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mentation which has taken place in the value of the standard in which they are now paid. But we suspect that this class of fundholders would not, on investigation, turn out to be numerous. The greater part of the national debt has probably changed hands at least once since the alteration in the standard of value. persons who derived the benefit of that measure, have either sold out of the funds, or in some other way have disappeared from the scene. We are therefore inclined to think, that, with exceptions too insignificant to deserve public attention, these securities have passed into the hands of strangers, who have purchased them since 1819.

Hence are we inclined to fear that, without committing an act of injustice upon innocent parties, no reduction can now be effected in the amount of dividends payable to the public annuitant. It thus appears that the currency bill of 1819 has saddled this unhappy nation with a permanent addition, amounting to no less than seven or eight millions per annum, to burdens which were already all but intolerable. Eight millions sterling, payable for ever, is the penalty inflicted upon the impoverished taxpayers of this country, for stretching out their long ears to catch the harangues, and assenting, with stupid credulity, to the schemes and projects of a race of political quacks, incalculably more ignorant and presumptuous than ever teazed the patience of any other nation. But monstrous as has been the effect of Mr Peel's bill in augmenting our public burdens, it appears insignificant, when contrasted with its operation in private life. The desolation brought upon private families by that cruel and unconstitutional measure, no pen can paint-no tongue can tell. It has, by its silent, but certain operation, ruined every farmer from one end of the kingdom to the other: a large proportion of this important class of subjects has, for the last ten years, manfully struggled against the adversity brought upon them by Mr Peel's bill: year after year they have gone on in the hopes of better times: year after year they have continued to pay their rents, not out of their profits, but out of their capital: but their whole capital is at length exhausted;

and the dreaded and dreadful crisis inevitably resulting from the Home Secretary's communications with the Economists, and dealings with the currency, seems to be at hand. The farmers, drained of the very dregs of their capital, can neither employ labourers, nor pay their rents; and thousands of them are actually preparing to relinquish their farms. Even the rates required for the maintenance of the labourers thus discarded, can seldom be obtained without distress-warrants. How the landowners will act in the crisis which is about to overtake them, we can scarcely conjecture. Some of them will perhaps take to farming the lands thrown upon their hands, and thus endeavour to satisfy the claims of their creditors, in whose behalf they are already but little better than rent-receivers on their own estates. Others, and that probably the greater number, will, in utter despair, deliver up their patrimony into the hands of mortgagees and other creditors. But whether they adopt the one or the other of these courses, their fate is equally certain-their doom equally sealed. If they attempt to cultivate their estates on their own account, the result of the experiment cannot be doubtful. If they deliver them up at once into the hands of their creditors, they may perhaps, by way of indulgence, be appointed as lookers, to superintend the cultivation of estates which were once their own.

There is, to be sure, one other course open to them; but, after having tamely submitted to be plundered for the last ten years, we dare not indulge the hope, that they will adopt it; they may combine for the purpose of doing themselves justice. By an united exertion of strength, which is not yet quite exhausted, the landowners of this country might still right themselves. If they roused themselves from the shameful apathy into which they have fallen, they might enforce the Government to reconsider the whole question of the currency; and, if it should appear either inexpedient or unjust to reduce the weight of the present standard, they might, at least, compel the Minister to authorize Country Banks, which can give security for their solvency, to issue one-pound notes,

