would at that time have been wronged by this equitable arrangement; the creditor would have received all that he really lent, and the debtor would not, as he is now,

have been called upon to pay more than he had actually borrowed. But, having gone thus far with Mr Cobbett, we must at once stop; for it appears to us that such a measure, although perfectly fair and equitable in 1819, would be a gross act of injustice, an indefensible and palpable breach of national faith, if carried into effect with respect to every holder of stock who has purchased into the funds since that period. The public, he argues, was grievously wronged by Mr Peel's bill in 1819; this we readily admit. But does Mr Cobbett really think it would be right that the nation should turn round, and plunder the public creditor, who was no party to that wrong, and who, in fact, neither derives, nor has derived, any advantage from it? Does he really hold the doctrine, that the body, called the public, may address its present creditors thus:"I was defrauded by my creditors in 1819. Having now discovered my loss, I will rob you, although I know you were no party to, nor derived any advantage from, the robbery committed upon me at that period?" According to this morality, a man who has been robbed on the highway may stop and plunder the first passenger he meets with, in order to make up his loss. If, indeed, Mr Cobbett can catch any of the original wrong-doers, we have no objection to his proposal;

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if he can point out any government stock still remaining in the names of the persons themselves (or of their representatives) who purchased and paid for this species of property in a depreciated currency, there would certainly be no injustice in reducing the amount of their dividends, in proportion to the aug

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