We do not mean to say, that even this measure would altogether remove the weight which now presses upon the springs of our national industry; but we do contend, that it would very greatly lighten its pressure. It would not, it is true, reduce the quantity of gold which the sove reign contains; but, by allowing paper to circulate as a substitute, it would practically reduce the marketable value of bullion, by diminishing the demand for it for the purpose of being coined into money; and the effect of this fall in the price of gold, from a diminution of the demand for it, would be a rise, of moderate amount, in the selling price of agricultural commodities. The public have a right to insist upon the adoption of every measure of relief, not inconsistent with maintaining, in its fair sense, the integrity of the present standard. But if the landowners and farmers in thek ingdom sit down quiet ly any longer under the ruin which has been brought upon them, in order to please the whims of cold-blooded and heartless projectors; if they stand with their arms folded, and do nothing, then they may rest assured, that for them nothing will be done; nothing will be left for them, except to pass through the last act of the tragedy, and surrender the wreck of their property and their place in society to the money-lending and taxreceiving classes, who have been enriched exactly in the same proportion that all persons connected with land have been impoverished. It is, indeed, difficult to account for the supineness with which the agricultural classes have submitted, and still submit, to be fleeced! How different, in this respect, is the ever-watchful conduct of the manufacturers! If any measure be proposed which has a tendency to affect the interest of this class to the amount of one farthing per cent, the whole body is instantly set in motion, and the floor of St Stephens becomes deluged with petitions. We earnestly call upon the agriculturists to awake from their characteristic apathy; we would advise them to petition by counties, and also by separate parishes, for a redress of the intolerable grievances under which they labour, from an undue and unneces

sary contraction of the circulating medium. Let them meet in their county halls and parish vestries, where, as yet, they are entitled to have a voice; let them thus unite in heart and hand, and we will venture to promise them a certain and speedy triumph. They can, if they choose to exert themselves, load the tables of the House of Commons with ten thousand parochial petitions before the end of the first week after the meeting of Parliament. Such an energetic demonstration on their part of a determination to protect property, either inherited from their forefathers, or acquired by their own industry, would shatter to atoms the impolitic and unjust restrictions which the pseudo-economists have deluded the legislature to impose upon the monetary system of the empire.

In parting, we beg to address one word both to the Ministry and the great body of fund-holders. If it be considered on any grounds desirable that the integrity of the present standard of value should be maintained; that the pound sterling should hereafter contain the same weight of gold as it now contains, they will accede at once to the demands of the landed interest, and consent to the resuming of the one-pound note circulation; if they refuse to listen to this reasonable, and, we will add, equitable proposition, we request them to prepare for the consequences. In that case, the integrity of the present standard cannot be maintained for another year. They must not imagine, that when the pinching moment arrives, a class so numerous, and, when really roused into action by a sense of overwhelming oppression, so powerful, as the agricultural interest, will permit itself to be stripped of its possessions without a struggle. The prices of agricultural produce remaining at their present level, (and without a change in our monetary system, they must remain at this level,) the payment of public dividends will become a financial impossibility. The fundholders must, therefore, make their election between two alternatives; they must either consent to the removal of the restrictions which fetter the circulation of a paper medium to

be used for the purposes of exchange, or submit to a reduction of the interest of the national debt.

The most unlimited circulation of one-pound notes, convertible into cash at the will of the holder, is perfectly consistent with the existence of a metallic standard. The currency of the country would then be placed on the old basis in which it stood before the original suspension of cash payments. So far from being an innovation, this measure would prove only a return to old and tried principles. It would leave every member of the community at perfect liberty to use either paper or gold as the medium of exchange. The advocates of our present iniquitous and ruinous monetary system seem to believe, that between a metallic standard of value, and a currency purely metallic, there is no middle place; they seem to conceive that because a metallic basis is found indispensable, in order to prevent undue fluctuations in the measure of value, the whole circulating medium of exchange must be also metallic. But this is a gross fallacy, which has led the legislature so recently to tamper with the currency, and by that means to plunge the country into the frightful difficulties which so many different classes now experience. Parliament must instantly retreat from the fatal error into which they have fallen: while they maintain the integrity of our metallic standard as the measure of value, they must,-if they be not resolved to destroy the agricultural classes altogether, remove the restriction which has been so wantonly and injuriously imposed upon the operations of the country bankers.

Nothing can be conceived more flimsy than the pretence under which the suppression of the one-pound note circulation has been carried into effect. Availing himself of the panic and confusion which prevailed

in the latter end of 1825 and the beginning of 1826, Lord Goderich raised against that useful class of citizensthe country bankers-the cry of insolvency and rash speculation. This charge has been since proved to have been utterly destitute of foundation. It is no doubt true, that, from the distrust which prevailed during that memorable period,a small proportion out of the great body of banking establishments which issued one-pound notes stopped payment. The remainder stood their ground without flinching; and of those firms which were compelled to suspend their payments, the majority paid very large dividends; many of them even liquidating all the claims upon them in full. Hence it is quite clear that the losses sustained by the holders of onepound notes during the late panic, were extremely inconsiderable. The reason advanced for the suppression of this species of circulation, was therefore a shallow pretence, put forward by Lord Goderich to support a measure on which he had determined, in order to please the economists.

We beg again to impress upon the minds of the agricultural classes, that their fate rests entirely in their own hands: if they remain quiescent under the unjust pressure which the contraction of the currency has thrown upon their shoulders, their utter ruin is inevitable. Even "the Master" of the Ministry, if he were disposed to assist them, can afford them no relief, if they do not stand boldly forward and demand redress. He is beset on one hand by the economists, and on the other by the stock-jobbers and money-lenders; and nothing short of a determined and united movement on the part of the agriculturists, can nullify the intrigues and importunities of these persevering parties.

THE WISHING-GATE.

"LET the whole earth praise thee, oh Lord! from the rising up of the sun, to the going down of the same; for glorious and bountiful are thy works, my God and my Saviour, and may my soul ever declare the greatness and goodness of thy name!" said old Michael Raeburn, as he closed the door of his humble cottage, and stept forth and met the face the rejoicing and happy face-of creation, on a lovely morning in August, when nature appeared in all the freshness and calm beauty that must have delighted our first parents on their awakening each blest morning in Paradise, save the last fatal morning. Michael was a man of piety, and of poetry too; indeed, I almost think that the purity and aspiring thoughts, yet humble contentment, of the first, imply the possession of the other. None can look from nature up to nature's God, as he was wont to do, without having a living fountain in their hearts ever springing, upon which the Iris, the beauteous beams of light from heaven, will often delight to set; and in its enchanting minglings, sparkle into a starry poetry, which shines for them alone perhaps, but still is the true essence of poetry.

But Michael deemed little of these things-nothing; to have told him that the sublimities he treasured in his memory, and delighted to repeat in the secret places of the lofty mountains, or whilst tending the sheep on the open hills, as he pleased himself in lingering beside the calm waters, as evening shades were closing round him, and leaving him to guess at what the scene might be to have told him that "the plaintive tenderness of Jeremiah," or the soarings and gladsomeness, the deep-toned patience, and lofty, glorying praises of the Psalms, were Poetry, would not, could not, have more endeared the Book of Promise unto him; for he knew it to be the word of God-he knew that to study it and practise it with humility and prayer, would tend to make him holy-and he sought no wisdom or learning, save only to be "wise in heart." He was a very poor man, if, with a many-veined mine

of contentment, any can be so called; he was a man of sorrows, too, if parting with those best loved, in the assured trust that they were gone to the regions of the blessed, to the land which is watered by no tears, can be called a source of grieving; and surely it may-for if the light in the eyes of those who love us is a gladsome happiness to us, who can look up with the same joyfulness when in the darkness or the shadows of bereavement? But he had one tie to this world-one loved link that bound him to life, and made him pray to be spared for her sake. And a little joy she was to him; and little did she know, when she was smiling with her sunny eyes up in the old man's face, and doing all she could to please him, that she was repaying him fourfold for days, months, years of anxious watching over her, for never did womankind tend more devotedly on her heart's best treasure, than did old Michael Raeburn on this one precious legacy of a darling child. Little Mary Glenthorne never knew a mother's tenderness, for her mother died ere she had seen her babe; but she had never wanted it, for the old man had friends who loved and pitied him, and though he never would part with the little orphan, yet there was one kind soul near who was ever ready to watch by it and nurse it; and Michael's deep love soon taught him to take kindly care of it when he had it for hours out in the fields with him, the while he tended sheep. It was the pleasant talk of the country folk round about where they lived, how nice a mother old Michael made to the sweet child; and many thought it a happier day when they could go to their home in the evening and tell that they had seen the babe of the Violet Hut, as the old man's cot was called, because for years and years far back the first violets were to be found in the neat bit of ground that lay round his tene

ment.

But I am a long time in introducing you to this good old man, and I am leaving him all this time making his slow way, with feeble steps, in the still, fresh sweetness of opening

morning. He was going to his day's work, that he would not give up, though he was barely strong enough to do any; but his employer knew him well, and made it an easy task to him; and so highly was he venerated and looked up to by all, that his younger and stronger fellow-labourers would gladly have worked double, to have saved the trembling knees of old Michael; and often has he been found stretched in comfort on the grass, and repeating whole chapters of the Blessed Book, as he ever called it, to those who were around him, or teaching hymns to the young children whose parents were at work. In the winter he was generally ill, and unable to leave his home; but he could then make nets for the trees, and a number of other little works; and when his cough was not too bad, he would have the young ones come to him of a morning, and teach them; and many a neighbour delighted to join in the evening prayer and reading at Old Michael's ingle. He had, for some years, given shelter to a poor widowed soul who had none else to care for her, and she took a grateful care of him when he was sick, and looked to little Mary; but old Martha was no companion to Michael, though a good quiet body; and though she and Mary were excellent friends, yet her dear grandfather was Mary's teacher, and what he told her of her mother's ways, went to the forming her feminine character and habits. Years had glided on, and Mary was seven years old at the time my story opens. Well, the old man walked forth to the music of his own holy thoughts, and the first chirpings of the awakening birds; he made his way, and by the sun soon found that he was something earlier than usual, so he determined to go a little out of his course, and rest him for a while on the WISHING-GATE. He was no rare visitor, but he never came but on some day that was especially marked in his heart's calendar, and this was the day when his own lovely Mary, the child almost of his old age, had been married. High had they all been in hope on that joyous day! But it had pleased the Lord first to take the youth-Oh! early was it in their wedded life!-and then poor Mary herself, or ever she had tasted

the bliss of being a mother." Yea, high were we all in hope that day!" said the old man, and he sighed, and looked down in sadness; but it was only for a moment. "And are not they happy?" said he, with upraised and cheerful gaze; "and shall not I on this day too be high in hope? Yes, yes; Heaven be praised, I am! And for the dearest wish of my heart-what is it? I know the time when I used to have to weigh what ought to be the dearest-to reflect, ere I asked a boon of the Spirit, or the Angel of the Gate-to consider whether I was about to shew myself a selfish worldly man, or a sincere, a heaven-seeking Christian; yea, I can remember when on my lips I had it to wish for some creaturecomfort for those dear unto me, and then would my better self, that part of me that seems not myself, put it into my spirit, that far better would it be to wish them and all of us the contented hearts that would make us grateful even for our wants; but now I have seen too long the mercies of my God-I have known the riches of poverty, the possessions of having nothing, the rejoicings of sorrow; I have read mercy clearly written on the darkest spots of my life; and now, at the end of many days, and after many wishes, I have but one to ask of the kind Spirit-and that is, that I may bring up my dear one in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and that she may be holy in heart, in hope, and in life."

He rested awhile, and then, with staff in hand, went on his way; he had more than a mile to walk before he came in sight of the prettiest little cottage in the country, where he had a daily summer duty to perform in his way to the corn-fields where he laboured. He quietly opened the wicket in the lane where the cottage was, and walked in as one welcome, and expected; he made his way up to a side of the house upon which grew, in beautiful luxuriance, a broad-leaved myrtle, which was in fine flower; he seemed about to pluck it where it was the thickest, as he placed his fingers carefully between the branches-but it was not to rob the stem of its blossoms, but to quietly unhook a loop of string from a nail, and by that act he opened the pretty rustic cottage window that

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